Untimely Beggar This page intentionally left blank Untimely Beggar { Poverty and Power from Baudelaire to Benjamin Patrick Greaney University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London Material from chapter was previously published in “The Richest Poverty: The Encounter between Zarathustra and Truth in the Dionysos-Dithyramben,” in Nietzsche-Studien 30 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2001); copyright 2001; reprinted with permission of Walter de Gruyter Material from chapter previously appeared in “Montage and Identity in Brecht and Fassbinder,” in Gail Finney, ed., Visual Culture in Twentieth-Century Germany: Text as Spectacle (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2006), 154–63; reprinted with permission of Indiana University Press Copyright 2008 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Greaney, Patrick Untimely beggar : poverty and power from Baudelaire to Benjamin / Patrick Greaney p cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN: 978-0-8166-4950-1 (hc : alk paper) ISBN-10: 0-8166-4950-2 (hc : alk paper) ISBN: 978-0-8166-4951-8 (pb : alk paper) ISBN-10: 0-8166-4951-0 (pb : alk paper) Poverty in literature Power (Social sciences) in literature European literature—19th century—History and criticism European literature—20th century—History and criticism I Title PN56.P56G73 2008 809.933556 dc22 2007033545 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer 12 11 10 09 08 10 or my parents This page intentionally left blank Contents ix Introduction: The Beggar and the Promised Land of Cannibalism Poverty and Power—Hannah Arendt and the Language of Compassion—Impoverished Language—The Poor and the Worker—Relating to the Poor—The Untimely Beggar—A New Kind of Power—A Modern Tradition 1 Impoverished Power The Marginality of the Poor—Heidegger Defines Power—Amputated Power—Logos and the Work— Marx and the Accumulation of Misery—Pauperism— The Disabled Worker—The Unnameable Proletariat—Disciplinary Power—Biopower 24 Let’s Get Beat Up by the Poor! Infamy—The Crowd’s Uncanny Presence—Bored Community in The Flowers of Evil—“This Crazy Energy”—Baudelaire’s Question: “What to Do?”—Baudelaire’s Answer: “Let’s Beat Up the Poor!”—Augury and Creation—Beggarly Authority—Submitting to the Poor 46 Poetic Rebellion in Mallarmé An Ascetic Poet—Communication and Currency—Privative Concepts—Giving Alms—The End of the Poem and a New Form of Poetry—The Rhyming Cutlass—A Virtual Renegade—The Impoverished Throw of the Dice 71 The Transvaluation of Poverty Asceticism and Art—Difference and Language— Zarathustra’s Shame—The Voluntary Beggar— The Richest Poverty in the Dionysus Dithyrambs— The Will to Deceive 95 Rilke and the Aestheticization of Poverty Rilke as Reader—“The Book of Poverty and Death”—Without Qualities—From Metaphor to Simile—A Great LIKE-Poet—Losing Mastery— Critiques of Asceticism—Poverty’s Luster 116 An Outcast Community Malte’s Calm, Malte’s Vehemence—A Sign Only Outcasts Would Recognize—Being-in-theWorld—Being-With—Being-Written—There Is No Choice, No Refusal—Love—Facelessness and Whatever Being—St Francis—Malte’s Indifferent Writing—Rilke’s Untimely Modernity 143 Exposed Interiors and the Poverty of Experience Barbarians—Aura’s Last Refuge—Glass Architecture—Habit Production in Scheerbart and Brecht—Used and Usable Man—Quotable Poetry for City Dwellers—Brecht and Benveniste—Hooligans and a New Humanity— In Transit—James Ensor, the Destructive Character, and the Obstinate Beggar 171 Acknowledgments 173 Notes 219 Index Introduction The Beggar and the Promised Land of Cannibalism Poverty and Power At a lively street fair, the narrator of Charles Baudelaire’s 1855 prose poem “An Old Acrobat” spots a “poor acrobat, stooped, obsolete, decrepit, a human ruin” whose “absolute misery” so disturbs him that he is momentarily blinded by tears and stops breathing When he recovers, he only has time to ask himself “What to do?” before he is pushed along by the crowd.1 About eighty years later, in notes found among his papers, Walter Benjamin imagines a ship resolutely pushing off from Europe’s shores, manned by Paul Klee, Bertolt Brecht, Adolf Loos, and others These artists, architects, and writers turn their backs on millennia of culture, leaving behind “temples full of images of man, solemnly bedecked with sacrificial