The encoding of desire: Reflections of contemporary Messianism in German Expressionist drama

This dissertation employs an interdisciplinary approach to address the literary-historical debate surrounding the definition of “Expressionism” in German-speaking literature. Foregrounding the movement\u27s inherently messianic worldview, it argues that what commentators traditionally label “Expressionist” style or thematics is actually a secularized manifestation of the messianism that shapes the Jewish and Christian religions. No understanding of Expressionism as a major Modernist movement (roughly 1910–1925) is complete without an appreciation of its fundamental structuring device: a pervasive search for a Messiah—whether personal or notional—to redeem a highly troubled society. This study focuses on the dramatic genre, since its insistence upon renewal through martyrdom or spiritual rebirth most aptly demonstrates the centrality of messianism within the movement. Analyses of plays by Ernst Barlach, Georg Kaiser, Ernst Toller and Franz Werfel illustrate how the Expressionist desire for redemption is mapped onto the expectation of the Messiah that suffuses the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. Firm in the belief that their society was in need of salvation, these playwrights built their oeuvres around consistently blatant appropriation of rhetorical devices which remain intensely biblical (e.g., prophecy, proclamation). The dissertation takes its structure more from biblical than from other literary models, examining a succession of imagery and motifs from Judeo-Christian salvation history, from the Creation through the Apocalypse, while at the same time problematizing this supposedly continuous trajectory. Since this research is informed by the constant negotiation between sacred and secular in the modern era, the theoretical foundation for this project represents an admixture of literary and religious studies, applying originally biblical hermeneutics to secular texts in order to expose the particularly messianic theology and Christology of the Expressionist movement. Thus, this dissertation illustrates how biblical themes, motifs, imagery and rhetoric remain ingrained in even the most avowedly profane texts, and how the intensely prevalent desire for messianic redemption informs our reading of modern literature