Tensions in Anthropological Discourse around 1800: Play,Identity, and Cognitive Crisis in Kleist's <i>Amphitryon</i>

ZHANG Shu

doi:10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214207

Volume 4 Issue 2

Jul. 2021

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ZHANG Shu. Tensions in Anthropological Discourse around 1800: Play,Identity, and Cognitive Crisis in Kleist's Amphitryon[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2021, 4(2): 339-351. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214207

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ZHANG Shu. Tensions in Anthropological Discourse around 1800: Play,Identity, and Cognitive Crisis in Kleist's Amphitryon[J]. International Comparative Literature, 2021, 4(2): 339-351. doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214207

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Tensions in Anthropological Discourse around 1800: Play,Identity, and Cognitive Crisis in Kleist's Amphitryon

doi: 10.19857/j.cnki.ICL.20214207

ZHANG Shu^,

Beijing Foreign Studies University

Received Date: 2020-12-01
Rev Recd Date: 2021-01-04

Abstract

Abstract

As a representative writer of the period of German literature around 1800,between Weimar Classicism and Romanticism,Kleist not only reveals the darkness,violence,desire,and madness in Greek mythology,but also introduces modern consciousness to the characters of Greek drama.The story of Jupiter being incarnated as Amphitryon obtains new interpretation in his writing.The problems of perceptive disorder,emotional confusion,loss of rationality,and failure of identity raised in the play pose a challenge to the concept of "der ganze Mensch", which was highly praised by classical humanism,and reflect the complex discourse of the era.The recreating of the mythical archetypes embodies the disenchantment with traditional belief systems of authority and the doubt about the new anthropological model of rationality and perception;it also implies the conflicts between emotional impulse,morality,and law,and fully shows the tension field that consists of reason and sensation,cognition and perception.The repeating and replacing of mythic heroes in literature is an embodiment of eternal game between present text and hidden discourse system.
- play,
- Doppelgä,
- nger,
- identity,
- Kleist

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References(16)

References

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