The aesthetics of the sublime and the representations of suffering in the work of Peter Weiss (Immanuel Kant, Jean-Francois Lyotard, German text)

In 1965 Peter Weiss claimed, “Language seems to be impossible for those who write. It seems to happen only in spite of its impossibility.” Following his own insight, he attempted throughout his oeuvre to destabilize the platitudes of language. Facing trauma in form and content is the motif running through his works. His approach demands a literary technique that opens itself to the sublime.; Dealing with the work of Peter Weiss, one encounters the sublime in the form of human suffering. The hopelessness connected to the attempt to communicate suffering to others is found in Peter Weiss' most complex work— The Aesthetics of Resistance, in which he traces the fatalities of civilization throughout the centuries. Being involved in the description of what cannot be described, the author has to push his imagination and language to the limits. According to Peter Weiss, such resistance defies silence and speechlessness.; Following Immanuel Kant, confronting the sublime results in conflicting emotions; imagination fails. Kant emphasizes our sense of the sublime as self-awareness; our frailty and insignificance enable us to participate in it. The Kantian sublime serves as a bridge between morality and aesthetics. Morality is guided by principles but conveys no sensations. Aesthetics unties a world of perceptions and feelings but lacks principles. The aesthetic distress of the sublime creates the joyful awareness of reason and thus establishes a symbiotic relationship between the two. Using the Kantian notion of the sublime, one can begin to understand the sublime in Peter Weiss' works.; In addition to Kant, Jean Francois Lyotard's notions of the sublime render a contemporary understanding to Weiss' literary subjects, for the atrocities of the Holocaust have changed the use of the sublime. It no longer meets us from the outside; it has become an immanent part of Western culture. The ideological and bureaucratic dimensions of the Holocaust render it inconceivable. Rather than reiterate clichés, which consolidate the post-modern experience, Lyotard encourages artists to speak the unspeakable, to upset the audience. This dissertation explores how Peter Weiss utilized the sublime to achieve exactly that.