Focus Fall 1995.tif


x 

Weissberg (penn: German & Comparative Literature) and Dr. Tho­
mas Childers (penn: History) as well as participants from the confer­
ence to examine once again the tOpic in light of the day's proceedings. 
This brought IO a close a fruitful and rewarding intellectual exchange. 

The organizers would like to thank the numerous people who 
made this first annual conference possible. \VIe cannot list you ail, but 
profound thanks are due to all those who helped us from the Depart­
menu of Germanic Languages and Litera(Ures, History, and Com­
parative Literature. Thanks also IO the moderators: N. Jeff Rogers, 
Susan Schwaneflugei, Julia Sneeringer, Daniel While, and Marion 
Hussong, the professors who gave their suppOrt and advice: Dr. Frank 
Trommler and Dr. Karl F. Otto, Jr. as well as the guest speakers: Dr. 
Lil iane Weissberg and Dr. Thomas Childers. Special thanks is extended 
to Dr. Horst Daemmrich, whose support and inspiration made this 
event possible. Finally, we would like to acknowledge our partner. 
ship with the journal FOCJH. Devoted to the same basic goals we share. 
they have graciously agreed to publish select papers from the confer­
ence. We salute Focus and their commitment to intellectual endeavor 
and professional development. 

Looking back we can only view the 1995 conference as a success 
and look forward to the 1996 conference. The 1996lmersections?!con_ 
ference. entitled Franco·German DlSCOJlrses: Literary Exchanges from 
the Middle Ages to the t'U!emiech Century, will take place March 22-23, 
1996_ For more information com act Tim Lyons {(2I5) 898-7332 / 
tlyons@sas.upenn.edu } or consult the Department H ome Page (http:/ 
/ccal.sas.upenn.edu/ german). 

Norman Roessler 
N . ]effRogers 
N iel McDowell 

Theodor Storm: 
Writing History Against the Grain 

Ann Reidy 

(I n the mOSt astute pronouncement on Theoclo r Storm's 
thematization of history 10 date, David Jackson stoues: "1-{e wrOte 

hisrory against lhe official grain" (203). Storm's subversion of the norm, 
Jackson argues, lies in his refusal to acknowledge only the great, he· 
roic figures of rhe past as panicipams in history and (herefo~e w~rt.hy 
of inclusion in histOrical accounts. This commitment to remscnbmg 
the traditionally marginalized into historical discourse is evidenced in 
texlS centered around common folk interacting with lo.:al forces rather 
than an elite corps of intellectual, political, and anistic luminaries Qack­
son 203). 

Unfortunately, Jackson's primary concern is not Storm's treat­
ment of history and therefore his remarks on the [Opic are limited. 
The question of how Storm's historical fiction a~peals to a.nd 
problematizes dominant modes of historiography of hiS day re~atns 
largely unanswered. In examining Storm's Ch~omknovel!en, th~s pa­
per challenges the dism issa l of Storm as a senwnemal Helfnaldl~hter 
and offers new strategies for reading his tex ts as lite rary protestations 
against prevailing trends in nineteenth-century German histo riog.ra­
phy. In panicular, Storm addresses the presuppositions of "objective 
history," a discourse most closely associated with th~ name Leo~old 
von Ranke. While the objections to Rankean histonography VO iced 
by figu res such as Niet2.SChe, Dilthey, and Burckhardt are well·re· 
hearsed, Storm's role as an active participant in these critiques is unac­
knowledged . What follows represents an attempt to locate St~rm 
within this critical trajectory. I approach Storm's texts not as a direct 
and personal attack on Ranke, but rather as a stage in the rec~pti.o~ of 
the historical discourse popularized by him, with all the misprISion, 
simplification, and insight that the reception process invariably in­
volves. 

Focus on Literallfr Vol. 2, No.2 (1995) 



126 Focus 011 Lireratllr 

. To und~rstand the ways in which Storm might be said to write 
h l ~t07 "ag~mst th.e grain," it is necessary to examine briefly variolls 
pn~clp.les lO~on:l!.ng "contemporaneous histOriographical practice. 
~clentl~c ob)ectlvlty has long been the catchword most often asso­

ciated with rhe claims of the era, and Ranke has come w be regarded 
a.s (he foundi.ng "father of scientific history" (Iggers 63). His admoni­
tion t.o t~ll. hIstory wie es eigentlich ge'wesen encapsulates this pretense 
to ?b)ectlVlty, and yet should not obscure the explicitly non-scientific 
a.trltudes he ~xpresses. While insisting on his role as objective scien­
tIS.t, .Ranke slm.ulta~eo~sly conceived of his vocat ion as a religious 
~I~slon. Th~ hlStonan s [ask was to bear wimess to and record the 
dIVIne ~orklOgs of God as inscribed in the events of history. This 
para~~xlcal gesture towards God and objectiv ity is, as I explain later, 
expltcnly thematized by Storm. 

