Understanding Irony - Three Essais On Friedrich Schlegel

Understanding Irony: Three Essais on Friedrich Schlegel
Author(s): Georgia Albert

Source: MLN, Vol. 108, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1993), pp. 825-848
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2904879
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Understanding Irony:
Three essais on Friedrich Schlegel
Georgia Albert
Irony is unrelieved vertige,

dizziness to the point of madness.
Paul de Man
[. Chaos and Vertigo
In a note written around 1800 Schlegel recorded his dissatisfact

with Kant's conclusion that the question about the infinity of
world is a meaningless and empty one for human reason:
Antinomies should not have moved Kant to give up the infinite
Unendliche], but the principle of non-contradiction-."1 Schlegel's ave
sion to the logical axiom called the principle of non-contradicti
which states the invalidity of any judgment that makes two oppo
predications about the same object, is not without precedent in
writings. Similarly transgressive views against it are also expre
elsewhere in texts from this period, as for example in the note f
1797 which states: "Every sentence, every book that does not con
dict itself is incomplete-" (KFSA 18:83), or in the Athendum Fr
ment 39:
Most thoughts are only the profiles of thoughts. They have to be turned
around and synthesized with their antipodes. This is how many philo-
sophical works acquire a considerable interest that they would otherwise
have lacked. (KFSA 2:171; Fragments, 23)
Most often, the name Schlegel gives to the situation in which the
principle of non-contradiction is defied is "irony." In contrast to the
view adopted by rhetorical treatises at least since Aristotle, irony is
MLN, 108 (1993): 825-848 ? 1993 by The Johns Hopkins University Press
826 GEORGIA ALBERT
not understood here as the rhetorical convention that allows the

speaker to express something by saying its opposite, and the inter
pretation of the ironic discourse does not consist simply in turning
the "literal" statement upside down to obtain the "intended" mean
ing: irony is the simultaneous presence of two meanings between
which it is not possible to decide. Such, for example, is the view pu
forth in the definition of irony as "analysis of thesis and antithesis
(KFSA 16:154), where "analysis" is presumably to be understood no
in Kant's but in Fichte's sense as "the procedure by which one looks
for the characteristic in which the compared entities are opposed
[entgegengesetzt] ."2 A better known and more extensively argued con-
demnation of the traditional, one-sided view of irony is found in th
Lyceum Fragment 108:
[Socratic irony] is meant to deceive no one except those who consider it
a deception and who either take pleasure in the delightful roguery of
making fools of the whole world or else become angry when they get a
inkling they themselves might be included. In this sort of irony, every
thing should be playful and everything should be serious, everything
guilelessly open and everything deeply hidden.... It contains and
arouses a feeling of indissoluble antagonism between the absolute and
the relative, between the impossibility and the necessity of complete
communication (Fragments, 13, translation modified).3
To understand irony according to the classical definition is to un-

derstand it as deception (Tduschung): those who do this never get
more than half the message, and in fact do not understand irony a
all. If "in [it] everything should be playful [Scherz] and everythin
should be serious [Ernst]," it is useless to try to separate what
"meant" from what is "said": however contradictory the relationsh
of the two sides of the statement to each other might be, both ar
necessary and have to be taken into account.4
The rejection of the principle of non-contradiction expressed in
the note about Kant is, then, nothing new for Schlegel: similar, if
less explicit, statements can be found in numerous other texts from
the same period. What is particularly interesting in this fragment i
the fact that the issue is taken up in connection with the question o
infinity. Schlegel's reference in the note is to the section of th
Critique of Pure Reason devoted to the "Antinomies of Pure Reason
There, Kant shows that it is possible to make perfectly coherent an
logically correct arguments both to prove and to disprove the spati
and temporal infinity of the world. Since, however, this possibility
logically unacceptable (because of its incompatibility with the prin
MLN 827
ciple of non-c
opposed partie
the principle of
mative and a n
the question-th
Schlegel, faced
the question of
verses Kant's co
contradiction r
infinity that r
lies in Schlegel'
ly as the possib
ments might b
412, for examp
Who has a sense for the infinite and knows what he wants to do with it
sees in it the result of eternally separating and uniting powers ... and
utters, when he expresses himself decisively, nothing but contradictions
(lauter Widerspriiche) (KFSA 2:243; Fragnents, 83, TM).
"Who has a sense for the infinite ... utters, when he expresses
himself decisively, nothing but contradictions." This connection be-
tween a self-contradictory way of speaking and what Schlegel calls
infinity founds many of his best-known assertions regarding irony.
Since irony is the place where opposites come into contact with each
other (it is "the form of paradox": Lyceum Fragment 48, KFSA 2:153;
Fragments, 6), it also constitutes the possibility of achieving some sort
of link with infinity. It remains to ask in what, exactly, this link
consists.
Perhaps the most explicit reference to this question is found in

one of the unpublished "Philosophical Fragments" Schlegel wrote
in 1798 after the publication of the Athendum fragments: "Irony is so
to speak the cEtiSEttii of the infinite, of universality, of the sense for
the universe" (KFSA 18:128). The rhetorical term "epideixis" enters
Schlegel's vocabulary by way of Aristotle's distinction (in Rhetoric i.3)
between different types of public speech. Defined by contrast with
the speech in council, meant to convince or dissuade, and the
speech in court, aimed at proving innocence or guilt, the epideictic
speech was supposed to praise or censure the actions of a public
figure.6 The relevance of this concept to the relationship between
irony and what Schlegel calls "the infinite," "universality," and "the
sense for the universe," though not immediately obvious, becomes
828 GEORGIA ALBERT
easier to see once one takes notice

