eJournals Colloquia Germanica 55/3-4

Colloquia Germanica
cg
0010-1338
Francke Verlag Tübingen
71
2023
553-4

Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte

71
2023
Isabel von Holt
This article explores Hubert Fichte’s “aesthetic of the regularly irregular,” which embraces the baroque – with the playwright Daniel Casper von Lohenstein as its main representative – as well as the religion of vodou. In his radio and projected theater adaptation of Lohenstein’s play Agrippina and the essay “Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohenstein’s Agrippina,” Fichte conceptualizes both baroque theater and vodou as suppressed layers – “Schichten” – of history, as cultural phenomena that have been marginalized in the context of modern Western aesthetics and morals due to their specific uses of language and their representations of sexual diversity. At the same time, Fichte establishes them as subversive cultural practices and techniques that bring such layers to the surface of the present and thus offer the possibility of questioning the critically perceived idea(l)s of Western modernity.
cg553-40201
Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte Isabel von Holt Northwestern University Abstract: This article explores Hubert Fichte’s “aesthetic of the regularly irregular,” which embraces the baroque - with the playwright Daniel Casper von Lohenstein as its main representative - as well as the religion of vodou� In his radio and projected theater adaptation of Lohenstein’s play Agrippina and the essay “Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohenstein’s Agrippina,” Fichte conceptualizes both baroque theater and vodou as suppressed layers - “Schichten” - of history, as cultural phenomena that have been marginalized in the context of modern Western aesthetics and morals due to their specific uses of language and their representations of sexual diversity� At the same time, Fichte establishes them as subversive cultural practices and techniques that bring such layers to the surface of the present and thus offer the possibility of questioning the critically perceived idea(l)s of Western modernity. Keywords: baroque, theater, vodou, Hubert Fichte, homosexuality In “Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohensteins Agrippina,” Hubert Fichte drafts an “aesthetic of the regularly irregular,” which not only German baroque theater - with the playwright Daniel Casper von Lohenstein as its main representative - is part of, but the religion of vodou as well: “In die Aesthetik des regelhaft Unregelmaessigen gehoert der Vaudou mit hinein” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 192)� This article will explore the “aesthetic of the regularly irregular” that is deeply tied to Fichte’s cultural-political agenda� Fichte understands both Lohenstein’s baroque theater and Haitian vodou as cultural phenomena that have been suppressed by modern Western culture� Lohenstein has been “verdraengt,” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 141), “[v]ergessen� Auch von der Fachpresse” (“Elf Übertreibungen” 15), and “haitianische Kultur gibt es im Merkbuch der Gebildeten nicht” ( Lazarus 260)� But to Fichte, both represent “unsere Entwicklung” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 192)� However, this does not mean that they constitute an archaic moment in time that is left behind and part of 202 Isabel von Holt the past, which would support the concept of progressivist modernity� Instead, they are present at the margins and thus offer the possibility of questioning the present of a critically perceived Western modernity� And this idea is intrinsically linked to Fichte’s project of a lifetime, Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � Because Fichte understands history as the construct of a narrative, of a story, his Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit is the product as well as the document of an eminent poietic process that forms history� This poietic process is deeply connected to the discovery of layers - “Schichten” - of history, of the present, of “our development�” At the end of his 1974 novel Versuch über die Pubertät , Fichte opts for “Schichten statt Geschichten”: “Ich entschließe mich […], mein schönes Buch zu schreiben, Gesichter zu vergrößern, Litaneien aufzuzeichnen - Schichten statt Geschichten, Kiesel, Zeitraffer, Zeitlupe, die Uhrzeit verlieren und auch die wiedergefundene Zeit wieder verlieren” (294)� As he closes his novel with these poetologically programmatic remarks, they serve almost as an opening to the Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit as the “beautiful book,” which Fichte starts conceptualizing in the same year Versuch über die Pubertät is published� In retrospect, Fichte will even count the novel as part of his opus magnum � Fichte plays on the paronomasia of “Geschichte” and “Schicht” and thereby introduces a terminology which emphasizes the stories in histories, always presuming a plurality of stories, of layers as a product of sedimentation, indicated by the element “Kiesel�” This conception in Fichte was inspired by Walter Benjamin (Teichert 161)� Jane O� Newman links this idea in Benjamin to his reading experience of Lohenstein’s plays in the context of Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels � Lohenstein’s dramatic texts are each followed by a learned appendix, the so-called Anmerkungen , that constitute a separate type of text, written by the author himself� The mere fact that Lohenstein’s contemporaries, as well as Benjamin (and Fichte and us), constantly switch between the dramatic text and its appendix during the reading, “legt die Geschichtetheit und Beweglichkeit seiner [Lohensteins] - und damit implizit aller - Wissensentwürfe offen, einschließlich Benjamins und unserer eigenen” (Newman 327)� When Fichte references Benjamin with the motto “Schichten statt Geschichten,” he implicitly refers to Lohenstein as well. This process is also effective in the religious practice of vodou as Fichte explicates: “Die Schichten der haitianischen Geschichte werden in jeder Zeremonie deutlich” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 142)� This article will show that theater, meaning baroque theater, and trance, as an integral part of Afro-diasporic religious practice, are on two levels representative of the layered histories proposed by Fichte� First, they are themselves layers, but layers, which are suppressed - and subversive� Secondly, Fichte introduces theater and trance as cultural phenomena and techniques, which bring such Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 203 layers to the surface of the present� And this ultimately reveals something about his literary project Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � In one of his last public appearances, the “Wiener Vorlesungen zur Literatur” in 1986, Lohenstein’s writing is Fichte’s topic� Even before he begins his remarks, Fichte warns that he is not a typical