Monday, 06 November 2006

Excerpts from the LiveJournal of Frederick Schiller

Letter I.

By your permission I lay before you, in a series of letters, the results of my researches upon beauty and art. I am keenly sensible of the importance as well as of the charm and dignity of this undertaking. I shall treat a subject which is closely connected with the better portion of our happiness and not far removed from the moral nobility of human nature. I shall plead this cause of the beautiful before a heart by which her whole power is felt and exercised ...

(Read more...)

Letter II.

But I might perhaps make a better use of the opening you afford me if I were to direct your mind to a loftier theme than that of art ... I hope that I shall succeed in convincing you that this matter of art is less foreign to the needs than to the tastes of our age; nay, that, to arrive at a solution even in the political problem, the road of aesthetics must be pursued, because it is through beauty that we arrive at freedom. But I cannot carry out this proof without my bringing to your remembrance the principles by which the reason is guided in political legislation.

(Read more...)

Letter V.

Does the present age, do passing events, present this character? I direct my attention at once to the most prominent object in this vast structure ...

(Read more...)

Letter VI.

Have I gone too far in this portraiture of our times? I do not anticipate this stricture, but rather another—that I have proved too much by it ...

(Read more...)

Letter VII.

Can this effect of harmony be attained by the state? That is not possible, for the state, as at present constituted, has given occasion to evil, and the state as conceived in the idea, instead of being able to establish this more perfect humanity, ought to be based upon it. Thus the researches in which I have indulged would have brought me back to the same point from which they had called me off for a time ...

(Read more...)

Letter VIII.

Must philosophy therefore retire from this field, disappointed in its hopes? Whilst in all other directions the dominion of forms is extended, must this the most precious of all gifts be abandoned to a formless chance? Must the contest of blind forces last eternally in the political world, and is social law never to triumph over a hating egotism?

(Read more...)

Letter IX.

But perhaps there is a vicious circle in our previous reasoning! Theoretical culture must it seems bring along with it practical culture, and yet the latter must be the condition of the former ...

(Read more...)

Letter X.

Convinced by my preceding letters, you agree with me on this point, that man can depart from his destination by two opposite roads, that our epoch is actually moving on these two false roads, and that it has become the prey, in one case, of coarseness, and elsewhere of exhaustion and depravity. It is the beautiful that must bring it back from this twofold departure. But how can the cultivation of the fine arts remedy, at the same time, these opposite defects, and unite in itself two contradictory qualities? Can it bind nature in the savage, and set it free in the barbarian? Can it at once tighten a spring and loose it; and if it cannot produce this double effect, how will it be reasonable to expect from it so important a result as the education of man?

(Read more...)

Letter XV.

I approach continually nearer to the end to which I lead you, by a path offering few attractions. Be pleased to follow me a few steps further, and a large horizon will open up to you, and a delightful prospect will reward you for the labor of the way ...

(Read more...)

Letter XVI.

I think I have now answered and also cleared up the contradiction commonly met in the judgments of men respecting the influence of the beautiful, and the appreciation of aesthetic culture ... Consequently in the sequel of my researches I shall adopt the course that nature herself follows with man considered from the point of view of aesthetics, and setting out from the two kinds of beauty, I shall rise to the idea of the genus. I shall examine the effects produced on man by the gentle and graceful beauty when its springs of action are in full play, and also those produced by energetic beauty when they are relaxed. I shall do this to confound these two sorts of beauty in the unity of the beau-ideal, in the same way that the two opposite forms and modes of being of humanity are absorbed in the unity of the ideal man.

(Read more...)

Letter XIX.

Judy dumped me today.  Stupid bitch.  Said I couldn't tell my Bestimmbarkeit from my Bestimmung.  I'll show her.  One day I'll be famous.

Current Music: My Chemical Romance - Welcome to the Black Parade

Letter XXI.

I have remarked in the beginning of the foregoing letter that there is a twofold condition of determinableness and a twofold condition of determination. And now I can clear up this proposition ...

(Read more...)

Letter XXIII.

I take up the thread of my researches, which I broke off only to apply the principles I laid down to practical art and the appreciation of its works ...

(Read more...)

Letter XXVII.

Do not fear for reality and truth. Even if the elevated idea of aesthetic appearance become general, it would not become so, as long as man remains so little cultivated as to abuse it; and if it became general, this would result from a culture that would prevent all abuse of it. Everyone in that culture—even, perhaps especially, the Jews—would then eat bacon.  I love bacon ...

(Read more...)

Nov 6, 2006 9:22:08 PM | Literary Theory, Literature

4 Comments

M. Amis

No one enjoys overlong jokes about obscure C19th German aestheticians.

Except, possibly me.

Posted by: M. Amis | Tuesday, 07 November 2006 at 04:55 PM

N. Pepperell

Very funny... Tired of close readings? Or wanting to test whether your readers are reading closely?

Posted by: N. Pepperell | Tuesday, 07 November 2006 at 06:18 PM

Scott Eric Kaufman

Martin Amis? I'm moving up in the word.

N.P., I'm just giving readers a breather, making sure I don't bore them out their routine.

Posted by: Scott Eric Kaufman | Tuesday, 07 November 2006 at 07:01 PM

Joseph Kugelmass

I'm in agreement with Mortimer Amis. This is funny stuff, Scott; Dave Barry did something similar when he wrote his own version of the Declaration of Independence: "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind require that they should get some sleep. Because I have been up for two nights now, declaring independence, and I may be a lanky Virginian but I am not a machine, for heaven's sake, and it just doesn't make sense to sit here scrawling away these complex-compound sentences when I just know nobody's going to read them, because nobody ever does read all the way through these legal documents. Take leases. You take the average tenants..."

