Das Mögliche, Das Wirkliche Und Das Unmögliche: Three Concepts Of Poetics

Abstract

This thesis presents a historical analysis of literature through the intriguing (but often overlooked) overarching concepts of art –“das Mögliche”, “das Wirkliche” and “das Unmögliche”– and the changes in the historical orientations they represent. Each concept is demonstrated through the exploration of three key texts. The first text addressed in this thesis is Aristotle’s Poetics and the realm of the “Mögliche” he founded within his argument. The second concept, the “Wirkliche”, was inspired by the German Sturm und Drang writer J.M.R. Lenz and his text Anmerkungen übers Theater. Oscar Wilde’s dialogue “The Decay of Lying” summarizes the third and final concept discussed within this thesis, the “Unmögliche”. His desire for art to be unreal represents the accumulation of German Romantic thought and Oriental influence on Western Art. Through the contexts of these three categories and their texts we can obtain a more accurate understanding of the foundations and possibilities of art.