Tra parola e immagine: una rilettura dei Reiseberichte (1793) di Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder alla luce della circolarità ermeneutica.

Andrea Benedetti’s PhD thesis on the “travel journals in the form of letters” (Reiseberichte), written by the protoromantic intellectual Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder (2) (1773-1798) between May and September 1793 in Franconia (1), analyses how the notion of “hieroglyphic writing” is developed by Wackenroder in a fundamentally dialectic relationship between “spirit” (Geist) and “letter” (Buchstabe) and in consideration of his works’ collocation between the tail end of the illuminists’ “systematic rationalism” and the genesis of romantic sensitivity. (3) Following from this general thematic-temporal collocation, the Reiseberichte of 1793 are examined in a way that focuses on the essential dynamic of the relationship between “writing” (the written word) and “image” in these same works, seen as an expression of the 18th century travel literature genre. This dynamic is studied firstly in the light of its relationship with the specific thematic complex of Kunstreligion, or “religion of art” in Wackenroder’s aesthetic-spiritual conception (4) , and secondly in order to present the travel dimension as a complete sensory and cultural experience. On the one hand, the essentially interdisciplinary nature of the research is manifested by a general focus on the areas of interest more strictly related to comparative literature and speculative investigation (the relationship between German literature and English literature in the context of early romanticism and philosophy of landscape (5), as in the case of chapter 4), and on the resulting implications for the visual arts and for theoretical contributions to visual studies (the relationship between writing, painting and the landscape) . On the other hand, these same elements are also included in a thorough and particularly stimulating new heuristic approach, based on the so-called “hermeneutic circle” explained in detail in chapter 1 of the thesis. This approach derives from an overall elucidation of the results of an aesthetic inquiry into the experience of beauty (6) in light of recent developments in cognitive science (7) and neuroscience (8) and their application to the interpretation of the texts (neuro-hermeneutics) (9). The theoretical examination and development of the various elements identified here lay the foundations for a truly original interpretation of Wackenroder’sReiseberichte and one that expresses itself particularly in terms of the correlation between a basic, philological approach to the texts and an interpretation of images (paintings) in a predominantly cultural and neuro-hermeneutic key presented in chapter 2 and chapter 5 of the thesis respectively. Note: (1) Cfr. Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder: “Resoconti di viaggio di Wackenroder”, in Id., Opere e lettere. Scritti di arte, estetica e morale. In collaborazione con Ludwig Tieck, Testo tedesco a fronte, ed. by Elena Agazzi, Federica La Manna and Andrea Benedetti, Bompiani, Milano, 2014, pp. 924-1103 and pp. 1184-1213 (2) Cfr. Wilhelm Voßkamp: “‘alles Sichtbare haftet am Unsichtbaren’. Bilder und Hieroglyphenschrift bei Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder, Ludwig Tieck und Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis)”, in Wilhelm Voßkamp, Brigitte Weingart (eds.): Sichtbares und Sagbares. Text-Bild-Verhältnisse, Köln, DuMont, 2005, pp. 25-45. (3) This is best explained in chapter 3 with reference to the relationship between Wackenroder’s writings, the historical-linguistic analysis of Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), and the synthetic initiatic language of the pre-sturmerian mystic Johann Georg Hamann (1730-1788). (4) On this theme, see in particular: Martin Bollacher: Wackenroder und die Kunstauffassung der frühen Romantik, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1983, pp. 102-114; Bernd Auerochs: Die Entstehung der Kunstreligion, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 20092, pp. 482-502; Heinrich Detering: “Was ist Kunstreligion? Systematische und historische Bemerkungen”, in Albert Meier, Alessandro Costazza, Gérard Laudin (eds.): Kunstreligion. Ein ästhetisches Konzept der Moderne in seiner historischen Entfaltung, vol. 1, Der Ursprung des Konzepts um 1800, Berlin-New York, De Gruyter, 2011, pp. 11-27; Marco Rispoli: “Kunstreligion und künstlerischer Atheismus. Zum Zusammenhang von Glaube und Skepsis am Beispiel Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroders”, in A. Meier, A. Costazza, G. Laudin (eds.): Kunstreligion, vol. 1, cit., pp. 115-133. (5) In particular, reference to the area of visual studies is made with a view to re-interpreting the results of research attained by the Germanist and comparatist Michele Cometa. Among his many works, the following are of particular relevance to the arguments of this PhD thesis: Michele Cometa: Il romanzo dell’architettura. La Sicilia e il Grand Tour nell’età di Goethe, Laterza, Roma-Bari, 1999; particularly pp. 59-102. Michele Cometa: Dizionario degli studi culturali, ed. by Roberta Coglitore and Federica Mazzara, Meltemi, Roma, 2004; above all pp. 151-158, pp. 225-230 and pp. 425-433. Michele Cometa: Parole che dipingono. Letteratura e cultura visuale tra Settecento e Novecento, Meltemi, Roma, 2004; especially pp. 73-120; Michele Cometa: La scrittura delle immagini. Letteratura e cultura visuale, Raffaello Cortina editore, Milano, 2012, pp. 11-166. In the above sense, the thesis places particular emphasis on the definition of the concept of Ekphrasis, the verbal description/representation of images, as an influence of vivid, “energetic” visual experience – and especially the perception of reality – on words and writing, as recently emphasized in a work by the American researcher Maureen McCue: Maureen McCue: British Romanticism and the Reception of Italian Old Master Art, 1793-1840, Ashgate, Farnham, 2014, pp. 18-20. In this perspective, the thesis points out that the emotional impact of the perception of reality – which is the outcome of the process of representation through the productive and receptive activity of language seen as a medium, which in turn activates images stored in the mind of the speaker or listener – provides the discriminating factor in an authentic, modern approach to Ekphrasis. This re-interpretation of Ekphrasis, thanks to its vividness and energy, allows us to review the overall theme of Wackenroder’s Kunstreligion from a hermeneutic point of view, first of all starting from the important results presented in Dirk Kemper’s 1993 monography: cfr. Dirk Kemper: Sprache der Dichtung. Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder im Kontext der Spätaufklärung, Metzler, Stuttgart-Weimar, 1993; in particular pp. 141-143. (6) In this sense, Andrea Pinotti’s reflections in Estetica della Pittura (2007), on the essential components of the creative artistic process, are extremely important, as they pay great attention to the ways in which the perceptive process, through emotional co-participation (Einfühlung) in the contemplated object, is translated and conveyed through the medium of writing and/or painting. On this subject, see Andrea Pinotti: Estetica della pittura, Il Mulino, Bologna, 2007. (7) Conclusions drawn on the basis of the following two works (among others): Mark Turner: The Literary Mind, Oxford University Press, New York, 19961; Simone Winko: “Verstehen literarischer Texte versus literarisches Verstehen von Texten? Zur Relevanz kognitionspsychologischer Verstehensforschung für das hermeneutische Paradigma der Literaturwissenschaft”, in «Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte», vol. 69, n. 1 (1995), pp. 1-27. (8) Conclusions drawn from the following research: Vittorio Gallese, Luciano Fadiga, Leonardo Fogassi, Giacomo Rizzolatti: “Action recognition in the premotor cortex”, in «Brain», vol. 119 (1996), pp. 593-609. (9) On this subject cfr. especially Renata Gambino, Grazia Pulvirenti: Storie menti mondi. Approccio neuroermeneutico alla letteratura, Milano, Mimesis, 2018.