Stuffed and empty sovereigns: Krasznahorkai, Melville, and Schmitt in the belly of the Leviathan

Some works of literature might be read as insightful contributions to political theory. That is, literature might imply political theoretical positions even without explicitly addressing political issues; yet they are “discussing” the nature of politics. This paper investigates the meaning of sovereignty through some of the works by Herman Melville and László Krasznahorkai. Drawing on their works, the paper reconsiders how the Schmittian concept of sovereignty should be understood as the structural feature of genuine political action rather than as any substantial position. To discuss this topic, the presentation looks closely on the explicit and implicit intertextual relationships between the two literary author and the German scholar. Krasznahorkai’s admiration towards Melville is well-known and well-documented in his recent Spadework for a Palace and the related The Manhattan Project, however, political theoretical relevance and motives (Hobbesian allusions even) have already been present since The Melancholy of Resistance. In this latter work, the key figure is the carcass of a huge whale showcased by a company arriving to a city on the verge of order and disorder. In itself, the disembowelled body does not act yet its impact on the surrounding event and on the people allowed to take a walk inside its body is apparent in the story. The quasi-Hobbesian Leviathan in Krasznahorkai’s piece read through Melvilles’s Moby Dick reveals how sovereignty is necessary twofold; empty and stuffed (with people) at the same time. Furthermore, Schmitt’s indebtedness to Melville is also well-known and enlightening when it comes to his political theory. Through the novel Benito Cereno, Schmitt does not only describe his own position under the total state of his age but addresses the paradoxes of statehood in general as well. More importantly, the necessary indetermination of literary meanings might serve as an analogy to explain the Schmittian concept of the political. Thereby, moving beyond some thematic allusions between literary and political texts towards structural relationships between the two domains provides further layers to the discussion of the three authors. The paper aims at giving a parallel reading of literary and theoretical texts to account for the intersections of the political and the literary.