Georg-August-Universitt Gttingen SoSe 2013 Philosophische Fakultt Napoleon and the Napoleonic Wars in the British and European Literary Imagination Prof. Dr. Barbara Schaff Modul Komparatistik 09: Interkulturalitt und Intermedialitt

Heine's Napoleon Complex: The Poetics of

Demystifying through Mystification vorgelegt von: Wenyan Gu

Theaterstrae. 11a 37073 Gttingen oliviaistgut@gmail.com Komparatistik 2. Semester Matr. -Nr.:21227712

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 1 2. Heine's Construction and Reconstruction of Napoleon-Myth 2 2.1 Lyrical Hero-Worship "Die Grenadiere" 2 2.2 Aesthetical Re-Presentation in "Die Nordsee" 5 2.3 Comments on Walt Scott's Napoleon Biography 7 3. Irony and Metaphor: Das Buch le Grand 9 3.1 Double and Simple Irony 9 3.2 The Drumming 13 3.3Imagery and Idea 16 4. Conclusion 18 5.Bibliography 20

1

1. Introduction

Among all canonical Romantic writers who have lingered along the figure of Napoleon

Bonaparte on their literary paths was Heinrich Heine a most special one. Besides the

abundant writings involving Napoleon and his blatant enthusiasm towards the fallen

Emperor who was greatly condemned by most of his contemporaries, Heine deploys the

Napoleon image, or more accurately, the Napoleon imaginary, as poetical raw material,

while conjuring up a highly politicized world of Romantic literature1. This poetical use of

the political, however, does not distinguish Heine from other authors as much as the

complexity of his Napoleon image itself does, for his depictions of Napoleon in different

Works solemnly discord one other, while his bravery of appearing as a Napoleon-

Worshipper, or as Paul Holzhausen phrases, the "Carrier of the Napoleonic Cult"2,

harmonizes the fragmented Myth.

It is, therefore, not superfluous to examine this mystified imagery in the task of

untangling Heine's Napoleon Complex, even though existing studies of Heine and

Napoleon have already shed light on this subject, such as the 1903 thesis by Holzhausen,

in which he brilliantly sketches a changing literal representation of the emperor relating

to Heine's different biographical as well as ideological stages3. Indeed, the literal gaze of

a Romantic author like Heine cannot be separated from his iris that vividly reflects all the

worldly matters that could largely influence the depth of such gaze, and in this case of

Napoleon Bonaparte, it is of not much worth to dispute against the impact of Heine's

Jewish identity that was being favored under Napoleon's reign or his despise against the

Bourbons 4 on his initial Hero-worship. The polemic lies no longer in the causes of this

Complex, as our obsessive nature of "reasoning" a phenomena dictates, but the Complex

itself -- the literal formation of the Napoleon Myth based on Heine's poetics.

1 Barbara Belich, "Erlesener und erinnerter Held der Kindheit: Heines dopperlter Blick auf Napoleon als Freiheitsbringer und Sensuchtschiffre," in Der deutsche Napoleon-Mythos, (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2007), 225-245. 2 Paul Holzhausen, Heinrich Heine und Napoleon. (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag von Moritz Diesterweg, 1903), 1. 3 Holzhausen, 227. 4 Holzhausen, 62.

2

This Myth, if construed as Heine's blinded obstinacy to the ideals of French Revolution

or his political naivety as a young Poet, would be detrimental to the reading of Heine, for

not only Heine's reputation as a skillful ironist but also his fundamental poetical merits

would be vaporized. Influenced by Hegelian philosophy, Heine regards Napoleon as a

"synthesis" of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary ideals5, leaving little doubt that he

would not treat Napoleon-Myth as a starting point of dialectical reflection. Heine's

construction of the Napoleonic myth and to some degree its reconstruction -- considering

that he actively comments and even attacks on other Romantic writers' poetical and

biographical depictions of Napoleon -- involves an acknowledgement on the poetical

objectivity of his Hero, apart from the very consciousness of himself constructing the

"myth". While this conscious acknowledgment could be made evident by directly

quoting a few lines of Heine's, this essay shall be devoted to analyzing the poetics of such

ironic construction. With ambiguous aesthetic sincerity, humorous exaggeration, satirical

sentiments, and profuse metaphors, Heine mystifies the already mystical Image of

Napoleon, but at the same time gradually tears down this ongoing myth through the same

poetical devises. Dissociating himself from his own Hero-enchantment, Heine ironizes

the self-constructed Myth of Napoleon, and as his later prose further on intensifies this

disassociation, he completes the destruction of Napoleon-Myth precisely in the projection

of his own Napoleon-mystification. This proposed process of demystification, albeit

paradoxical, will be presented in a sequential anatomy of Heine's poetical representation

of Napoleon, which includes one famously "Bonaparte" poem "Die Grenadiere" and a

range of prose works from 1820 to 1830 -- the first decade after Napoleon's death and the

birth of his Myth.