author and/ or intellectual - or at least that is what he wants his audience to believe: Liebe Freunde, liebe Kollegen, Ich muss Sie warnen� Sie wissen es wahrscheinlich schon, ich bin ein Schriftsteller, der sich in seinem Leben mehr mit Strichjungen, Straßenmädchen und Vaudoupriestern herumgetrieben hat als mit den wichtigen Persönlichkeiten, mit denen man als Schriftsteller umgehen sollte� (“Hubert Fichte warnt vor sich” 7) There is no doubt that Fichte’s positioning of himself alongside protagonists of social, economic, and cultural marginalization and even criminalization - male and female sex workers, vodou priests - is part of his self-fashioning� Fichte goes on to distance himself from, and even disqualify, the elitist expectations placed on writers like himself: Denn sehen sie, wenn alle diejenigen Persönlichkeiten, mit denen man als Schriftsteller umgehen sollte, die sich mehr auf Tagungen, in Preisrichterkollegien und in Redaktionsvorzimmern auskennen als in Absteigen, Saunen und Parks, etwas sorgfältiger nachgeblättert hätten und Daniel Casper von Lohenstein zu seinem 350� Geburtstag nicht auf so skandalöse Weise vernachlässigt - dann brauchten Sie heute nicht mit dem Autor des Versuches über die Pubertät vorliebnehmen� Poetik kommt von poiein, machen� Von poiein verstehe ich was� Haben Sie Lust, dass wir uns tätig der Poetik Lohensteins nähern? (7—8) Fichte denounces the literary critics he addresses as ignorant� Their exclusive behavior is the reason why they do not recognize the significance of Lohenstein’s work for German literature� Ten years earlier, Fichte had already posed the rhetorical question in the introduction to Mein Lesebuch : “Von zehn Fachleuten konnte keiner über Daniel Casper von Lohenstein extrapolieren? ” (“Elf Übertreibungen” 11)� In contrast to these so-called experts, he emphasizes his own literally ex-centric life experience in run-down motels, saunas, and parks - all of them being centers of homosexual encounter. Fichte thus profiles empiricism over theory and stages himself as a man of action� This enables him to understand poetics as practice and to “extrapolate” from it� He associates ex-centrism - conceived as textual 204 Isabel von Holt and sensual excessiveness on the one hand and marginalization and suppression on the other - with Lohenstein and vice versa� Especially in the last decade of his life, Fichte dedicated himself increasingly to editing and staging Lohenstein’s plays, which coincided with his work on Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � Fichte wrote “Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohensteins Agrippina” in May 1977 in Caracas. The text first appeared in 1978 under the aforementioned title in the volume Lohensteins Agrippina, bearbeitet von Hubert Fichte that also includes Fichte’s stage version of Lohenstein’s play� In 1987, the “Anmerkungen” were published in Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit as part of the first volume of Homosexualität und Literatur. There, the text is titled “Vaudoueske Blutbaeder� Mischreligioese Helden� Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohensteins Agrippina�” This already indicates the close, even familial relationship Fichte establishes not only between vodou priests and the baroque poet Lohenstein, as suggested in his poetics lecture, but also between baroque theater and vodou as cultural practices and phenomena. Before I further explore this correlation, I will first focus on the textual genre and strategy of Fichte’s “Anmerkungen” and their correspondence to the large-scale project Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � As Bernhard Asmuth explains in his foreword to Lohensteins Agrippina, bearbeitet von Hubert Fichte , Fichte developed the stage version out of his radio adaptation of Lohenstein’s Agrippina that first aired on Norddeutscher Rundfunk on March 13, 1977� But Fichte not only adapted Lohenstein’s drama and produced it as a radio play, but his “Anmerkungen” are also staged� As I have explained, the print versions of the baroque Trauerspiele include an appendix of authorial notes ( Anmerkungen )� In Lohenstein’s case, these notes can swell up to the size of the actual dramatic text� In his last play Ibrahim Sultan from 1673, for example, both encompass almost the same number of pages� Because they are written as Geschichtsdramen , the plays insist that what they are presenting happened in exactly the same or at least a similar way� The notes both authenticate what is presented in the plays and construct it through the selective compilation of various historiographic sources, especially when one source or passage is cited, while another one is omitted� Comments such as “Aber Lohenstein übergeht diese Stelle in seinen ‘Anmerckungen’” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 151) illustrate that Fichte is keenly aware of this method in his reading of Lohenstein� The extensive source references in the baroque notes and thus the text’s continuous display of its connection to an encyclopedic network of knowledge is indicative of a concept of authorship which precedes the projection of idiosyncratic genius and instead establishes originality through imitatio and aemulatio . It highlights that baroque poetics are always conscious about their Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 205 own historicity ( Geschichtlichkeit and Geschichtetheit ) on the one hand and their intrinsic relation to historiography on the other� By staging his essays on Lohenstein - the master of Anmerkungen himself - as “Anmerkungen,” Fichte aligns his own project with the polyhistorical techniques he encounters in the early modern, the baroque poetic practice. This even becomes visible in the print: The missing Umlautbuchstaben (ä, ö, ü) in both publications of “Anmerkungen zu Lohensteins Agrippina” demonstrate that Fichte had used a typewriter with a non-German keyboard, but this also conveniently overlaps with seventeenthcentury print conventions, where an e following (or superior to) the respective vowel used to mark the Umlaut � Through the text genre Anmerkungen , Fichte reflects on his own poietic project Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit that challenges post-Enlightenment moral and aesthetic ideals� In this sense, it is no surprise that the conceptualization of Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit concurs with his work on Lohenstein� Besides his “Anmerkungen zu Lohensteins Agrippina,” Fichte also wrote “Ach des Achs! Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohensteins Türkischem Trauerspiel Ibrahim Bassa” in 1978� Fichte produces the radio play Ibrahim Bassa with German schoolboys, who lend the characters their voices� By doing so, he imitates the performance practice of the Breslau school theater that put on Lohenstein’s plays in the seventeenth century� Although a heterosexual convention prevails, Fichte uncovers a homosexual or at least homoerotic undercurrent in the baroque theater tradition, hidden beneath the costumes or “in drag,” that amplifies the theatricality and performativity of gender identities, sexual orientations and preferences� For Fichte, homosexuality is present and presented at the edges of the baroque stage, which coincides with his own programmatic position at the margins, in run-down motels, saunas, and parks� This further correlates with the complex Homosexualität und Literatur in his work� In Fichte’s radio adaptation of Ibrahim Bassa , the focus clearly lies on the connection between homosexuality and puberty that had already been central to Versuch über die Pubertät � Not only are the actors - both from the seventeenth and twentieth centuries - teenagers, but Lohenstein himself was only 14 when he wrote the play� As the drama deals with living and dying for love and friendship, Fichte reflects on his own role in his “Anmerkungen”: “Darf ein Kompilator, in dem Bemühen, subterrane Traditionen aufzufinden, extrapolieren, der Ibrahim Bassa sei eine homosexuelle Liebesgeschichte, ein Gleichnis für Lohensteins eigene pubertäre Zwiespälte? ” (“Anmerkungen Ibrahim Bassa” 233)� Fichte calls himself “Kompilator,” someone who produces a book by compiling, by assembling different materials and texts. The process of compiling can be encountered in Lohenstein’s as well as in Fichte’s poetic operation, as 206 Isabel von Holt the Anmerkungen of both authors’ document� Fichte knows that his conception of Lohenstein’s possible struggle with his sexual orientation may be an overinterpretation� However, compilation is “Auswahl, Umformung, vielartige Korrektur” (“Anmerkungen Ibrahim Bassa” 204) of the material at hand� Fichte observes this in Lohenstein and applies it to his own work� Compilation, in this sense, is a tool for shaping one’s literary (and political) project such as the overall project of Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � Fichte inscribes himself in the early modern textual tradition of compilation, which in its most popular form is devoted to historiography� Fichte uses compilation as a polyhistorical, but also as a poietic practice. He assembles different layers (“subterranean traditions”) of given materials to create a new, regularly irregular text and texture� With regard to Fichte’s work on Lohenstein’s Agrippina , compilation is the creative principle behind both, Fichte’s Agrippina radio play as well as his Agrippina essay� In the radio play, Fichte adds passages of Friedrich Hölderlin’s translation of Oedipus Rex and Claudio Monteverdi’s opera L’incoronazione di Poppea to his much shorter version of Lohenstein’s Agripppina � And he stages the sorcerer Zoroaster, who appears at the end of the play, as “Vaudoupriester” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 144)� Lohenstein’s play Agrippina depicts the last 24 hours in the life of its main character of the same name. At the beginning of the play, she finds herself in a precarious situation, because different parties at the court are conspiring against her� In order to secure the favor of her son Nero, the emperor, and her position at court, she tries to seduce him, but the incest between mother and son is interrupted� Nero decides to murder his mother, which he also sees as an opportunity to fully emancipate himself from her and establish himself as emperor in his own right because she had brought him into power in the first place. He has Agrippina killed and tries to erase the public’s memory of his mother, but his crimes eventually come back to haunt him in the form of Agrippina’s vengeful spirit, predicting Nero’s demise� Nero turns to the sorcerer Zoroaster who is to perform a ritual to appease Agrippina’s spirit� The ritual fails and Nero is sent to hell where the furies await� Zoroaster has the longest continuous monologue in Lohenstein’s play so that the scene already stands out in the original text. The sequence can be divided into three sections� It begins with the self-praise of the magician, explicitly characterized as “angeberisch” (“Lohensteins Agrippina” 104) in Fichte’s stage directions� Zoroaster then enumerates the utensils and ingredients for the ritual while preparing the stage� This is followed by the conjuring of Agrippina’s spirit, which, however, remains without effect. The ritual is intended to reverse the matricide� Nero had dissected, mutilated, and eradicated Agrippina’s body and her memory� Through the ritual, a mon- Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 207 tage of organs and body parts of different animals is to symbolically restore her integrity� The montage of disparate elements through the ritual corresponds with the compilation of sources in the notes to the scene� Zoroaster’s monologue alone consists of 160 verses in Lohenstein’s original text� Although Fichte shortens it to 122 lines, it remains the longest continuous speech in his adaptation as well� Friedrich Kittler illustrates the ratio of Lohenstein’s Zoroaster sequence and its extensive supporting notes statistically: “Er [der Schluss des Trauerspiels] beansprucht 6% des Textes, aber 28% der Anmerkungen” (Kittler 50)� As a seventeenth-century attorney, Lohenstein knew in theory and in practice that magic was punishable by law� 1 The ritual depicted in Agrippina could not remain unremarked upon, because Lohenstein could not carry the burden of proof of this delicate matter all by himself� Therefore, it had to be distributed on the shoulders of those authorities and institutions to whom he refers in his notes� The sources of Roman historiography, which Lohenstein had primarily used so far, give way to a comprehensive compilation of relevant contemporary and Roman treatises of natural history and accounts of witchcraft that comprise almost a third of his notes� The enumeration of magic paraphernalia takes up most of Zoroaster’s monologue� The nearly measureless compilation, combination, and composition of utensils possesses an almost hypnotic effect in its uniformity, generated through the continuous use of dactylic tetrameter as poetic measure� 2 The circulation of the seemingly inexhaustible arsenal of materials in his speech and on stage reflects the circulation of knowledge in the polyhistoric and textual practice in the Anmerkungen � As shown in the excerpt from Versuch über die Pubertät , “Litaneien aufzeichnen” is one of the agendas of Fichte’s projected “beautiful book�” He adopts Zoroaster’s “Litanei” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 187) and stages the scene as a “Vaudozeremonie” (132) by adding extensive stage directions� Interestingly, Fichte notes: “Es stellte sich fuer mich das Problem der Szenenanweisungen - wie sich wohl für Lohenstein das Problem der Anmerckung stellte” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 191). This confirms that compilation is the guiding principle in Lohenstein’s notes as well as in Fichte’s adaptation of Agrippina , since it is through the stage directions