the term acquires in Schlegel's us
the concept is found in the intr
Epitaph ofLysias: the "goal" of th
says, "to let the ability of the or
listeners or readers" (KFSA 1:141
speech consists in the proof it
interest is less in the content of
less in what is said than in how well it is said. While Aristotle makes
the distinction between the different types of speech dependent on
their themes, this plays a secondary role in Schlegel's definition.
The orator's proof of his ability is not based on an argument about
it: the speech itself shows it simply by being a good speech. That is,
the real theme of the speech is not what it discusses, but what it
demonstrates or stages.7
The relationship between irony and infinity is therefore defined
in this fragment as a very particular type of reference, one that is
based on the possibility of making something visible by putting it on
display or giving it an appearance (by "playing" it) rather than by
talking about it. Irony "means" infinity by representing it; more
precisely, and anticipating somewhat: by reproducing its structure.
This structure is that of the paradox, of constitutive and irreducible
self-contradiction, of the simultaneous co-presence of mutually ex-
clusive elements. The other name for "the infinite," "universality,"
and "the sense for the universe" is in fact another of Schlegel's key
terms from this period, a word he uses in its etymological and there-
fore in a similar sense: chaos (cf. Idee 69, KFSA 2:263).8 "Only that
kind of confusion is a chaos"-defines Schlegel-"out of which a
world can arise" (Idee 71, KFSA 2:263). How? "Through the under-
standing" ("Uber die Unverstandlichkeit," KFSA 2:370; "On Incom-
prehensibility," Wheeler, 38, TM). Chaos is the original indefinite-
ness, what is there before the understanding sorts it out in pairs of
opposites; irony, the possibility of defying the understanding, offers
a chance infinitely to approach this state.
How, exactly, is this supposed to function? Schlegel's assertion
about Socratic irony that "in it everything should be playful and
everything should be serious" (Lyceum Fragment 108) is once again
a helpful hint. The point is not to discard the "pretended" meaning
for the "intended" one: both sides of irony have to be thought
together. This is, however, precisely what is impossible. The two
"sides" are unable to coexist peacefully: Schlegel speaks, in different
MLN 829
contexts, of t
Fragment 108
two conflictin
Fragments, 33
necessity a wa
since each of
other.
The reader of the ironic text is therefore confronted with a pecu-
liarly difficult task. He must try to understand the text, but that
means trying to gain control over it precisely through the "Satz des
Widerspruchs"-through the very kind of binary logic that the text
brings into question. Thus the reading of the ironic text becomes a
sequence of incomplete interpretations in which first the one, then
the other "side" is privileged, and must constantly attempt to find a
way to bring the dialectical back-and-forth oscillation to its final
goal, to a synthesis of the two poles and thereby to rest. This final
synthesis, however, is regarded by Schlegel as unreachable: this is
shown by the unambiguous characterization of the "antagonism"
irony consists in as "indissoluble" as well as by the surprising and
strong wording of its definition as "analysis of thesis and antithesis."
Two aspects of irony become important in this context. The first:
the two poles cannot be brought together-except, of course, in the
ironic text which contains them, and which starts the process of
reading (in the same way that chaos consists of the original matter
and has to be sorted out by the understanding). The second: the
process itself is bound to go on forever. No interpretation can ex-
haust the meaning of the ironic text and bring it to rest: there will
always be an aspect of it that none of the successive readings, no
matter how comprehensive or sophisticated, will be able to take into
account. In its refusal to be tied down to a meaning the text be-
comes infinite, "within its limits limitless and inexhaustible," in
Schlegel's formulation (Athendum Fragment 297, KFSA 2:215; Frag-
ments, 59, TM).
Irony, then, as a means to a goal, as a conscious way of setting
something in motion? This has become a commonplace of Schlegel
criticism.9 Schlegel himself, however, seems to have taken his own
warning that "irony is something one simply cannot play games with"
("Uber die Unverstindlichkeit," KFSA 2:370; Wheeler, 37) more
seriously than some of his critics, and to have been well aware of the
difficulties that the attempt to use irony for one's own purposes can
produce. One expression of this preoccupation is the unsettling list
830 GEORGIA ALBERT
of "ironies of irony" in "On In

occurs when "irony turns into a m
ironical about the author" (KFS
What can Schlegel mean when he
turn back against the ironist? In
question, it is necessary to retu
sustained discussion of irony, th
vant parts of this long fragment
[Die sokratische Ironie] soil nieman
Tauschung halten, und entweder ih
Schalkheit, alle Welt zum besten zu
ahnden, sie waren wohl auch mit g
alles Ernst sein, alles treuherzig of
ein sehr gutes Zeichen, wenn die h
wie sie diese stete Selbstparodie zu
neuem glauben und miBglauben,
Scherz gerade fur Ernst, und den E
[ (Socratic irony) is meant to deceive

deception and who either take pl
making fools of the whole world or
inkling they themselves may be inclu
should be playful and serious, guilel
a very good sign when the harmoni
should react to this continuous self-
between belief and disbelief until the
joke seriously and what is meant se
To understand irony as deceptio