5 Heinrich Heine,"Die Nordsee," in Reiserbilder (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1827), 97.

3

2. Heine's Construction and Reconstruction of the Napoleon-Myth 2.1 Lyrical Hero-Worship: "Die Grenadiere" It was around 1819 when the young German Poet composed one of his first lyrical

adorations of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was spending the last two miserable years of his

life in Exile on the island of Saint Helena. Roughly four years ago, Napoleon, having

suffered from a sequential military loss in Russia and Central Europe that led to his first

Exile to the island of Elba, made his heroic return to Paris in company of the loyal French

soldiers and enthusiastic cries of Vive l'Empereur6. The Hundred Days rule in Paris

immediately reinforced the quivering Napoleon Myth, attracting another wave of poetical

interests on the Hero who returns. Les deux Grenadiers, a Ballad composed even before

the Emperor's return by Pierre Jean de Branger, began to circulate among people, with

an unfaltering confidence in Napoleon and vehement call on loyalty to him:

"vieux grenadiers, suivons un vieux soldat, suivon un viex soldat"7

There is little doubt that Heine's almost corresponding Poem Die Grenadiere four years

later aims to exemplify the same sentiments, when the Poet cunningly adopts the same

form of Ballad and the same protagonists. Two French grenadiers who were captured in

Russia made their way to the German quarter, where they heard about the Emperor's

imprisonment. Although both of them lament, one grenadier quickly thinks of his familial

obligations and admits his reluctance to a martyrdom, while the narrator immediately

hands the main voice to the second grenadier, who expresses his unshakable veneration to

his Emperor:

Was schert mich Weib, was schert mich Kind, Ich trage weit besseres Verlangen; Lass sie betteln gehn, wenn sie hungrig sind - Mein Kaiser, mein Kaiser gefangen! 8

6 Alan Forrest, Napoleon (London: Quercus, 2011), 282. 7 Pierre Jean de Branger, "Les deux Grenadiers(1814)," in Oeuvres de P.J. de Branger: Nouvelle dition (Paris: Perrotin, Librarire, 1867), 160. 8 Heinrich Heine, "Die Grenadiere," in Buch der Lieder (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1827), 59.

4

With a slight touch of irony on the grenadier's exaggerated loyalty that makes him

indifferent to his wife and child's starvation, Heine folds the grenadier's withering

sentiments about the old Emperor into an almost schizophrenic worship. The Grenadier

continues to talk about his somehow delirious wish to be buried in France just to lie

underground and wait for Napoleon's come back, and it is not difficult to sense his

unsealed proudness as well as the inexplicable conviction on Napoleon's rise:

Dann reitet mein Kaiser wohl ber mein Grab, Viel Schwerter klirren und blitzen; Dann steig ich gewaffnet hervor aus dem Grab - Den Kaiser, den Kaiser zu schtzen9

This last stanza following the folklore metrics expands the personal narration in future

tense to a military Call, while author himself smoothly exits out of the poem -- Indeed, if

we insist that Heine keeps his distance to the Napoleon-zeal presented by the second

Grenadier from the beginning, we would be ignoring the vacillation of his poetical

distance in general. The narrator became more and more entangled in his character as the

poem goes on, and in spite of the hyperbolic depictions, Heine's own sentiments became

intertwined by adopting the first person narration solely of the loyal Grenadier. Yet, the

last highly imagery stanza cancels out the possibility of welding author and narrator,

because of its clear reference to the French people around that time, who were yearning

for another return of their Emperor. "Den in Frankreich unter Volk und Soldaten

weitverbreiteten Glauben an eine nochmalige Rckkehr des Gefangenen von St. Helena,

den auch Branger mehrfach dicterich verwertet, hat Heine zu einer khnen Vision

benutzt, durch welche das seinem Stoff nach aus der unmittelbaren Wirklichkeit

geschpfte Gedicht in eine Welt des Traumes hinberschwebt."10 This "bold vision" of

the poem in Holzhausen's comment encompasses a crafting function of transferring the

political actuality into the purely poetical world of "dreams". In other words, Heine

cunningly plays with the de facto sentiments of the political world, while leaving his own

emotion towards Napoleon hovering above the poetics. Recognizing Napoleon and his

"possible" return as a myth from his literary precursor like Branger and the French

9 Heine, "Die Grenadiere," 59. 10 Holzhausen, 104.

5

society during Napoleon's last exile, Heine further mythologizes the contemporary

sentiments, while infringing on those of his own.

2.2 Aesthetical Re-presentation in "Die Nordsee"

Heine's lyrical presentation of Napoleon as a mystified poetical Object could be further

understood under an elaboration of Hero-perception in an 1827 essay "Die Nordsee",

where he speaks of Napoleon as a "living literature"11. Recognizing the strong

mythological potential of Napoleon by remarking on the "re-presenting" nature of his as

an object of people's memory or that of the artists, Heine relegates the process of Hero

mystification to an inevitable sequence of history in which the Great Men could merely

be viewed in this way.

"Diese Memoiren von Staatsleuten, Soldaten und edlen Frauen, wie sie in Frankreich tglich erscheinen, bilden einen Sagenkreis, woran die Nachwelt genug zu denken und zu singen hat, und worin, als dessen Mittelpunkt, das Leben des groen Kaisers, wie ein Riesenbaum, emporragt." 12

With these lines could the lyrical Heine who has played with the hero sentiment of the

crowed defend himself against the accusations of being a blinded Napoleonist. All the

more strongly would he continue on mythologizing the Emperor who was elucidated as

an aesthetical subject by artists, upon whom the task of presentation and re-presentation

falls. Heine is aware of the difference between Napoleon the man and Napoleon the

imagery presented by a variety of people: the crowd, the soldiers, the poets, the

intellectuals, and the historians. Being a mere observer who only has access to seeing the

Hero from representations of the others, Heine chooses to condense the image by adding

on more poetical imageries. While Heine conjures up the immortal idea of Napoleon in

"Die Grenadiere" through the voice of the nostalgic French people, he makes a specific

selection of the Myth contributors in "Die Nordsee", namely those who employ written

words to represent the image like he himself. Commenting on some of the most

11 "eine erlebte Literatur", Heine, Reisebilder,98. 12 Heine, Reisebilder, 99.