offerings.” They are headed for “the promised land of cannibalism,” where man will consume himself and become something else Benjamin christens the vessel Poverty.2 These scenes confront us with two quintessentially modern topoi: urban misère and the dream of a posthumanist future Poverty names socioeconomic destitution as well as the abandonment of cultural traditions, and in both texts, the experience of poverty opens up onto something else: the remedy sought in the question “What to do?” and the flight into the promised land A cursory glance at other key modern texts in French and German reveals that poverty’s range is even wider: forms of voluntary poverty are the exemplary virtues in Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and in Brecht’s early poetry; for Stéphane Mallarmé, “the true state of the literary man is poverty”;3 ix 214 Notes to Chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Walter Benjamin, ed David Ferris (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 115–33 13 Jean Paulhan, Les fleurs de Tarbes, ou La terreur dans les letters (Paris: Gallimard, 1973), 23 14 Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays, 29 15 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 4:59 16 Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, trans Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), 221 17 Cited in Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 5:1134 (my translation) The analysis of the interior is at the center of Adorno’s 1934 book on Kierkegaard, in which it serves as a metaphor for Kierkegaard’s philosophy of an objektloses Innen and false Selbstständigkeit Theodor Adorno, Kierkegaard: Konstruktion des Ästhetischen, in Adorno, Gesammelte Schriften (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1979), vol 2, especially 61–69 See also Benjamin’s review of the book: “Kierkegaard: The End of Philosophical Idealism,” in Benjamin, Selected Writings, 2:703–5 18 Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 12 19 Ibid., 20 20 Ibid., 8–9 21 Karl Marx, “Zur Judenfrage,” in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Studienausgabe (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1990), 1:55 Benjamin discusses this Marx passage in Benjamin, Selected Writings, 2:454–55 22 Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 216 23 Ibid (translation modified) 24 Ibid., 25 Ibid (translation modified) Benjamin characterizes Jugendstil as a phenomenon of flight and insists on the necessity of including a discussion of that which causes the flight (Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 550) 26 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 4:255 27 Ibid., 338 28 Ibid 29 See Benjamin’s citations of Le Corbusier and Adolf Behne on this “character of fortifications” and “on the ideal of ‘distinction’” (Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 215); see also the discussion in “Central Park” of the “étuis, covers, and cases in which the domestic utensils of the time were sheathed” (Benjamin, Selected Writings, 4:173) 30 See Benjamin’s equation of transparency proper and metaphorical: “It is the peculiarity of technological forms of production (as opposed to art forms) that their progress and their success are proportionate to the transparency of Notes to Chapter 215 their social content (Hence glass architecture)” (Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 465) 31 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 2:733–34 32 Massimo Cacciari, Architecture and Nihilism: On the Philosophy of Modern Architecture, trans Stephen Sartarelli (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1993), 188 33 Ibid 34 Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 856 35 “We are bored when we don’t know what we are waiting for That we know, or think we know, is nearly always the expression of our superficiality or inattention Boredom is the threshold to great deeds” (Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 105) 36 “His night is not a maternal night, or a moonlit, romantic night: it is the hour between sleeping and waking, the night watch” (Benjamin, Selected Writings, 2:447) 37 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 2:735; Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 2:219 38 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 