stand it according to the classica
vention that allows the speaker t
opposite. According to this tradit
the real meaning of the ironic st
that the speaker is making use o
he is speaking ironically-and to t
opposite. The result of this mode
between the initiates and the vic
able to identify irony in the spea
sure in the delightful roguery of
(read: those who don't understan
the last laugh, however, and it m
after all: the mere suspicion that
is enough for those who had "t
MLN 831
angry in their
decide for or a
be themselves
feigns irony to
an "irony of ir
tive: a double i
had not seen an
and can feel in
this as for the
back-and-forth
to it all those w
they were on
experience:
It is a very good sign when the harmonious bores [die harmonisch Platten]
are at a loss about how they should react to this continuous self-parody,
when they fluctuate endlessly between belief and disbelief [immer wieder
von neuem glauben und mifiglauben] until they get dizzy [bis sie schwindlicht
werden] and take what is meant as a joke seriously and what is meant
seriously as a joke [den Scherz gerade fir Ernst, und den Ernst fur Scherz
halten].
The "harmonisch Platten" are not simply those who do not under-
stand irony, but those who insist on equating irony with deception,
and on preferring one interpretation-either one-to the other.
Unable to make a final decision, they keep changing their minds,
oscillating in an endlessly repeated movement between believing
and misbelieving, between reading the text as a joke [Scherz] and
reading it as straightforward [Ernst], until, having been made dizzy
[schwindlicht] by this ever-accelerating vortex, they stop the process
by blindly settling on whatever side they were last on.
The Schwindel (vertigo, dizziness) is the sense of not being able to
stand, of losing one's balance. When one feels dizzy, one needs
something to hold on to. This is, however, precisely the possibility
irony does not give: if "in it everything should be playful [Scherz] and
everything should be serious [Ernst]," it is not just difficult but im-
possible to make a choice. The mistake of the "harmonious bores"
would consist not in their getting irony "right" or "wrong," but in
their insisting on wanting to know whether they are getting it right
or wrong.10
It is perhaps surprising, though not difficult to see, that the phe-
nomenon that is here called "getting dizzy" and described as a sort
832 GEORGIA ALBERT
of punishment for the stubborn

is not essentially different from
that should have opened the way
the final, arbitrary choice of t
"[taking] what is meant as a jo
ously as a joke [den Scherz . . . f
halten]": this formulation seem
"right" solution that would con
as a joke as a joke and what is
bility that is consistently deni
whose assumption would amo
the attitude that is supposed to
Suddenly it becomes difficult
"harmonious bores" (those who
voice of the fragment, which
says confidently and somewhat
got it, [Socratic irony] will rem
confessed" (KFSA 2:160; Fragme
to correct the "harmonious b
capability of "harmonious bored
serene than one might expect,
and of being the victim, rather t
It is worth reading once again
tions in this power game: "[Socr
schen] no one except those w
schung]." One should perhaps
recognize that it pulls the iron
dizziness of the "harmonious b
ceive only those who understan
as deception. The sentence says:
read irony: the wrong way is t
wrong way. But by making this d
it warns against; more importa
from which it cannot be freed.
read irony (which is to recogn
way), but precisely by doing th
the definition of irony as so
pinned down can itself not be
question and is drawn into the
on to describe. The attempt to
something whose meaning can
MLN 833
ducing an infin
to irony. Irony
escapes definit
of irony (subje
prehensibility."
as Schlegel con
the author" (K
over his irony
started is in da
something in m
affects his ow
stable standpoi
time before so
pendence from
subjective resp
incomprehensi
II. Schlegel's In
daB er nicht falle
The essay "Uber die Unverstandlichkeit" ("On Incomprehen

sibility") appeared in 1800 in the last issue of the Athendum, the
short-lived literary journal the brothers Schlegel had founded just
two years earlier.12 It constitutes Schlegel's answer to the accusa-
tions of incomprehensibility that had been levelled against the jour-
nal in general and his fragments in particular, and whose cause he
identifies with the irony "that to a greater or lesser extent is to be
found everywhere in it" (368; Wheeler, 36).13 A polemical introduc-
tion, in which several contemporaries (the popular philosopher
Garve, the chemist Girtanner and the proponents of "common
sense") are made objects of more or less pointed attacks, serves to
pave the way to the middle part of the essay, which is devoted to th
alleged incomprehensibility of the texts of the Athendum. There,
Schlegel first quotes the controversial fragment about the "three
greatest tendencies of the age" (Athendum Fragment 216) and ex-
plains to what extent and why it has been misunderstood; then he
discusses, also with the help of self-quotations (the Lyceum Frag-
ments 48 and 108), the nature and effects of irony. The last part of
the essay discusses incomprehensibility in general, asks whether it is
"so unmitigatedly contemptible and evil" (370; Wheeler, 38), and
834 GEORGIA ALBERT
ends with a "gloss" based on Go

the Athendum and of the Roma
The main problem that present
that of the reconciliation of its
The text asks at the same tim
possibility of communication
communication [of ideas] is at
and a practical one about the
texts of the Athendum; but it soon becomes clear that the theoretical
question about incomprehensibility and the practical question
about the incomprehensibility of the Athendum do not produce
quite the same answer. On the one hand, the argument about in-
comprehensibility in general is brought in connection with the
structural incomprehensibility of irony and in particular with the
discussion of "Socratic irony" in the Lyceum Fragment 108, which is
quoted almost in its entirety. An ironic text, the argument runs,
cannot be understood because it produces two equally legitimate
but mutually exclusive meanings; moreover, incomprehensibility is
necessary and good: "man's most precious possession ... depends
in the last analysis ... on some such point of strength that must be
left in the dark, but that nonetheless shores up and supports the
whole burden" (370; Wheeler, 38). On the other hand, the essay is a
vehement attack against the contemporary readers, who are accused
of being themselves responsible for finding the Athendum incompre-
hensible: "the basis of the incomprehensible [des Unverstdndlichen]
is to be found in incomprehension [im Unverstand]" (363; Wheeler,
32-33). Incomprehensibility, it is said, is "relative" (364; Wheeler,
33), and depends on the incompetence either of the writer (e.g.,
Garve) or of the reader. Readers just have to "learn how to read"
(365; Wheeler, 33; cf. also 371), and the problem will be solved.
The peculiar superposition of these two registers in the text has
been noticed before and differently interpreted either as a symptom
of Schlegel's getting carried away and not being calm enough to act
on his own theories of ironyl4 or as a particularly sophisticated way
to increase the confusion of the reader and therefore put the "basic
thought of this essay"-"praise and deeper justification of incom-
prehensibility"'5-into practice: "The problem of incomprehen-
sibility needs and looks for an 'incomprehensible' form of expres-
sion".16 There might, however, be other ways to read this difficulty
than simply as rhetorical success or failure. It might well be that
there is a structural problem at the base of the disorganized impres-
MLN 835
sion the essay

that character
communication
disturbance of
himself comme
tells about the
about incompr
I wanted to prov
tive . . . and so that the whole business shouldn't turn around in too
palpable a circle I had made a firm resolve really to be comprehen