6

prominent Napoleon writers like Lord Byron, Walt Scott, Sgur, and the famous

Napoleon biographer Germaine de Stel, who has, to Heine's dismay, distilled her

wholehearted resentment towards Napoleon which was proved to be of some personal

origin, in her political works13, Heine reflects and reconstructs the Napoleonic myth that

was shaped by his literal contemporaries. Just as Barbara Belich concludes in a chapter

of her Study on Napoleon Myth in German literature, Napoleon's image in "Nordsee" is

grounded on the written memories of the others14. It clarifies the impossibility of

representing an authentic Napoleon image, not to mention the authentic persona of

Napoleon, leaving out the only wise way out of the vicious circle of simulacrum: to

present again, to re-present with the mere intention of representing. No believing, and no

criticizing as Germaine de Stel did, for the more one denounces him, the more powerful

his myth will be:

"Wir sehen wie das verschttelte Gtterbild langsam ausgegraben wird, und mit jeder Schaufel Erdschlamm, die man von ihm abnimmt, wchst unser freudiges Erstaunen ber das Ebenma und die Pracht der edlen Formen, die da hervortreten, und die Geistblitze der Feinde, die das groe Bild zerschmettern wolen, dienen nur dazu, es desto glanzvoller zu beleuchten. Solches geschieht namentlich durch die uerung der Frau von Stel, die in all ihrer Herbheit doch nichts anders sagt, als da der Kaiser kein mensch war wie die andern, und da sein Geist mit keinen vorhandenen Mastab gemessen werden kann." 15

Once again, Heine demonstrates his conscious, if not completely rational, sense of

observing Napoleon as a constructed myth, an image, a phenomenon along with his

nevertheless indisputable fascination of the Emperor, and more so than in his poem, he

keeps his poetical distance and henceforth hiding his personal sentiments by offering real

solutions to look at the Napoleonic image. Describing Napoleon's spirit by using the

Kantian terminology of "synthetische Allgemeine", Heine concludes on the correct way

of understanding the Great Man: "Daher sein Talent die Zeit, die Gegenwart zu

verstehen,ihren Geist zu kajolieren, ihn nie zu beleidigen, und immer zu benutzen."16

13 Forrest, Napoleon, 317. 14 cf. Belich. Der deutsche Napoleon-Mythos, 227. "Das Napoleon-Bild in der Nordsee entsteht so wesentlich in Auseinandersetzung mit verschriftlichten." 15 Heine, Reisebilder, 94. 16 Heine, Reisebilder, 94.

7

This sentence, despite its peculiar utilitarian hints, might unfold the first shield of Heine's

Napoleon Complex. Heine's adoration of Napoleon is not merely a Hero-worship, but

more of a respectful exploration of the Hero chosen by fate. Like other writers who he

has quoted or paid tribute to, Heine's re-presentation of Napoleon stratifies his myth into

layers of aesthetical compounds. Only in this way could the real image reveal itself. Only

in this way could the Napoleon myth dissolve without enlarging itself through the mouths

of those who speak against him. What Heine advocates are to demystify through re-

mystification, the first rule of which has already been elaborated with the last two phrases

of the above quote: "ihn nie zu beleidigen, und immer zu benutzen". The Hero, like his

spirit, is likewise the subject of the poetics that shall never be insulted, but always to be

used.

2.3. Comments on Walt Scott's Napoleon Biography

Even though Heine prioritizes the poetical function of Napoleon's image over the

political one, he is certainly not free from Napoleon's appeal for his personal sentiment. It

is not surprising that Heine draws the limits of an adequate "using" of the Hero-image, as

he mockingly attacks on Walter Scott's 1827 Work The life of Napoleon Bonaparte, in

which Scott's "use" of the Emperor's spirit unforgivably crosses the boundary. Already in

Nordsee, Heine has noted the Scottish writer's mistake of representing the Emperor solely

in the Scottish national context: Scott adopts a tone of his own nation that distorts the

image of Napoleon, whose revolutionary and heroic side is completely ignored. This

criticism goes further when he accuses Scott of "selling" Napoleon in his 1828 band of

prose work Englische Fragmente. "Die Englnder haben den Kaiser blo ermordet, aber

Walter Scott hat ihn verkauft. Es ist ein rechtes Schottenstck, ein echt schottisches

Nationalstckchen, und man sieht, da schottischer Geiz noch immer der alte, schmutige

Geiz ist ."17

To Scott's somehow poetical but more political usage of the Emperor is Heine most

intolerant, in spite of his sarcastic wording of "forgive". "Bin ich aber tolerant gegen

17 Heine, "Englische Fragmente," in Heines Werke in fnf Bnden, Band 3 (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1974), 98.