Ra.n~e's le~acy .as an historian lies primarily in his celebration of 
the orlglOal hIStOrical document as the key to objective historical 
kn.owJedge: Ranke despaired at the thought that history wasconstandy 
being r~wrmen. ~ach?ge, he laments, tailors the representarion of the 
past .w Its. own hIStOrically specific concerns, resulting in a confusing 
proliferation of treatments of the same material: "D ie His[orie wird 
Immer umge.s:chr.ieben . ' ... Jede Zeit und ihre hauptsachliche Rich­
tung macht sle slch zu elgen und tragr ihre Gedanken dantuf tiber" 
(Fu.chs 18) . Implicit in the dismay surrounding the abundance of his­
~oncal treatm~nts "of the same material is the desire for a monologic 
~aster narrative. Adherence to empirical data and rhe strict presen­

tation of ~acrs .would enab le the construction of a single, scientific 
account ot affairs. 

. O~e sees i.n frequent pronouncements by Ranke a certain mimetic 
Ideal, Interestingly enough, given that his product ion coincides with 
the e:a of literary realism. That the histo rian can approach the text 
~nd, In turn, produce an historical account without the mediation of 
Ide?logy ?r sl~bjectivity is assumed. The goal wwards which consci­
ent!ous hlStonan.s s~ould strive is, in fact, toral transparency of self. 
ThIS self-abn~gatl.ng Ideal of SelbsttlllSlosc/mng is revealed when Ranke 
declares that In hiS Englisrhe Geschichte he had tried to eXlineu ish his 
ow.n self and le~ the past speak with its own voice: "Jeh ':Unschte 
m~lfl ?e1bst gle lchsam auszuloschen und nur die D inge reden, die 
machll~en !C-:afte erscheinen zu lassen" (Ranke 24 1). T he radical era­
sure of tndlvldual subjeniviry-quixotic as the ideal is-underlies the 

Writing Against the Grain 127 

stated aims of both mimesis and Rankean historiography. Reliance on 
the indisputable facts contained in the documents, as well as total dis­
regard for the interference of derivat ive accounts, would enable the 
construction of an objective, mimetic representation of the period in 
quest ion. Such an approach would result in the desired monologic 
master narrative and eliminate the need for any further revision, for 
mimesis precludes the possiblily of diverse rep resentations of reality. 

Finally, one must address the implicit teleology informing Ranke's 
historical approach as well as the various other grand reries of nine­
teenth-cemury philosophical and historical discourse. Though the 
phenomenon of nineteenth-cemury hisEOricism is frequently defined 
as a fo rm of historical relativ ism, that is, as a summons to swdy phe­
nomena within the co ntext of their own historically specific va lue 
paradigms, Ranke remains deeply committed to notions of inevitable 
progress and an histOrical telos. The context in which this teleological 
underpinning is most readi ly apparent is in the conception of the state. 
Betraying his affin ities wi.th H egel, Ranke refers to states as "spiritual 
essences" and "ideas of God." To write history was to bear witness to 
the development of the German State from atomistic fragmentation 
to a mo re "mature" form of orga nization and unity. 

As Georg Iggers observes, it is in regarding thesta[e as an expand­
ing moral potency thaI an entire historical school maintained its faith 
in the telos of hiswry: "German historical thought in the decades after 
IS70 remained remarkably immune from the currems of pessimistic 
thought. T he events of the 1860's had reinfo rced the faith of German 
histo rians in histo ry as a meaningful process. All of history seemed to 
point in the direction of the Second Reich" (128). H istory was the 
medium through which Germany realized its destiny of unification. 
H istoriography became the "chronicle and justification of nation build­
ing" (Sheehan xii). Though Ranke himself frequent ly betrayed an aris­
lOcratic cosmopol itanis m a[ odds with then current nationalisllrends, 
figures such as H einrich von Sybel, H einrich von Treitschke, and 
Johann Gustav Droysen took their cue from Ranke's writings to form 
the vanguard of nat ionalistic historiography. 

To summarize this overview, three central tenetS underl ie the hi~ ­

lorical approach introduced by Ranke and adopted by his followers: 
the demand for a return to original documents, the veneration of those 
documents as the guarantor of objective knowledge of the past, and 
the unwavering conviction that history is a teleologically informed, 



128 Focus on Lileralltr 

~eaningful p~o~es~. It would be wrong, however, to create a decep­
tively monolithic Image of the era, for figures such as Burckhardt, 
Nietzsche, Dilthey, Schopenhauer, and Lamprecht all launched dev­
astating challenges to governing principles of Ranke's historicism. More 
recent objections can be located in the writings of Waher Benjamin. 
In his "Theses on the Philosophy ofHislOry"(1940), Benjamin attacks 
the lan~ua~e of historicism.as a 1001 serving the interesls of the power­
ful while SImultaneously SIlencing the past of the oppressed. Operat­
ing under the sign of "objectivity ," historicism enables a reification of 
history and the perpetuation of an oppressive status quo of ideologies 
and cultural norms. 

