Figures of Natality : Reading the Political in the Age of Goethe

Figures of Natality reads metaphors and narratives of birth in the age of Goethe (1770-1832) as indicators of the new, the unexpected, and the revolutionary. Using Hannah Arendt's concept of natality, Joseph O'Neil argues that Lessing, Goethe, and Kleist see birth as challenging paradigms of Romanticism as well as of Enlightenment, resisting the assimilation of the political to economics, science, or morality. They choose instead to preserve the conflicts and tensions at the heart of social, political, and poetic revolutions. In a historical reading, these tensions evolve from the idea of revolution as Arendt reads it in British North America to the social and economic questions that shape the French Revolution, culminating in a consideration of the culture of the modern republic as such.

Alongside this geopolitical evolution, the ways of representing the political change, too, moving from the new as revolutionary eruption to economic metaphors of birth. More pressing still is the question of revolutionary subjectivity and political agency, and Lessing, Goethe, and Kleist have an answer that is remarkably close to that of Walter Benjamin, as that “secret index” through which each past age is “pointed toward redemption.” Figures of Natality uncovers this index at the heart of scenes and products of birth in the age of Goethe.

“At the core of this project is the question of how political action is possible without relying on essentialism. We do not need to be reminded of current discussions to understand that this is a timely project. O’Neil offers a sophisticated account of the concepts behind these debates which delivers to the reader both a panoramic display of political theory and a careful consideration of literary texts … The study brings a number of discourses into relation (biology, selfhood, economic etc.), arguing that they all follow a shared model of autopoiesis (or its rupture) around 1800. Considering the metaphor of birth at the study’s center, it is not surprising that the author aims to establish a connection between models of life’s origin and the political … Ultimately, however, for O’Neil the question is not only what happens in literature, but what we gain when engaging with it. O’Neil’s work is driven by the desire to open spaces for contingency in action in a world that is increasingly defined by automatization and repetition. In opening these spaces, literature plays a prominent role “as that which breaks with… social and cognitive routines” (21) … O’Neil’s engagement with Arendt’s concept of natality proves an impressively productive venue for, as the title states, Reading the Political in the Age of Goethe. It is also a powerful reminder that the end of politics might not deliver the best of possible worlds.” – Christine Lehleiter, University of Toronto, Canada

“Joseph O’Neil’s Figures of Natality offers an insightful and conceptually bold rethinking of the political as it is worked through in literary texts in the age of Goethe … This task is both worthwhile and timely, and the readings it produces are genuinely novel and interesting.” - German Studies Review