Aposiopesen und Ellipsen

The article examines the rhetorical devices of aposiopesis (broken-off speech) and ellipsis (omission of words) in dramatic texts of the »Sturm und Drang« movement as well as in examples of 21st-century drama. The main focus is on what is spoken in the mode of ›silent language‹. The analysis of 18th-century dramatic texts (Lenz and Goethe) draws on the anthropological and poetological writings of the time, which show that the presence of the unspeakable in dramatic language is primarily a matter of the »excitation of the soul« (Herder). In contemporary drama, on the other hand, no generalisable function for the abruption of speech or the effect of standing still can be determined; the lack of movement in these dramatic texts serves to highlight alienated human relationships (Thomas Arzt) and displays existential dissolutions of meaning (Ewald Palmetshofer).