Gliedermann oder Gott

Kleist’s famous essay looks at the important question of whether human behaviour is guided by reason or emotion.  He describes visiting a puppet theatre and being inspired by the natural grace of the puppets’ movements. What characterises a marionette, however, is precisely what is lacking in man: a gracefulness that can only emerge from a complete absence of consciousness.

Kleist creates the image of a quasi paradisiacal state of innocence before a bite is taken out of the apple of knowledge and, in order to regain it, you have to set out on a “voyage round the world”…