Kleists Hermannsschlacht in interkultureller Perspektive

The reception of Kleist’s play was problematic because the author seemed to follow nationalist stereotypes and clichés. The article tries, as a contribution to intercultural literary studies, to show that Kleist does not argue as a nationalist author, but that his play shows the functions of national stereotypes und the process of constructing a “national unity” that did not exist before. Intrigues and cruelties are practiced by the leader Hermann in his wish to fight against the Romans without thinking of the victims caused by his acting. The contrasting figure in the play is Aristan, the Ubian leader who refuses the pureness of national clichés and understands his region of the Rhine as a place of mixed identities and crossing cultures. Kleist’s play can thus be read as a demonstration how national clichés are constructed and how they work – and as an implicit search for orientations that privilege impure identities and cultural transfer.