Most scholars are aware of the aforementioned objections to nine­
teenth-century historicism. Yet in the works of a writer often dis­
missed as a marginal Heimatdichrer, one discovers one of the most 
incisive critiques of precisely those principles associated with Ranke. 
Theodor Storm invokes the methodology of scientific historians 
through his use of the Chroniknovelle, a gen re typically defined by its 
structural dependence on historical documents. The fact that the sud­
den valorization of original documents and chronicles in German his­
toriography coincides directly with the ascent of the Chrolllknovelle 
in German fiction gives rise to a series of crucial yet hitherto unasked 
questions. Precisely at that moment when historians began lO invest 
their professional faith in original historical documents, a literary genre 
devoted to critical refleerion on that very gesture emerged. The inter· 
sections and negotiations between the two fields ove r the status of the 
histo rical text have been igno red by historians and literary critics alike. 
\Y.!'e as reade~s m~lst ask: how, does Storm's use of the trope of the 
dIscovered hlstoneal manUSCript frustrate or affirm the claims of sci­
entific historians who regard the authentic document as (he key to 
objective historical knowledge? 

The investigation of nineteenth-century reflections on the role of 
the original document in historical inquiry assumes particular impor­
tance at the present moment. The highly contested status of the his­
torica l text defines, in part, thecomemporary debate initiated by fig­
ures sllch as Hayden White and Dominick LaCapra between hisrorio­
?ra~h,ical ,and ~iterary disciplines. Attacking the methodology of ob­
Je~tlV 1 St hlStonans? laCapra bemoans their reiusa! to engage critica lly 
With SOurce matenal and acknowledge the extent to which the histori-

Writi ng Against the Grain 129 

cal document is always already a mediated representation of the past. 
He states: "a restricted documentary or objectivist model diverts at­
tention from the way 'documents' are themselves texts that ' process' 
or ' rework' reality and require a critical reading that goes beyond 
trad itional philological forms of Qllellenkrlllk" (19-20). He sug~estS 
that "all fo rms of hisloriography might benefit from modes of cflocal 
reading premised on the conviction thac documents Jre themselves 
texts that supplement or rework ' reality' and not mere sources that 
divulge facts about ' reality'" (11). Returning to the nineteenth c~ntury's 
reflections on the status of the historical text seems app ropriate, for 
desp ite the au ra of radical novelry surrounding figures Stich as ~xrhite 
and LaCapra, the debate was indeed already underway at that time. 

Written in the 1870s and 1880s, Storm's Chroniknovellen address 
a readershi p steeped in the demands of literary realism by or~n i zing 
themselves around "real" documents. Storm repeatedly themau2eS the 
manner in wh ich historica l documents are used to establish the truth 
of the past by historical inquirers of an o~jectivist bent. Tn ~his sense, 
his Chroniknovellen are perhaps best descnbed as metalmtortcal rather 
than historical. The embedded historical manuscript s in Renate (1878) 
are discovered after years of personal speculation on and inquiry into 
the local legend of the supposed witch, Renate. The nJ.rrator is confi­
dent that the manuscrip ts will fina lly provide the definitive answer to 
his questions: "Mir ahnte freilich nicht, daB ich die Amwort in naclmer 
Nahe, daB ich sieauf dem Boden meines elterlichen Hauscs hatte suchen 
soli en" (620).' 

The narrato r's conviction that these manuscripts provide unme­
dialed access to the past is reinfo rced later in the text when he com­
pares reading them to viewing the bare corpse of history. Prefacing 
the presentation of t he second manuscript, he states: .. Aber der Zufall, 
cler uns vergannt hat, das Bahnuch ilber elnem verschollenen 
Menschenleben aufzuheben, lilpft es noch einmal"(667). The narrator 
equates reading these documents with having an ~l nobstruCled view of 
naked hisro rical truth. T his faith in the ability of the historical docu­
ment to offer a transparent window to the past is th<!matiz.ed fun her 
in lur Chronik 'VOn Grieshlltls (1884). Here the narrator app roaches 
his manuscripts not only with faith, but with somber reverence: '"1ch 
faBte mil Andacht das Papier; die ai le Zeit begann ja selbst zu sprechen" 
(879). Both narrators exhibit a pseudo·Rankean respect for the abso-



1)0 Foem on Literatur 

lute authority of the historical document. Both narratOrs 3re confi­
dent of their ability to acquire objective, unmediated knowledge of 
the past through Immersion in these documeflls. Yet both narrators 
3re subjected to unceasing ironization and criticism by Storm. 

