HansaThapliyal at 11:26, 16 July 2006

2006-07-16T11:26:58Z

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On the Marionette Theatre

by Heinrich von Kleist

Translated by Idris Parry

One evening in the winter of 1801 I met an old friend in a public
park. He had recently been appointed principal dancer at the local
theatre and was enjoying immense popularity with the audiences. I told
him I had been surprised to see him more than once at the marionette
theatre which had been put up in the market-place to entertain the
public with dramatic burlesques interspersed with song and dance. He
assured me that the mute gestures of these puppets gave him much
satisfaction and told me bluntly that any dancer who wished to perfect
his art could learn a lot from them.

From the way he said this I could see it wasn't something which had
just come into his mind, so I sat down to question him more closely
about his reasons for this remarkable assertion.

He asked me if I hadn't in fact found some of the dance movements of
the puppets (and particularly of the smaller ones) very graceful. This
I couldn't deny. A group of four peasants dancing the rondo in quick
time couldn't have been painted more delicately by Teniers.

I inquired about the mechanism of these figures. I wanted to know how
it is possible, without having a maze of strings attached to one's
fingers, to move the separate limbs and extremities in the rhythm of
the dance. His answer was that I must not imagine each limb as being
individually positioned and moved by the operator in the various
phases of the dance. Each movement, he told me, has its centre of
gravity; it is enough to control this within the puppet. The limbs,
which are only pendulums, then follow mechanically of their own
accord, without further help. He added that this movement is very
simple. When the centre of gravity is moved in a straight line, the
limbs describe curves. Often shaken in a purely haphazard way, the
puppet falls into a kind of rhythmic movement which resembles dance.

This observation seemed to me to throw some light at last on the
enjoyment he said he got from the marionette theatre, but I was far
from guessing the inferences he would draw from it later.

I asked him if he thought the operator who controls these puppets
should himself be a dancer or at least have some idea of beauty in the
dance. He replied that if a job is technically easy it doesn't follow
that it can be done entirely without sensitivity. The line the centre
of gravity has to follow is indeed very simple, and in most cases, he
believed, straight. When it is curved, the law of its curvature seems
to be at the least of the first and at the most of the second order.
Even in the latter case the line is only elliptical, a form of
movement natural to the human body because of the joints, so this
hardly demands any great skill from the operator. But, seen from
another point of view, this line could be something very mysterious.
It is nothing other than the path taken by the soul of the dancer. He
doubted if this could be found unless the operator can transpose
himself into the centre of gravity of the marionette. In other words,
the operator dances.

I said the operator's part in the business had been represented to me
as something which can be done entirely without feeling - rather like
turning the handle of a barrel-organ.

"Not at all", he said. "In fact, there's a subtle relationship between
the movements of his fingers and the movements of the puppets attached
to them, something like the relationship between numbers and their
logarithms or between asymptote and hyperbola." Yet he did believe
this last trace of human volition could be removed from the
marionettes and their dance transferred entirely to the realm of
mechanical forces, even produced, as I had suggested, by turning a
handle.

I told him I was astonished at the attention he was paying to this
vulgar species of an art form. It wasn't just that he thought it
capable of loftier development; he seemed to be working to this end
himself.

He smiled. He said he was confident that, if he could get a craftsman
to construct a marionette to the specifications he had in mind, he
could perform a dance with it which neither he nor any other skilled
dancer of his time, not even Madame Vestris herself, could equal.

"Have you heard", he asked, as I looked down in silence, "of those
artificial legs made by English craftsmen for people who have been
unfortunate enough to lose their own limbs?"

I said I hadn't. I had never seen anything of this kind.

"I'm sorry to hear that", he said, "because when I tell you these
people dance with them, I'm almost afraid you won't believe me. What
am I saying... dance? The range of their movements is in fact limited,
but those they can perform they execute with a certainty and ease and
grace which must astound the thoughtful observer."

I said with a laugh that of course he had now found his man. The
craftsman who could make such remarkable limbs could surely build a
complete marionette for him, to his specifications.

"And what", I asked, as he was looking down in some perplexity, "are
the requirements you think of presenting to the ingenuity of this
man?"

"Nothing that isn't to be found in these puppets we see here," he
replied: "proportion, flexibility, lightness .... but all to a higher
degree. And especially a more natural arrangement of the centres of
gravity."

"And what is the advantage your puppets would have over living dancers?"

