Pathosformel between Classic and Romantic: Goethe and Kleist

In his correspondence with André Jolles, speaking of the unknown and elusive apparition of an ancient “nymph” on the quiet and subdued scene of the Nativity of John the Baptist painted by Ghirlandaio for the Tornabuoni Chapel, Aby Warburg had questioned in 1900 why a “pagan stormy petrel is permitted to rush” in the “slowmoving respectability” of Christianity in the sacred representation. Warburg had wondered whether the “unknown apparition” , the “winged idea” that invades and steals the scene from the real protagonists of the painting, is rooted in the “sober Florentine soil” or whether it was not rather an ancient element deposited in memory and suddenly reactivated through its life force and its seductive, enduring energy. Starting from these reflections on the Florentine Nymph, which represents one of the focal points of Warburg’s work, the aim of this essay is to analyse some female figures who in the period between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century burst into the literature and theatre of the time with such energy, disturbing and questioning the rigid humanistic and aesthetic values—of a pietistic stamp—of the classical-romantic age. The works of Goethe and Kleist—authors considered here as representative of opposing aesthetic conceptions—are full of such female characters, images of graceful dancing nymphs or unbridled pagan gods.