Posted by: Joseph Kugelmass | Tuesday, 07 November 2006 at 08:42 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.

NEXT POST
Close-Reading Exercise: A Good Bad Reading of Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn," Part III [This would be the third installment of my insanely close reading of Keats "Ode on a Grecian Urn." You can find the first here, the second here. I know some of you must be bored by now, but I must say I feel like a scientist who—having written the definitive treatise on the leaf—was handed a microscope and then—having written the definitive treatise on the cell—was handed an electron microscope, &c. The more attention I pay the more the poem yields. I will, however, interleave other posts in with the Keats come tomorrow. For now, to the show again!] I open with a few more lines than before: Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; And, happy melodist, unwearièd, For ever piping songs for ever new; More happy love! more happy, happy love! Why? Happy you should ask! I cannot tell you how happy I am at this happy coincidence! It is a most happy, happy coincidence! Wait—what do you mean? I am not trying to hard. Does it sound like I'm trying to hard? Does not. Does not! Does not! You may have a point. This stanza screams of argumentum ad nauseam. You want something to mean what you think it should, you repeat yourself until no one cares to challenge you or—not to be topical or anything—until people begin to mumble your words under their breath as they stumble into pool halls and voting booths. In this example, the speaker needs you to believe the boughs are happy, happy with their perpetual plumage. Maybe they are. Maybe pain follows every leaf plucked by wind or wanton hand, and so the thought of keeping its foliage lushed and unplucked in perpetuity appeals to the bough. That, at least, is what the speaker assumes. Of course, since he anthropomorphizes the tree, I should have license to. Perhaps Spring is the deciduous equivalent of our awkward, teenage years. Perhaps every tree dreads the arrival of Spring, what with the budding pains, the pericarpal outbreaks—not to mention the inevitable heart rot. Why should we assume that trees are happy in Spring? The Western Tradition? Is the one Keats and his speaker shared the same as the one the Roman potter and his clientele did? Not necessarily. In diction, Keats and his speaker betray an aware of this. The boughs "cannot shed" their leaves. Not "will not shed" but cannot." Despite its overwhelmingly happy happiness, the tree has been prevented from acting, prevented from doing what it would do left to its own devices. Coupled with the coercive repetition, this characterization of an anthropomorphized tree seems cruel and unnecessary. Had the tree just been a tree, I wouldn't bother—but anthropomorphize it and its inclusion in the scene becomes disturbing. I suppose the attribution of agency hangs me up here, but with repeated readings that first line begins to resemble the words of a serial killer to his victim: "Tell me how happy you are. Tell...
PREVIOUS POST
BREAKING NEWS: GOP FEARS ELECTIONS "NOT CLOSE ENOUGH TO RIG" WASHINGTON - Emails obtained by the Associated Press indicate that top Republican officials now believe that the margin of victory will be too high to rig the results. "A four or five percent margin, we can handle," said a GOP official from Connecticut. "But eight or higher? That's asking the implausible." With Bush's approval ratings low and the war in Iraq unpopular, Republicans conceded that the Democrats would gain some seats in Congress, but secretly they believed some races would be close enough that the strategies which were so effective in recent elections could be used again. "We did what we could ahead of time," said one key Kentucky Republican strategist. "Purged eligible voters from the rolls, neglected to process voter registration cards from Democratic GOTV drives, allocated fewer voting machines to predominantly Democratic districts. We even tried some new ones." "I was up until 6 a.m. calling people on behalf on the Democratic Party," said a Republican campaign worker manning the phones in Tennessee. "Then my boss comes in and tells me to stop. Says now I'm supposed to tell people that they're registered in another state and will be arrested if they try to vote. Between you and me, I think I might dozed off a few times and sleep-trashed the Democrats." Party officials believe such mistakes may have cost them the chance to throw the election. According to Guy Kenner, a Republican strategist in Virginia, "You can only disenfranchise and discourage so many eligible voters. In the last election, the GOP exceeded the number of voters they could drive from the polls by 13 percent. For some reason, people insist on voting this year." The expected record number of voters stymied Republican plans to tamper with the elections after the fact. In Clermont County, Ohio, where optical scanners are used to tabulate the votes, officials stand beside boxes of white stickers, ready to cover Democratic votes and replace them with Republican. "We're ready. Soon as we hear from the RNCC, we'll start 'counting' the 'votes,'" said one poll worker. He may have a long time to wait. "You can see their confidence eroding. Even they're using scare quotes," said Orin Freeman, a poll observer in Clermont County during the 2002 election. His wife, Kathy, recalled that "in 2002, they were covering Kerry's name with stickers and filling in Bush's name before people even voted. From 11 a.m. on they were turning people away, telling they've already voted twice." In nearby Warren County, plans to fake a terror threat on a county administration building have been all but called off. "Looks like we're actually going to have to count them this time," said a dejected GOP volunteer leading a vigil outside the building. Correction: The original title of this article implied that Republicans didn't know the difference between "rigging" an election and "throwing" one. As this confusion has been imputed to the author of this article instead of its target, the title has been changed.

Scott Eric Kaufman

The Typepad Team

Search

Become a Fan

My Other Accounts

Recent Comments