Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi's Woldemar, seen through the lens of René Girard’s Deceit, Desire, and the Novel

Abstract

The link between the philosophical works and the literary works written by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi has been emphasised repeatedly and from many different perspectives. The aim of this paper is to analyse one of Jacobi's novels, Woldemar, with the concepts elaborated by René Girard in his book Deceit, Desire, and the Novel. Girardian mimetic theory, which —as far as we know— has not yet been employed for a substantial study of Jacobi's thought, can provide a new understanding of the issues explored by the German author. The hypothesis we intend to demonstrate is that the novel Woldemar is structured by what Girard calls ‘internal mediation’. The internal mediations between Woldemar, Henriette and Allwina (three characters of the novel) are not, however, redeemed in what Girard calls ‘conversion’. The internal mediation between Woldemar and Henriette does indeed go through a process close to conversion, but, as we will try to show, Allwina's character does not lose her role as an internal mediator. A Girardian analysis of the novel Woldemar makes it possible to link Jacobi's distinctive critique of philosophical nihilism with a literary exposition of what, in Girard's terms, is called ‘deviated transcendency’.