2:734 39 For a concise presentation of Scheerbart’s wide-ranging works, see Peter Halborn, “Paul Scheerbart: Ein komischer Ulkist,” in Über Paul Scheerbart, ed Michael M Schmidt and Hiltrud Steffen (Paderborn: Igel, 1996), 2:364– 78; for a contextualization of Scheerbart’s theories of architecture, see Udo Kultermann, “Paul Scheerbart und die Architektur im 20 Jahrhundert,” in Über Paul Scheerbart, 2:188–207 See also Benjamin’s surviving essays on Scheerbart: “Paul Scheerbart: Lesabéndio” (Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 2:618– 20) and “On Scheerbart” (Benjamin, Selected Writings, 4:386–88) Benjamin also wrote a longer essay on Scheerbart titled “Der wahre Politiker” that was lost (editorial note, Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 2:1423) 40 Paul Scheerbart, “Glass Architecture,” trans James Palmes, in Paul Scheerbart and Bruno Taut, Glass Architecture and Alpine Architecture (New York: Praeger, 1972), 47 41 Benjamin, The Arcades Project, “Jugendstil forces the auratic” (Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 557) Benjamin cites the following words from Dolf Sternberger, whom Benjamin accuses of having stolen his ideas about the passages and the panaroma: “The most characteristic work of Jugendstil is the house More precisely, the single-family dwelling” (cited in Benjamin, ibid., 550) 42 See Scheerbart, “Glass Architecture,” 45, 47, 63 43 Scheerbart, ibid., 41; Paul Scheerbart, Glasarchitektur (Munich: Passagen, Rogner and Bernhard, 1971), 25 216 Notes to Chapter 44 This simultaneity of the interior and its destruction corresponds to Manfredo Tafuri’s analysis of the historical development of Gropius and the Bauhaus from a “romantic anti-capitalism” and “mythic populism” to a more theoretically and historically adequate theory and practice under the influence of Russian Constructivism Tafuri, The Sphere and the Labyrinth: Avant-Gardes and Architecture from Piranesi to the 1970s, trans Pellegrino d’Acierno and Robert Connolly (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990), 120–48 45 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 2:734; Benjamin’s emphasis 46 Gershom Scholem, Walter Benjamin: The Story of a Friendship, trans Harry Zohn (New York: Schocken, 1981), 208 47 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 4:268 48 Ibid., 2:366 (translation modified) 49 On this new mode of reception, see John McCole, Walter Benjamin and the Antinomies of Tradition (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), 190–95 50 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 2:370 (translation modified) 51 Ibid., 2:369 52 See Hegel, Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaft, Werkausgabe, 8:237–38; and Hegel, Wissenschaft der Logik, Werkausgabe, 6:41–44 53 Brecht, Werke, 2:95 (my translation) 54 Brecht, Man Equals Man, 31 55 Brigid Doherty points to this line as a sign of Galy Gay’s malleability in her “Test and Gestus in Brecht and Benjamin,” MLN 115 (2000), 462 56 Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 2:527 (my translation) 57 Nägele, Reading After Freud, 119 58 Brecht, Werke, 2:224 (my translation) 59 Bertolt Brecht, “Bei Durchsicht meiner ersten Stücke,” in Werke, 23:245 (my translation) 60 See Brecht, Werke, 2:406–10, for a reconstruction of the many versions of Man Equals Man 61 In an interpretation of the equal sign in one of the play’s earlier titles, Mann=Mann, Brigid Doherty writes that it “stands in for operations performed on persons that involve above all the transformation of posture and gesture” (Doherty, “Test and Gestus in Brecht and Benjamin,” 451) 62 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 2:370 (translation slightly modified); see Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 2:667 63 Brecht, Schriften zum Theater, ed Siegfried Unseld (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989), 109 (my translation) 64 Ibid., 114 and Notes to Chapter 217 65 For the development of this title, and the variations on it, see Brecht, Werke, 11:353 66 Brecht, Werke, 11:157; Brecht, Poems 1913–1956, ed John Willett and Ralph Manheim (New York: Methuen, 1976), 131–32 All citations of this poem are from these pages 67 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 4:232–33 Benjamin comments on the