Wilhelm Worringer and the Polarity of Understanding

ion and Empathy, the young Wilhelm Worringer's doctoral dissertation of 1908, is very much a classic now. Written as a strictly scholarly attempt to correct the one-sidedness of the aesthetics then current, propelled into prominence overnight, it soon found itself in the position of a manifesto heralding the powerful modern trends towards abstract art. The monograph's influence became ever more pervasive and also spread to the Anglo-Saxon world, where it had an impact, among others, on literary theorizing. This impact, in fact, is what mostly concerns me here. Let me nevertheless start by returning to Worringer himself-a movement I propose to execute again and again in the course of these deliberations. A classic, unfortunately, is cited more than read. A manifesto, on its part, tends to be simplified and distorted for the glory of a cause. Imagine then what it means to have written a classic manifesto! Of course it has lately become a commonplace that parricidally adaptatory