Copyright by Laura Mareike Sager 2006 - The University of Texas at ...

and the attack of the “Dämonen” and “Ungeheuer.” But the image is not
dramatized beyond this tableau. This brief tableau and its presentation in verse,
however, do provide the reader with an interpretation of the image. In particular,
Feuchtwanger’s use of enjambment places emphasis on Goya’s internal
experience of the scene depicted in the aquatint. The enjambments in “sind die /
Schlimmsten” and “ist doch / Furchtbar wach” underscore both the horrible threat
and Goya’s terrible state of mind. Likewise, the separation in the line “Er träumt
und ist doch / Furchtbar wach” stresses the contradictoriness of the simultaneity
of these two opposed states of consciousness. Feuchtwanger also employs
parallelisms and repetition, especially at the end when portraying Goya’s mental
state: “sind in ihm, / sind er selber, / Sind gleichzeitig in und außer / Ihm”
(emphasis mine). Thus underlining the omnipresence of the Demons, their being
everywhere, Feuchtwanger interprets the creatures in Goya’s aquatint as mental
creations of the artist which not only oppress his mind, but become independent
from their creator and thus also oppress him externally. The image, then, is here
represented as a response to a personal, internal attack of demons who originate
within the artist’s own mind when his reason is sleeping.
The next evocation of the Sueño de la razón demonstrates how the artist
can overcome this sleep of his reason and banish the monsters from his mind.
After learning about his illness, Goya has traveled to his place of birth, Zaragoza,
where he stays with his old friend Martin Zapater before seeing his old mother.
There, he visits places that were important to him in his youth, such as the chapel
of Our Lady del Pilar, whose cupolas he painted. The Virgen del Pilar had been
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