first, third, and ninth poems of the Lesebuch; Benjamin’s self-critique of the commentary on the third poem can be found in ibid., 4:159 68 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 4:233 69 Brecht, Poems 1913–1956, 133–37 70 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 2:370 71 Ibid., 455 72 See Helmut Lethen, Verhaltenslehren der Kälte: Lebensversuche zwischen den Kriegen (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1994), 170–81; Klaus Schumann, Der Lyriker Bertolt Brecht 1913–1933 (Berlin: Rütten and Loening, 1964), 153– 54; and the summary of interpretations of the Lesebuch in Jan Knopf, Brecht Handbuch: Lyrik, Prosa, Schriften (Stuttgart: J B Metzler, 1984), 56–57 73 Reinhard Sändig, “Das Prinzip der Kargheit bei Brecht,” in Német filolólgiai tanulmányok—Arbeiten zur deutschen Philologie 15 (1981): 99–117 (my translation) 74 Walter Delabar, “Nomaden, Monaden: Versuch über Bertolt Brechts Aus dem Lesebuch für Städtebewohner,” in Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956), ed Walter Delabar and Jörg Döring (Berlin: Weidler, 1998), 143 (my translation) 75 Émile Benveniste, “La nature des pronoms,” in Problèmes de linguistique générale (Gallimard: Paris, 1966), 1:254 (my translation) 76 Ibid., 252 (my translation) 77 Thus Helmut Lethen’s conclusion that “Die Souveränität der Grenzziehung zwischen ‘Eigentlichkeit’ und ‘Man’ ist dieser Stimme abhanden gekommen,” in Lethen, “Brechts Hand-Orakel,” Brecht Yearbook 17 (1992), 89 Walter Delabar remarks that the notions of “individuality” and “subjectivity” are “unsuitable” for discussing the Lesebuch (Delabar, “Nomaden, Monaden,” 148) 78 Knopf, Brecht Handbuch, 56 79 Brecht, Werke, 24:40–41 (my translation) 80 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 2:369 81 Ibid., 367; Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 2:663 82 Leo Bersani and Ulysse Dutoit discuss a similar syncategorematical poverty in Beckett (Bersani and Dutoit, Arts of Impoverishment, 70–71) 83 For Benjamin, the impoverishment of experience and its excess belong together: “With this tremendous development of technology, a completely new 218 Notes to Chapter poverty has descended on mankind And the reverse side of this poverty is the oppressive wealth of ideas that has been spread among people, or rather swamped them entirely—ideas that have come with the revival of astrology and the wisdom of yoga, Christian Science and chiromancy, vegetarianism and gnosis, scholasticism and spiritualism” (Benjamin, Selected Writings, 2:732) 84 Ibid., 732 (translation modified) 85 Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 4:567 (my translation) 86 Ensor’s paintings also recall other Benjaminian faces: the skull whose grin is both expressive and expressionless and which, for Benjamin, is the emblem of the work of art, and the soldier Fewkoombey from the Threepenny Novel, about whom Benjamin writes: his “new face” is “barely one” and better understood as ‘“transparent and faceless’ like the millions who live in crowded barracks and basement apartments” (see Benjamin, Selected Writings, 3:5) 87 Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 4:567 (my translation) 88 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 1:486 89 Ibid 90 Ibid., 452 (translation modified) 91 Benjamin, Gesammelte Schriften, 4:96 92 Ibid., 1:1238 93 Benjamin, Selected Writings, 2:542 Index Benveniste on, 39–40; Deleuze on, 16–17, 43 authorship, 39–42 “Abel and Cain” (Baudelaire), 29 Adorno, Theodor, 147, 153, 180n45, 214n17 “Afternoon of a Faun” (Mallarmé), 52, 60–61, 65, 192n53 Agamben, Giorgio, 60, 133–34, 178n21 Allemann, Beda, 98, 100–101, 131, 204n43, 205n52, 206n55 “Alms” (Mallarmé), 55–58, 62–65, 68–70, 191n36–37 “Among Birds of Prey” (Nietzsche), 84–85 anagram, 85–86, 199n68 Arcades Project (Benjamin), 148–49, 152, 215n14 Arendt, Hannah, xiii–xv Aristotle, 2–3, 5, 7, 105 Aristotle’s Metaphysics θ 1–3 (Heidegger), 2–9, 177n6 arte povera, xi Arts of Impoverishment (Bersani and Dutoit), xx–xxi, 217n82 asceticism, xxi, 46–47, 70, 110, 136 See also Nietzsche: on asceticism augury See omen authority: in Baudelaire, 40–43; “Bad Glazier” (Baudelaire), 31–32 Baer, Ulrich, 206n58 Baeumer, Max, 199n66 Balibar, Étienne, 1–2, 175n20, 180n54, 180n59, 181n67 “Ballets” (Mallarmé), 68 Bansal, Sunil, 211n53 Barrett, Michèle, 