that Fichte incorporates elements of Monteverdi’s Poppea and transforms the Zoroaster scene into a vodou ritual� Fichte encounters litany as “Sprachverhalten” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 187) in both Lohenstein and vodou� Departing from Zoroaster’s monologue, Fichte makes a general statement about its structure and function: In einer Litanei werden formelhaft geschichtliche Zitate, Ahnennamen, Heroennamen, Goetternamen, Zauberstoffe, Empfindungskuerzel hergesagt - in einer solchen Haeufung, dass eine Vereinigung zwischen Zuhoerern und Priestern eintritt, ein Ver- 208 Isabel von Holt schwimmen des individuellen Bewusstseinsstroms mit den von der Tradition und von der aktuellen Grossfamilie kombinierten Sprachpartikeln […]� (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 188) Fichte distinguishes accumulation as the key principle of litany� The assemblage of different materials (names of ancestors, heroes, gods, and paraphernalia) resembles compilation as textual strategy� Fichte further links this accumulation to baroque ars combinatoria , which aims at completing the unio mystica , meaning the religious experience of a spiritual union with God through prayer, through litany (188). And this consequently is, we may deduce from Fichte’s reasoning, another, baroque form of trance. While unio mystica or trance, in any case “psychische Veraenderungen” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 188), are or potentially can be a product of litany, another conclusion can be drawn from Fichte’s assessment that started by mentioning the integral element “geschichtliche Zitate”: both baroque theater and vodou are conscious about their own historicity in and through the practice of litany� This corresponds with what Fichte establishes about vodou rituals in Lazarus und die Waschmaschine : “Eine Vaudouzeremonie ist alles� Akut� Geschichte� Struktur� Und alles noch einmal reflektiert, gebrochen in Vorstellung; Vorstellungen, die wieder ablaufen, strukturiert und die in Geschichte zurückgenommen werden” (263). History once more links the religious practice of vodou to the baroque Trauerspiel as Geschichtsdrama as well as Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit � On the other hand, structure or structuredness is, as I will show, a central component of Fichte’s “aesthetic of the regularly irregular” that embraces baroque literature as well as vodou� Fichte’s vodou priest Zoroaster is dressed in a very distinctive fashion: “in Frack, Cuthose, mit Zylinder auf, schwarze Sonnenbrille” ( Lohensteins Agrippina 103)� Fichte’s priest is a Black man and his face is painted white with chalk, which, in combination with the black sunglasses, creates the illusion of a skull� This resembles representations of Baron Samedi, the head of the Guedé spirits, divinities of death in vodou religion� The similarity becomes even more apparent, when the “Zauberpriester[]” ( Lohensteins Agrippina 104) enters a trance and a snake collar is wrapped around him� Baron Samedi’s typical attributes are complete - Zoroaster not only looks like the Baron, but in his trance, he incorporates him into his body� In his “Anmerkungen,” Fichte explains: “In der Trance […] verwandeln [sie, die Gläubigen] sich in die Vodun” and “das Wort […] Vodun […] bedeutet auf Fon Gott” (142)� In his book Xango , published two years prior to Lohensteins Agrippina , he specifies: Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 209 Die Götter des vaudou heißen nicht ‘Götter’ - ‘diès’ auf Kreolisch, sondern ‘mysté’ - ‘Geheimnisse’, ‘saints’ - ‘Heilige’, ‘Zanges’ - ‘Engel’, ‘choual’ - ‘Pferde’, ‘Wächter’, ‘Geister’ und ‘loas’� Es gibt die alten afrikanischen Götter und Heroen, die mit den Sklavenschiffen herüberkamen, die Götter der Yoruba, Fon, Ewe; katholische Heilige wurden ebenso vergöttert wie Generäle, einflussreiche Politiker, Ausländer, Touristen, verstorbene Vaudoupriester� ( Xango 139) Fichte’s listing resembles baroque and vodouesque litany, but the enumeration gives little explanation and even startles by juxtaposing gods and tourists� What Fichte does not tell us is that there are three different categories of vodou spirits� The “loas,” “die Götter der Yoruba, Fon, Ewe,” are elevated great ancestors that represent common features of experience� The “mysté” (or “mó” for “the dead”) were at one time living humans and subsequently promoted as spirits. The “personal mysté” are family ancestors who work for their descendants� 3 This classification is relevant to understanding the role and function of Zoroaster-turned-Baron-Samedi in Fichte’s adaptation of Agrippina � In the system of vodou spirits, the Guedé “are the unknown, unnamed, and unconsecrated dead that spring from humankind and reflect universal aspects of existence and nonexistence” (Hebblethwaite 192)� For Fichte’s Agrippina , this is important on different levels. Similar to the Guedé, Agrippina is an unconsecrated dead person� Not only was she murdered, but in order to eradicate the memory of his mother and of the matricide, Nero applied a set of strategies traditionally assigned to the Roman cultural technique of damnatio memoriae : he ordered the destruction of visual representations and the erasure of Agrippina’s name from the annals, he denied her a public funeral and prohibited the people to mourn her� 4 She, too, is forcibly unknown and unnamed� Appeasing her spirit thus requires special handling. Because Baron Samedi is the spirit that authorizes sorcery in matters that relate to the dead, Zoroaster must call upon him - and the Baron answers as he enters the stage through Zoroaster� Fichte’s stage directions in the middle of Zoroaster’s litany indicate accordingly: “ Er [Zoroaster] tanzt in der Trance. ” Subsequently, Zoroaster/ Baron Samedi asks Nero to wrap a snake collar around him� In Afro-diasporic religious practice, it is customary to dress the individual in clothing and with props associated with the incorporated spirit� Top hat, dress suit, a powdered white face, dark sunglasses, and a snake are the Baron’s most common attributes� The act of Nero putting the snake collar on Baron Samedi echoes the spiritual, but also political rite of investiture, where the dress or adornment (here the snake) marks the junction between the empiricism of the human body and a transcendent nature that is not directly accessible to the senses� This is espe- 210 Isabel von Holt cially interesting because the Guedé are “the deification of the common people of Haiti” (Hurston 219)� The fact that Baron Samedi appears dressed like a president, deputy, or senator offers up social class criticism (Hebblethwaite 189)� His ethnological work demonstrates that Fichte is keenly aware of these inequalities, because he constantly relates his observations of the Afro-diasporic religions to the political, cultural, and economic conditions in the respective societies and nation states� Fichte, through his staging of the suppressed author Lohenstein, not