[verstindlich], at least this time.... Consequently I had to think of
popular medium to bond chemically the holy, delicate, fleeting, a
fragrant, and, as it were, imponderable thought. Otherwise, how
might it have been misunderstood [miflverstanden], since only throug
well-considered [wohlverstandnen] employment was an end finally
made of all understandable misunderstandings [alien verstindlichen
verstindnissen]? (364; Wheeler, 33).
How is it possible to speak comprehensibly about incompreh

sibility? Incomprehension shows that there is a problem, a
the broadest terms-that the problem is connected with on
of language. An argument tending to the elimination of in
prehensibility, since it makes use of language just like any oth
exposed to the very same problem that it set out to eliminate.
through the understanding of the argument will understandi
possible, but this means that in order to understand the argu
one has to have already understood it. A similar problem is p
for a text that argues about the necessity of incomprehensibil
what it says is true, it has to be incomprehensible; but if it is i
prehensible (in Schlegel's sense, that is by making two op
statements about its topic, in this case incomprehensibility) it
impossible to tell what it is that it has to say about
incomprehensibility-whether or not it argues for its necessity. The
form this question takes in "Uber die Unverstindlichkeit" is that of
the difficulty (or impossibility) of interpreting irony. On the one
hand, the text is a discussion of the problems posed by irony; on the
other hand, it defines itself as an ironic text.17 Does it itself pose the
problems it discusses? And in that case, is it able to apply its discus-
sion to itself?
One of the most disturbing moments in the text for the reader
who wants to find in it "praise and deeper justification of incom-
prehensibility" is Schlegel's explanation of the so-called "Ten-
836 GEORGIA ALBERT
denzen" fragment (366-67; Whee

incomprehensibility of the Ath
readers (as appears to be impli
then it should be possible to exp
has posed. And, it seems, Schlege
fragment and explains, with the
had wanted to say with it, that
stood. The "Tendenzen" fragmen
good example of the incompeten
since the way in which it has be
pattern: the misunderstanding c
that should have been perfectly u
fragment where the author ha
have created no difficulties. The
difficulties in interpretation is,
of irony. The part of the frag
should not have been misunders
was said "almost without any iron
have been incomprehensible is w
fangt nun auch schon die Ironie
of the fragment speaks here with
claim to authority over his own
irony he has spoken ("almost wit
know with certainty where iron
begins" ("da . . . fngt die Iron
however, when the author wants to exert his control over his own
text, the text eludes this control and says something else. For the
irony that "begins" at that point in the explanation is not just the
irony that the author has consciously and on purpose injected into
the fragment, but also, and perhaps even more, another irony-the
(tragic) irony, no longer controlled by the author, of the fact that
the fragment has been read as ironical where it was meant straight-
forwardly, and taken seriously where there would have been reasons
to read ironically.
The attempt to anticipate and steer the expected incomprehen-
sion of the text by providing it on purpose with a measurable
amount of ambiguity is an attempt to keep control over the text.
Since one expects it to be misunderstood, one tries at least to influ-
ence the way in which the misunderstanding will take place. But the
misunderstanding of the text cannot be predicted in advance and
cannot be controlled: one has to let it happen. This second irony
MLN 837
that "begins" h
the essay-the i
who believes h
controlled any
In the paragra
very situation
the irony of ir
ohne zu merken, daB man sich zu eben der Zeit in einer viel auf-
fallenderen Ironie findet"-"when one speaks of irony ironically
[literally: with irony] without in the process being aware of having
fallen into a far more noticeable irony" (369; Wheeler, 37, TM). It is
possible to read this as a commentary on the sentence "and this is
where the irony begins." We have the irony of which one speaks (the
irony that Schlegel has put into his fragment); we have the "far
more noticeable irony" in which one finds oneself (the irony of the
misunderstanding of the fragment); and finally, we have the irony
with which one speaks, namely the irony of the sentence "and this is
where the irony begins," which on the one hand asserts the control
of the author over his text (here is where irony starts-and you
didn't see it) and on the other hand denies it by describing the
situation in which the irony that the author had put into his text has
spread out and infected other areas of the text that should have
been "irony-free."
Not least affected by the epidemic, of course, is the sentence "und
da fangt nun auch schon die Ironie an" ("and this is where irony
begins"), in which nothing speaks against reading the deictic "da"-
here/there-as referring-also-to itself. It is its own irony that the
sentence is calling attention to at least as much as the irony in/of
the "Tendenzen" fragment, and it is here that the movement be-
comes dizzying indeed. The irony "with which one speaks," that is,
the irony produced as well as named by the sentence "und da fangt
nun auch schon die Ironie an," can hardly be understood as inten-
tional. The text itself is now producing the effect of Socratic irony-
the ability to make two incompatible statements. The two state-
ments ("I, author, know what happens in my text" and "my text can
also mean something other than what I wanted it to mean, can also
be ironic independently of my will") make contradictory claims
about the status of the author-and therefore of the possibility of
controlling or understanding irony.
The explanation of the "Tendenzen" fragment is where the proof
for the "relativity" of incomprehensibility should be delivered. In-
838 GEORGIA ALBERT
comprehensibility can only be "re