. While the n,urator of Renate claims to be offering a direct view of 
"tin verschollenesl\ lenschenleben," he remains oblivious to the many 
contradictions underlying this claim. The tension between this pr~ 
tense to objectivity and the fact that the manuscripts are revealed to 
be highly mediated. unreliable accounts is extreme. At the very outset 
we are tOld that the narrator has in fact "'translated" the archaic lan­
guage of the first manuscript to make it more "lebendig" for the reader. 
W/e as readers are prompted to interpret the manuscripts, and yet si­
multaneously warned that any interpretation is necessarily limited. 
Yet the narrator refuses to acknowledge his own interference and con­
cludes his introduction of the manuscript, stating: "Und somit moge 
der Schreiber jenes alten Aufsatzes seiber das WOrt nehmen" (620). 

The narrator's quest to render the manuscript more "lebendig" 
can be regarded as an attempt to "resurrect" the historical corpse al­
luded to through the image of the pall. Indeed, the very title "Renate," 
Latin for "reborn," announces this principle theme of resurrection. 
This desire to resurrect the past so as to stand in a more immediate 
relation to it is, in effect, a desire to cancel history. Yet in acting out 
this desire, Storm's narrator violates history. His translation elimi­
nates the hislOricity of language and distorts the hislOrical utterances 
contained in the lex!. The insistence on un mediated access to the past 
necessarily destroys that which it seeks to explore. Jt is precisely this 
paradox of historical inquiry-that any attempt to grasp the past di­
rectly in variably results in its destruction-that the scientific histo­
rian elides. 

Thus our ability to interpret is thwarted from the start. Not only 
is the "authentic" manuscript in fact a translated manuscript, it is a 
translated manuscript based on a set of memories being recalled years 
after the events in question. In the middle of Josias' account of his 
relationship to Renate, we suddenly learn that some thirty years sepa­
rate him from the events recounted. Thus the manuscript is now dou­
bly mediated; by the narrator's linguistic interference and Josias' 
memory. The inclusion of a lener written by Josias' father introduces 
yet another nexus of interpretive obstacles. The letter. intended to 

Writing AgainSt the Grain 131 

convince Josias of Renate's diabolical affiliations by relaying a pecu­
liar episode in which she is alleged to have been involved, is, by rhe 
father's own admission, based on hearsay and popular legends {hat 
grew Out of the incident. The inclusion of the letter in the manuscript 
only serves to augment the layers of interpretation and further con­
cea l the "truth" of Renate's identity. The second embedded manu­
script is no more reliable than the first; not only is the document 
partially based on someone else's accollnt, it is someone else's account 
of rumours circulating throughout the community. Finally, one must 
acknowledge the admitted editing and paraphrasing function oi the 
fram~ narrator, for it underscores the degree to which the subjectivity 
of the inquirer inevitably panicipates in the construction of meaning 
assigned to the historical text. 

Thus far one can recogniz.e how Storm seiz.es one of the seminal 
features of nineteenth-century historiography thought to guarantee 
abso lute objectivity-the o riginal historical document-only [0 un­
dermine radically its autho rity. Storm's challenge to dominant hiSto­
riographical trends is evidenced further in his problematization of the 
claim of historical progress. Whether one idemifies this claim as a 
general feature of nineteenth-century liberalism and its concomitant 
faith in the process of enlightenment, or as a principle adopted by 
historians with their own political agenda, this commitment to the 
telos of history permeates the era. 

Critical consensus has deemed Renate a text revealing the process 
of Josias' personal enlightenment. Josias' ultimate decision to aban­
don his fear that Renate may be in league with demonjc forces repre­
sents, scholars claim, Storm's faith in the ideal of enlightened progress. 
Yet the evidence cited as proof of Josias' "AufkJi:irung" suggests JUSt 

the opposite. In the crucial passage at issue, Josias refers to Renate as 
the "Engel" from his youth, an obvious allusion to the cherished child­
hood encounter with Renate described at the beginning of the manu­
script, in which he perceived her as an angel rescuing him from the 
attack of her wild dog (669). His final reference to her as the "angel 
from his youth" radically problematizes the claim that this represents 
a linear process of enlightenment. In effect,Josias renounces fanatical, 
su perstitious beliefs in witches in favor of adolescent fantasies, a ges­
ture which convenient ly masquerades as "enlightenment." Even this 
supposed advancement [0 a more enlightened consc iousness remains 



132 Focus on LiteraLUr 

embedded in the same pre-enlightenment categories of "Hexe" and 
"Engel." }osias remains statically trapped in allegorical modes of per­
ception and imerpremlOn. 