only gives a stage to the religious practice of vodou marginalized by the West, but he also introduces an additionally subversive moment when Nero as the highest representative of worldly, imperial power “in einem Weltreich zur Zeit der groessten Ausdehnung” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 169), transfers authority to Baron Samedi, as a deification of the historically oppressed in Haiti� The Guedé as divinities of death traditionally invite “a critique of capitalism and the commodification of human life” (Hebblethwaite 199), which Fichte emphasizes by further underlining their subversion of imperial and colonial power structures� To Fichte, Christianity and especially Protestantism is intrinsically linked to the Western colonial complex� The critical article “Wie gefährlich ist Luther? ,” published in 1983 on the occasion of Luther’s 500th birthday in the leftist magazine konkret , makes it clear that his relationship with Protestantism - and Luther as its initiator - is difficult. In the essay, Fichte acknowledges that the modern German language was created by Luther and the medium of printing� He also points out Luther’s “sprachliches Ingenium,” when he says: “Luthers Bibelübersetzung stellt eine Poesie dar, ein Zusammentreffen von Rhythmus, Tonalität, Bildkraft und Message und Massage, die einen bis zu Tränen schüttelt und auch das Entsetzliche durch die Dichtung verklärt” (“Luther” n� pag�)� 5 In the last part of the quotation lies the reason why Fichte rejects Luther and his translation of the Bible� In the sixth of his “Elf Übertreibungen,” he had already expressed his dismissal with vehemence: “Und Luther? Und die Bibel? […] Die Bibel - ich nicht! ” (14—15)� He then explains: “Ich muss all dies […] in einem Zusammenhang sehen mit den Millionenverschleppungen aus Afrika - an denen lutherbibelfeste Frankfurter Kaufleute beteiligt waren” (15). Fichte’s problem with Luther is political. He identifies the translation of the Bible as an initial moment of what Walter Mignolo has called the “narrative of modernity�” Hence modernity is a European narrative that continuously hides its dark side: coloniality� In other words, coloniality is constitutive of modernity and there is no modernity without coloniality� Fichte admits that Luther’s translation of the Bible contributed to a certain democratization, but it sanctioned and popularized oppression all the more� Racism, misogyny, injustice against workers, and the criminalization of homosexuals are the consequences, according to Fichte. Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 211 Zoroasters’s self-praise has to be understood along these lines� As mentioned before, in his stage directions, Fichte stresses that Zoroaster acts “angeberisch” when he introduces himself to his audience by stating “Die Sternen folgen mir, / Ich schreibe Satzungen den Goettern selber fuer” (“Lohensteins Agrippina” 104)� While in the context of Lohenstein’s play, this is a testament to Zoroaster’s blasphemous presumption, the attitude of Fichte’s Zoroaster corresponds with the Baron’s characteristic “pretentiousness” of taking himself “to be superior to the other spirits and even to ‘the Christian God’” (Hebblethwaite 189)� It is an open act of defiance that challenges the Western Christian-colonial system. The conjuring of Agrippina’s spirit is a metrically and rhetorically highly structured litany� In a climactic organization from the superordinate to the concrete, Zoroaster invokes originally ancient Greco-Roman deities associated with death and the underworld� The litany is thus intended to provide necromantic access to Agrippina’s spirit via a strictly hierarchical order of entities� This deeply aligns with the structuredness Fichte finds in the religious practice of vodou and the hierarchy of the Guedé rite� Towards the end of his “Anmerkungen,” Fichte explicates “ein geschichtliches Argument” in what he calls “meine[] Hoelderlin-Oedipus-Collage” (191) that also is a baroque-theater-vodou-collage. Collage denotes the process of producing a work with prefabricated material, a technique similar to the textual strategy of compilation. But what stands out in the collage is the method of layering that is pivotal to Fichte’s agenda “Schichten statt Geschichten�” Now already the assemblage of contemporary and Roman treatises of natural history and accounts of witchcraft in Lohenstein’s notes documents the layering of what Fichte identified as “geschichtliche Zitate” in Zoroaster’s litany� The mere presence of Zoroaster as the founder of the Persian-Medic religion of Zoroastrianism (traditionally dated to the 6th century BCE) besides the Roman emperor Nero (who reigned 54—68 AD) in the seventeenth-century play puts this layering on stage� Fichte’s adaptation of the play in the twentieth century and his interpretation of the Zoroaster scene as vodou ritual add further layers that underscore his “geschichtliches Argument�” He explains: “Magische, ekstatische Religionsformen, wie es sie im fruehen Griechenland gab, saekularisieren sich zur Tragoedie, zum Bocksgesang […]” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 191)� Fichte describes the ancient Greek religious practices that tragedy (and thus theater) originated from as “ecstatic,” and ecstasy as self-transcending experience can induce trance� 6 Theater and trance thus have similar, if not the same origins� Because ancient Greek tragedy sprung from religion and early modern drama derived from Greek and Roman tragedy, baroque theater and vodou as ecstatic religious practice are related� They are layers of history, of the present, of “our 212 Isabel von Holt development.” Vice versa, they are both cultural phenomena and techniques that bring layers of history to the surface and to the present� For a further analysis of this argument, it is vital to note once again that all vodou spirits are ancestral deities, in other words: they are deities as well as ancestors� Fichte explains in his “Anmerkungen”: “Die Erzählungen der Glaeubigen […] spiegeln die Taten der afrikanischen Ahnen” (186)� Their stories convey hi story , they are layers of history: “Die Schichten der haitianischen Geschichte werden in jeder Zeremonie deutlich: die Musikinstrumente und die Gesaenge Afrikas, die Trillerpfeifen und Peitschen der Sklaventreiber, die Macheten der Zuckerrohrernte, amerikanisch naeselnde Goetter” (142; emphasis added). With the attribute “amerikanisch naeselnd,” Fichte uses “amerikanisch” synonymously with “kreolisch�” He thus emphasizes the linguistic (and cultural) heterogeneity of Haiti and the Caribbean region that rejects European colonial hegemony and he proposes it as pars pro toto referring to the Americas� “Naeselnd,” on the other hand, points to the status of the spirits as dead ancestors, because at burials, the nostrils of the dead are traditionally stuffed with cotton wool. A “disconcerting nasal tone” (Hebblethwaite 192) is further specifically characteristic for the