for his text: if he can show that
text in a particular way. But pre
claim is being made, the text esca
it is no longer possible to decide
irony means to want to prove tha
that to misunderstand it is not
tence. But the argument about t
made by way of a text that is ir
prehensible. The irony of the t
irony in the text.
There is also an alternative way
of what can indeed be recognized
("praise and ... justification of in
Strohschneider-Kohrs' precise
argue-and it has been done18-t
"Tendenzen" fragment is meant
make fun of the "harmonious bo
to do such a thing as explain iron
incomprehensibility without und
This interpretation would have t
perate all the statements in the
tion of readers: these readers would not be "better" readers in the
sense that they would no longer misunderstand the texts of the
Athendum, but rather in the sense that they would accept the incom-
prehensibility of irony as something necessary and good. This would
confirm that the unifying concern of the text is, indeed, to prove
that irony is incomprehensible and that there is a certain value to it;
it would also clear away the problem created by the attempted expla-
nation of the "Tendenzen" fragment. It would be wrong, however,
to assume that this solution makes the text come to rest on a unified
meaning, on a unified definition of irony. In order to come to such
a unified meaning, it is necessary to read the explanation of the
"Tendenzen" fragment as being meant ironically and to understand
it correctly by translating it into its opposite. In other words, one has
to base one's reading on the assumption that the text only pretends
to explain irony, while what it is really saying is that this is impossi-
ble, and what it is really doing is making fun of the attempt. But this
would mean that the statement that irony is incomprehensible is, in
fact, made by way of an ironical assertion of its comprehensibility-
an ironical assertion that is fully comprehensible: the reader hasjust
MLN 839
understood it b
therefore, does
about irony in
irony of the t
To summarize
meant ironical
attempt to exp
derstood"; how
the text, what
prehensibility o
attempting to
ironic structur
two contradict
ny).
We have come back to the problem of the beginning: in what way
is it possible to prove the necessity of incomprehensibility? In order
to argue for it, the text has to be comprehensible-and belie what it
says by being able to say it. Alternatively, the text can be incompre-
hensible (make two opposite statements about incomprehen-
sibility), but then it will not be possible to decide what it says about
incomprehensibility. The "education" of the reader consists in mak-
ing him understand that it is not possible to understand;l' this
attempt, however, is caught up in its own impossibility and can do
nothing but turn permanently on itself. The irony of the essay "Uber
die Unverstandlichkeit" is already an "irony of irony," an irony to
the second degree: it consists in its producing two statements about
irony which contradict not only each other but also themselves at
the same time. It is irony's own irony that the attempt to define and
therefore control it (even as what cannot be defined and gets out of
control) can do nothing but get out of control. Irony turns back on
the ironist by questioning his authority over his text, his ability ever
to make it say what he would like it to say, and finally even the
possibility of speaking about authorial intentions at all.20
Does this mean, then, that we have finally "understood" incom-
prehensibility, and that we are the-somewhat belated-competent
readers whose arrival on the scene is announced by Schlegel at the
end of the essay? About these readers he says that they will "be able
to savour the fragments with much gratification and pleasure in the
after-dinner hours" (371; Wheeler, 38). They will "find ... A. W.
Schlegel's didactic Elegies almost too simple and transparent" (371;
Wheeler, 38)-and think that they have understood everything. But
840 GEORGIA ALBERT
precisely for this reason they w

have forgotten that "a classical
hensible [mufi nie ganz verstanden
unexpectedly, immediately afte
these future readers. They will h
understand everything because
this name (those which Schle
plete"21) does not let itself be t
that one has understood everything, one has forgotten the
essential-namely, that the text says also the opposite of what one
thinks one has understood. Just when one thinks one is finally out of
it, one is pulled back into the vortex of the sequence of readings just
as the author is caught in the double bind of his attempt to produce
a "complete" text-in the "unaufl6sliche[n] Widerstreit... der
Unm6glichkeit und Notwendigkeit einer vollstandigen Mitteilung"
(Lyceum Fragment 108). The back and forth of necessity and impos-
sibility of complete communication (and understanding) is con-
demned to go on, and the feeling of "infinity" which one is sup-
posed to experience by way of irony is not something that leaves the
subject unaffected, but is a movement one cannot stand outside of,
a vertiginous vortex that makes one "schwindlicht," dizzy. And once
we are again aware of this metaphor, we should perhaps notice the
close connection between "verstehen" (understanding) and "steh-
en" (standing) and take the very last line of the essay as a (serious?)
warning to the reader: "Und wer steht, daB er nicht falle"-"And
who stands, that he may not fall."22
III. Permanent Parabasis
A further aspect of the problem of irony as Schlegel describes

be discussed on the basis of its appearance in association
vocabulary borrowed from the world of the theater. Thus, for
ple, in the Gesprdch iiber die Poesie (Dialogue on Poetry): "Even in
popular genres, for example in drama, we require irony: we r
that the events, the people, in short the whole play [Spiel] o
should be taken and represented as play [Spiel]" (KFSA 2:323)
in the much quoted posthumous fragment that defines: "Iro
permanent parabasis [eine permanente Parekbase] -" (KFSA 18:
is well known, the parabasis is the part in Old Attic comedy in
the chorus temporarily steps out of the linear development
plot of the play and, turning around to face the audience, add
MLN 841
it directly, ma
events. In Schl
a speech address
of the play in t
and breaking of
greatest lack of
edge of the prosc
Chor], would say
pdischen Literat
The parabasis,
tion of irony
can be read as
lines of meani
this description
Poesie produce
due to their us
not described
other as fiction
icance of the p
the interruptio
that opposes it
gel: "Spiel") as
the "real" wor
quence of even
and meaning o
arbitrary. The
own fictionalit
unspoken agre
tion of the pla
reality at all ti
fiction, and th
go on and to b
The parabasis i
fiction: by the
since the inter
to be fiction b
fiction. Struct
same position i
ruption of the
rupted in its tu
842 GEORGIA ALBERT
the fact that the parabasis repres

