r0b’s Reviews > The Disinherited Mind: Essays in Modern German Literature and Thought > Status Update
r0b
is on page 69 of 306
‘...Goethe’s rejection...by critics of the stature of, for instance, Irving Babbit, Ortega y Gasset, George Santayana, T. S. Eliot...[italics mine]
What?! I’m shocked! :/
— Aug 04, 2020 11:21PM
What?! I’m shocked! :/
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r0b’s Previous Updates
r0b
is on page 268 of 306
'Experience is to the empiricist what the sand is to the ostrich's head...Uncertainty alone is ineluctably real.'
— Jun 29, 2021 10:24AM
r0b
is on page 260 of 306
Nicht Gott, nur alles leugn' ich, was ihn leugnet, Und wenn er will, ist alles wunderbar.
The satirist Karl Kraus brought to life a world whose every breath was a denial of God's designs, and was the chaos that decided that His will should not be done.
— Jun 29, 2021 10:05AM
The satirist Karl Kraus brought to life a world whose every breath was a denial of God's designs, and was the chaos that decided that His will should not be done.
r0b
is on page 241 of 306
On Karl Kraus:
'His work is untranslatable....
This rare fusion of spontaneity and subtlety, of ethical integrity and intellectual complexity, he [Karl Kraus] shares...with Kierkegaard and, in modern German literature, only with Franz Kafka.'
I love Karl Kraus.
— Jun 28, 2021 12:30PM
'His work is untranslatable....
This rare fusion of spontaneity and subtlety, of ethical integrity and intellectual complexity, he [Karl Kraus] shares...with Kierkegaard and, in modern German literature, only with Franz Kafka.'
I love Karl Kraus.
r0b
is on page 241 of 306
On Karl Kraus:
'His work is untranslatable....
This rare fusion of spontaneity and subtlety, of ethical integrity and intellectual complexity, he [Karl Kraus] shares...with Kierkegaard and, in modern German literature, only with Franz Kafka.'
— Jun 28, 2021 12:29PM
'His work is untranslatable....
This rare fusion of spontaneity and subtlety, of ethical integrity and intellectual complexity, he [Karl Kraus] shares...with Kierkegaard and, in modern German literature, only with Franz Kafka.'
r0b
is on page 200 of 306
'Oswald Spengler believed that he had found the new centre of gravity for history...
The problem was present right at the beginning of modern historical thought. Vico knew it, and, of course, Herder...For the purely empiricist concept of history is hopelessly spoilt as soon as the question of meaning or pattern is raised.'
— Jun 15, 2021 09:57PM
The problem was present right at the beginning of modern historical thought. Vico knew it, and, of course, Herder...For the purely empiricist concept of history is hopelessly spoilt as soon as the question of meaning or pattern is raised.'
r0b
is on page 168 of 306
‘Heidegger...is said to have remarked that his philosophy is merely the unfolding in thought of what Rilke has expressed poetically...’
— Jun 06, 2021 01:11PM
r0b
is on page 157 of 306
‘It [writing poetry] is the difficulty of translating spiritual convictions into living convictions.’
— Jun 05, 2021 11:27AM
r0b
is on page 135 of 306
‘...the denial of pain means the denial of existence. Existence is pain, and joy lies not in non-existence, as Schopenhauer would have it, but in its tragic transfiguration.’
— Jun 01, 2021 11:50PM
r0b
is on page 135 of 306
‘We shall come to see Rilke as the St. Francis of the Will to Power.‘
— May 31, 2021 10:19PM
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Bertrand wrote: "Today's cultural conservatives clamour in defense of 'the canon' and they seem to care little for what work is to be included, provided that it predates 1950, but for much of the XIXth and XXth cen..."And helpful! :)
Goethe is very difficult to fit comfortably into any normative critical tradition. Coincidentally, I was just reading the other day a highly-ambivalent Harold Bloom on Goethe, and how he does, or does not, speak to us today. Bloom argues that Goethe essentially predates the subjective turn, and as such, stands on the other side of an unbridgeable gulf from modernity. He prefers Wordsworth, whereas I would not trade one Goethe for two dozen Wordsworths.One of the fundamental ruptures I've observed in criticism is those, like Bloom, who favor Milton and Wordsworth, and those, like Pound, who reject them entirely, and who often extoll Dante at Milton's expense. I believe that would correspond somewhat to Bertrand's observation regarding this schism between classicism and Romanticism.
Personally, I don't know where one could locate Goethe on such an axis. Young Werther was in many ways paradigmatically Romantic, but it was written two decades before the movement took off in Germany, and by the time it did, Goethe had long since moved on and was very critical of it. But although Goethe wrote classical dramas, I would hardly call him a classicist, and works like Faust and Elective Affinities are simply impossible to classify.
I think for those of us who love Goethe, many of us see him as far larger than any movement or framework.
"Les extrêmes se touchent," as they say.
Bertrand wrote: "I guess the canonisers are more selective than I thought, then! That 'militant classicist' tradition I had in mind would have had no difficulties with Sturm und Drang because for them 'romantic' w..."
Barnaby wrote: ""Les extrêmes se touchent," as they say."
Fascinating discussion! Thanks to you both for this!
Ah, very interesting, thanks!