Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) in This Iron Race

Wenn eine andere Generation den Menschen aus unsern empfindsamen Schriften restituieren sollte, so werden sie glauben es sei ein Herz mit Testikeln gewesen. Ein Herz mit einem Hodensack

Thus wrote Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, the German physicist and satirist, of Sturm und Drang in 1776-1779 (Schriften und Briefe, pub. Zweitausendeins 1968–72).

Lichtenberg is critical, even dismissive of Sturm und Drang, but as he unwittingly provides a near perfect description of Bheathain Somhairle’s character it deserves quoting in translation:

If another and later species comes to reconstruct the human being from the evidence of our sentimental writings, they will conclude it to have been a heart with testicles.

Sturm und Drang—the meaning is storm and stress—was primarily a literary movement originating in 1770s Germany. Though it existed for only a dozen years until its abandonment by Goethe and Schiller, Sturm und Drang shattered the rationalism imposed by enlightenment thinking and heralded an era of literature that emphasised human emotion and individual perception and promoted anti-aristocratism and the natural world. Weimar Classicism, which succeeded Sturm und Drang, sought to merge this emotionalism with the best of enlightenment rationalism, but in its initial form Sturm und Drang provoked the reader’s emotions rather than their intellect using shock, terror, and the erotic to create a visceral connection between reader and text. In essence, it was an early attempt to achieve in literature what two centuries later came naturally to cinema.

In a social context, Sturm und Drang was part of a growing recognition of the primacy of the individual after the collapse of medieval feudalism and rise, albeit in limited form, of the democratic principle. Although primarily a literary movement, it influenced several pre-Romantic artists including Caspar Wolf and Henry Fuseli. It also had a limited effect on a number of notable composers, including Haydn, Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach, and Mozart.

As we have seen, the first volume of This Iron Race has much in common with the Sturm und Drang movement. The focus on individual perception is almost unwavering; characters are ruled at least as much by their emotions as by rationality; and nature, in the guise of fog, Bheathain’s rainswept hillside, and the sunset on St Catherine’s Hill is not a mere backcloth but accentuates or influences the action. The evidence is clear; under the influence of Goethe and Schiller’s early works, MacGregor believed Sturm und Drang was a means of being truthful to the human condition while not offending public taste. Alas, he was only half correct.

For our purposes, any story where the principal motivation is revenge or hatred can be classed as Sturm und Drang because such responses are particular to the individual. Stories where the motivation is power or wealth are not because such motivations are shared by many, even if not all act on them. Thus, the Second Prologue is a clear expression of Sturm und Drang: motivated by revenge, the unnamed character acts while her rational mind is suspended and though she will regret her actions her,

act was irredeemable as murder.

Repeatedly we have seen characters acting in haste; first Captain Wolfe’s irrational behaviour, then Bheathain Somhairle’s impulsiveness, and now the unnamed ‘Lady of Remorse’. Other characters in later volumes of This Iron Race will also reveal their irrationality and impulsiveness, but we must leave them to their time and place rather than bring premature revelations.

This brings us to another aspect of Sturm und Drang expressed in This Iron Race: the focus on individual perception. We experience the novel through the eyes and other senses of the characters and are privy only to their unique perspective. For example: in chapter one we only see the view of Staffin Bay and its environs at the moment Bheathain observes it. The bay was there all the time, as was the sea beyond and the mountain above, but until Bheathain glanced homeward he had been preoccupied and taken no notice of his wider surroundings.

There are various literary terms to describe this focus on a character’s perceptions, but in effect we only see, hear, taste, touch and feel (both physically and emotionally) what the characters experience when they experience it with little mediation or comment from the author. The character stands, or falls, without the author passing judgement upon them, albeit the Curse, the unseen narrator, often does pass comment.

The third aspect of Sturm und Drang is its exaltation of nature, and this chapter shows it exceptionally well in the description of the sunset over the city. We also saw it in the previous chapter when Bheathain stood upon the hillside and again when he gathered seaweed.

Both Bheathain and the unnamed character of the second prologue are isolated in a landscape over which they have no sway. Indeed, Bheathain cannot even stay warm and dry! In contrast, Enlightenment art and literature portrayed man in command of a benign nature. Nature that was not biddable or benign, exemplified by The Alps crossed by northern Europeans embarking on the Grand Tour of Italy, excited terror and loathing and many travellers over the high passes drew down the blinds on their carriage windows to avoid the fearsome sights.

It took a paradigm shift before we appreciated that mountains possessed a beauty inextricably linked to the terror they instilled: a beauty we would call exhilarating. In short, provided any real danger was controlled, we enjoyed being afraid and Sturm und Drang exploited this pleasurable fear.

Understanding the connection between Sturm und Drang and This Iron Race reveals MacGregor’s desire to give free expression to human emotion was not sui generis but part of a wider movement freeing itself from the rationalism imposed by the enlightenment. Alas for MacGregor, those in the vanguard of an artistic or literary movement rarely prosper in their lifetimes.