The notion of enlightened progress is further problematized 
through. the figure of Andreas. Andreas distinguishes himself from 
th~ prevIous generation of religious fanatics, claiming for himself the 
ability to ascenain the [rue meaning of "Heilige Schrifr" whereas the 
vision ~~ others i.s mediated by unfounded superstition. Rejecting the 
superStltlollS claim that Renate maliciously caused Josias' death he 
conc.ludes ~is ~anllscript: "Wir aber, wenn du alles nun ge!esen: dll 
und 1eh, wlr Wlssen besser. was sie war, die seineo Jelzlco Hauch ihm 
von den Lippen nahm" (670). There is no return to the original frame 
and [he text ends on this acutely ironic note. Andreas's claim to have 
gained t~e factual, objective truth regarding Renate by reading the 
manuscnpt appears ludicrous given its extraordinarily mediated con. 
tent. His arrogant claims to "{ruth" in the name of en lightenmem are 
revealed to be JUSt ;as invalid as the fanatical views of those before him. 
The very notion of objectivity, which he so confidently vaunts, is 
exp.osed as ye~ another m.YIh. Rather than signaling progress, the his­
toncal move mto an enbghtened world is revealed to entail a mere 
r.econfiplr.ation of prejudice, furnishing the space emptied of supersti­
tion wuh ItS own set of mythical beliefs. 

The fact that beliefs in Renate's neb.rious witchcraft persist into 
the present day of the frame narrative casts further doubt on claims of 
~ist~r ical progress and enlightenment. Far from being the vehicle for 
mevltable advancement, history is repeatedly ponrayed in this text 
and others as perpetuated traditions and unceasing repetition. Not 
only does the text stress thepersisrence of tradition, it calls attention 
to the way in which that very tradition is established and maintained 
t~rough the [~ansmission of history. The process by which [he narra­
t!~e surrounding Renate is constructed by the community and trans­
mnted from one generation to the next is revealed to be one that 
reinforces dominant ideologies of the community. Renate's identifi­
cation as a witch is inextricably linked to her violation of established 
gender and social norms. 

These dual processes of construction and transmission of histori­
cal narrative form a thematic axis in the majority of Storm's later 
novellas, the most well-known case being Der Schimmelreiter (1888). 

Writing Against the Grain lJ3 

And yet, the open-ended structure of the texts .(I?~re is frequently ~o 
return to the original frame) suggests the pOSSibility for a rupture m 
this continuum of tradition. It is unclear. for example, how the frame 
narrator will respond to the local legend after reading the manllscri~ts. 
We do nOt know whether he will be complicil in the perpetuation 
and reification of the narrative or retrospectively adopt a more criti­
cal stance vis-a-vis its collective authors. The (non)conclusion of Renace 
presents the reader with twO app roaches to hi~tor!cal und~rstanding: 
the townspeople's ideologically based allegorlzauon of h~s[or)' ~s a 
tale of holy and demonic forces, and Andreas's equal~y fallac!ousclalms 
to objective interpretation. BOlb modes-modes s!mul taneously en­
acted by Ranke-are implicitly criticized, yet precisely the fact that 
the text is open·ended points to the possibility, albeit one left unde­
fined by Storm, of a novel mode of historical reception and interpre­
tation. 

In problematizing the authority of the original manuscript, Storm 
seeks to cultivate in the reader a new, more critical attiludo: towards 
historical documents and culturally transmitted accounts. He preempts 
by a cemury LaCapra's demand for reading strategies .con~ern~d ~ot 
solely with discovering naked historical facts, but With I?enl!fyl~g 
the layers of competing interests engaged. in the construction of hl~~ 
torical narrative. Withollt categorically negating the ability of histon­
cal documentation to provide information aboul histori~al real~ty, 
Storm's texts do reject a readership blind to the manifold Ideological 
forces necessarily operant in the ac ts of historical rep resemation and 
imerp relation. Storm's Chrolllknovellell consistently call alten~ion t~ 
our need to question the reified nar ratives of the past and, In thiS 
sense, read history against the grain. . . . 

T his mandate for heightened interpretive responsibility, with 
which most of StOrm's Chrolllknove/lell end, directly contradicts the 
seminal feature ascribed to real ism by one of its mOSt prominent crit· 
ics. In defining nineteenth-century realism, Russell Ber~~n argues th~t 
the realist tex t inhibits the interpretive freedom and Critical responsI­
bility of the reader by allthoritatively guiding hi~/her t h~ough its 
narrative (175). The regressive politics of the realISt aesthettc are. re­
vealed, Berman argues, in this attempt to suppress individual subJec­
tiviry and participation in the construction of tex tual meaning. As 
one of the most celebrated realists of the nineteenth century {and an 



, 

13. Focus on Literatllr 

author conveniently omitted from Berman's study). Storm provides 
a crucial opportunity fo r a reassessment of these frequently homog­
eniz.ing claims. 