Guedé so that the divinities of death become representative of the pantheon of all vodou spirits� Fichte’s statement is consistent with the function of the Guedé because they “straddle multiple ancestral layers” (Hebblethwaite 202)� As emanations of great African ancestors and their descendants who were taken into slavery and brought to the Americas, vodou spirits carry this multilayered history with them� The person in trance thus incorporates the spirit and through the spirit, they incorporate history� What is more, collective history becomes present, gegenwärtig , in and through the individual in a trance� This ties into what Fichte states in Lazarus : “Eine Vaudouzeremonie ist alles� Akut� Geschichte” (263)� In a next step, Fichte establishes a connection between vodou spirits and the historical characters he encounters in Lohenstein’s so-called Römische Trauerspiele , namely Agrippina and Epicharis : Diese schwarzen Othos und Agrippinen, Senecas und Epicharissen leben als Heroen in den Tontoepfen des Vaudou fort neben […] Erzulie Zé Rouge, Ti Jean Pied Fin, Guédé Nibo, Guédé Journaille� In sie verwandeln sich die Glaeubigen waehrend der Trance, von der das Barocktheater nur ein spaeter, saekularisierter Nachhall ist� (“Anmerkungen Agrippina”186) With “schwarzen Othos und Agrippinas, Senecas und Epicharissen,” Fichte alludes to “Könige[] und Kaiser[] auf Haiti, den Revolutionaeren und Unterdrueckern, dem Schwiegersohn Napoleons […]” (186), meaning all the ancestors who populate the stories and constitute the history of the worshippers, of their coun- Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 213 try, and their culture� At the same time, Fichte’s statement implies that Nero, Agrippina, and the other characters of Lohenstein’s Römische Trauerspiele are ancestors as well and take up a similar space in Western, European, and German culture and history with a special focus on imperialism and colonialism, that is “in einem Weltreich zur Zeit der groessten Ausdehnung” (169)� Finally, baroque theater, as a stage for Geschichtsdramen , is a form of ancestor veneration, too. Fichte’s statement, “ich finde, die Agrippina ist doch eigentlich ein gewaltiger Vaudou” (“Vorwort” 13) from a radio interview with Bernhard Asmuth has to be understood along those lines� Lohenstein’s Agrippina , which Fichte considers a “Meisterwerk” (“Anmerkungen Ibrahim Bassa” 242) of German baroque literature (and German literature overall), is ancestor veneration in a secularized form and Fichte’s adaptation of Agrippina and his Anmerkungen are ancestor veneration, too� By turning Lohenstein’s Zoroaster scene into a vodou ceremony, Fichte creates a mise-en-abyme , where the scene reflects the play as a whole, as summoning the dead, those who lived before us� At the same time, the play represents a whole tradition of plays, meaning the baroque theater tradition, that is connected to a broader cultural tradition and history dating back (at least) to “ekstatische Religionsformen […] im fruehen Griechenland�” In this arrangement, both vodou and baroque theater represent and present ( vergegenwärtigen ) history, and Fichte represents and presents their histories as well as the histories they represent and present in his adaptation� But, and this is one of the reasons for their marginalization, these (re-)presentations of history do not obey what Robert Gillett fittingly calls “westliche moralästhetische Pingeligkeit” (24). Regarding baroque theater, Fichte says: “Diese Trance bedeutet - neben den christlichen Litaneien und den Messen der Mischreligionen - den umgekehrten Moralweg: Nicht Imitation des Guten, also Naturalismus, Klassik, sondern Entaeusserung des Boesen, Concepts, Asianismus” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 186)� He projects theater as a (secularized) form of trance, because actors slip into other roles, similar to the individuals who incorporate spirits in trance� Regarding the function of trance in the Afro-diasporic religions, Rosa Eidepes summarizes: [Es] wird die Trance im Allgemeinen als Technik der gezielten Externalisierung beschrieben: Im Zustand der Trance können die Besessenen unerwünschte Kräfte (Krankheiten oder Geister) als äußere Gewalten abspalten und werden dann nicht durch Introspektion, sondern durch die Auseinandersetzung mit den als “fremd” erlebten Wirkmächten von ihren Leiden befreit� (n� pag�) Baroque theater and trance share externalization or “Entausserung” as common strategy. It is also what distinguishes baroque theater from Enlightenment and 214 Isabel von Holt post-Enlightenment theater and what led to the marginalization of the baroque. Here even lies the reason why this literary tradition is called “baroque” in the first place. There are competing etymologies of the word baroque. 7 Fichte clearly favors the Portuguese word “barroco” that denotes an irregularly shaped - and therefore inferior - pearl and thus echoes in his “Ästhetik des regelhaft Unregelmäßigen�” The term “lohensteinischer Schwulst” had been coined by Johann Christoph Gottsched, a fierce advocate of Enlightenment’s morals and aesthetics, in his Versuch einer Critischen Dichtkunst , first published in 1730. 8 Lohenstein becomes the quintessential poet of Schwulst , and Schwulst is permanently established as a category of literary criticism� Schwulst designates an excessive swelling of tissue� The word “tissue” derives from the Latin word for “to weave” - “texere” - which again is the root of the word “text�” The critical verdict Schwulst thus describes a text, a texture, a tissue made of words that abnormally proliferates� This diagnosis, however, refers not only to the stylistic aspect of ornatus , but also to matters of content, such as encyclopedic-polyhistorical accumulation, and moral categories, with particular regard to representations of sexuality and cruelty� In particular, Lohenstein transgresses any limitations, even taboos, which Fichte summarizes as “Inzest, die Verfuehrung Minderjaehriger, maennliche und weibliche Homosexualität, Nekrophilie, Sadismus und Masochismus” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 150)� As a term of literary and ultimately cultural criticism, Schwulst stands for the moral decay and excessiveness of an entire period and its literary production - namely the baroque. Gottsched’s criticism has determined the perception of Lohenstein (and via Lohenstein the perception of most of seventeenth-century literature) far into the twentieth century and perpetuated what Fichte criticized as Lohenstein’s suppression� This could even be described as a successful cultural-political strategy, since the negative example that Schwulst came to be was instrumental for the implementation of the idea and ideal of what literature and culture should be according to Western early Enlightenment (modern) parameters: “Imitation des Guten, also Naturalismus, Klassik�” Schwulst , however, remains a category with which Lohenstein’s dramas in particular and baroque