the play, i.e., plays reality just a
boundaries of the play, the parab
"reality" does outside the play; b
in its turn merely play of realit
fiction are no longer so clearly
The parabasis makes visible the
tor area by stepping up to, stepp
nian comedy this is symbolized b
as Schlegel says, goes up all the w
address the spectators. But what
the actors on the stage interrup
recognize themselves as actors, b
role. The actors in the chorus "a
actors in a chorus-they play the
can become difficult to decide whether the audience, to which a
role has also been assigned (it is addressed), consists of citizens of
Athens or of people who are playing this role (their everyday real-
ity). The unmasking of the play as fiction can only happen to the
extent that it also at the same time points to the fact that reality
might possibly also be fiction: in Schlegel's words, that the "Spiel des
Lebens" might be just that, "Spiel."
In Old Attic comedy this questioning is rigidly structured and its
duration has a set limit. As soon as the parabasis ends and the play
resumes, the spectators can sit back and recognize themselves again
as spectators, that is, as reality by contrast with the fiction of the
characters on stage. Something more akin to Schlegel's idea of the
"permanent parabasis" might be, on the other hand, the list of
characters of Tieck's play Der gestiefelte Kater (Puss-in-Boots), where
one finds, side by side with the characters of the King, of Gottlieb,
and of the cat Hinze, also that of the "public" ("Das Publikum").25
Since the various spectator characters who play an active role in the
comedy are listed individually in the character list ("Fischer, Mfiller,
Schlosser, B6tticher, Leutner, Wiesener, His neighbor") and are
helpfully identified as "Zuschauer," spectators, "das Publikum" can
mean nothing other than the "real" audience that is in the theater
to see the play. But by way of its presence in the list of characters of
the play, the audience is at the same time there to watch Dergestiefelte
Kater and to play in it: it is on the one hand the reality outside the
play and, on the other, since it has a part in it, part of its fiction. In
this case the border between the stage and the spectator area, be-
MLN 843
tween fiction
straight line a
talk in the lob
know whether
sodes that inte
of the cat) and
they play realit
The ironical sp
realizes that he
is obviously fr
spectator who
are a part of his
part of the pla
his irony is iro
University of Califo
NOTES
Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe, ed. Ernst Behler with Jean-Jacques

Hans Eichner (Munich: Sch6ningh, 1958-; henceforth KFSA), vol.
quotations from Schlegel are from this edition and will be identified
and page number in the main text. Translations of the Athendum a
("Critical") fragments are by Peter Firchow and are quoted from
Schlegel, Philosophical Fragments (Minneapolis: University of Minn
1991; henceforth Fragments). The translation of "Uber die Unverst
is also Firchow's and is quoted from Kathleen Wheeler, ed., German Aes
Literary Criticism: The Romantic Ironists and Goethe (Cambridge: Cam
versity Press, 1984). All other translations are mine unless otherwis
Thanks to the teachers and colleagues, too numerous to name h
offered generous criticism, advice, and encouragement on this pape
2 Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (H
lix Meiner Verlag, 1988), 32; cf. also 45. A more extensive treatm
relationship between Schlegel and Fichte, such as the recent ones
Bubner ("Zur dialektischen Bedeutung romantischer Ironie," in E
and Jochen H6risch, eds., Die Aktualitdt der Friihromantik [Paderb
ingh, 1987], 85-95); Paul de Man ("The Concept of Irony," in Aesthet
ed. Andrzej Warminski [Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
ing]); and Werner Hamacher ("Der Satz der Gattung: Friedrich Sch
tologische Umsetzung von Fichtes unbedingtem Grundsatz," MLN
1155-80) would take us far afield here. However, it should be clear th
"Analyse," taken in this sense, leaves little room for an understanding
a movement tending to unification: immediately after the definition
Fichte goes so far as to rename the "analytic process" "antithetical,
the grounds that this new name (i.e., "antithetisches Verfahren"
more clearly that this process is the opposite of the synthetic one"
pretations of this fragment usually miss the reference, taking the wor
844 GEORGIA ALBERT
in an everyday sense, and tend to be ra