8

Walter Scott und verzeihe ich ihm die Gehaltlosigkeit, Irrtmer, Lsterungen und

Dummheiten seines Buches, verzeih ich ihm sogar die Langweile, die es mir verursacht -

so darf ich ihm doch nimmermehr die Tendenz desselben verzeihen."18 This tendency is

caused by Scott's pact with the English ministry, who according to Heine the literary

accuser, bribed the author into delivering a diabolic, weak and above all false image of

Napoleon to his readers. For Heine, Walter Scott betrays the principles of the poetics, the

"Dichtung", which deprives him of the right to use the Napoleon image. As matter of fact,

it deprives him even of the right to be called a writer:

"Mit Hlfsmitteln solcher Art und erbrmlichen Suggestionen behandelt Walter Scott die Gefangenschaftsgeschichte Napoleons und bemht sich, uns zu berzeugen, dass die Exkaiser - so nennt ihn der Exdichter - nichts Klgeres tun konnte, als sich den Englndern zu bergeben, obgleich er seine Abfhrung nach St. Helena vorauswissen musste, dass er dort ganz scharmant behandelt worden, indem er vollauf zu essen und zu trinken hatte, und dass er endlich frisch und gesund und als ein guter Christ an einem Magenkrebse gestorben."19

Scott's dictum of Napoleon dying of cancer instead of being poisoned by the English

authority as well as his distrust on Napoleon's memoir written on St. Helena angers Heine,

who is no longer able to leave aside his personal affection and starts to gild his poetical

mystification of Napoleon with emotions from his Complex. Through a literal parallelism

between Napoleon and Lemuel Gulliver, the protagonist of Jonathan Swift's novel, in

which Gulliver travels to the island of midget who wish him dead but fear his bigness.

Belittling the island British people to dwarfs, Heine virtually execrated Britain

responsible for Napoleon's unjustified suffering and death, while giving Napoleon a

Romantic glow of the Great Man living among small men who couldn't appreciate or

even tolerate his greatness.

"Wahrlich, berall ist Liliput,wo ein groer Mensch unter kleine Menschen gert, die unermdlich und auf die kleinlichste Weise ihn abqulen, und die wieder durch ihn genug Qual und Not ausstehen; aber htte Dechant Swift in unserer Zeit sein Buch geschrieben, so wrde man in dessen scharfgeschliffenem Spiegel nur die Gefangenschaftsgeschichte des Kaisers erblicken und bis auf die Farbe des Rocks und des Gesichts die Zwerge erkennen, die ihn geqult haben." 20

18 Heine, Werke Band 3, 96. 19 Heine, Werke Band 3, 99. 20 Heine, Werke Band 3, 100.

9

Here, Heine molds his mystification of Napoleon at a new poetical level, where his

aesthetical distance is shortened by his apparent political bias and romantic ardency. The

Poet's Complex starts to twist and complicate along with the impassioned mystification,

until Heine reminds his reader of the primarily poetic nature of the praise at the end of

this chapter, where he mentions again the functional aspects of Napoleon image as the

"Muse" and hands the role of narrating this myth to the rocks and cliffs on St. Helena,

whose voices are sure to be more truthful and sincere than that of any human being,

including Heine himself.

3. Irony and Metaphor: Das Buch le Grand

3.1 Double and Simple Irony

So far, three traits of Heine's Napoleon mystification have been shown: Heine employs

the Napoleon image as well as sentimental public responses to this image as poetical raw

material; keeping an aesthetical objectivity as well as poetical distance, he criticizes the

unfaithful representation by other writers; Meanwhile, he diligently re-builds the myth in

order to enervate the previous myth. In this way, Heine constructs and reconstructs the

cult of Napoleon, which has actually reached its apex, according to Holzhausen, as early

as 1821 when he published his successful half-fictional memoir Ideen: Das Buch le

Grand. Considering Le Grand to be the "monument" in Heine's Napoleon Complex,

Holzhausen regards this work primarily as an ostentatious Emperor- glorification which

most likely results from the young author's reading of Napoleon story immediately after

his death and his grudge against the German-Prussian coalition21. Although Holzhausen

recognizes that Heine's Napoleon portrayal contains some objectivity when he suggests

his narration to be an "observation"22, he understates Heine's ironical craft in composition,

leading to his mistaken trust on the narrator who neither equals Heine himself nor could

21 Holzhausen, 109. 22 cf. Holzhausen, 115," Trotz der Temperaturhhe der Begeisterung sind es aber doch nicht die Phrasen eines Schwrmers, was wir da hren, sondern Beobachtungen, die bis auf einen gewissen Grad sogar die exakteste Forschung mit ihrem Stempel beglaubigt hat."

10

be counted as reliable. Even though the book's clear association to the biographical Heine

allures readers to assume the roughly twenty chapter prose to be the young author's

autobiographical confession, there is no substantial reason to ignore the abundant

dreamlike and highly fictional elements that Heine disperses throughout this work - if not

the fundamental poetical details on which the work is based. Heine's intention of writing

cannot be merely reminiscent, but above all poetical. As an ironist at the dbut of his

literary career23, Heine writes with his stylistic humor, completing a prosaic equivalent of

his recent lyrical success in order to achieve "an aesthetic whole"24. It is for this reason

that the following analysis of this work, the "apex" of Heine's Napoleon worship, shall

focus on the aesthetics instead of the content, starting from the most conspicuous one, the

irony.

