Prof. Elizabeth C. Hamilton, German
Fact or fiction: Oberlin's passion for social justice begins in German.
One German novella I especially enjoy reading with Oberlin students is Lenz by Georg Büchner. Written in 1839, Lenz is a fictionalized account of a difficult period in the life of a historical figure, the eighteenth-century playwright Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz. While I would enjoy teaching this novella to any group of students, it has particular impact at Oberlin because Johann Friedrich Oberlin, the man for whom Oberlin College was named, is a major character in the novella. Indeed, the novella is based on Oberlin's own account of his real-life encounter with Lenz.
Despite critical and commercial success of Lenz's plays and recognition as a leader of the Sturm und Drang movement in German literature, the highly unconventional Lenz never found lasting security or acceptance among the other great writers of the day. He had a terrible psychological breakdown in the winter of 1778, and turned, in despair, to Oberlin, an Alsatian pastor in a tiny mountain parish. Though this was a terrible moment in Lenz's life, in the hands of a great writer like Büchner, Lenz's restless wandering and mental anguish take on unexpected poignancy and meaning. As an unflinching rendering of emotional turbulence, the work impresses and touches me. I admire Büchner for trying so hard to imagine what was going through Lenz's mind more than half a century earlier. I am especially intrigued by the way he interweaves known facts of the visit with language and imagery that make Lenz's suffering palpable.
Though more than 60 years separate Lenz's breakdown from Büchner's novella, and though more that 230 years separate today's readers from the original events, students in my classes agree that the novella feels surprisingly fresh and relevant, opening up conversations about things we care deeply about today. One line early on piques their curiosity: "Oberlin welcomed him, he took him to be a journeyman."1
Oberlin? they ask. Is that our Oberlin?
Indeed it is. Born in the Alsace region in 1740, Johann Friedrich Oberlin left his home in Strassburg at 27 to serve the Lutheran parish in the alpine village of Waldbach in the Steintal. It was there that he took in the troubled Lenz, who came to him having heard about his compassion and practicality. For Oberlin, a meaningful theology needed to unite the spiritual and earthly realms. He believed in the dignity of work and the soul's need for it, and so he founded cottage industries and schools where congregants could earn a living and better their lives. Pietism informed his thoughts: through changed hearts and holy living, people could grow toward oneness with God.
Firm in these convictions, Pastor Oberlin walked with Lenz, talked, prayed, counseled, and even let him preach one Sunday. However despite his best efforts, he was not able to help Lenz regain his hold on reality. Oberlin conceded in February of 1778 that he could do no more for the troubled Lenz and had him taken back to Strassburg, most likely to an asylum.
When Büchner wrote his novella, it was obviously necessary to include Oberlin as a key character. Yet Oberlin was not simply a figure in Büchner's story, but also the author of the original record. Oberlin wrote about Lenz's stay in the parish in a detailed journal account now known as the Aufzeichnungen . These diary entries detail the days between Lenz's arrival on January 20, 1778 and the beginning of February of that year. Why did Oberlin take such copious notes? Possibly he wrote the diary to prepare an explanation of his actions for Lutheran church authorities. Perhaps he feared a clerical investigation, or perhaps he was beginning to reevaluate his varied efforts to stave off Lenz's near-suicidal despair. He acknowledged that "there are those who have said: we should not have taken him in in the first place; there are others: we should not have kept him on so long; and still others: we should not have sent him away."2 In any event, the diary entries, written in German, provide a stunning record of Lenz's outbursts and distress, his calmer periods, and his estrangement from God and people.
Oberlin's work was well regarded by an ever-expanding public even after his death in 1826. A French-language biography, Vie de J. F. Oberlin, Pasteur a Waldbach by Daniel Ehrenfried Stoeber, appeared in 1831. August Stoeber, son of the biographer, published the diaries themselves in a German-language journal, Erwinia , in 1839, which in turn prompted Georg Büchner's literary exploration of Lenz's visit with Oberlin.
