ROUSSEAU´S VERSIONS: DAS ERDBEBEN IN CHILI OR THE “BACK TO NATURE” IDEAL AS LITERARY PALIMPSEST

Abstract

The literary sources of the “back-to-nature” theme —as it is famously deployed in Heinrich v. Kleist´s Das Erdbeben in Chili (1807) — haven´t been yet enough studied. In the present essay we propose two important philological precedents, recognizable in C. M. Wieland´s Beyträge zur geheimen Geschichte des menschlichen Verstandes und Herzens (1770) and in Chapter Five, Book IV, from J. W. Goethe´s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795). Our main thesis is that Kleist´s literary approach to the intellectual and ideological issues involved in the different versions of the topic displays an unusual reading of J-J. Rousseau´s work in the aftermath of the French Revolution.