Das Buch Le Grand starts with six chapters of thoughts on melancholic love and

confessions with ironic twists addressing to a typified figure of "Madame", presented

with an ambiguous identity of the narrator, which first becomes clear at the end of the

sixth chapter, where his love and sentiments brings him back to his childhood in

Dsseldorf. Heine weaves his memory into the narrator's voice in the next six chapters, in

which his childhood wonder of Napoleon brings out a nostalgic simulation of genuine

admiration. The child in Dsseldorf experiences the change of city electorate, while

innocently perceiving the political changes resulting from Napoleon's triumph in Europe

without true understanding. If the picture of a naive boy who weeps beside a Man, asking

him the reason they weep is merely comical, the same boy's naive cheering about not

having to go to class thanks to the new elector, the brother-in-law of Napoleon, is surely

of Heine's deliberate ironic intention25. This naivety is expressed by the adult narrator,

who builds up a dreamlike world of ironic nostalgia on his innocent pretense26. After the

electorate, the boy's dolorous school life comes back, leaving the only joy to be his

acquaintance with the French drummer Monsieur Le Grand, whose limited German

23 Heine published his first lyrical band "Buch der Lieder"in1821 24 Hermann Weigand argues that Heine's intention of writing Le Grand primarily concerns the production of a Romantic comedy, represented by pure humor and elements of both tragedy and comedy. In The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan., 1919): 133. 25 Heine, Ideen: Das Buch le Grand (Hildesheim: Verlag Jugend und Volk, 1826), 27-30. 26 D.C. Muecke, Compass of Irony (London: Methuen and Co Ltd, 1969), 30.

11

necessitates a communication solely through drumming. The young narrator learns about

the heroic deeds of the Emperor from Monsieur Le Grand's drumbeats, making little

effort to conceal his utter fascination of Napoleon. While the metaphorical structure of

this drumming will be further elaborated in the next section of this essay, the next chapter

of the book is devoted to the first and only virtual encounter of real Napoleon, and not

surprisingly, starting with an irony of simple incongruity constructed again with help of

fake naivety. When the Emperor and his fellow men march on the avenue, the boy cannot

help but think of the police who would issue a penal fine of five German coins to anyone

riding in middle of the avenue. The displacement of the great Emperor with the

somewhat egalitarian idea of him having to pay five Thalers to the police for breaking a

trivial city rule contrives an incongruity that directly formulates irony. To this,

Holzhausen gives a literal interpretation of paradox that intensifies the godly

mystification of Napoleon. "Napoleon erscheint als ein vllig apartes Wesen, dem sich

alles beugt, vor dessen Wimperzucken alles sich in Nichts verflchtigt."27 Although

having recognized its paradox, Holzhausen fails to follow Heine's logic of employing

irony, and hence misses out its ingenious effect against the Hero-mystification, which

was recognized but only minorly touched on by Belich:

"Dieses rhetorische Aufgebot, das dazu dient, Napoleon zu vergttliche, wird gleichzeitig in seltsamer, aber typisch Heinescher Manier ironisch gebrochen, wenn berichtet wird, dass der kleine Junge sich wundert, da der Kaiser keine fnf Taler Strafe zahlen muss fr seinen ordnungswidrigen Ritt mitten durch die Allee. ... Die Ironie illustiert lediglich den Hiat zwischen der auerordentlichen Erscheinung des Kaisers und der realistischen Umgebung, die von Polizeiverordnungen bestimmt ist."28

This irony of incongruity falls into the category of the second variant of Double Irony,

which Muecke famously defines as the situation "when there is a single victim to whom

both terms though contradictory seem equally valid"29. Playing the victim of irony

through the persona of his younger "self", Heine states the two contradictory but valid

terms of Napoleon being a great Emperor and Napoleon riding in middle of Dsseldorf

city Avenue hence having to pay a fine of five Thalers. This kind of irony however, as

Muecke remarks further, does not function as simple correctives, which are only effective

27 Holzhausen, 114. 28 Belich, 232. 29 Muecke, 25.

12

when "we pass from an apprehension of the ironic incongruity to a more or less

immediate recognition of the invalidity of the ironist's pretended or the victim's

confidently held view." Instead, the ironic contradiction does not offer a resolution since

"the ironist or the ironical observer remains, to some extent, involved in the irony."30 It is

not hard to see that Heine's young protagonist does remain involved in this irony, as he

speaks again of the penalty at the end of the chapter. "Der Kaiser ritt ruhig mitten durch

die Allee, kein Polizei diener widersetzte sich ihm".31 The ridiculous thought of the boy

is therefore not to be immediately invalidated, as Holzhausen does in his study, but to be

elevated to a dialectic exposition, where no one is certain about which object the ironist

intends to disparage. Is it the absurd idea that Napoleon could actually be subjected to

Dsseldorf city law? Or could it actually be the image of Napoleon being the highest

authority of Europe as well as the inarguable hero of the young protagonist that Heine is

really trying to invalidate? Heine's use of Double Irony renders an ambiguity that

contains and annuls the sense of both statements at the same time, which initiates the

Hero-demystification with a possible ridicule of the Emperor's authority. Once again,

glimpsing on Muecke's theory, this kind of Double Irony is largely used by the German

Romantics, which Heine certainly would not be unaware of. The simplicity in

Holzhausen's interpretation results from his mistaking the actually deployed Double

Irony for Simple Irony, when Heine's real intention of demystifying the Napoleon Myth

through these ironic insinuations that are hidden inside his clamant mystification is

falsely dismissed.

