Triangulating Schlegel
The following will examine three rather lengthy fragments of Schlegel. Somewhere within, and perhaps more importantly, in between these three aphorisms turned miniature treatises is a contradiction, a paradox, or even a beautifully orchestrated symbiosis. It is through these explications that we will attempt to see whether or not it is through faith alone that we believe Schlegel to have intended the latter, or if his short bursts of genius are, in actuality, only the tips of the proverbial icebergs of his logical system. To begin:
352. “It’s an invention of historians of nature that her creative powers labored long in vain exertions and that, after exhausting themselves in forms that could have no lasting life conceived still others that, though living, were doomed to perish because they lacked the strength to reproduce themselves. The self-creative power of mankind is still at this level. Few live, and most of those who do only have fleeting existence. If they have found their egos in a propitious moment, then they still lack the strength to procreate them out of their own selves. Death is their habitual state, and if they once come to life, they imagine themselves transported into another world."
Schlegel begins this fragment with a familiar consideration. The personified nature in the minds of the historians is weak or imperfect. These forms mentioned first that “could have no lasting life” probably are referring to inanimate objects which, though long if not everlasting, are incapable of godly things like creation (or criticism). Trying once again, the Mother Nature here creates life and the highest order thereof, humans. In doing so, once again in the mind of these historians, the gods failed again in creating a godly thing. For, as any of us who have ever tried to use a skateboard know, we are far from perfect. The assumption here is that because the gods have failed in creating a perfect thing that they are incapable of creating a perfect thing and thus imperfect themselves. This omits however, as Schlegel was no doubt aware, the idea of the limits of perspective. That is, from the perspective of an imperfect being, it is rather rash to assume anything about perfection or lack thereof in one’s creator. The being about which these historians speak is instead themselves, as Schlegel goes on to say. It is man who is incapable (at least in large part) of self-creation. That is pulling one’s ego, one’s self, apart from the primordial collective ooze and up to the higher plane of existence that is to truly be alive. And it is only the men capable of this that are capable of producing anything (art) with a life of its own, short-lived as it may be.
But Schlegel’s Will to Power rant stops short of being just that, and in another fragment we can see what at first might seem contradictory, or at least not as guns-a-blazin’.
37. "In order to write well about something one should not be interested in it anymore. To express an idea with due circumspection one must have relegated it wholly to one's past, one must no longer be preoccupied with it. As long as the artist is in a process of discovery and inspiration, he is in a state which, as far as communication is concerned, is at very least intolerant. He wants to blurt out everything, which is the fault of young geniuses or a legitimate prejudice of old buglers. And so he fails to recognize the value and the dignity of self restriction which is after all, for the artist as well as the man, the first and the last, the most necessary and highest duty. Most necessary because where one does not restrict one's self, one is restricted by the world; and that makes one a slave. The highest because one can only restrict oneself at those points and places where one possesses infinite power, self creation, and self destruction. Even a friendly conversation which cannot be freely broken off at any moment, completely arbitrarily, has something intolerant about it. But a writer who can and does talk himself out, who keeps nothing back for himself, and like to tell everything he knows, is very much to be pitied. There are only three mistakes to guard against. First: What appears to be unlimited free will, and consequently seems and should seem to be irrational or supra-rational, nonetheless must still at bottom be simply necessary and rational; otherwise the whim becomes willful, becomes intolerant, and self restriction turns into self-destruction. Second: Don’t be in too much of a hurry for self-restriction, but first give rein to self-creation, invention, and inspiration, until you’re ready. Third: Don’t exaggerate self-restriction.”
Proceeding with caution, and with much deliberation over these words, it still may seem to a reader that they are in contradiction to the aforementioned fragment. This, however, is incorrect. Schlegel is adamant that the artist, in this case a writer, restrain himself in his quest for Quality. In fact, he calls self-restriction “the most necessary and highest duty” for all men. Not only does this seem contradictory because it asks for restraint rather than unbridled doing, but also because it seems to assume that all men have something emanating from them which need be restrained, when before it was said that “few live”. But as he continues, we begin to see how these two ideas, of restraint and of fleeting propitious movement of the ego, perfectly complement each other. Guarding against the mistake of the assumed infinitely free will we have our own restraint. This restraint is powered by the very same thing which was used to command the ego into existence and action: the will. These two actions working harmoniously (and only such) produce an art of quality or a man of quality: necessary, rational, and self-creative. An absence of this harmony produces not only the lack of self creation, but actual self-destruction, something Schlegel is here to vehemently warn us against. Through giving us such direct advice it seems as if he seeks to create values system applicable and necessary to the creation not only of quality art but of quality life; these being one and the same.
355. “Pitiful, to be sure, is why the pragmatic philosophy of French and English is, though considered to be so well versed in the knowledge of what man is, despite their failure to speculate on what he should be. Every organic being has rules, its duties; and if one doesn’t know them how can one possibly understand that being? Where do they get the organizing principle of their scientific descriptions, and what standards do they use to measure man? But at least they’re just as good as those who begin and end with the concept of duty. The latter class aren’t aware that the moral man rotates around his axis freely by means of his own power. They’ve discovered the point outside the earth that only a mathematician should try to find, but they’ve lost the earth itself. In order to say what a man should do, one has to be a man, and know it too.”
Here the mention of “rules”, “standards”, and “organizing principles” show again how it is through pragmatic (ahem, German) albeit organic systems that Quality is given rise and the rest restrained. To attempt to understand what man should do is to claim that there is a something which a man should do: an action of higher value than any other action possible in a given circumstance. Schlegel challenges the French and English thinkers’ ability to measure man. For they know not against what to measure him. In the same boat to self-destruction are people who claim to know the should of to be a man, and call it simply duty. But whence this duty? In the case described in the first two fragments the duty comes from the same place to which it is owed: the self-creating ego, brought into existence and creative by means of its own will.
