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ONE OF THE GEMS OF GERMAN LITERATURE IS AN ESSAY CALLED "ON the Puppet Theater" by the dramatist Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1810), written in 1811, not long before he ended his short life by
suicide. Kleist and his work are almost unknown outside the circle of the German language, but my fascination with his short essay—and with another one of his stories—has, as I can see in retrospect, a specific significance in my own intellectual development: it marks the first time that I felt drawn to the topic that has now absorbed my scientific interest for several years.
Ever since I read Kleist's story during my school days I had puzzled about the mysterious impact which the plain account has on the reader. A male ballet dancer, we are told, asserts in a fictitious conversation with the author that, by comparison with human dancing, the dance of puppets is near-perfect. The puppet's center of gravity is its soul; the puppeteer needs only to think himself into this point as he is moving the puppet, and the movements of its limbs will attain a