Storm's deliberate thematization of local history and the struc­
tural fragmentation of his works further frustrate such rotalizing sche­
mata. Claiming that realism represents a literary analogue to Bismarck's 
Reich, Berman suggests that realism's preference for unity of form 
and narrative perspective over asymmetrical ness and fragmentation is 
informed by the politics of national uniEcation. Again, StOrm pro­
vides a salient counrerexample in manifold respects. His texts repeat­
edly deny the reader a si ngl e, autho ritative narrator, thematizing in­
stead a multiplicity of perspectives, and frequently displaying the st ruc­
tu ral asymmetry of non-concl uded frames . The monologic discourse 
valorized in the mandate to tell history wie es eigendich gewesen is 
co nsistently rejected in favor of dial ogic strategies of representation. 
T he incorporation of various temporal and conceptual horizons high­
lights the way in which each individual consciousness is embedded in, 
determined and limited by its own particular histoncal moment. This 
narrative structure underscores the necessarily provisional nature of 
any single interpretation. Sto rm's final novella, Der Schimmelreieer, is 
the most rad ical exam ple of a text in which t he coex istence of mul­
tiple perspectives and refusal to pnvilege any one of them thwarts the 
interpreter's efforts to discover uniform historical meaning. 

Unlike celebrated contemporaries such as Gustav Freytag, Wilhelm 
Riehl, and Wilhelm Jensen. Storm refused to instrumentalize history 
in the project of nation-building. Storm refrained from portray ing 
the histOry of the greater German Reich, focusing instead on loca l 
histOry. Thematizing the history of regions within Schleswig-H ol­
stein after 1871 and without any reference to "PreuBen," an ethnic­
national entity of "Deutsche" or the newly fo r med R eich can be re­
garded as a literary form of protest against the politics of Bismarck' s 
unification. Storm evo kes t he past of his native region without allow­
ing it to become subordinate to a teleologically unfolding narrative of 
German nationhood. The hegemony of a German national cu lture is 
subverted through t he consistent privileging of the regional. 

The reevaluation of Storm' s choice of historical subject maner is 
long overdue. One must quest ion the ideological assumptions attend­
ing the negative dismissal of Storm as a provincial Heimardichcer un-

Writing Against the Grain 135 

able to deviate from his own HIS/unere;. The denigration of Storm's 
emphasis on regional history-a still prevalent anitude originating in 
Wilhelm Jensen' s suggestion that Storm lacked any sense " fiir das ~n 
sich geschichtlich BedeurungsvoUe" (c ited in Bollen~eck S02)~arnes 
with it certain implications regarding the "appropnat e" subJect ma~­
ter for historical writing. Yet his commitmem to focusing his histori­
cal fiction almost exclusively on local settings in hi s native Schleswig­
Holstein must not be confused with the regionalism characterizing 
Dorfliteratur of the period. Storm does not seek to celebrate the sturdy 
virtues of the Volksgemeinschaft, nor does he anywhere advocate a 
BLut lind Boden ideology. T exts slich as Draujlen im Heidedorf(1871) 
actively condemn the xenophobia ~os tere.d througl~ the me~i~lm of 
Dorfliteratur. His texts do not put hIStory In the servIce of deflmng an 
emergent German national identity, as is the case in F reytag's Bilder 
ails deutscher Vergange'lheit (1859-67), Die Ahnen (J 872-80), and count­
less works by contemporary luminaries such as Jensen and RiehL 

The extent to which Sto rm's Chrolliknovellen explo re history's 
function as a mediating fo rce of both language and self consti[U[es yet 
another gap in thei r reception. At the beginning of Zur Chronik von 
Grieshults the narrator recalls observing the standing ruins of the 
Grieshuu~ estate. He realizes moments later , howeve r , that the struC­
tures he perceived were the product of hi s own imagination and that 
his percept ion of the environment had been mediated by historical 
accounts he had heard long ago: 

Nur meine Phantasie haue sich dOr! den Turm erbaut: Nieht jetzt, 
einst, sagte ieh mif, hane ein derartiges Gemauer dort gestanden 
... Nicht, daG ieh jemals selbst hier gewesen ware; aber mit 
aufhorchenden Knabenohren hatte ieh, und mehr als ei nmal, von 
diesem Orte reden horen . (838) 

