THE DEATH OF DIONYSOS - ETD - Vanderbilt University

told her stories from the Bible, but she retains in her memory a far more detailed record of
the objects that her father brought to her from his naturalist Kabinett. The world of her
childhood is not a fog of faith or feeling, but the careful articulation and retention of what
she experiences; her illness narrows the scope of her world, but it amplifies rather than
impairs her receptivity to objective phenomena.
“[U]nd damit doch auch der Fürst der Welt eine Stimme in dieser Versammlung
behielte, erzählte mir die Tante Liebesgeschichten und Feenmärchen.” [“And so that the
Prince of this World should not go neglected in this company, my aunt told me love tales
and fairy stories”] (Ibid., ibid). In addition to religion and natural science, the tales of her
aunt represent the last course of her primary trivium. She was fascinated with their
romantic content, certainly; but they likewise formed and exercised her imagination.
Natalie’s aunt recounts how she invented her own adventures with lambs, virtuous princes
and even angels. One fantasy, involving a diminutive angel who tries to win her heart,
assumes such detail in her mind: “daß meine Einbildungskraft sein Bild fast bis zur
Erscheinung erhöhte” (359) [“that my imagination almost raised my mind’s image of him
to an appearance” (DWH).] This girlish fantasy is characteristic of how she will
experience love. Although she does recover her health for the most part, the illness, she
writes, had purified her heart, so that “nichts Wildes” [“nothing wild”] was left to her
childhood (Ibid.; EAB 218). This certainly applies to love, given her exclusive attraction
to males who have been tamed by either illness or disgrace. Indeed, her perception of
erotic love is of something threatening, even sinister; while her own Cupid has no arrow,
so to speak. A favorite tale is of an enchanted prince whose alter ego is . . . a sheep–not a
phallic unicorn or a slimy toad. The stories she recounts from her childhood are
downright antiseptic, so entirely free of the uncanny that they bear more resemblance to
Bennett’s Book of Virtues than to anything of the Brothers Grimm. They are edifying,
even comforting, but in no sense fascinating–a necessary condition of desire.
Selbst-Entsagung? Goethes Deutung und Kritik des Pietismus in ‘Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahren’”
[“Experience of Self or Self-Denial? Goethes Interpretation and Critique of Pietism in ‘Wilhelm
Meister’s Apprentice Years’”]. In: Verlorene Klassik? Ein Symposium, ed. Wolfgang Wittkowski
(Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1986), pp. 52-73.
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