Solar Myth in the Work of Heinrich von Kleist

The confrontation of the day and night sides of human nature is one of the constants of H. von Kleist’s work. The article examines the cosmological imagery of “Amphitryon”, “Penthesilea”, “Kätchen of Heilbronn” and “Prince of Homburg” in the context of Kleist’s views on the nature of knowledge. Solar motifs in his works symbolize the creative process as such and thereby represent the process of the author’s self-refl ection, as shown in numerous examples. Beginning with the early poem “Hymn to the Sun”, the image of a shining deity moves from one work to another. In “Amphitryon” the head of the ancient Pantheon, Jupiter, appears as such a fi gure. In “Penthesilea”, Achilles is identifi ed with the sun god Helios, and can be considered as a hypostasis of Apollo-Phoebus. The confl ict between Achilles and Penthesilea appears as a struggle between the solar and lunar, male and female principles, the pair of twins Phoebus and Diana in accordance with structuralism typology. In “Kätchen of Heilbronn” Count vom Strahl represents a modifi ed Achilles and Jupiter. The motif of a “thousand suns”, which for Penthesilea meant victory over Achilles, in “The Prince of Homburg” symbolizes victory over the fear of death. In “Penthesilea” the solar and lunar symbolics is divided between two protagonists, however, the Prince of Homburg combines both hypostases. For Kleist, the creative, Apollonian (solar) principle is suppressed by the forces of sleep, madness and destruction determined by the lunar nature. At the end of the article, the journalistic text “The Prayer of Zoroaster” is analyzed, where we see another version of the solar myth by Kleist.