ple, D. C. Muecke comments: "Schlege
sides but regards both sides critically."
& Co: 1969), 200. Similarly, Anne K. Me
statement fit her fundamentally dom
texts. She writes: "This philosophical
finite, the free and the conditioned] . .
a 'critical examination' and rejection of
the imagination to create a new conceptio
this new conception must, in turn, b
analysis, an analysis that recognizes its li
that Schlegel insists that 'Irony is ana
Romantic Irony (Cambridge: Harvard U
In more general terms, formulations
tended to pose problems not only on
interpretations of his philosophical pro
Steven Alford's study of Schlegel's criti
tions with Romantic irony is strewn w
"[T]he idea of opposites and their syn
Indeed, as we have just seen the aim o
Steven E. Alford, Irony and the Logic of
Lang, 1984), 51.
3 A valuable recent commentary on th
context of German Romantic and post-
be found in Uwe Japp, Theorie der Ironie
1983), 113-33.
4 Oddly enough, even writers on irony
ignore his critique of the rhetorical han
for example, states: "Irony can . . . be
of communication between the initia
nection, there must also be a connect
information is accompanied by signal
present both codes in such a way that h
in their contradictory conjunction." Ficti
vard University Press, 1984), 15.
5 "There can therefore be no way of settl
both sides, save by their becoming conv
refute one another, that they are reall
certain transcendental illusion has mock
be found." Immanuel Kant, Kritik der r
vol. 2 (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 19
Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St. M
A more modern version of this attem
less by simply taking a few precauti
Quine's classic essay "The Ways of Par
as "veridical" and "falsidical" paradox
paradoxes turn out to be simply clever
on February 29 can be 21 after only 5
proven to be based on fallacies (Quine
on a division by 0), the only "real" para
kinds of paradoxes that produce the c
Quine, who as a logician is no less intere
of non-contradiction than Kant is, hast
be solved provided one is willing to giv
MLN 845
a self-contradictio
and trusted patte
avoided or revised
and Other Essays
problematic habit
For an illuminati
disruptive natur
Nuclear Criticism
6 Aristotle, Rhetor
Random House, 1
7 Other appearan
consistently in th
"Beweis" (in contr
text of discussio
found later in association with terms like "Mimos" (KFSA 16:54) and "Nach-
machen" (KFSA 16:55).
8 "XA'OE... chaos, the first state of the universe.... 2. space, the expanse of
air.... 2b. infinite time.... 3. the nether abyss, infinite darkness. ... 4. any vast gulf
or chasm." Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, re-
vised by Sir H. S. Jones (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968).
9 See for example Ingrid Strohschneider-Kohrs, "Der Begriff der Ironie in der
Konzeption Friedrich Schlegels," Die romantische Ironie in Theorie und Gestaltung
(Tibingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1960), especially 39-41 and 70; Franz Nor-
bert Mennemeier, "Fragment und Ironie beimjungen Friedrich Schlegel," Poet-
ica 2 (1968): 348-70, especially 366; Ernst Behler, "The Theory of Irony in
German Romanticism," in Frederick Garber, ed., Romantic Irony (Budapest:
Akad6miai Kiad6, 1988) 43-81, especially 62 ff.
10 Eric Baker first pointed out to me that the "Schwindel" implied by the "schwind-
licht werden" can be understood not only in the more obvious sense of "dizzi-
ness, giddiness" but also in its second meaning as lie, swindel, or fraud. The
possibility of this wordplay seems especially significant in a text that discusses
the possibility of reading irony as Tduschung or deception. Corroborating mate-
rial for this reading is given by a passage in Tieck's 1793 essay on "Shakespeares
Behandlung des Wunderbaren," referred to by Manfred Frank in his Einfiihrung
in diefriihromantische Asthetik (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1989), 374, where the
words Schwindel and Tduschung occur in the context of a discussion of the ability
to deceive an audience into believing in an illusion. Tieck compares Shake-
speare's treatment of the fantastic to the dreamworld, in which "our ability to
judge is so confused that we forget the marks by which we normally judge the
real, we find nothing on which to fix our eyes; our soul is sent into a sort of
dizziness [in eine Art von Schwindel versetzt], in which it finally, by necessity,
abandons itelf to the illusion [ Tduschung: deception], since it has lost sight of all
the markings of truth and of error." Ludwig Tieck, Kritische Schriften, vol. 1
(Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1848), 57. If there is "swindel" here, however, it might turn
out that the swindler is not so easy to find.
11 Even recent commentaries on this fragment fail to note that the gesture it
performs has much farther-reaching consequences than simply the disabling of
the hierarchy between initiates and outsiders. For example, Joseph A. Dane
observes: "Those who enjoy the superiority afforded by irony are not the elect
hearers who understand it: in fact, those who understand irony for what Schle-
gel says it is (deception) are those who are most thoroughly deceived by it.
Rather, those who can attain the superior vantage of the ironist are those who
have and produce irony, that is, other ironists." Joseph A. Dane, The Critical
Mythology of Irony (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1991), 112.
846 GEORGIA ALBERT
12 "Uber die Unverstandlichkeit," KFSA

