THE DEATH OF DIONYSOS - ETD - Vanderbilt University

eing) now and then, his costume is not without its effect on those who matter most: “Die
Frauen beteuerten, diese Tracht lasse ihm vorzüglich gut” [“The women assured him that
the costume suited him perfectly”] (210; EAB 124). The study of Corneille and
neoclassicism had refined Wilhelm’s taste and had taught him how to make a good
impression, especially on the women “in der großen Welt” [“in the world of the great”] of
court life (212; EAB 124). Similarly, his introduction to “‘Shakespeares Welt’”
[“‘Shakespeare’s world’”] prepares him to take on the “‘wirklich[e] Welt’” [“‘the real
world’”], as he assures Jarno (192; EAB 113). Thanks to the aesthetic make-over,
Wilhelm’s personality will qualify him for a short but otherwise legitimate acting career in
the same theater company to which his beloved Mariane had been attached. It takes some
prodding, but Wilhelm finally agrees to perform the lead role in Hamlet. He enjoys
moderate success on stage. Yet personnel changes and an ungrateful public; troubling
reminders of Mariane followed by the death of Aurelie; and not least of all, the fire that
destroys the theater: amid the aftershocks of these upheavals, Wilhelm’s eyes are opened
to the transient, make-believe nature of the theater. It is at this juncture, just when he is
faced with the instability and emptiness of a life on stage, that Wilhelm will enter the
world of Abbé and Lothario. 20
Subjective Experience in “Confessions of a Beautiful Soul”
We would appear to have strayed far from our initial interest, the meaning of
Erfahrung in the novel. But it proved necessary to investigate the reason why Wilhelm
lacks experience and the objective understanding of the world it affords. We have
discovered that he is captive to his myopic imagination; that his attraction to the theater
lay first in his preference of imagination and its representations to the isolation he felt as
an individual in the world. Later Wilhelm becomes aware that his real desire is for self-
cultivation or Bildung, and that he finds acting on stage more conducive to personal
development than production in the marketplace. Finally, in the Tower ceremony he
20 Wilhelm reflects on the emptiness of his experience with the wandering troupe of actors:
“‘[W]enn ich an jene Zeit zurückdenke, die ich mit ihr zugebracht habe, so glaube ich in ein
unendliches Leere zu sehen [. . .]’” (422). [“‘(W)hen I think back on the time I spent with them, I
seem to be peering into an unending void’” (EAB 257).]
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