The narrator's dreams are also structured by previously viewed his­
torical documents, further revealing the extent to which even the 'pri­
vate' realm of the unconscious is med iated by pub licly circulating 
histories. This emphasis on the way in which selves are inescapa.bly 
mediated by history and historical accounts not only problemanzes 
the Rankean distinction between historical object and inquiring sub­
ject, it also undermines the very subj ect/ object dualism upon which 



136 FoCtls on Literallir 

reali~m is based. Rather than bejng a discrete interpreting agency. the 
self LS revealed at every Hlrn to be constituted by and through the 
~upposedly 'external' ph~nomenon of history. The perceiving subject 
IS shown both t? determine and to be determined by the supposedly 
aUIOnomous object under invest igation. 

StOrm's c~ncern with language and its historica l mediation is 
foregrounded In both Renate and Aquis Submersus (1876). The fact 
that the erymology of the name "Schwabestadt" is relayed in the first 
semence of Renate is not incidencal: "In ein iger Entfernung von meiner 
~alerstadt, doch so, daB es fur Lusrfahrten dahin niehl zu weir in, 
hegt, das J?orf Schwabestadt. welcher Name oach einigen Chronisten 
so VleJ hed~en soli: Suavestarre d.i. liebl icher On" (6 18). T he first con­
cern broached by Sto~m involves the historically mediated qua lity of 
language. The suggestion that language is not an ahisto rical constant 
but rather a thoroughly historica l system in which each term carrie; 
and is de~tabilized by semantic traces already begins to undermine the 
very nOtion of objectivity in representation. 
. ~ s~ekj.ng to stabilize the meaning of the enigmatic Plattdeutsch 
Inscn~t1on In Aquis Submersus, "Geliek as Rook un SIOO£ verswindt / 
~lso Sind ock d~ Minsc henkind," both the narralOr and reader mll~ 1 
Sift .through various layers of historical COntexts and referents' the 
nO{J~n of stabl~ sig.nifi.cati~n ,is thereby rep laced with the conce~r of 
m~dlated meaning, In llngulmc as well as historical terms. T hese medi­
t~t1ons on th.e semantic. instabilities and "slippages" introduced through 
hlst~ry call1.nto queStlO~ the writer's abil ity 10 rep resent rea lity mi­
met1ca~ ly uSing .such an IOherem ly unstable system of signification. 
These Instances illust rate the self-problematization of mimesis lypica l 
of"po~t ic real ists" such as SlOrm, Kel ler, and Meyer. Moreover, Storm's 
rene~t1ons reveal his affinities with Nietzsche's contemporaneous 
musI~gs on. langu~ge and history, musings encapsulated in the dic­
tum: defimerbar 1St nur das, was keine Geschichte hat." 

To ret~lrn 10 the heading at the beginning of this paper, one can 
argue that In many respects Storm's Chromknovellen do indeed write 
history "against the grain." Certainly the admonish ment to read his­
tory agains~ the grain is communicated at multiple levels of his texts. 
~ er to aV?I~ t~e. dual .ri!ks of p ropo~ing a deceptively monolithi c 
Vlew of thiS offiCial gram and emplOYing Ranke as a polemical straw­
man, one must again acknowledge Sto rm's crit ique as a functi on of 

Writi ng Against the Gra in 117 

the reception of the particu lar histor i ogr~phical d i~otlrse a.ssociated 
with Ranke_ In their renections on the ep istemological aponas of ob­
ject ive history, Storm's te~1S call int~ question the.assu~pt.ions.of 
those nineteenth-century thinkers seeking to endow h Lstoncall.nqul~y 
with the 'exact' qualities of a science. His challenges to.the natl~nah~­
tic instnl menta lizal ion of history and popu lar concepuons of IlISwn­
cal progress under mine pivotal assumptions informing contempora­
neous ap proaches to the writing of history. 

Tn many ways, Swrm's historical fiction resembles very recent 
t rends in hiStor iography such as the penchant for AlIragsgescJ}/chle ~r 
"hisrory from below." \X'hereas Ranke and ~is disciples believed ~IS­
tory could be w ritt en exclusively on the baSIS of documents penam­
ing to state politics, dip lomacy, and mi litary st rategy. ~torm ~eveals a 
much b roade r concept ion of the documentary eVidence at the 
historian 's d isposal. T he histo rical manuscripts d~sco.v:red in Storm's 
textS are wriuen from the perspective of common mdlvlduals removed 
from the affairs of the domi nant political players of their day. They 
include representations of everyday life among the lo:-ver classes, de· 
pictions of class cannict, and descriptions of how major events ~lIch 
as the T hirty Years' War affected those at the lowest .level.s of s~c l.ety 
Like many other works of nineteenth-cemury hlStoncal ~I~tlon 
Storm's texts helped expand academic history'S nar ro~ definition. 0 

the "geschichtlich Bedeutungsvolle." su~esting. t~at hlslOfY consls~' 
of far more than the details of diplomatic negollauons and the publu 
deeds of great men.1Not only does he call fo r a revised apP.roach.I( 
the reading of historical documentation, he calls for ;Ii more lO~l.uslv~ 
concep ti on of what kind of documents could become the legill mat• 
basis for histo rical investigat ion. 

