Abstract
Taking its point of departure from a curious remark of Franz Kafka concerning the comparability of the Great Wall of China and the Tower of Babel, Peter Fenves’ chapter investigates a series of often-overlooked passages in the work of such exemplary German-Jewish writers as Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Walter Benjamin, and Gershom Scholem, in addition to Kafka. The general aim of the chapter consists in sketching a schema of cultural connectivity in which the concept of connection is neither subsumed under the category of cause nor dependent on evidence of reciprocity. The author seeks to show a range of experiments in cultural connectivity, whereby certain Jewish messianic traditions are reflected through the text of the Daodejing and the figure of Laozi.
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Notes
- 1.
Franz Kafka, Gesammelte Werke in zwölf Bänden, ed. Hans-Gerd Koch (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1994), 6: 69.
- 2.
Kafka , Gesammelte Werke, 6: 70.
- 3.
Lao-Tzi, Die Bahn und der rechte Weg des Lao-Tzi, trans. Alexander Ular (Leipzig: Insel, 1903), 30. I provide no translation only because it is unnecessary to translate this particular translation.
- 4.
Martin Buber, Reden und Gleichnisse des Tsuang-Tse, ed. Martin Buber (Leipzig: &, 1910), 82–122; reprinted under the title “Die Lehre vom Tao” in Die Rede, die Lehre und das Lied: Drei Beispiele (Leipzig: Insel Verlag, 1917), 35–94. All quotations in this chapter are drawn from the 1917 edition that includes the title.
- 5.
See Martin Buber, Die Geschichten des Rabbi Nachmann (Frankfurt: Rütter and Loening, 1906).
- 6.
Buber , “Das Lehre vom Tao,” 40.
- 7.
Buber , “Das Lehre vom Tao,” 53.
- 8.
Buber , “Das Lehre vom Tao,” 75.
- 9.
See Martin Buber, Drei Reden über das Judentum (Frankfurt am Main: Rütten & Loening, 1911). (The original version of “Die Lehre vom Tao” was delivered in lectures at the very same time.)
- 10.
Buber , “Das Lehre vom Tao,” 93.
- 11.
Gershom Scholem, Tagebücher, nebst Aufsätzen und Entwürfen bis 1923, ed. Karlfried Gründer, Herbert Kopp-Oberstebrink und Friedrich Niewöhner unter Mitwirkung von Karl E. Grözinger (Jüdischer Verlag: Frankurt am Main, 1995–2000), 1: 51.
- 12.
Scholem , Tagebücher, 1: 133; Scholem later indicates in his diary that Benjamin owned a copy of the other major edition of the Daodejing in this period, namely Taoteking: Das Buch des Alten vom Sinn und Leben, trans. Richard Wilhelm (Diederich: Jena: 1911); see Scholem , Tagebücher, 1: 133.
- 13.
Scholem , Tagebücher, 2: 146.
- 14.
Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, ed. Rolf Tiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhäuser (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1972–91), 2: 96.
- 15.
Benjamin uses the phrase “frontal assault” in a letter to Hugo von Hofmannstahl; see Walter Benjamin, Gesammelte Briefe, ed. Christoph Gödde and Henri Lonitz (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1995–), 2: 410.
- 16.
Ku Hung-Ming , Chinas Verteidigung gegen europäische Ideen, trans. Richard Wilhelm, intro. Alfons Pacquet (Jena: Diederich, 1911).
- 17.
Benjamin, Gesammelte Briefe, 1: 77.
- 18.
See Benjamin, Gesammelte Briefe, 1: &.
- 19.
Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 2: 96; Taoteking, 85. A standard English translation can be found in D. C. Lau’s edition: “Though adjoining states are within sight of one another,/ And the sound of dogs barking and cocks crowing in one state can be heard in another,/ yet the people of one state will grow old and die without having had any dealings with those of another” (Tao Te Ching, trans. D. C. Lau [New York: Penguin, 1963], 80).
- 20.
See Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 2: 1254. The phrase, so it seems, stems from Brecht; but it may have been suggested by Benjamin.
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Fenves, P. (2018). Experiments in Cultural Connectivity: Early Twentieth-Century German-Jewish Thought Meets the Daodejing. In: Fang, W. (eds) Tensions in World Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0635-8_11
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