Büchner was born in the German city of Darmstadt and lived from 1813-1837. Trained as a medical doctor, Büchner studied nervous disorders and held a post at the University of Zuerich medical school. But medicine was his father's profession, and Büchner had a passion for writing. Like Lenz, he questioned the idealist tradition of literature and felt that reality should be portrayed as it was, not as it should be. He was active in radical political agitation to protest the resurgence of absolutism after the fall of Napoleon. Büchner was even charged with treason for his pamphlet, Der hessische Landbote (The Hessian Messenger), which criticized the Grand Duchy of Hesse for political repression and harsh treatment of the poor. He fled the German Confederation for exile in Strassburg, where he had earlier studied medicine. He died of typhus at age 23, just as his most famous play, Woyzeck , was nearing completion. Büchner remains one of the most esteemed authors in all of Germany, where the most prestigious literary prize given to authors today is named for him.
So we have here a story of three famous men, each of whom has entered history on his own merits independently of one another. But their interlocking story is just as profound, for it reflects the coming together of religion, medicine, and literature to help us understand mental illness in a modern world. On the surface, this relationship can be described quite simply: Lenz comes to Oberlin, Oberlin writes of his encounter, and Büchner imagines what Oberlin doesn't say. Yet Büchner also takes whole passages from Oberlin and weaves them, verbatim, into a longer narrative of delusion and pain. What could Büchner have hoped to achieve by means of the lengthy quotations and the insertion of imaginative prose. Why did this medical school professor even consider a literary treatment of this case? Shouldn't a medical doctor develop a medical treatment?
Where Oberlin recognizes Lenz's suffering and makes genuine efforts to return him to the fold, Büchner weaves that account into an unguarded journey into Lenz's fevered, delusional state of mind. He transforms Oberlin's factual descriptions into inner monologue, desperate cries, claims, apologies, and prayers. The landscape comes alive to illustrate and illuminate Lenz's anguish. Where Oberlin strives for objectivity, Büchner amplifies the voices in Lenz's head and registers the tremors in his heart. Ultimately, Büchner's incorporation of Oberlin's text is less an act of correction—or of thievery—than a demonstration of trust in the validity of Oberlin's account. Büchner is simply curious about different things and with new questions in mind, he carries on with the exploration that Oberlin started.
What is common to both accounts? Instead of focusing on the physical collapse, both Oberlin and Büchner reflect on the spiritual and social dimensions of insanity. For Oberlin and for Büchner, the body, mind, and spirit are inseparable. Oberlin and Büchner are sensitive to Lenz's vulnerability, and neither glorifies or exploits his suffering. Each upholds the dignity of the man while looking at the illness from new angles. Neither invasive nor evasive of his anguish, their writings move toward Lenz where others would move away to escape the unpleasantness. Each in his own way, Büchner and Oberlin listen with care, seeking to understand.
The history of the Lenz-Oberlin-Büchner dialogue opens onto a vast tapestry of knowledge about others as well as ourselves. After all, the same biography of Oberlin that inspired Büchner also inspired two Ohio missionaries to found our College and name it in Oberlin's honor. But the potential for learning extends far beyond our campus. Do you want to learn about the biography of an important playwright? Look here. Do you want to examine the purpose of different genres of writing or study the origins of literary modernism? Look here. Do you want to trace the history of mental illness? Compare religious or political philosophies? Investigate foundational concepts of ethics? It's all here. This dialogue among fact and fiction shows us not only many ways to understand and deal with human suffering, but also how the past remains part of the present.
From a small valley in the Vosges mountains to this only slightly larger town in Ohio, the record begun as "Herr L..." traverses languages, genres, societies, and aesthetics. The most compelling part of the Lenz story is that it doesn't end with Büchner. I study Lenz with my students at Oberlin because these texts open doors: to language, to literature, to history, to the treatment of people with illness or physical difference, to the examination of ourselves and our roles in this world.
1 You can find several versions of Oberlin's Aufzeichnungen and Büchner's Lenz in the original German and in English translations at Mudd Library. This translated quotation is taken from Richard Sieburth's beautiful edition, which includes German and English versions of both the novella and the original Oberlin diaries. (See: Büchner, Georg. Lenz . Translated by Richard Sieburth. New York: Archipelago, 2009. 9.)
2 Büchner 125.
