tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9020609400967229954.post5166919192958175905..comments2024-03-27T06:34:24.901-07:00Comments on Goethe Etc.: Goethe on SchwanauGoethe Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11390542069637659154noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9020609400967229954.post-31656629671681602982011-08-27T09:37:19.923-07:002011-08-27T09:37:19.923-07:00I forgot to mention I enjoyed very much the Englis...I forgot to mention I enjoyed very much the English translation of the Goethe poem written when he was twenty-five or so. Writing a quarter of a century before Wordsworth, he expresses himself as "a man speaking to men." One reads such "simple" verse and thinks, "I could have done that." But then one thinks again. It is astonishing to think that Hegel knew Hoelderlin intimately, got to know Goethe, and then just went about his business as usual...except that we learn that Hegel continued all his life to return to what was for him THE poem, "Antigone." (This interplay of things pious, things conventional-natural and things metaphysical: the Tensions within a growing, developing consciousness.) Soon I plan to read "Faust, Part Two," which I'm told pretty much blew Goethe away, to the point that his Phenomenology actually seems to be in Goethe's debt. These influences in the history of ideas fascinate and motivate me to keep at it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9020609400967229954.post-19556432046969391052011-08-27T09:11:21.499-07:002011-08-27T09:11:21.499-07:00Lately I've been straining through some Hegel-...Lately I've been straining through some Hegel--he clearly studied Rousseau and appropriated, in particular, Rousseau's concept of "perfectibility." We have no "human nature" such as Aristotle and Plato described it; rather we are perfectible or changeable--historical beings. You can see the Will, which Strauss sees already in Machiavelli, taking its near-final form. Our freedom is not a static form but a dynamic force in nature inside of which is Will (to Power). The seeds of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche then have already been planted first in Machiavelli, then in Rousseau (the general Will). Hegel creates a system summarizing his predecessors, some say, in a magnum opus analogous to Aristotle's summary/system. I also learned last night that Hegel got to know Goethe and that they shared a mistrust of the long range implications of Newton's way of looking at things. If I'm not mistaken, they preferred Kepler. What this is about, I could not say! Perhaps something about Goethe's theory of color. At any rate, these notes/observations in this blog, these Reveries as it were, continue to enrich my readings in things German (and French and American, etc.). If I were ever to write something, the form would probably have to follow the general structure I learned in "self-improvement": the way things were, what happened, and the way things are today. This temporal outline, it occurred to me, is the Bible's (and the great spiritual autobiographies like Paul's and Augustine's)...is (arguably) Shakespeare's...is great story-telling's, including Hegel's, if you will. I'll never forget the comment on Hegel I learned decades ago from a professor who quoted the German genius: "The owl of Minerva begins its flight at dusk," that is, after we turn sixty! In the case of the super-enlightened, however, the process can begin in one's teens if not earlier. Some people know who they are and what they want at age nine, like the founder of Schepp's Dairy here in town, who died recently in his nineties after a lifetime of concern for others....Today we almost take for granted the "changeable," historical nature of man: postmodernism is in the air we breathe it seems. (And unfortunately the moral relativism that goes with it.) Leo Strauss invites his students and readers in the general public to pause and, perhaps like Rousseau, take a look back. In particular, he invites us to look back at the possibilities for excellence in human life and government...in Plato and Aristotle, whom he (arguably) considered not just excellent but "holy" men. Readings and studies in this direction make for a very novel way of looking at things, a way, by the way, that is not necessarily at odds with a living, contemporary faith. But Kierkegaard is probably right: one has to decide. It is interesting to note that John Paul's respect, Catholicism's respect, for human freedom is such that it cannot, we cannot or rather should not--presume to NOT respect human freedom with its power and duty to take personal responsibility in conscience. As I read Benedict's homilies I note that he, too, seems to have been influenced by Rousseau! (Both he and John Paul were and have been prominent solitary walkers during vacations and other times.) But their take on "perfectibility" seems to be based on the biblical injunction: "be perfect." A tall order indeed. In their own unique ways, Goethe and Hegel and Leo Strauss seem to have taken this counsel literally in terms of "self-improvement." And Rousseau, too, the solitary walker, instead of the Catholic rosary, carried with him his own all-encompassing life of revery and eccentric reverence. (Sorry, this was more than a "comment"!)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9020609400967229954.post-37196920991572365492011-08-24T17:21:28.558-07:002011-08-24T17:21:28.558-07:00No, though Goethe drew a lot, he was not that good...No, though Goethe drew a lot, he was not that good a draftsman. I am still trying to figure out the real connection of Goethe with this "Goethe-Stube."Goethe Girlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11390542069637659154noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9020609400967229954.post-82912439134544285072011-08-23T12:47:20.253-07:002011-08-23T12:47:20.253-07:00Is that postcard drawn by Goethe? It's beautif...Is that postcard drawn by Goethe? It's beautiful to say the least. And, do you think the Goethe-Stube is the same place?Michael Lihttp://isomorpheus-at-mac.comnoreply@blogger.com