On the other hand, the passionate clamors of "Es lebe der Kaiser" marking the end of this

chapter, does establish a Simple Irony, together with the beginning of the following

chapter: "Der Kaiser ist tot".32 Although Heine structures this short chapter in a form of

lamentation with somewhat genuine grief of bereavement, the Napoleon Myth is, this

time more overtly, dismantled by the Simple Irony, which requires simply a valid

assumption corrected by what actually happens33. The assumption of the Emperor's

immortality is ostensibly nullified by his factual death. The two incongruous statements

30 Muecke, 26. 31 Heine, Le Grand, 44 32 Le Grand, 44-45. 33 Muecke, 23.

13

are placed together not only to evoke mourning sentiments, but also to negate the myth of

the Great Man. The smart poet, however, does not squander his potentials of expanding

the poetical stage. Ironizing by no means satiates his poetical appetite since it neither

totally destroys the Napoleon Cult nor stops himself from further mystifying the

narrator's Childhood Hero. The Myth is still being constructed just as he deploys

variations of Irony to deteriorate it - since he is aware that Napoleon's death is once again,

merely the beginning of his myth: "Es steht keine Inschrift auf seinem Leichensteine;

aber Klio mit dem eisernen Griffel schrieb unsichtbare Worte darauf, die wie Geistertne

durch die Jahrtausende klingen werden"34.

3.2 The Drumming

The narrator's childhood ends at Napoleon's death. The following chapter commences

with a switch to the third person narration of a young student strolling along the same

avenue in Dsseldorf years ago where the Emperor and his army marched on, stepping on

the foliage that stirs up an easily emotionalized heart, until the first person narrator

appears again with nostalgic pain - "es war mein Herz"35.

It is last chapter of the little memoir -like narration in Le Grand, and certainly the most

sentimental one. The grown up boy returns to his hometown Dsseldorf, feeling himself

as a foreigner in the oneiric wandering in the city, where his sentiments arise as he

realizes little by little that what he carefully preserves as "memory" is merely a dreamlike

utopia - he can no longer return, or if the readers are willing to go further, nor does it ever

exists. "Trume sind Schume", so quotes the narrator with a torn of loss that collaborates

with the romantic enjoyment of the sensitivity36.

Napoleon Bonaparte belongs to this utopian land of nostalgia, and while Heine's irony-

breaks of mystification in previous chapters considerably weakens the Napoleon myth, it

is narrator's final acknowledgement of the hero as a mere image of foaming dreams, a

34 Le Grand, 45. 35 Le Grand, 48. 36 Le Grand, 50. "Ich war nicht mde, aber ich bekam doch Lust, mich noch einmal auf die hlzerne Bank zu setzen, in die ich einst den Namen meines Mdchens eingeschnitten"

14

"Sehensuchts-chiffre"37 above political concretes, that demolishes the myth. Again,

Napoleon's image emerges at the center of Heine's poetical methodology, yet dissolving

itself to a pure literary topos. The previous simple humorous anecdote of the child's

friendship with the drummer Monsieur Le Grand metamorphoses into a meticulously

erected metaphorical entirety, in which the drumming of Monsier Le Grand

metaphorically represents the Napoleon Myth.

This conclusion is not easily made, and the following examination of Heine's poetics of

the metaphor might prove some of its truthfulness.

Monsieur Le Grand enters the last episode of narrator's wander in his childhood city with

the same drumming - the narrative mood quickly arises to its boiling point, for like the

city, the man and his drum appear as if nothing has changed, while the narrator never

fails to insinuate the permanent disappearance of their essence. "Er war noch immer die

wohlbekannte alte Trommel. und ich konnte mich nicht genug wundern, wie er sie vor

russischer Habsucht geschtzt hatte. Er trommelte jetzt wieder wie sonst, jedoch ohne

dabei zu sprechen.... aber allmhlich schlich sich ein trber Ton in jene freudigsten

Wirbel, aus der Trommel drangen Laute, worin das wildeste Jauchzen und das

entsetzlichste Trauern unheimlich gemischt waren." 38 It is no longer a heroic paean, but

a street requiem of someone who was denounced by the Christian church and only has

drummers left for his funeral, that Monsieur Le Grand plays on his drum. His drumming

becomes an "echo" of his helpless sigh, when this central mediator of Napoleon's myth -

at least to the younger narrator who learns to know the Napoleonic history from the

drumming - cannot survive without the Myth. Understanding this, the narrator stabs his

sword in Monsieur Le Grand's drum.

It is not of much dispute that this final scene shall be read metaphorically, and

interpretation like stabbing the drum symbolizing Heine's determination not to serve the

enemies of Napoleon by Holzhausen39 is certainly a good possibility, since the narrator

explicably notes that the Drum shall neither give out any voices nor serve the Bourbons

who came back after Napoleon's reign: " sie sollte keinen Feinde der Freiheit zu einem

37 Belich, 235. 38 Le Grand, 53. 39 Holzhausen,109.

15

servilen Zapfenstreich dienen"40. Yet, this interpretation does not trace Heine's

metaphorical use of the "drumming", which Holzenhausen later admits to be a question

of the aesthetics that is of no interest in his study41. The aesthetical answer to this

question is nevertheless here of high concern, as the drumming could also be seen as a

metaphor for the Napoleonic myth, and when the narrator, or the poetical Heine destroys

the drum, he also completes the final, determining strike of tearing down the Hero-Myth.