"The advantage? First of all a negative one, my friend: it would never
be guilty of affectation. For affectation is seen, as you know, when
the soul, or moving force, appears at some point other than the centre
of gravity of the movement. Because the operator controls with his
wire or thread only this centre, the attached limbs are just what they
should be.… lifeless, pure pendulums, governed only by the law of
gravity. This is an excellent quality. You'll look for it in vain in
most of our dancers."

"Just look at that girl who dances Daphne", he went on. "Pursued by
Apollo, she turns to look at him. At this moment her soul appears to
be in the small of her back. As she bends, she look as if she's going
to break, like a naiad after the school of Bernini. Or take that young
fellow who dances Paris when he's standing among the three goddesses
and offering the apple to Venus. His soul is in fact located (and it's
a frightful thing to see) in his elbow."

" Misconceptions like this are unavoidable," he said, " now that we've
eaten of the tree of knowledge. But Paradise is locked and bolted, and
the cherubim stands behind us. We have to go on and make the journey
round the world to see if it is perhaps open somewhere at the back."

This made me laugh. Certainly, I thought, the human spirit can't be in
error when it is non-existent. I could see that he had more to say, so
I begged him to go on.

"In addition", he said, "these puppets have the advantage of being for
all practical purposes weightless. They are not afflicted with the
inertia of matter, the property most resistant to dance. The force
which raises them into the air is greater than the one which draws
them to the ground. What would our good Miss G. give to be sixty
pounds lighter or to have a weight of this size as a counterbalance
when she is performing her entrechats and pirouettes? Puppets need the
ground only to glance against lightly, like elves, and through this
momentary check to renew the swing of their limbs. We humans must have
it to rest on, to recover from the effort of the dance. This moment of
rest is clearly no part of the dance. The best we can do is make it as
inconspicuous as possible..."

My reply was that, no matter how cleverly he might present his
paradoxes, he would never make me believe a mechanical puppet can be
more graceful than a living human body. He countered this by saying
that, where grace is concerned, it is impossible for man to come
anywhere near a puppet. Only a god can equal inanimate matter in this
respect. This is the point where the two ends of the circular world
meet.

I was absolutely astonished. I didn't know what to say to such
extraordinary assertions.

It seemed, he said, as he took a pinch of snuff, that I hadn't read
the third chapter of the book of Genesis with sufficient attention. If
a man wasn't familiar with that initial period of all human
development, it would be difficult to have a fruitful discussion with
him about later developments and even more difficult to talk about the
ultimate situation.

I told him I was well aware how consciousness can disturb natural
grace. A young acquaintance of mine had as it were lost his innocence
before my very eyes, and all because of a chance remark. He had never
found his way back to that Paradise of innocence, in spite of all
conceivable efforts. "But what inferences", I added, "can you draw
from that?"

He asked me what incident I had in mind.

"About three years ago", I said, "I was at the baths with a young man
who was then remarkably graceful. He was about fifteen, and only
faintly could one see the first traces of vanity, a product of the
favours shown him by women. It happened that we had recently seen in
Paris the figure of the boy pulling a thorn out of his foot. The cast
of the statue is well known; you see it in most German collections. My
friend looked into a tall mirror just as he was lifting his foot to a
stool to dry it, and he was reminded of the statue. He smiled and told
me of his discovery. As a matter of fact, I'd noticed it too, at the
same moment, but... I don't know if it was to test the quality of his
apparent grace or to provide a salutary counter to his vanity... I
laughed and said he must be imagining things. He blushed. He lifted
his foot a second time, to show me, but the effort was a failure, as
anybody could have foreseen. He tried it again a third time, a fourth
time, he must have lifted his foot ten times, but it was in vain. He
was quite unable to reproduce the same movement. What am I saying? The
movements he made were so comical that I was hard put to it not to
laugh.

From that day, from that very moment, an extraordinary change came
over this boy. He began to spend whole days before the mirror. His
attractions slipped away from him, one after the other. An invisible
and incomprehensible power seemed to settle like a steel net over the
free play of his gestures. A year later nothing remained of the lovely
grace which had given pleasure to all who looked at him. I can tell
you of a man, still alive, who was a witness to this strange and
unfortunate event. He can confirm it, word for word, just as I've
described it."

"In this connection", said my friend warmly, "I must tell you another
story. You'll easily see how it fits in here. When I was on my way to
Russia, I spent some time on the estate of a Baltic nobleman whose
sons had a passion for fencing. The elder, in particular, who had just
come down from the university, thought he was a bit of an expert. One
morning, when I was in his room, he offered me a rapier. I accepted
his challenge but, as it turned out, I had the better of him. It made
him angry, and this increased his confusion. Nearly every thrust I
made found its mark. At last his rapier flew into the corner of the
room. As he picked it up he said, half in anger and half in jest, that
he had met his master but that there is a master for everyone and
everything - and now he proposed to lead me to mine. The brothers
laughed loudly at this and shouted: "Come on, down to the shed!" They
took me by the hand and led me outside to make the acquaintance of a
bear which their father was rearing on the farm.