this essay will be identified in the text
13 For an exhaustive account of the polem
Hartl, "'Athenaum'-Polemiken," in Han
eds., Debatten und Kontroversen. Literarisc
Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Auf
14 Strohschneider-Kohrs: "[Schlegel] is dr
and by his commitment to the thoug
the essay on incomprehensibility is no
language,' as he himself calls it, eviden
dence to unfold the means and princip
instead of subordinating them to what
15 Strohschneider-Kohrs, 275.
16 Ralf Schnell, Die verkehrte Welt: Litera
Metzler, 1989), 18. See also Ludwig Roh
Geschichte einer Gattung (Darmstadt: L
line, although speaking more generally
irony is a mode of consciousness or a way
a corresponding literary mode" (Mello
"finding" entails.
17 Repeatedly in the course of the essay
"Fuge von Ironie" in a letter from Sc
Schleiermachers Leben. In Briefen, eds. L
(Berlin 1861), 191. An analysis that t
starting point is Cathy Comstock, "'Tr
cess in Schlegel's 'Uber die Unverstan
(1987): 445-64.
18 See, for example, Hartl, 288-89; also A
19 See the "AbschluB des Lessing-Aufsat
will tell you quite briefly and clearly
about incomprehensibility [Unverstindl
make clear at least that it does not dep
itself. For the rest, I remain in this case
some point, begin to understand underst
you would become aware that the mista
you would no longer delude yourselves
phantoms." (KFSA 2:412).
20 Once again, Schlegel's text seems to
"The only solution," it says, "would be
swallow up all these big and little iro
But even this would only be a short-t
generation of little ironies would arise
not play games with [Mit der Ironie ist du
er 37, TM). On the strength of the par
essay, it is possible to understand the "
tion of the particular in the universal: as
A definition of irony would establish som
impossible.
A moment in "Uber die Unverstandlichkeit" that could be fruitfully read with
respect to the question of authorial intention is the passage on Shakespeare's
"intentions" (370; Wheeler 37-38).
21 As in the note quoted above: "Every sentence, every book that does not contra-
dict itself is incomplete."
22 Perhaps more clearly, in its syntactical completeness: "Sorge ... wer steht daB
MLN 847
er nicht falle"-"W
TM). This last lin
essay and Goethe
us once again tha
duces, in a wholly
simply a question
tion said to be as
Marike Finlay argu
Crisis of Represen
attribute authorsh
the "gloss," the s
under the authori
the problem of th
related problem o
Baldwin, "Irony,
Ghosts," MLN 104 (1989): 1124-41.
23 Anne K. Mellor simplifies things somewhat when faced with the word "Spiel" in
this statement: in her view, Schlegel sees "this active embracing of chaos as an
enjoyable game" (Mellor, 24). There would seem, however, to be more at stake
in the remark: what would be the necessity of "requiring" something that causes
such fun?
For a discussion of irony's relationship to "Spiel," see Hans-Jost Frey, Der
unendliche Text (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, 1990), 272-76.
24 It is in this sense that this expression has been most often read. J. Hillis Miller,
for example, glosses: "A parabasis momentarily suspends the line of the action.
Irony is a permanent parabasis. This means it suspends the line all along the
line." Fiction and Repetition: Seven English Novels (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1982), 105. See also Paul de Man, "The Rhetoric of Temporality," Blind-
ness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism, 2nd ed. (Min-
neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 218-22, and "The Concept of
Irony." More recently, Marike Finlay has argued-in Gerard Genette's
vocabulary-that "in permanent parabasis, what is supposed to occur is a per-
manent cancelling out of mimesis by the diegetic act" (Finlay, 225), and further
that "[a]ll that we have is permanent continuous diegesis in permanent para-
basis, since a permanent destruction of the illusion of reality in imitation means
no imitation at all" (230). But clearly if this were the case there would be no
need for parabasis to be "permanent," since the illusion would be destroyed
once and for all. The need for permanence is given precisely by the impossibility
of destroying illusion once and for all, by the endlessly acute tension provoked
by the co-presence of illusion and the destruction of illusion.
Perhaps less frequently noted is the fact that once again Schlegel's irony turns
out to be articulated precisely around the intersection-and interruption-
between an example or instance (or epideixis) and a statement about that
example. In this case, the ability of the expression "permanent parabasis" to
function as a definition of irony is at least complicated by the fact that it is
ironic-de Man calls it, in "The Concept of Irony," "violently paradoxical"-in
its own turn. "Permanent" and "parabasis" are words that cannot go together,
since parabasis-interruption-is only possible against the background of
something that is interrupted. Interruption is punctual and acts on something
linear; here, interruption itself becomes linear-an impossible transformation.
This is presumably one of the reasons why Kevin Newmark, in a recent essay,
calls this fragment "the most self-resisting definition of irony [Schlegel] ever
gave"-self-resistance, that is, permanent parabasis, being the structure that
Newmark shows to be constitutive, as well as disruptive, of the Romantic project
848 GEORGIA ALBERT
understood as literary theory, as the

philosophy. See Kevin Newmark,"L'abso
Myth of Irony," MLN 107 (1992): 905-3
25 Ludwig Tieck, Dergestiefelte Kater, Sch
The translation used is Ludwig Tieck, Der
trans. Gerald Gillespie (Austin: Univers
26 This situation is of course complicat
further instance of vertiginous violat
crossed mise-en-abime. In a scene discus
acters of the play within the play of Der
and Hanswurst, "Jackpudding," discuss
the basis, among other things, of the a
At this point Fischer, one of the spectato
rupts the exchange: "Das Publikum? Es
vor!" ("The public? Why, no public appear
Puss-in-Boots, 109). Frank (349-50) com
the play from the "real" audience in the
the depiction of the spectator character
that they are incapable of reflecting on
applies to the real audience since the d
in the play is about the accuracy of the
play's depiction is good, as Leander clai
the "fake" one its main characteristic-i
the plot. The fact that this structure
outside the boundaries of the play with
Der gestiefelte Kater, however, makes th
for the "real" audience. It is no longer
knowing whether one might be oneself

Understanding Irony - Three Essais On Friedrich Schlegel

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Understanding Irony: Three Essais on Friedrich Schlegel

Author(s): Georgia Albert

Irony is unrelieved vertige,

[. Chaos and Vertigo

In a note written around 1800 Schlegel recorded his dissatisfact

not understood here as the rhetorical convention that allows the

To understand irony according to the classical definition is to un-

Perhaps the most explicit reference to this question is found in

easier to see once one takes notice

of "ironies of irony" in "On In

[ (Socratic irony) is meant to deceive

To understand irony as deceptio

of punishment for the stubborn

The essay "Uber die Unverstandlichkeit" ("On Incomprehen

ends with a "gloss" based on Go

sion the essay

palpable a circle I had made a firm resolve really to be comprehen

How is it possible to speak comprehensibly about incompreh

denzen" fragment (366-67; Whee

comprehensibility can only be "re

precisely for this reason they w

III. Permanent Parabasis

A further aspect of the problem of irony as Schlegel describes

the fact that the parabasis repres

Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe, ed. Ernst Behler with Jean-Jacques

in an everyday sense, and tend to be ra

12 "Uber die Unverstandlichkeit," KFSA

understood as literary theory, as the

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