The construction of this metaphor follows the classical analogy form of Aristotelian

metaphor, which is defined as "the application of a strange term either transferred from

the genus and applied to the species or from the species and applied to the genus, or from

one species to another or else by analogy "42. The analogy could be counted as the basis

for such metaphor where two terms are related in the same way the other two ones are,

and as Aristotle exemplifies: the word "evening" is related to the word "day" as the term

"old age" is to the term "life", and the metaphorical expression could be automatically

generated, by calling evening the "old age of life". The same formulation could be

transferred to this part of Le Grand, in which drumming expresses the essence of

language while words only construct the myth - the superficial appearance. When

Monsieur Le Grand drums about the fall of Napoleon, the drumming becomes more

effective than any language on earth: "als sei die Trommel selber ein lebendiges Wesen,

das sich freute, seine innere Lust aussprechen zu knnen"43. As the school-boy-narrator

recognizes in Chapter VII, the drumming reveals the "spirit of language", while linguistic

expressions, as he critically speaks of his by no means pleasant learning experience of

Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German and finally French at school, merely formulates the

surface of language, the empty words that do not necessarily incorporate meanings.

"Ja, im Caf Royal zu Berlin hrte ich einmal den Monsieur Hans Michel Martens franzsisch parlieren und verstand jedes Wort, obgleich kein Verstand

40 Le Grand, 54.41 Holzhausen,120. 42 Aristoteles, Poetics, in Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 23, translated by W.H. Fyfe (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1932), 1457b 43 Le Grand, 53.

16

darin war. Man mu den Geist der Sprache kennen, und diesen lernt man am besten durch Trommel."44

Even if there is no substantial implication of the language signification that actually

belongs to the era of modernists a century after Heine, the metaphorical opposition

between drumming and words can be concluded. "Drumming" is related to "essence" as

"word" is related to "Myth". And as far as the Aristotelian metaphor concerns, the

metaphorical "drumming" would be the "word of essence", and the "word" the

"drumming of myth". The first metaphor is confirmed as the boy who learns the essence

of French through Monsieur Le Grand's drumming, while the second is hinted as Heine

constructs the Napoleon's image and myth through the all the most enthusiastic, arousing,

and praising words of the narrator. Here, the author steps out of the text and in a

nonchalant pose of objectivity, when he ironizes his own writing, as it is certainly merely

composed of "words", or the drumbeats of a Napoleonic myth. The result of this irony,

as it is again the familiar form of Simple Irony, corrects and invalidates the narrator's

emotional attachment to Napoleon, as well as the author's mystification of the Hero

through his words. All the more ironically, when Heine leads his reader to the emotional

climax of his "Hero-worship" by having the fully miserable Monsieur Le Grand

drumming in front of the fully nostalgic narrator, he stops the "drumming of the Myth", a

metaphor for his own writing or his Napoleon mystification once and for all, which is

nonetheless not genuinely meant. For Heine does not need a drum to perform the melody

of the Myth. Poetical genius and aesthetic sensitivity allows him to hum or silence the

Hero's Paean without touching a drum, or its metaphor, "the word of essence".

3.3 Imagery and Idea

Another paragraph in a later Chapter might further prove this point, as it also strengthens

Heine's metaphorical association of words and myth. After chapters of philosophical

44 Le Grand, 37.

17

discussion on Folly and Reason, Heine cites the words of Joseph Fouch, the French

politician who betrayed Napoleon after his fall:

" Sie haben gehrt, ein bekannter falscher Mann, der es in der Falschheit so weit gebracht hatte, da er am Ende sogar falsche Memoiren schrieb, nmlich Fouch, habe mal geuert: Les paroles sont faites pour cacher nos penses; und nun machen sie viele Worte, um zu verbergen, da sie berhaupt keine Gedanken haben, und halten langen Reden, und schreiben dicke Bcher, und wenn man sie hrt, so preisen sie die alleinseligmachende Quelle der Gedanken, nmlich der Vernunft, ... und wie der Affe umso lcherlicher wird, je mehr er sich dem Menschen hnlich zeigt, so werden auch jede Narren desto lcherlicher, je vernnftiger sie sich gebrden."45

Like the other enemy of Napoleon Germaine de Stel, Fouch writes his memoir with

critical depictions of Napoleon, notwithstanding his old political alignment thereto. And

like his objection to Germaine de Stel's Napoleon Representation in Nordsee, Heine

speaks against Fouch by relegating his writing to the same category of "nonsense"

words by the ignorant French speaker Monsieur Hans Michel Martens in the drumming

chapters. The essentially Hegelian writer calls for the only truthful way of representing to

be the words which would include his poetics of ironic pretention, analogical metaphor,

and dialectical demystification. In this light, Heine's appeal for the fools, the "Narren",

could be understood, for the rational men, "die Vernnftigen" represented by Fouch, are

those who deserve to be derided for using empty words to hide themselves and to hide the

lack of meaning or essence behind these words. Their ridiculous act of hiding makes

them the real "Narren" and to Heine, they are the ones who blindly mystify the Great

Man - regardless of his title as the Hero or the Tyrant - with all their senseless words.

It is, then perhaps, not a coincidence that this book is entitled "Ideas". Heine's objectives

are not merely to ironize and to symbolize, but to throw out ideas that might not require

thousands of pages of narration but drumming-like words that point to the essence.

