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

Abstract

This article argues that the notion of warfare as a sublime endeavor does not originate in WWI literature but dates back to the eighteenth century. Alongside the debate on eternal peace, there existed a lively discourse, evidenced in texts by Wilhelm von Humboldt, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schlegel and others, that considered war a moral and culturally productive institution and lavished praise on its ennobling features. Secondly, the article suggests that Kleist's Hermannsschlacht and Penthesilea contain a critique of such recuperative war discourses. In Kleist's texts, the concept of terror emerges as the dark “Other” of the nexus of war and the sublime. Similarly, representations of savagery and inhuman cruelty are employed to deconstruct the notion of war as a rational, political act. Finally, the article claims that, in spite of these insights, Kleist's texts cannot be read as pacifist manifestos since the critique of war is undercut and confounded by the representation of gender.