literature in general continue to be associated. Fichte deliberately disagrees with this attribution� In “Elf Übertreibungen,” he counters: “Schwulst? Quatsch! Ein durch Jahrhunderte hindurch fortgelabertes Fehlurteil […]” (16)� He later even opens his “Anmerkungen zu Lohensteins Agrippina” with the remarks: “Ich halte Lohensteins Werk nicht für schwuelstig; Schwulst bedeutet beliebige, schaedliche Wucherung” (141)� To Fichte, proliferation has a poietic purpose, Schwulst doesn’t� Calling Lohenstein’s plays Schwulst ignores their Regelhaftigkeit , the regularity of these only seemingly irregular pieces of Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 215 literature, which are in fact highly and intricately rhetorical and follow their own tradition of poetic structuredness� And this, of course, is where Fichte draws a comparison to the already established structuredness of vodou: “Das magische Sprachverhalten ist fein und eng strukturiert, wie die Reimformen und die rhythmischen Formen der Barockdichtung” (186)� He adds: “Rhetorische Figuren sind saekularisierte Zauberformeln” (187)� This assessment is a testament to Fichte’s deep knowledge of the discourse surrounding baroque poetics. In Anleitung zur deutschen Poeterey , published in 1665 and presumably written in the 1630s, the most influential early modern professor of poetry August Buchner asserts that der Poet ausstreicht / sich in die Höhe schwingt / die gemeine Art zu reden unter sich trit / und alles höher / kühner / verblümter und frölicher setzt / daß was er vorbringt neu / ungewohnt / mit einer sonderbahren Majestät vermischt / und mehr einem Göttlichen Ausspruch oder Orakel / wie etwa der Petronius hievon redet / als einer Menschen-Stimme gleich scheine� (16) Once again, Roman literature, in this case Petronius, is the original reference for early modern poetry� But what is more is that poetry should be similar to “einem Göttlichen Ausspruch oder Orakel” or what Fichte phrases as “magisches Sprachverhalten” and “Zauberformeln�” Yet secularization is, according to Fichte, the aspect which separates ritual and theater. At the same time, baroque theater and vodou coincide in the method to their alleged madness, namely their historicity on the one hand and their rhetoricity and structuredness on the other, as they constitute “die Aesthetik des regelhaft Unregelmaessigen�” Fichte ends his “Anmerkungen” with words inspired by Gustav René Hocke: “Die Gesten der Magie gleichen den Gesten der Manie und des Manierismus” (192)� 9 Hocke’s influence on Fichte’s understanding and conceptualization of the baroque cannot be overestimated. Besides the aforementioned early modern models of ars combinatoria and unio mystica , which he further links to concordia discors (meaning the harmony of the seemingly irreconcilable), Fichte finds in Hocke elaborations on what we today could summarize as queer baroque aesthetics. In the last chapter, Hocke identifies gender and sexual diversity (e.g., homoeroticism, homosexuality, “Pansexualismus” [179], intersexuality, “Travestien” [cross-dressing and drag; 202]) as recurring motifs in sixteenthand seventeenth-century “mannerist” art and literature, which he repeatedly juxtaposes with classicism� What Fichte can draw from Hocke for his analogization of baroque theater and vodou is that it is applicable to both form and content� Accordingly, Fichte comments in his “Anmerkungen”: “Diese sexuelle Freizügigkeit scheint sich ihm [Lohenstein] mit […] Afrika zu verbinden - es ist die freundliche Amoral 216 Isabel von Holt des Vaudou” (151)� Sexual diversity and drag performance are also present in the religious practice of vodou, and more specifically, once again, in the Guedé rite. Fichte affirms: “Als eine der wenigen Religionen verfuegt der Vaudou ueber eine homosexuelle Gottheit, den Totengott Guédé Nibo, und am Totensonntag singen die Vaudouglaeubigen in der Stadt und auf dem Land: Guédé Nibo Massissi, Guédé Nibo Massissi! - schwuler Guédé Nibo, schwuler Guédé Nibo! ” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 146)� In Xango , Fichte stresses that especially the population in the rural periphery worships the gay Guedé: Am ersten und zweiten November zeigen sie [die Guedé] sich violett und schwarz gekleidet, weissgepudert, mit Zylindern und Sonnenbrillen, auf den Friedhöfen� […] Anfang November singt das ganze Land, jeder haitianische Bauer die Hymnen auf die Schwulen - ‘Massissi’ - und die ruralen Familienväter vollführen ambivalente Gesten vorne und hinten an ihrer Hose� ( Xango 143) Fichte establishes an alliance between the socially, economically, and physically ex-centric and marginalized� Haitian farmers organized in “kommunalen Lebensformen” ( Lazarus 255) called coumbites , homosexuals, and the dead perform resistance to the Western moral and capitalist productive system� This corresponds with the already mentioned subversion of Western imperial and colonial power structures through the mere presence of the Guedé as divinities of eros and thanatos , of non-reproductive sexuality and death� It is also striking that Fichte again touches on the Guedé’s traditional outfit - dressed in purple and black, powdered white face, with top hats and sunglasses -, because in the context of sexual diversity, Guedé interrupt gender roles by making women dress as men and men dress as women (Hurston 224), and they can be seen in parades dressed in drag (Smith 117)� 10 This further aligns with the amplified theatricality and performativity of gender identities, sexual orientations and preferences that Fichte encounters on the baroque transvestite stage. Finally, homosexuality is prevalent among vodou priests and priestesses� In Xango , one of Fichte’s contacts in Haiti with the name Seneca (which he notably shares with one of Lohenstein’s characters in both Roman plays) offers an estimate: “Die Vaudoupriester sind zu neunzig Prozent Massissi� Viele Priesterinnen sind lesbisch�” (197) Fichte establishes an alignment of baroque and vodouesque “Sexualverhalten[]” (“Anmerkungen Agrippina” 151) and “Sprachverhalten” that is paradigmatic for the complex Homosexualität und Literatur in Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit and in his overall work� As I have pointed out before, the revised title “Vaudoueske Blutbaeder� Mischreligioese Helden� Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohensteins Agrippina” already introduces the familial relationship between vodou priests and baroque poets as well as their cultural practices. By staging his work as Anmerkungen , Fichte imitates Lohenstein and his literary Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 217 strategy and inscribes himself in this polyhistoric textual tradition while applying it to his own poetic process and project� Fichte even asks towards the end of the text: “Aber bin ich denn ein Vaudoupriester, ein Barockdichter? ! ” (190)� Of course, he is neither. But Fichte, like vodou priests and baroque poets, practices