Heine's mystification of Napoleon is hence not only the mystification of his image, but

also his idea - the idea of a hero. Just as after he idolizes Napoleon against Wellington in

"Englische Fragmente" and describes his image as timeless, "als ob sein Bild, losgerissen

aus dem kleinen Rahmen der Gegenwart, immer stolzer und herrischer zurckweiche in

vergangenheitliche Dmmerung", he elevates Napoleon's name as an idea of Hero, a

45 Le Grand, 78.

18

myth in the form of "Losungswort"46. Only in this "gefrbten Schatten"47of the Hero

image can he search for the meaning behind the idea, which initiates his crafty poetical

demystification. Heine's demystification works hand in hand with his construction of the

Hero image and idea, with a distrust of language and words that will result in a

destruction of both.

4. Conclusion

In a modern essay concerning Heine's political mind, Hayens defends Heine's republican

position that was more or less contradicted by his abundant glorifying writings on

Napoleon by attributing his hero-worship primarily to the "romantic halo" of the word

"hero". This romantic halo, or more precisely, the halo of a perfect romantic poetical

subject, lures Heine into his conscious literary mystification of Napoleon Bonaparte,

when he applies some most effectual mystification-methods of Romanticism. The epical

exaggeration in "Die Grenadiere" represents and further arises the Hero-nostalgia of the

people, while the blatant hero-worship in Das Buch Le Grand two years later partially

builds itself on the nostalgia of Heine himself. The later Heine, criticizing and satirizing

tother romantic mystifications of the Emperor in "Nordsee" and "Englische Fragmente",

uses Napoleon as a muse for his re-mystification. His Poetics of literal mystification,

however, is not devoid of its shimmering potential to decompose the newly built or

rebuilt myth, as he never forgets to keep his poetical distance, to retreat in the position of

an observer, to acknowledge the mystifying nature of his work, to assert the functionality

of Napoleon-image as well as the sentiments of the public or himself, to ironize, and to

build up metaphors that wordily negates the myth. Heine's Napoleon Complex is filtered

with a poetical complexity that compels him to destruct the myth of the Great Man, when

46 Englische Framente,142-143. 47 Le Grand, 44.

19

he chooses to go around by building up the same myth in its "romantic halo". Hid

poetical virtuoso not only ensures his prominence of being an ironist, but also credits him

as a satirist, whose task also includes solving the mysteries of an "unfailingly grotesque

universe"48 - although it might be an exaggeration to describe Heine's political milieu as

unfailingly grotesque. Nonetheless, Heine does take an unusual crusade against

mythologizing a Hero, whose genius only remains in history through his wavering

mystification and demystification by the literates - as the later Heine begs his readers for

their understanding: "Ich bitte Dich, lieber Leser, halte mich nicht fr einen unbedingten

Bonapartisten; meine Huldigung gilt nicht den Handlungen, sondern nur dem Genius des

Mannes...Ich preise nie die Tat, sondern nur den menschlichen Geist, die Tat ist nur

dessen Gewand, und die Geschichte ist nichts anders als die alte Garderobe des

menschlichen Geistes."49 Heine's dialectical Hero-mystification serves its demystification,

while the spirit of the Hero remains at the essence of world history, echoing the

drumbeats from a green summer day.

48 Muecke, 27. 49 Heine, "Reise von Mnchen nach Genua," in Heines Werke (1974), 224.

20

Bibliography

Aristoteles, Poetics. In Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 23, translated by W.H. Fyfe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1932.

Branger, Pierre Jean de. "Les deux Grenadiers(1814)." In Oeuvres de P.J. de Branger, Nouvelle dition. Paris: Perrotin, Librarire, 1867.

Belich, Barbara. "Erlesener und erinnerter Held der Kindheit: Heines dopperlter Blick auf Napoleon als Freiheitsbringer und Sensuchtschiffre." In Der deutsche Napoleon-Mythos, 225-245. Darmstadt: WBG(Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft) ,2007. Forrest, Alan. Napoleon. London: Quercus, 2011. Hayens, Kenneth C. "Heine's Political Position." In The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Oct., 1929): 482-488. Heine, Heinrich. "Die Grenadiere." In Buch der Lieder. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1827. Heine, Heinrich. "Die Nordsee." In Reiserbilder Zweiter Teil. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1827. Heine, Heinrich. "Englische Fragmente" and "Reise von Mnchen nach Genua." In Heines Werke in fnf Bnden, Band 3. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1974. Heine, Heinrich. Ideen: Das Buch le Grand. Hildesheim: Verlag Jugend und Volk, 1826. Holzhausen, Paul. Heinrich Heine und Napoleon. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag von Moritz Diesterweg, 1903. Muecke, D.C.. The Compass of Irony. London: Methuen and Co Ltd, 1969. Weigand, Hermann J.. "Heine's 'Buch le Grand'." In The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 18, No. 1(Jan., 1919): 102-136.

21

22

Authentizittserklrung

Hiermit erklre ich, dass ich diese hier vorgelegte Arbeit mit dem Titel Heine's

Napoleon Complex: The Poetics of Demystifying through Mystification selbststndig,

ohne fremde Hilfe und ohne Benutzung anderer als der angegebenen Hilfsmittel

angefertigt habe. Alle Stellen, die wrtlich oder sinngem aus Verffentlichungen oder

anderen Quellen, insbesondere dem Internet, entnommen sind, sind als solche eindeutig

und wieder auffindbar kenntlich gemacht. Alle diese Quellen sind in einem

Literaturverzeichnis angegeben. Die vorliegende Arbeit ist in gleicher oder hnlicher

Form noch nicht verffentlicht.

Autor: Wenyan Gu

Ort: Gttingen, Deutschland

Datum: 31.07.2013