181n74 Baudelaire, Charles: authority and authorship in, 40–43; Benjamin on, 25–29, 44, 124, 209n24; community in, 29–30, 37; crowds in, 25–29, 33, 44, 184n13–14; on the dandy, 28, 146–47; disability in, 38; enactment in, 42–43; and Foucault, 42; and Franz Grillparzer, xix; heroism in, 27–29; hysteria in, 33, 186n45; identity in, 28–30; impotence in, 30, 33, 35, 44; lumpenproletariat in, 29; simile in, 28, 30; and Victor Hugo, xix, 26–27 Baudelaire, Charles, works of: “Abel 219 220 Index and Cain,” 29; “The Bad Glazier,” 31–32; “Carrion” (“Une charogne”), 130–32, 167; “Crowds,” 44, 184n14; “Danse macabre,” 26; “Eyes of the Poor,” 31, 186n45; “Let’s Beat Up the Poor,” 32, 36–44, 46, 59, 70; “Madame Bovary,” 186n46; “Old Acrobat,” ix, 32–36, 41, 43–44, 167; “Painter of Modern Life, The” 28; “In Passing” (“A une passante”), 26–27, 124, 184n13, 186n46, 209n24; “Seven Old Men,” 27–28; “To the Reader,” 29–30, 37, 62 Becker-Ho, Alice, 174n7 Beckett, Samuel, xx Being and Time (Heidegger), 126, 134, 210n27 Bene, Carmelo, 16 Benjamin, Walter: Arcades Project, 148–49, 152, 215n14; on aura, 149–50, 215n41; on Baudelaire, 25–29, 44, 124, 209n24; on Brecht, 153–61, 163–64, 218n86; destructive character in, 169–70; on Ensor, 166–68; “Experience and Poverty,” 143, 145–46, 150–52, 166; faces and facelessness in, 144, 150, 165–67, 170; Georg Lukács and, 176n26; on glass architecture, 148, 150–55, 165, 215n14; on habit, 154–55; on the interior, 147–53; on Jugendstil, 153, 215n41; “Karl Kraus,” 161; on Mallarmé, 51; One-Way Street, 144, 167–68; posthumous papers of, ix, xxiii, 145, 147; on Scheerbart, 153–54; “What Is Epic Theater?,” 157; “Work of Art in the Age of Its Mechanical Reproducibility, The,” 154; on World War I, 146 Benn, Gottfried, 104–8 Benveniste, Émile, 39–40, 162, 188n65 Benz, Ernst, 195n16 Berger, Anne-Emmanuelle, 31, 59, 175n23, 175n26, 187n52, 188n62, 192n44 Bersani, Leo: Arts of Impoverishment, xx–xxi, 217n82; on Baudelaire, 185n34, 186n47, 187n56, 188n66; on Mallarmé, 193n62, 193n71 Best, Steven, 181n74, 182n77 Beyond Good and Evil (Nietzsche), 72, 89, 92–93, 196n21, 197n41, 198n49, 200n80, 201n86 biopower, xxi, 21–23 Birth of Tragedy (Nietzsche), 93, 96–98; 196n26, 201n91 Blanchot, Maurice: on community, 210n25; on Mallarmé, 49–50; on Mallarmé and Rilke, 98; on Rilke, 123, 127, 129, 142, 207n78 Böning, Thomas, 196n26 Book of Hours (Rilke), 99, 112–14, 122, 136, 139, 142, 164 “Book of Monkish Life” (Rilke), 112, 203n24 “Book of Poverty and Death” (Rilke), 98–115, 118, 137 boredom, 30–31, 214n35 Bourdieu, Pierre, 189n13 Brecht, Bertolt: attitude (Haltung ) in, 155, 157, 169; aura in, 160; Benjamin on, 153–61; collective in, 157–58; enactment in, 159; identity in, 156; language of, Index 161–62; Man Equals Man, 155–59, 164; Manual of Piety, 163; “New Technique of the Actor, The” 159; A Reader for Those Who Live in Cities, 159–64; and Rilke, 158, 164; and Scheerbart, 154 Breuer, Josef, 178n11 Buddeberg, Else, 213n67 Cacciari, Massimo, 151–52 Capital (Marx), xvi–xvii, 1, 4–5, 9–18, 22, 26, 179n39, 180n51 “Carrion” (“Une charogne”) (Baudelaire), 130–32, 167 Catucci, Stefano, 176n26, 207n78 Chambers, Ross, 185n32, 185n34, 192n58 Chevalier, Louis, xii–xiii “Crisis of Verse” (Mallarmé), 49–53, 57–58, 66, 69, 98 community, 29–30, 37, 210n25 See also Brecht, Bertolt: collective in; Rilke, Rainer Maria: community in crowds, 25–29, 33, 44, 184n14 “Crowds” (Baudelaire), 44, 184n14 dandy, 28, 146–47 “Danse macabre (Baudelaire), 26 Dastur, Franỗoise, 179n28, 210n25 Daybreak (Nietzsche), 73, 200n79 De Carolis, Massimo, 177n6 Delabar, Walter, 162, 217n77 Deleule, Didier, 175n20, 180n52, 181n75 Deleuze, Gilles: on authority, 16–17, 43; on creation, 44; on Foucault, 183n3; on Foucault and Marx, 181n74, 182n77; on Mallarmé, 51; 221 on minor politics, 16; on Nietzsche, 71, 87, 194n4, 197n38, 198n45, 198n58, 200n75 De Man, Paul, xiv, 57–58, 141–42, 206n60, 213n68 “Demon of Analogy” (Mallarmé), 64–66, 69 Derrida, Jacques, 31, 105, 185n40, 196n24, 206n56 Dietz, Bernhold, 175n21 Dionysus Dithyrambs (Nietzsche), 83–94, 167 disability: in Baudelaire, 38; in Foucault, 19–20, 23; in Heidegger, 6, 8; in Marx, 13–14, 16, 19, 23, 180n51 disciplinary power, 1, 18–22, 181n75 Discipline and Punish (Foucault), 19–20, 22, 184n8 Doderer, Heimito von, 136, 212n54 Doherty, Brigid, 216n55, 216n61 Donahue, Neil