The Gender of Terror: War as (Im)Moral Institution in Kleist's Hermannsschlacht and Penthesilea

From: German Quarterly | Date: January 1, 2008| Author: | Copyright information

I. Introduction

When we think of German enthusiasm for war, the eighteenth century does not spring to mind. After all, the Enlightenment is the Age of Reason whereas war represents the failure of reason. Tellingly, the foremost philosopher of the time, Immanuel Kant, theorized not only man's release from self-inflicted immaturity but also the possibility of eternal peace. And yet, as I will show, World War I authors such as Ernst Jünger are not the first to use war as a springboard to what Christine Baumgartner calls "fantasies of transcendence" (146). Side by side with the debate on eternal ...

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