Given Storm's own concern wi lh imerrupting the processes 0 

historical transmission and reificalion, it seems particularly appropn 
ate to read lhe historical reception of Sto rm as a "p rovincial" writer 0 

sentimental novellas against the grain. And in light of the .recent popu 
la rizalion of homogenizing definitions of realism as the lu.erary coun 
te rpart to Bismarck's Reich, il seems suc.h attention to th 
Chroniknovellen of Storm is a necessary correcuve. 

Harvard University 



tJ8 Foms on Lileralllr 

Notes 

J All subsequent citations to Theodor Storm occur parenrheriC3l1y in 
[he text. 

• 1 For an insightful study of the role played by fiction in broadening the 
discourse of history in the ni nereemh centu ry, see Brent Peterson's article. 

\VI a rks Cited 

Berman, RusselLThe Rise a/tlte AJodern Gerlllan Novel: Crisis and Charisma 
Chambridge: Harvard, 1986. . 

Bol lenbeck, Georg. Theador Storm: Elfie Biographie. Frankfurt : fn sel, 1988. 
Fuchs, Walter Peler, edDas Brie/wert. Ha mburg: Hoffmann WId Campe, 19-f9. 
19gers, George. The German Conceplion a/flis/DIY: The Nallonal Tradition of 

Historical Thougll/ /rom Herder fa Ihe Prese"l . Middletown: Wesleyan 
L%8 > 

Jackson, David.1heodor Storm: The Life and Works of a Democratic Hlllllani­
tariatl . New York : Berg, 1992. 

LaCapra, Dominick. History and Criticism. Ithaca: Cornell 1985. 
Peterson, Brent. ·'Historica l Novels alld the Contents of German Hi story ." 

A4cmalsshefte 87.1 (1995): 48-67. 

Ranke, Leopold von. Aus Werk IIl/d Nach/ass. Vol. I(Tagehucher) . Mflnchen: 
R. Oldenbourg, 1964. 

Sheehan, James 1. ·: Foreword."Germall Essays on History. Ed. Rolf Siiltzer. 
New York: Continuum, 199 1. 

Srorm, Theodor. Werke. Miinchen: Kurt Desch, 1958. 

Helga Schubert's Judasfrauen: The Use 
of N arrative in Documentary Literature 

Cynthia Appl 

1'111 elga Schubert, born in 19-1-0 in Berlin, spent years as a clinical 
OJ psychologist before devoting herself exclusively 10 her writing 
in 1977. Since then she has wrinen a number of novels and short StO­
ries, many of which deal with evelJ'day problems of women. Schubert's 
distinct sryle is at once characterized by rational distance and empa­
thy toward her characrers. 

Helga Schubert 's Jlldavrallen, published in 1990, begins with a 
chapter entitl ed "Spitze1 und Verdter," an exploration of possible 
motives and psychological processes behind acts of political denuncia· 
tion. Ten of the eleven remain ing chapters are based on documeOlec 
cases of denunciation by women in Nazi Germany. These case studie~ 
are based on historical documents, but rather than presenting docu 
mentary material d irectly, Schubert incorporates documented fact· 
into narrative form, filling in the gaps when necessary. The resu ll is, 
narrat ive that is a blend of fac t and fiction. Schubert, however, detail 
her work process so that the reader can discern where the factual basi 
ends and Schubert's speculation begins. 

In the preface to the Luchterhand edition, H elga Schubert state 
twO goals: 1) to subvert what she perceives as a one-dimensiona 
heroization of women (Frallenveredeillng), which fails to acknowl 
edge female destructive potential; 2) to better understand the behavio 
of citizens in a to talitarian state. By focusing on denunciation b: 
women in Nazi Germany, Schubert add resses both goa ls. 

Regarding the second goal-understanding the effects of the tOtair 
tar ian state-Schubert suggests that the histOrical selling serves as 
vehicle fo r criticism of the GD R. When she began the project in 198 
she felt it necessary to offer an "encoded messJge" rather than direc 
critic ism. l Accordingly, the work impl ies pa rallels between structure 
of power and betrayal in the T hird Reich and in the GDR. 

FrxU$OIl Literatllr Vol. 2, No.2 (1995)