352. “It’s an invention of historians of nature that her creative powers labored long in vain exertions and that, after exhausting themselves in forms that could have no lasting life conceived still others that, though living, were doomed to perish because they lacked the strength to reproduce themselves. The self-creative power of mankind is still at this level. Few live, and most of those who do only have fleeting existence. If they have found their egos in a propitious moment, then they still lack the strength to procreate them out of their own selves. Death is their habitual state, and if they once come to life, they imagine themselves transported into another world."
Schlegel begins this fragment with a familiar consideration. The personified nature in the minds of the historians is weak or imperfect. These forms mentioned first that “could have no lasting life” probably are referring to inanimate objects which, though long if not everlasting, are incapable of godly things like creation (or criticism). Trying once again, the Mother Nature here creates life and the highest order thereof, humans. In doing so, once again in the mind of these historians, the gods failed again in creating a godly thing. For, as any of us who have ever tried to use a skateboard know, we are far from perfect. The assumption here is that because the gods have failed in creating a perfect thing that they are incapable of creating a perfect thing and thus imperfect themselves. This omits however, as Schlegel was no doubt aware, the idea of the limits of perspective. That is, from the perspective of an imperfect being, it is rather rash to assume anything about perfection or lack thereof in one’s creator. The being about which these historians speak is instead themselves, as Schlegel goes on to say. It is man who is incapable (at least in large part) of self-creation. That is pulling one’s ego, one’s self, apart from the primordial collective ooze and up to the higher plane of existence that is to truly be alive. And it is only the men capable of this that are capable of producing anything (art) with a life of its own, short-lived as it may be.
But Schlegel’s Will to Power rant stops short of being just that, and in another fragment we can see what at first might seem contradictory, or at least not as guns-a-blazin’.
37. "In order to write well about something one should not be interested in it anymore. To express an idea with due circumspection one must have relegated it wholly to one's past, one must no longer be preoccupied with it. As long as the artist is in a process of discovery and inspiration, he is in a state which, as far as communication is concerned, is at very least intolerant. He wants to blurt out everything, which is the fault of young geniuses or a legitimate prejudice of old buglers. And so he fails to recognize the value and the dignity of self restriction which is after all, for the artist as well as the man, the first and the last, the most necessary and highest duty. Most necessary because where one does not restrict one's self, one is restricted by the world; and that makes one a slave. The highest because one can only restrict oneself at those points and places where one possesses infinite power, self creation, and self destruction. Even a friendly conversation which cannot be freely broken off at any moment, completely arbitrarily, has something intolerant about it. But a writer who can and does talk himself out, who keeps nothing back for himself, and like to tell everything he knows, is very much to be pitied. There are only three mistakes to guard against. First: What appears to be unlimited free will, and consequently seems and should seem to be irrational or supra-rational, nonetheless must still at bottom be simply necessary and rational; otherwise the whim becomes willful, becomes intolerant, and self restriction turns into self-destruction. Second: Don’t be in too much of a hurry for self-restriction, but first give rein to self-creation, invention, and inspiration, until you’re ready. Third: Don’t exaggerate self-restriction.”
Proceeding with caution, and with much deliberation over these words, it still may seem to a reader that they are in contradiction to the aforementioned fragment. This, however, is incorrect. Schlegel is adamant that the artist, in this case a writer, restrain himself in his quest for Quality. In fact, he calls self-restriction “the most necessary and highest duty” for all men. Not only does this seem contradictory because it asks for restraint rather than unbridled doing, but also because it seems to assume that all men have something emanating from them which need be restrained, when before it was said that “few live”. But as he continues, we begin to see how these two ideas, of restraint and of fleeting propitious movement of the ego, perfectly complement each other. Guarding against the mistake of the assumed infinitely free will we have our own restraint. This restraint is powered by the very same thing which was used to command the ego into existence and action: the will. These two actions working harmoniously (and only such) produce an art of quality or a man of quality: necessary, rational, and self-creative. An absence of this harmony produces not only the lack of self creation, but actual self-destruction, something Schlegel is here to vehemently warn us against. Through giving us such direct advice it seems as if he seeks to create values system applicable and necessary to the creation not only of quality art but of quality life; these being one and the same.
355. “Pitiful, to be sure, is why the pragmatic philosophy of French and English is, though considered to be so well versed in the knowledge of what man is, despite their failure to speculate on what he should be. Every organic being has rules, its duties; and if one doesn’t know them how can one possibly understand that being? Where do they get the organizing principle of their scientific descriptions, and what standards do they use to measure man? But at least they’re just as good as those who begin and end with the concept of duty. The latter class aren’t aware that the moral man rotates around his axis freely by means of his own power. They’ve discovered the point outside the earth that only a mathematician should try to find, but they’ve lost the earth itself. In order to say what a man should do, one has to be a man, and know it too.”
Here the mention of “rules”, “standards”, and “organizing principles” show again how it is through pragmatic (ahem, German) albeit organic systems that Quality is given rise and the rest restrained. To attempt to understand what man should do is to claim that there is a something which a man should do: an action of higher value than any other action possible in a given circumstance. Schlegel challenges the French and English thinkers’ ability to measure man. For they know not against what to measure him. In the same boat to self-destruction are people who claim to know the should of to be a man, and call it simply duty. But whence this duty? In the case described in the first two fragments the duty comes from the same place to which it is owed: the self-creating ego, brought into existence and creative by means of its own will.
posted by John Stephens at Sunday, January 29, 2006
0 comments