H., 207n64 Dragonetti, Roger, 190n20, 190n25 Dreyfus, Hubert L., 182n80 Dujardin, Édouard, 206n52 Dutoit, Ulysse, xx–xxi, 217n82 Eckel, Winfried, 203n28, 205n52 enactment: 8, 17; in Baudelaire, 42– 43; in Brecht, 159; in Heidegger, 5–8, 18, 23, 43, 178n21; in Proust, 4; in Rilke, 107 Ensor, James, 166–69 “Experience and Poverty” (Benjamin), 143, 145–46, 150–52, 166 “Eyes of the Poor” (Baudelaire), 31, 186n45 Foucault, Michel: on asceticism, xxi; Baudelaire and, 42; on biopower, 222 Index xxi, 1, 21–24, 183n85; Deleuze on, 181n74, 182n77, 183n3; on disability, 20, 23; on disciplinary power, 1, 18–22; Discipline and Punish, 19–20, 22, 184n8; History of Sexuality, Volume I, xxi, 18, 21–23, 183n85; on identity, xix; impotence in, 23, 25; on infamy, 25, 42; on literature, 24; “Lives of Infamous Men,” 24–26, 32, 41–42, 183n5, 184n8; Madness and Civilization, 20–22, 182n76; and Marx, 1–2, 18–19, 22, 181n74, 182n76; Order of Things, xix, 199n71; on poverty, 18–19; Spivak on, 184n8 Francis, Saint, 135–36, 141 Franck, Didier, 195n16 Freccero, John, 63 Freedman, Ralph, 202n18, 212n62 Freud, Sigmund, 26, 178n11 Frey, Hans-Jost, 184n20 Frowen, Irina, 202n5 Fülleborn, Ulrich, 176n26, 176n31, 205n49 Gauthier, Michel, 189n4 Gay Science, The (Nietzsche), 87, 91, 198n48 Ghil, René, 51 Gill, Austin, 192n44, 192n59 Gorni, Guglielmo, 192n49 Götz, Susanne, 211n54 Grillparzer, Franz, xix Grimm, Reinhold, 141 Groddeck, Wolfram, 92, 199n61 Grotowski, Jerzy, xi Grundlehner, Philip, 90, 199n62, 200n81 Guattari, Fộlix, 16 Guộry, Franỗois, 175n20, 180n52, 181n75 Haar, Michel, 90, 198n45 Haase, Marie Luise, 200n84 Halborn, Peter, 215n39 Hale, Geoffrey, 207n66 Hamburger, Käte, 209n22 Hardt, Michael, xvi, 17, 173n7, 174n17, 181n74 “Hatred of the Poor Man” (Mallarmé), 55, 62–65, 68–69 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 203n29, 205n49, 216n52 Heidegger, Martin: Aristotle’s Metaphysics θ 1–3, 2–9, 177n6; Being and Time, 126, 134, 210n27; on disability, 6; on dunamis (power), 3–7; on enactment, 5–8, 18, 23, 43, 178n21; impotence in, 5–9; “Letter on Humanism,” x; on logos, 7–9; on Nietzsche, 196n24, 196n28; on resistance, 3–4, 6; on Rilke, 121, 125–26, 142 Heller, Erich, 95, 202n5 Heselhaus, Clemens, 90 Hesse, Hermann, 136, 211n53 History of Sexuality, Volume I (Foucault), xxi, 18, 21–23, 183n85 Hoffmann, Ernst Fedor, 117–18, 135, 138 Hofmannsthal, Hugo von, 136, 168– 69, 206n53, 208n82 Hugo, Victor, xix, 26–27 Human, All Too Human (Nietzsche), 73 Huyssen, Andreas, 116–18, 130–31, 140–41 hysteria, 33, 178n11, 186n46 Index identification: with the crowd, 27; with the poor, xviii, 23, 35, 116 identity: in Baudelaire, 28–30; in Brecht, 156; Foucault on, xix; of the lumpenproletariat, 14–17; of the poor, xvi–xix, 9, 23; of the proletariat, 14–18, 180n54; in Resnais, xx See also Nietzsche, Friedrich: identity in; Rilke, Rainer Maria: identity in impotence: in Baudelaire, 30, 33, 35, 44; boredom and, 30; in Foucault, 25; in Heidegger, 5–9; in Marx, 16, 18; in Marx and Foucault, 23; in Rilke, 115 “In Passing” (“A une passante”) (Baudelaire), 26–27, 124, 184n13, 186n46, 209n24 Irigaray, Luce, 186n46 Jacobsen, Jens Peter, 210n39 Jandl, Ernst, 204n34 Jaspers, Karl, 195n16 Jay, Martin, 213n9 Jesi, Furio, 95, 135, 175n22, 202n5 “Jinx, The” (Mallarmé), 62 Johnson, Barbara, 191n34 Jugendstil, 153, 215n41 Kaempfert, Manfred, 195n16 Kantorowicz, Ernst, 187n61 “Karl Kraus” (Benjamin), 161 Kaufmann, Vincent, 191n34 Keenan, Bridget Mary, 186n46 Kerényi, Karl, 201n86 Key, Ellen, 212n62 Kierkegaard, Søren, 111, 214n17 Klossowski, Pierre, 74 Knopf, Jan, 217n72 223 Kofman, Sarah, 195n9 Kraus, Karl, 145, 161 Krell, David Farrell, 201n86 Krolow, Karl, 212n64 Krueger, Cheryl, 35 Kultermann, Udo, 215n39 LaCapra, Dominick, 183n96 Lacoue-Labarthe, Phillipe, 173n5 Lambertini, Roberto, 173n7 “Lament of Ariadne” (Nietzsche), 85–86 Laplanche, Jean, 178n11 “Last Will” (Nietzsche), 83 Le Rider, Jacques, 209n19 Lethen, Helmut, 217n72, 217n77 “Let’s Beat Up the Poor” (Baudelaire), 32, 36–44, 46, 59, 70 “Letter on Humanism” (Heidegger), x “Lives of Infamous Men” (Foucault), 24–26, 32, 41–42, 183n5, 184n8 Lucques, Claire, 211n49 Lukács, Georg, 176n26 lumpenproletariat: in Baudelaire, 29; identity of, 14–17; Marx on, 12–16; as race, 29 Macherey, Pierre, 174n9 “Madame Bovary” (Baudelaire), 186n46 Madness and Civilization (Foucault), 