History of Germany, Week 8

Teutonic Cultural Pessimism

Elias’s Kultur/Zivilisation antithesis• Civilisation• French• Artificial• Aristocratic• Courtesy• Anglo-Saxon• Mass• Society• Political• Superficiality

• Culture• German• Natural• Middle-class• Virtue• German• Individual• Community• Artistic• Inwardness

Norbert Elias, The Civilising Process (1939/60)

Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804, philosopher

• Rationality as means of self-determination (Bildung)

• Idealism (only reality is that of mental states)

• Phenomenology: can only perceive world of appearances

Romanticism

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832, writer

• The Passions of Young Werther (1774): love affair leading to suicide

• Cult of individualism and emotionality

• ‘Sturm und Drang’ (storm and stress)

Romanticism and Nature

Caspar David Friedrich, 1774-1840, painter

• Symbolic ‘interior’ landscapes

• Religious mysticism & pantheism (cathedrals of nature)

• Quest for sublime & infinite

• Emotion of viewer

Caspar David Friedrich

Cross in the Mountains, 1812

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, 1818

Romanticism and Music

Richard Wagner, 1813-83, operatic composer

• Gesamtkunstwerk: music, stage effects in The Ring of the Nibelungen, 1876

• Chromatic overlayering of harmony to create emotional ‘wall of sound’

• Teutonic myths of Siegfried

• Anti-industrialism• Anti-semitism in political

writings

Stefan George

Stefan George, 1868-1933, poet

• Aestheticist poet believing in art for art’s sake

• Symbolist poetry espouses aristocracy & self-sacrifice

• Main symbols of stone or unnatural (the black flower) connote death & sacred

• Artist as elite of new society

• Made into posthumous Nazi ‘national poet’

Stefan George, Algabal, 1892Mein garten bedarf nicht luft und nicht wärme Der garten den ich mir selber erbautUnd seiner vögel leblose schwärmeHaben noch nie einen frühling geschaut.

Von kohle die stämme, von kohle die ästeUnd düstere felder am düsteren rain Der früchte nimmer gebrochene lästeGlänzen wie lava im pinien-hain.

Ein grauer schein aus verborgener höhleVerrät nicht wann morgen wann abend nahtUnd staubige dünste der mandel-öleSchweben auf beeten und anger und saat.

Wie zeug ich dich aber im heiligtume−So fragt ich wenn ich es sinnend durchmassIn kühnen gespinsten der sorge vergass −Dunkle grosse schwarze blume?

My garden needs not air nor warmthThe garden which I built myselfAnd its lifeless flights of birdsHave never seen a spring.

Of coal the trunks, of coal the branchesAnd dark fields on the dark marginOf burdens never breaking fruitGlitter like lava in the pine grove.

A grey glow from hidden caveHints not when morn’, nor evening draws nighAnd dusty wreaths of almond oilsHang on flowerbeds and common and seed.

How do I grow you in the sanctuary- So I asked when I paced it out in thoughtForgetting in bold cocoons of care -Great dark black flower?

Arthur Schopenhauer, 1788-1860, philosopher

• The World as Will and Idea, 1818

• Humans part of cosmic, evil will

• Main driving force in mankind ‘will to life’

Ludwig Feuerbach, 1804-72, philosopher

• The Essence of Christianity, 1841

• Divinity as social, human construct

• God outward projection of human consciousness

Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900, philosopher

• Classical philologist• Medical metaphors of

sick civilisation• Attacks Christian

morality of meekness• Supports aristocratic

values of power• Will to power• Thus Spake

Zarathustra, 1883-85

  

                                       

                    

                               

          

Thoughts Out of Season, 1873-76

• Nietzsche attacks cultural philistines• Journalism• Democratic politics• Genealogy of Morals• Deconstruction of language• Perspectivism• Existence as ‘becoming’ rather than

‘being’

Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 1873• Apollo• God of music,

art & order• Rationality

• Dionysos• God of chaos, dance &

drinking

Paul Anton de Lagarde, 1827-91, theologist

• German Writings, 1878-81• God has destiny for each

nation• Germanic nation modelled

on family & artisans• Germanic religion with

pagan overtones (Christianity too Judaic)

Julius Langbehn, 1851-97, art critic

• Rembrandt as Educator, 1890

• Rembrandt as honorary German

• Germanic art folk art in touch with Volk

• Artistic truth more significant than scientific

Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, 1876-1925, literary critic

• The Third Reich, 1923• Rise of young nations

(Germany, Russia) against enfeebled older nations (France, Britain)

• `Culture is of the spirit and civilisation of the stomach’

Oswald Spengler, 1880-1936,

cultural critic

• Decline of the West, 1918

• Cyclical view of history• "high cultures": Indian,

Babylonian, Egyptian, Chinese, Mayan-Aztec, Arabian, Greece & Rome, Euro-Western

Spengler• The prime symbol of Western culture is the "Faustian Soul" (from the

tale of Doctor Faustus), symbolizing the upward reaching for nothing less than the "Infinite." This is basically a tragic symbol, for it reaches for what even the reacher knows is unreachable. It is exemplified, for instance, by Gothic architecture (especially the interiors of Gothic cathedrals, with their vertical lines and seeming "ceilinglessness").

• High Cultures are "living" things -- organic in nature -- and must pass through the stages of birth-development-fulfillment-decay-death. Hence a "morphology" of history. All previous cultures have passed through these distinct stages, and Western culture can be no exception. In fact, its present stage in the organic development-process can be pinpointed.

• The high-water mark of a High Culture is its phase of fulfillment -- called the "culture" phase. The beginning of decline and decay in a Culture is the transition point between its "culture" phase and the "civilization" phase that inevitably follows.

• Civilisation witnesses descent into mammon and democracy

Thomas Mann, 1875-1955,

novelist

• Buddenbrooks, 1901: bourgeois family ‘decaying’

• Death in Venice, 1912: cholera epidemic as metaphor for decline

• Magic Mountain, 1924: set in sanatorium