Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, p_jh@mail.ru
The article explores the play Amphitrion by Heinrich von Kleist, who rewrote the eponymous comedy by Jean-Baptiste Molière and reflected the crisis of human cognition in his own work. The ideas of René Descartes’ rationalist philosophy, integrated into the play of the French predecessor were supplemented by Immanuel Kant's concept of the limited possibilities of the human mind. The plot of the ancient myth and the material of the previous plays about Amphitryon made it possible for Kleist to shift the attention to the field of metaphysics. The identity of the characters, who lose touch with their own personality, reflects the inability of human Self to comprehend itself.
Heinrich von Kleist; German romanticism; tragicomedy; dualism; cognition; identity; consciousness; Immanuel Kant; Jean-Baptiste Molière, René Descartes
Download textFor citing: Finogenov V.A. (2023). The crisis of cognition in Amphitryon by Heinrich von Kleist. Human being: Image and essence. Humanitarian aspects. Moscow: INION RAN. Vol. 3(55): “Simpleton” and “scribe” in and around literary fiction, pp. 95-114. DOI: 10.31249/chel/2023.03.05