THE DEATH OF DIONYSOS - ETD - Vanderbilt University

CHAPTER I
SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE AND THE SELF
Subjective vs. Objective Experience
Wilhelm spends some weeks hobnobbing with Serlo’s first-rate thespians, before
he finally turns to the matter that has weighed on his conscience. To his relief, however,
the letters that await him from his family prove happily benign. Having anticipated a
scolding for his epistolary silence, a grateful Wilhelm decides to reward the home office
with a detailed and informative account of his travels. But no sooner do paper and pen lie
before him than he makes a troubling discovery: “daß er von Empfindungen und
Gedanken, von manchen Erfahrungen des Herzens und Geistes sprechen und erzählen
konnte, nur nicht von äußern Gegenständen, denen er, wie er nun merkte, nicht die
mindeste Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt hatte” (266). [“that he could talk about his feelings
and thoughts, his experiences of heart and mind, but not about external things (objects)
which, as he now noticed, had not in any way attracted his attention” (EAB 159, my
insertion).] It turns out that his knapsack of memories includes nothing of interest to
Baedeker or a Handelsblatt: no sights or statistics, nothing concrete about nature or
culture; just a hodgepodge of ideas–highly quotable abstractions–soaked in the perfume of
romance. He turns for help to Laertes, a companion during his travels, and together they
assemble facts from almanacs and travelogs, composing a “Kunststück” [“work of art”]
for Wilhelm’s family and friends (267; EAB 159).
The reader, of course, is not likely to share Wilhelm’s vexation. After all, what
experiences could be of more interest to a patron of novels than such of the mind and
heart? Nevertheless, Wilhelm’s dilemma echoes an observation that Aurelie had made
earlier regarding her philosophizing friend:
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