"I was astounded to see the bear standing upright on his hind legs,
his back against the post to which he was chained, his right paw
raised ready for battle. He looked me straight in the eye. This was
his fighting posture. I wasn't sure if I was dreaming, seeing such an
opponent. They urged me to attack. "See if you can hit him!" they
shouted. As I had now recovered somewhat from my astonishment I fell
on him with my rapier. The bear made a slight movement with his paw
and parried my thrust. I feinted, to deceive him. The bear did not
move. I attacked again, this time with all the skill I could muster. I
know I would certainly have thrust my way through to a human breast,
but the bear made a slight movement with his paw and parried my
thrust. By now I was almost in the same state as the elder brother had
been: the bear's utter seriousness robbed me of my composure. Thrusts
and feints followed thick and fast, the sweat poured off me, but in
vain. It wasn't merely that he parried my thrusts like the finest
fencer in the world; when I feinted to deceive him he made no move at
all. No human fencer could equal his perception in this respect. He
stood upright, his paw raised ready for battle, his eye fixed on mine
as if he could read my soul there, and when my thrusts were not meant
seriously he did not move. Do you believe this story?"

"Absolutely", I said with joyful approval. "I'd believe it from a
stranger, it's so probable. Why shouldn't I believe it from you?"

"Now, my excellent friend," said my companion, "you are in possession
of all you need to follow my argument. We see that in the organic
world, as thought grows dimmer and weaker, grace emerges more
brilliantly and decisively. But just as a section drawn through two
lines suddenly reappears on the other side after passing through
infinity, or as the image in a concave mirror turns up again right in
front of us after dwindling into the distance, so grace itself returns
when knowledge has as it were gone through an infinity. Grace appears
most purely in that human form which either has no consciousness or an
infinite consciousness. That is, in the puppet or in the god."

"Does that mean", I said in some bewilderment, "that we must eat again
of the tree of knowledge in order to return to the state of
innocence?"

"Of course", he said, "but that's the final chapter in the history of
the world."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) followed family tradition and became
an army officer, but left in 1799 to study philosophy and maths. He
seems to have been inwardly overwhelmed on discovering Kant's dictum
of the ultimate unknowability of truth. Kleist's work was dominated by
the tension between his inner certainty of the validity of the human
soul life and the apparent impossibility of discovering meaning in
outer existence. He Wrote several plays - mainly tragedies - and
numerous short stories, including "The Dark Tale of Michael Kohlhaas".

Idris Parry began his introductory essay to the "Marionette Theatre"
(from his collection "Hand to Mouth") as follows:

"Heinrich von Kleist wrote his essay 'On the Marionette Theatre' in
1810. The calm statement of this work suggests a man firmly in
control. A year later Kleist shot himself. He was thirty-four. On the
centenary of his death, the critics agreed he was a hundred years
ahead of his time. In 1977 they said he'd come into the world (on 18
October 1777) two hundred years too early....

I think therefore I am. The theme of Kleist's essay could be a
continuation of that famous sentence, a continuation which might go
like this: I think, therefore I am aware of myself, and if I am aware
of myself I must know that I am a separate entity, aware of and
therefore apart from my surroundings; but true knowledge must be
complete, connected, indivisible; so separation into subject and
object, self and surroundings means distance from knowledge,
consequently uncertainty and doubt.

Kleist's essay pivots around a reference to the third chapter of the
book of Genesis, the story of the Fall of Man, the discovery of that
self-consciousness which establishes and perpetuates human isolation.
But 'discover' implies a historical event. Kleist shares with Kafka
(who once claimed he understood the Fall of Man better than anyone
else) the insight that it is only our concept of time which makes us
think of the Fall of Man as a historical event in the distant past. It
is happening all the time. The biblical story is a mythical
representation of constant human awareness of self and therefore of
separation...

According to Kleist there is no way back. Humans are now thinking
animals, and the material of thought is knowledge. But knowledge,
although the source of uncertainty when fragmentary.. is also the
vital substance of harmony when complete. So Kleist asserts that our
only hope is to go forward to total knowledge."

Bharat: a story idea - Revision history

HansaThapliyal at 11:26, 16 July 2006