ancestor veneration� He represents and presents the cultural phenomena Magie and Manierismus as suppressed layers of “our development” in a critically perceived Western modernity� By compiling these layers in Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit , Fichte ultimately produces a regularly irregular text and texture� Notes 1 Regarding Lohenstein’s “actual as well as theoretical” exposure to the notion of witchcraft, see Colvin 265—67� 2 Zoroaster’s speech thus differs significantly from the alexandrine verse dominant throughout the rest of the play. The questionable priest and his magic are hardly entitled to the Heldenvers � 3 I am borrowing from the classification in LaMenfo 197 and subsequently Hebblethwaite 192� 4 For the different aspects of damnatio memoriae , see Hedrick� 5 Fichte’s article may be accessed online here: https: / / cms�konkret-magazin�de/ aktuelles/ aus-aktuellem-anlass/ aus-aktuellem-anlass-beitrag/ items/ konkret-extra-wie-gefaehrlich-ist-luther�html� 6 Regarding the distinction between ecstasy and trance in ethnology, see Esselborn� 7 In his essay “Concept of Baroque in Literary Scholarship” (1945/ 62), the comparatist René Wellek summarizes various possibilities for the etymology of the word: 1) a three-syllable nonsense word ( baroco ) coined to represent and remember the structure of a particular scholastic syllogism; 2) a Tuscan term ( barocco , barrocolo , or barrochio ) referring to a medieval system of financial transactions, and more particularly to a usurer’s contract; 3) a Portuguese word ( barroco ) describing lumpy pearls (69—70, 115—16)� 8 For example, in paragraph 25 of chapter 11, “Von der poetischen Schreibart,” in the first part of the treatise, Gottsched draws a comparison to the Italian baroque poet Giambattista Marino and states: “Im Deutschen kann uns Lohenstein die Muster einer so schwülstigen Schreibart geben” (446)� 9 See the title of Hocke’s monograph Die Welt als Labyrinth. Manier und Manie in der europäischen Kunst , published in 1957� In “Oktober 1967� Romtagebuch für Dulu,” Fichte admits that “dessen Bücher über den Manierismus mich geprägt haben” (239)� 10 Both references quoted in Hebblethwaite 192. 218 Isabel von Holt Works Cited Asmuth, Bernhard� “Vorwort�” Lohensteins Agrippina, bearbeitet von Hubert Fichte � Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1978� 9—20� Buchner, August� Anleitung zur deutschen Poeterey � Ed� Marian Szyrocki� Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1966� Colvin, Sarah� “‘Die Wollust ist die Cirz’� Daniel Casper von Lohenstein and the Notion of Witchcraft�” Daphnis 28�2 (1999): 265—86� Eidelpes, Rosa� “‘Brainwashing’: Zu einer politischen Dimension der Trance bei Fichte�” Hubert Fichte: Love and Ethnology , 27 Sept� 2019� Web� 10 Aug� 2022� Esselborn, Hans� “‘Das Bewußtsein als Blätter, die Worte als Gifte�’ H� Fichtes Darstellung der Trance in den afroamerikanischen Religionen (Voudou)�” Wirkendes Wort 60�1 (2010): 101—16� Fichte, Hubert� “Ach des Achs! Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohensteins Türkischem Trauerspiel Ibrahim Bassa�” Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Homosexualität und Literatur 1. Polemiken. Paralipomena 1 � Ed� Torsten Teichert� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1987� 193—247� ---� “Elf Übertreibungen� Einführung in ein Lesebuch�” Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Homosexualität und Literatur 1. Polemiken. Paralipomena 1 � Ed� Torsten Teichert� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1987� 9—21� ---� “Hubert Fichte warnt vor sich�” Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Homosexualität und Literatur 1. Polemiken. Paralipomena 1 � Ed� Torsten Teichert� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1987� 7—8� ---� Lazarus und die Waschmaschine: Kleine Einführung in die afroamerikanische Kultur � Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1985� ---� Lohensteins Agrippina, bearbeitet von Hubert Fichte � Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1978� ---� “Oktober 1967� Romtagebuch für Dulu�” Die Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Alte Welt. Glossen � Ed� Gisela Lindemann et al� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1992� 202—86� ---� “Vaudoueske Blutbäder� Mischreligiöse Helden� Anmerkungen zu Daniel Casper von Lohensteins Agrippina�” Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit. Homosexualität und Literatur 1. Polemiken. Paralipomena 1 � Ed� Torsten Teichert� Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1987� 141—92� ---� Versuch über die Pubertät � Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 2005� ---� “Wie gefährlich ist Luther? - Eine Predigt zum 500� Geburtstag des Bibelschreibers�” konkret 7 (1983): 49—59� ---� Xango. Die afroamerikanischen Religionen. Bahia, Haiti, Trinidad � Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1976� Gillett, Robert� “Hubert Fichtes hybrides Haiti�” Grenzen überschreiten - transitorische Identitäten � Ed� Monika Unzeitig� Bremen: Edition Lumière, 2011� 23—30� Theater and Trance in Hubert Fichte 219 Gottsched, Johann Christoph� “Versuch einer Critischen Dichtkunst� Erster allgemeiner Theil�” Ausgewählte Werke � Vol� 6/ 1� Ed� Joachim and Brigitte Birke� Berlin/ New York: De Gruyter, 1973� Hebblethwaite, Benjamin� A Transatlantic History of Haitian Vodou � Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2021� Hedrick, Charles� History and Silence. Purge and Rehabilitation in Late Antiquity � Austin: U of Texas P, 2000� Hocke, Gustav René� Die Welt als Labyrinth. Manier und Manie in der europäischen Kunst. Beiträge zur Ikonographie und Formgeschichte der europäischen Kunst von 1520 bis 1650 und der Gegenwart � Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1957� Hurston, Zora Neale� Tell My Horse. Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica � New York: Harper Perennial, 1990� Kittler, Friedrich� “Rhetorik der Macht und Macht der Rhetorik� Lohensteins ‘Agrippina’�” Johann Christian Günther � Mit einem Beitrag zu Lohensteins “Agrippina � ” Ed� Hans-Georg Pott� Paderborn: Schöningh, 1988� 39—52� LaMenfo, Bon Mambo Vye Zo Komande [Patricia D� Scheu]� Serving the Spirits. The Religion of Vodou � Philadelphia: Sosyete du Marche, 2011� Mignolo, Walter� The Darker Side of Western Modernity. Global Futures, Decolonial Options � Durham: Duke UP, 2011� Newman, Jane O� “Philologie, der Kalte Krieg und das ‘Nachbarock’�” Barock. Neue Sichtweisen einer Epoche � Ed� Peter Burgard� Wien: Böhlau, 2001� 323—41� Smith, Katherine Marie� “Gede Rising: Haiti in the Age of Vagabondaj�” Diss� U of California, Los Angeles, 2010� Teichert, Torsten� “Herzschlag aussen”. Die poetische Konstruktion des Fremden und des Eigenen im Werk von Hubert Fichte � Frankfurt am Main: S� Fischer, 1987� Wellek, René. “The Concept of Baroque in Literary Scholarship.” Concepts of Criticism � Ed� and introd� Stephen G� Nichols, Jr� New Haven: Yale UP, 1963� 69—114