SOURCE: "Heinrich von Kleist's Der Zweikampf," in Monatschefte, Vol. LVI, No. 4, April-May, 1964, pp. 191-201.

In the following essay, Crosby examines the motifs, language, and origin of "Der Zweikampf "

Kleist's Novelle "Der Zweikampf is customarily included last in collections of his stories and rarely draws the critical encomiums accorded, say, Michael Kohlhaas or "Die Marquise von O. . . ." Erich Schmidt [in the "Einleitung" to Kleist's Erzählungen in the Werke, ed. by Erich Schmidt and others, 1904-05], citing what he called the Novelle's "verblasene Reden" and "die wohlfeile Abrechnung zwischen Tugend unde Laster," thought "Der Zweikampf" symptomatic of a temporary flagging of Kleist's narrative skill. To these remarks must be added the strictures of commentators who are disturbed by what they perceive as a "zweiteilige Handlung" anomalous among Kleist's Novellen.

Such criticism has obscured the fact that the Novelle is nevertheless in its plot, character portrayal, and language a valuable...