20–22, 182n76 Maeterlinck, Maurice, 97, 144 Mallarmé, Stéphane: absence in, 52– 54, 69–70, 98; as ascetic poet, 46–47, 70; on ballet, 68–69, 194n78; Benjamin on, 51; Blanchot on, 49–50, 98; Deleuze on, 224 Index 51; everyday language in, 51; faces and facelessness in, 57–58; final line of poetry in, 59–64, 67, 70; on journalism, 49–51, 190n15; on nothing (rien), 52–55; prosopopeia in, 57–58; rhyme in, 59–65; on simile, 105, 205n46, 206n52; terza rima in, 59, 62–63 Mallarmé, Stéphane: works of: “Alms,” 55–58, 62–65, 68–70, 191n36–37; “Ballets,” 68; “Afternoon of a Faun,” 52, 60–61, 65, 192n53; “Crisis of Verse,” 49–53, 57–58, 66, 69, 98; “Demon of Analogy,” 64–66, 69; “Hatred of the Poor Man,” 55, 62–65, 68–69; “Jinx, The,” 62; “Music and Letters,” 50, 53, 68; “Poor Pale Child,” 59–61; “Reminiscence,” 59; “Solemnity,” 64; “Throw of the Dice, A,” 60, 66–69, 193n72; “Villiers de l’Isle Adam,” 48 Man Equals Man (Brecht), 155–59, 164 Mann, Thomas, 121 Manual of Piety (Brecht), 163 Man Without Qualities, The (Musil), x Marx, Karl: on the accumulation of capital, 9–10; Arendt on, xiii, 174n11; Capital, xvi–xvii, 1, 4–5, 9–18, 22, 26, 179n39, 180n51; on disability, 13–14, 19, 23, 180n51; on discipline, 181n75; Foucault and, 1–2, 18–19, 22, 181n74, 182n76; impotence in, 16, 18, 23; “On the Jewish Question,” 148; on labor power, xv–xvii, 1, 4, 9–10, 13, 19, 23, 29; on lumpenproletariat, 12–16; on pauperism, xvi–xvii, 1, 11–14, 16–18, 23, 26; on the relative surplus population, xvi, 9–12, 14, 20, 179n39 Mason, Eudo, 201n3 McCall, Marsh H., Jr., 205n44 Mehlmann, Jeffrey, 14, 188n71 metaphor, 88, 105, 148, 204n43, 205n44, 205n49; Hegel on, 203n29, 205n49 See also Rilke, Rainer Maria: metaphor in Milner, Jean-Claude, 60, 193n65 mimicry, 91–92, 94 Monroe, Jonathan, 187n55 Montinari, Mazzino, 200n84 Montreuil, Sophie, 186n45 Müller Farguell, Roger, 197n32 Musil, Robert: Man without Qualities, x; on Rilke, 106–8, 115 “Music and Letters” (Mallarmé), 50, 53, 68 Nägele, Rainer, 157, 201n91 Nancy, Jean-Luc, 199n72, 210n25 Negri, Antonio, xvi, 17, 173n7, 174n17, 181n74 Newmark, Kevin, 184n20, 191n38, 213n12 Nietzsche contra Wagner (Nietzsche), 80, 87 Nietzsche, Friedrich: anagram in, 85–86; on asceticism, 71–77, 81–83, 90, 92–94, 194n4; on Christianity, 71–72, 74, 194n16; Deleuze on, 71, 87, 194n4, 197n38, 198n45, 198n58, 200n75; on difference, 74–77, 82, 93; on the eternal return, 78–79, 197n38; Heidegger on, 196n24, 196n28; Index identity in, 71, 76–77, 79–80, 82–84, 86, 93–94; mimicry in, 91–92, 94; on the overman, 76–77, 81–82; Ronell on, 79, 87, 186n41, 198n47, 199n72; sacrifice in, 79, 88–90, 200n79; shame in, 80; similarity in, 75–80, 82, 93; truth in, 72, 80–81, 83, 86–94; will to deception in, 73 Nietzsche, Friedrich, works of: “Among Birds of Prey,” 84–85; Beyond Good and Evil, 72, 89, 92–93, 196n21, 197n41, 198n49, 200n80, 201n86; Birth of Tragedy, 93, 96–98; 196n26, 201n91; Daybreak, 73, 200n79; Dionysus Dithyrambs, 83–94, 167; Gay Science, 87, 91, 198n48; On the Genealogy of Morality, 72–73, 89, 93, 194n4, 194n6, 194n14, 200n84; Human, All Too Human, 73; “Lament of Ariadne,” 85–86; “Last Will,” 83; Nietzsche contra Wagner, 80, 87; posthumous papers (Nachlaß), 73; “On the Poverty of the Richest,” 86–94; Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 74–83, 89, 93, 160, 197n41, 198n48, 199n74, 200n76; “On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life,” 142 Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, The (Rilke), 98, 100, 106–141, 164 Oehler, Dolf, 43, 175n21, 184n13, 185n34, 187n53 “Old Acrobat” (Baudelaire), ix, 32–36, 41, 43–44, 167 omen, xix, 38–43 225 One-Way Street (Benjamin), 144, 167–68 On the Genealogy of Morality (Nietzsche), 72–73, 89, 93, 194n4, 194n6, 194n14, 200n84 “On the Jewish Question” (Marx), 148 “On the Poverty of the Richest” (Nietzsche), 86–94 “On the Use and Disadvantage of History for Life” (Nietzsche), 142 Order of Things, The (Foucault), xix, 199n71 “Painter of Modern Life, The” (Baudelaire), 28 paranomasia, 76, 78, 196n29 passivity, 3–4, 33, 35–36, 43 pauperism, xvi, 11–14, 16–18, 23 Pearson, Roger, 51, 68, 190n32 Pontalis, J B., 178n11 “Poor Pale Child” (Mallarmé), 59–61 population, 20–21 Preußer, Norbert, 174n9 Procacci, Giovanna, 175n21, 179n35, 180n44–45, 180n59 proletariat, 14–18, 59, 180n54 prosopopeia, xiv–xv, 57–58, 