seduction as templates for proletarian identifications might initiallyseem baf-
fling–but onlyifcontent is privileged over form and the transferable nature
of emotional intensities ignored. Responding to these established conventions,
earlycontributors to the Lassalle cult drew extensively on the heightened modal-
ities of the sentimental and the melodramatic associated at the time with the
popularnovel, drama, and film. Later treatments incorporated physiognomic
categories and psychological theories inways that must be considered as deriv-
ative as thereligious languageand imagery used by their predecessors.
Through these emotional and discursive constellations, and especiallythe
substitution of one languageofenchantment for another,the Lassalle cult
came to function asaprojection screen for more hidden resentments. These re-
sentmentsoften survivedbeneath the public expressions of loveand admiration
and involved very different patterns of recognition focused on hisJewishness as
asourceofempathic identification as well as antisemitic prejudice. Contempo-
raries such as Heinrich Heine had hailed Lassalle as the messiah of the nine-
teenth centuryand RichardWagner (inararegenerous moment) described
him as“that type of the future men of noteIwould liketocall Germanic-Jew-
ish.”²⁸By contrast,Karl Marx,inaletterto Friedrich Engels, had referred to
their greatest competitor as“theJewish nigger”and, in so doing,established a
pattern thatwould henceforth allow othersto channel their feelingsofattraction
and revulsion through the languageofantisemitism. Recountingarecent visit by
Lassalle, Marx in 1862could barelycontrol himself:
Addtothis, the incessant chatterinahigh, falsettovoice, the unaesthetic, histrionicges-
tures, the dogmatictone! [...]And ontopofitall, the sheergluttonyand wanton lechery
of this“idealist”!Itisnow quiteplainto me–as the shape of his head and the wayhis
hair grows alsotestify–that he is descended fromthe negroes[sic]whoaccompanied
Moses’flight fromEgypt (unless his mother or paternal grandmother interbred withanig-
ger).Now,this blend ofJewishness and Germanness,onthe one hand, and basic Negroid
stock, on the other,must inevitablygiverise toapeculiar product.The fellow’simportunity
is also nigger-like.²⁹The Heine reference(fromaletterto VarnhagenvonEnse ofJanuary3, 1846) is fromWerner
Telesko,Erlösermythen in Kunstund Politik. Zwischen christlicher Tradition undModerne(Vienna:
Böhlau,2004), 108. TheWagner quoteisfromHugoDinger,RichardWagnersgeistigeEntwick-
lung.Band1. DieWeltanschauung RichardWagnersinden Grundzügen ihrer Entwicklung(Leipzig:
E. W. Fritzsch, 1892),376.
Karl Marx, Letterto Engels,30July1862,MECW41:388. Confirming the antisemitic elements
in the public construction of the Lassalle persona, the novelistFriedrich Spielhagenused Las-
salle asamodel for the (identifiablyJewish) characters in twoZeitromane(novels with contem-
porary themes),BernhardMünzer inDie von Hohenstein(1864,The Hohensteins) andLeoGut-
mann inIn Reih’und Glied(1866,Rank and File).Foranearlydiscussion of the Lassalle
Ferdinand Lassalle,the First SocialistCelebrity 135