(Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture) Rolf J

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DOMINIK FINKELDE
counterplay of meaning with the result that the allegorical image unfolds
“ein erregendes Spiel” (GS I.1:352; “a stirring game,” Origin, 176) and
metamorphosis itself becomes the “scheme” (GS I.1:403; Origin, 229)
of the epoch. In the same way that allegory unfolds ad infinitum by new
“folding,” the Baroque comprises also the experience of an infinitely
pleated human soul (Leibniz). Grimmelshausen’s character “Baldanders”
[“soon different”] in his picaresque novel Der abentheuerliche Simplicissimus
Teutsch can be seen in this context as a Baroque figure of perpetual
transformation and metamorphosis.
The possibility of seeing in this never-ending “folding” a positive process
of continuous creativity (and not only a loss of eternal knowledge)
is endorsed by the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and his postmodern
adaptation of Leibniz’s philosophy. The radical immanence of Deleuze’s
philosophy (which in a way opposes Benjamin’s profound messianic and
theological thinking) opts for an unending creative process through which
reality — because of its being detached from Platonic ideastic prefigurations
— is seen as a virtual sphere of permanent mutation. In a Deleuzian
perspective Benjamin’s allegorist would no longer possess a melancholic
temper, mourning the loss of metaphysical eschatology and a world
devoid of stable signs, but would be a Proust-like artist of always-new
creation that arises out of the infinitude of world-immanent signifying
procedures. 39 The entire world, for Deleuze, is “pure virtuality.” It exists
and creates itself anew also in the “folds of the soul,” 40 similar to a text
that keeps on writing without being written (by an autonomous mind).
The monad is for him, as it is for Leibniz and Benjamin, an individual
unit of microcosmic quality. It cannot be divided any further. The monad
as self (or soul, as Leibniz says) folds, unfolds, and folds again time, matter,
and space. It represents infinity in a finite way. The world must have
its place in the subject so that the subject can be for the world, as Deleuze
accentuates. The monadic subject exists as a “being-for-the-world” and
is distinguished from the rest of his surroundings by his “virtuality” and
his joy in creation. The engendering of virtual worlds is not one activity
among other activities but it is what human liveliness for Deleuze is
all about. Therefore it is of importance that the monad is “windowless,”
because being closed in itself and folded onto itself is the condition of perpetual
new beginnings. The virtual life as art of the monad is an inventive
behavior that brings about worlds of different facets. Common to them is
the fact that they are all transitory and finite and identify themselves only
through their realization. In the Baroque era however, the optimism of a
Deleuzian immanence is viewed negatively as being distant from God’s
plenitude, because the era still lacks an Enlightenment marked by Spinozism
and an extrication of the human being from the Christian-Protestant
superstructure. But, as we have already mentioned, Benjamin, too,
views radical immanence negatively as distance. This becomes obvious,