150 Proust, Marcel, 3–4 Rabinach, Anson, 175n24, 178n19 Rabinow, Paul, 182n80 Ramazani, Vaheed K., 187n48 Rancière, Jacques, 52, 180n54, 180n56 Reader for Those Who Live in Cities (Brecht), 159–64 Rehm, Walter, 202n21 “Reminiscence” (Mallarmé), 59 226 Index resistance: in Freud, 178n11; in Heidegger 3–4, 6; in Proust, 3–4; of the poor, Resnais, Alain, xx Richard, Jean-Pierre, 191n36 Ricouer, Paul, 204n43 Rilke, Rainer Maria: and asceticism, 110, 136; and Baudelaire, 115, 130–31, 134; Blanchot on, 98, 123, 127, 129, 142, 207n78; Book of Hours, 99, 112–14, 122, 136, 139, 142, 164; “Book of Monkish Life,” 112, 203n24; “Book of Poverty and Death,” 98–115, 118, 137; and Brecht, 158, 164; on Christianity, 111, 136; community in, 97, 119, 122–26, 129, 133, 138; death in, 113–14; Duino Elegies, 142; enactment in, 107; faces and facelessness in, 133–35, 137; and George, 201n3; gesture in, 138; Heidegger on, 121, 125–26, 142; identity in, 112–13, 121, 123, 127– 28, 134, 138, 141–42; impotence in, 115; influence in, 95–96; love in, 116, 131–32, 137; luster (Glanz) in, 100, 114–15; and Mallarmé, 98–99, 115, 141; metaphor in, 102, 105, 108; and Nietzsche, 96–98, 114, 119, 128, 140–42; Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, 98, 100, 106–41, 164; on Paris, 99–100, 130; on Rodin, 112; and Saint Francis, 135–36, 141; sight in, 119–20, 122, 126, 129–30, 133; similarity in, 102, 136–37; simile in, 96, 98, 101–9, 112, 118, 122, 125, 139, 164 Roff, Sarah Ley, 213n12 Ronell, Avital, 79, 87, 186n41, 198n47, 199n72 Rothko, Mark, xx Ryan, Judith, 208n6, 211n48, 212n57, 212n60 sacrifice, 79, 88–90, 200n79 Sainte-Beuve, Charles-Augustin, 29 Sändig, Reinhard, 162 Sanyal, Debarati, 68, 188n62, 192n56 Scheerbart, Paul, 153–54, 215n39 Scherer, Jacques, 51–52, 68 Schings, Hans-Jürgen, 207n64 Schlossman, Beryl, 186n46 Schoeller-Reisch, Donata, 195n14 Schumann, Klaus, 217n72 Schürmann, Reiner, 173n7, 179n28–n29 Schwarz, Anette, 204n32, 211n44 secret, 1, 25–26, 29–30, 41, 43, 152 Seifert, Walter, 202n20, 208n83 “Seven Old Men” (Baudelaire), 27–28 sexuality, 18, 23 shock, 35 similarity: in Nietzsche, 75–80, 82, 93; in Rilke, 102, 136–37 simile: 204n43, 205n44; in Baudelaire, 28, 30; Benn on, 104–8; Hegel on, 203n29; Mallarmé on, 105, 205n46, 206n52; Musil on, 106–7, 115 See also Rilke, Rainer Maria: simile in Simmel, Georg, 110–11, 207n64 Smart, Barry, 181n74, 182n77 Sokel, Walter, 114, 123, 134 “Solemnity” (Mallarmé), 64 speech act, 42 Spitzer, Leo, 203n27 Index Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 184n8 Stahl, August, 206n61, 208n4 Stallybrass, Peter, 14 Stambaugh, Joan, 197n37 Starobinski, Jean, 35, 186n45, 199n68 Sternberger, Dolf, 215n41 Stingelin, Martin, 196n27 Styra, Ambros, 211n50 Szondi, Peter, 200n85 Tafuri, Manfredo, 216n44 Tamba-Mecz, Irène, 205n44 Temple, Michael, 189n4 Terdiman, Richard, 174n8 Theisen, Bianca, 199n61, 200n74, 200n79 Thoburn, Nicholas, 14–17 “Throw of the Dice, A” (Mallarmé), 60, 66–69, 193n72 Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Nietzsche), 74–83, 89, 93, 160, 197n41, 198n48, 199n74, 200n76 “To the Reader” (Baudelaire), 29–30, 37, 62 227 uncanniness, 26, 30, 43 untimeliness, xix, 39, 142, 144 Valadier, Paul, 195n16 Valéry, Paul, 46–47, 51, 67, 70, 193n72 Veyne, Paul, 205n44 “Villiers de l’Isle Adam” (Mallarmé), 48 Wagner, Richard, 180n45 Weber, Elisabeth, 174n7 Weichelt, Klaus, 198n45 “What Is Epic Theater?” (Benjamin), 157 Williams, Raymond, 174n9 Witt, Charlotte, 8, 177n6, 177n9, 178n23 Wolff, Lutz-Werner, 212n54 “Work of Art in the Age of Its Mechanical Reproducibility” (Benjamin), 154 Ziolkowski, Theodore, 133 Patrick Greaney is assistant professor of German at the University of Colorado at Boulder .. .Untimely Beggar This page intentionally left blank Untimely Beggar { Poverty and Power from Baudelaire to Benjamin Patrick Greaney University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London Material from. .. understanding of poverty and to a number of questions: What is it about poverty that allows it to assume such a broad range of meanings in authors from Mallarmé to Brecht, from Marx to Nietzsche, from. .. Cataloging-in-Publication Data Greaney, Patrick Untimely beggar : poverty and power from Baudelaire to Benjamin / Patrick Greaney p cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN: 978-0-8166-4950-1