"Theologia negativa" and "utopia negativa": Franz Kafka

The ideas of Jewish Messianism and libertarian utopia hold a decisive place in the work of Franz Kafka and while it is possible to recognise the selec tive tendency which links them, their orientation derives from radical nega tivity. The sympathy for libertarian utopianism which led Kafka to become involved in the activities of Prague anarchist circles in 1919-1922 did not take on the same form in his novels and short stories. In them it is purely negativ e, a critique of a world devoid of freedom, of the meticulous absurd and ar bitrary logic of some all-powerful "apparatus". The structural homology wit h "negative theology" is striking: in both cases the positive reverse of th e established world - a libertarian utopia or messianic redemption - is tot ally lacking and it is this absence that defines the life of people as fall en, lost or devoid of meaning. The subconscious selective tendency between the two "negative" configurations leads to a convergence which can be seen in the structure of the novels (The Trial, The Castle) and short stories: t his is what the crushing of the individual and the total refutation of free dom indicates - the redemption of the world.