George Lichtenberg: the Master Of Aphorism Links Wit, Insight

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg is one of many relatively obscure German writers who deserve respect in a literary world dominated by English and French authors. The reputation acquired by German writers even of the classic period of German literature has been one of an extreme stuffiness, and this reputation has naturally not aided German popularity. Lichtenberg as he is presented by Professors Mautner and Hatfield may in part dissolve this outdated notion.

They have brought together Lichtenberg's observations and witticisms written over a period covering roughly 35 years of his life, from 1764 to 1799. During most of this period, Lichtenberg resided at Gottingen University, as a professor of mathematics and astronomy. Only Kant stayed at home longer than Lichtenberg; both men being somewhat alike in their appreciation of the virtues of the middle-class life. Lichtenberg, however, was no timid professor. One of the most appealing things about him is his interest and enthusiasm over the minor occurrences in his life. A simple rain storm was as apt to inspire him to comment as his "God, who winds our sundials." "It rained so hard the pigs got clean and the people dirty." Or in a line which interested him as it has always interested men: "His beatings showed a sort of sex drive: he beat only his wife."

As is apparent from these quotations from The Lichtenberg Reader, Lichtenberg was a master of the aphorism. Although he produced nothing else in the realm of great literature, his amazing skill at combining a sharp wit with deep insights was enough to endear him to his great contemporaries, Goethe and Kant. Later in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Lichtenberg was even more valued by such greats as Nietzsche and Kierkegaard who saw in him evidence of their own existential approach to philosophy. That Lichtenberg was in many ways ahead of his time is true, for in a time of rampant Enlightenment rationalism Lichtenberg retained a wry skepticism quite uncharacteristic of his day.

After years of an English acceptance of the Germans as a darkly brooding people, this Lichtenberg collection comes as an enlightening influence. Let this fact be no determining factor, however, in one's interest in Lichtenberg. Though writing during the Enlightenment, he is definitely oriented towards the modern world. What Lichtenberg has to say about his own day is quite applicable to our own: "Man is so perfectible and corruptible that he can become a madman through sheer intellect."

Although the Lichtenberg Reader is but an introduction to this immensely interesting character, it should stimulate a new regard for Lichtenberg as a representative of an unknown side of German literature.