READING HEINRICH HEINE

Ventriloquism in Ludwig Börne: eine Denkschrift 159
conflict between aristocrat and democrat – just as the treatment of blacks in
America gave the racist lie to the claims of democracy; the anecdote further
suggests that the political community, which Börne supplies (‘Versorger’)
ideologically, is also marginal.
Heine defines his own absence from the field of positions in which
Börne believes all political discourse is located as an indifference (‘Gleichgültigkeit’)
that he affects, and which for Börne immediately becomes an
indifferentism (‘Indifferentismus’, B 4, 98). The avoidance of a ‘position’
must itself become a position. But Heine’s side-stepping of the issues promoted
by Börne and his supporters as ethical (i.e. in terms of virtue –
‘Tugend’) had long been a source of irritation. From the earliest period of
Heine’s stay in Paris, Börne’s letters to Jeanette Wohl complain that Heine
will not take himself seriously, that he lacks principle, that the only thing
that interests him about the truth is its beauty. 18 The Denkschrift, and later
Atta Troll, face these criticisms of Heine’s political ethics in terms of the
opposition between ‘character’ and ‘talent’; but the strategy Heine adopts
in the Börne book in order to negotiate his oblique position in relation to
Börne’s sectarianism and ‘terroristical expectorations’ (B 4, 64)isasustained
discussion of literary style. 19
In some respects the success of Heine’s ‘obliquity’ is all too complete. The
shift from issues of moral authority to qualities of authorship is not lost even
on very critical contemporary reviewers. Jakob Kaufmann’s article in the
Zeitung für die elegante Welt suggests that it was only gradually possible to
take stock of the scandal represented by the appearance of the Denkschrift: 20
‘The new literature has met with a misfortune the grave significance of
which will only be recognized on account of its painful aftermath’ (DZ
279). And he is simultaneously aware of and puzzled by Heine’s critical
emphasis:
Like a small-minded reviewer, Heine may count the spots of rust on the Titanic
sword of Börne’s style; he may intimate that only a master of metrical forms can
also be a master of prose; he may grant Börne only wit that sometimes becomes
humour; all of this is perhaps the honest opinion of his narcissistic soul; and in the
end, what did it matter to B[örne] whether anyone praised his style or criticized
it. He was above the vanity of the literati. (DZ 280;cf.B4, 689)
The project of the Denkschrift, asitisread here, merely confirms the
pusillanimity of Heine’s criticisms and his self-regarding conclusions, yet
it apparently has no real bearing on Börne and his status at all. When
the reviewer asks later in the article ‘Whatever possessed Heine to write
this ill-fated book?’ his question seems heartfelt and echoes Laube’s worry