| Brentano's intention to publish a separate collection of his poems was never carried out for fear to “prostitute” himself. His conflict suggests that the very placement of these poems constitutes and leads to the thesis that the relationship of poem and letters is one of dynamic interaction and dialectics. Mutually exclusive strands of research hold that context is either irrelevant of paramount importance for the poem. I conclude, after analyzing “Frühlingsschrei”, that context serves ambivalent functions: the borders between poem and letter dissolve by having the letter-I become part of the lyrical fiction, yet the poem holds its own as an independent construct. The next chapter explores how lyrical I and You are constructed and interact as roles in Brentano's letters and poems. In letters, role plays are based on the to and fro between the empirical I (author) and letter-recipient on the one hand, and fictitious I and You on the other hand. As for poems, the I and You assume various positions within the same poem allowing the lyrical I to create its own “reality”. The role plays, which can reflect upon themselves, also extend to the dialectical movement between letter-I and lyrical I, adding one more layer of meaning and revealing the speaker's desire to speak “objectively”. The different discourses within letters—prose, lyrical prose and the lyric—are interpreted in light of the allegory of the dancing “Fantasy” as different poetic forms of expressions: dancing (=unfettered prose), silence (=lyrical prose) and sublimation/aesthetizing (=lyric). Brentano's frequent use of the metaphor of clothing—the “master trope” for language—is interpreted in connection with his ambivalent attitude about art and language, truth and lie. The problem of context is seen as the dialectical movement between revealing and disguising because Brentano's contextualizing of poems functions as “showing by disguise”. In conclusion, Brentano's questioning and radicalization of the genres—evident in the interplay of poem and context—is situated within the early romantic art theory of the arabesque. |
