HOME CONTENTS: Journals & Papers of Søren Kierkegaard
I - II - III - IV - V - VI - VII - VIII - IX - X - XI
I A - I B - I C
1
[Reading notes on Philipp Marheineke, Geschichte der teutschen Reformation, part 1 (Berlin: 1816).]
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2
[Reading notes on J. C. Lindberg, Historiske Oplysninger om den danske Kirkes symboliske Boger. (Copenhagen: 1830).]
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3
[Reading notes on S.J. Stenersen, Udsigt over den Lutherske Reformation, part 1. (Christiania: 1818).]
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7
[Interpretations of various passages from the synoptic Gospels: Luke 3:1, 11:39; Mark 4:27, 7:11; Matthew 13:36, 15:5, 15:32, 18:15, 18:24; Luke 10:26, 12:54; Matthew 16:14; Luke 17:16, 17:20, 17:24, 16:18, 21:33, 21:44; Luke 20:16, 22:48; Matthew 23:16, 24:24; Matthew 26:3; Luke 22:48; Matthew 26:61, Luke 23:30.]
... Luke 17:19. η πìστις σον σεσωκε σε. It seems odd that Christ adds this, for he always made faith a condition for their being saved; but how, then, were the others saved who did not manifest their faith, indeed, seemed not even to have it, since they did not return to give God the honor?
In margin: *See p. 1 [i.e., I C 9]....
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In margin of previous:
*In his sermon Grundtvig observes that it was indeed necessary for truth to be present, for if the words "Lord Jesus, save us" had been only idle talk, he would not have been saved; but in the first place the faith mentioned is immediate, spontaneous faith, which is called forth by suffering, and in the last place, and if I may call it that, an intensified faith.
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11-12
[Latin translation by Kierkegaard of Acts 1-4 and of Acts 24-27.]
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16, 18
[A schematic analysis, based on A. Neander, Geschichte der Pflanzung und Leitung der Christliche Kirche durch die Apostel, I-II (Hamburg: 1832), I, pp. 168 ff., of the Greek expression for the "gifts of the spirit" in I Corinthians 12. Reading notes on A. Neander, Geschichte der Pftanzung ..., I, pp. 332 f., 342, 364 ff.]
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17
The Path of Fate
p.3 ..... the young man shouted lustily, his heart leapt into life, and he assumed a manly stance.
Mathew 5:45 Luke 15:11 Ephesians 2:7
Titus 3:4 John 3:16 1 John 4:10, 16, 19
Romans 5:8
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19
Lectures on Dogmatics
by
H. N. Clausen
[...]
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25-26
[Reading notes on P. Marheineke, Die Grundlehren der Christlichen Dogmatik als Wissenschaft (2 ed.; Berlin: 1827). ASKB 644.]
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27-33
[Reading notes, together with comments, on F. Baader, Vorlesungen über spekulative Dogmatik, I (Stuttgart, Tübingen: 1828), II (Münster: 1830), ASKB 396.]
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34
With respect to actions they accused religion of:
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prompting improper, ghastly acts against the common civil-moral life. —
I do not understand his argument, for he aims to show that a man may easily be religious and also immoral, because the one belongs to feelings, the other to action.
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actions that have no meaning for the sensate life, none for morality.
But we are supposed to believe that those actions that are the more or less spontaneous movement of the feelings out into life must be good, since, after all, feelings themselves are good, are true. —
Some are of the opinion that when the imagination must submit to being used for the work of carrying the reduced images to their full magnitude, this Erschöpfung is the feeling of the great and majestic in nature.
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35
[Exegesis of Ephesians on the basis of L. J. Rückert, Der Brief Pauli an die Epheser erlaütert und vertheidigt (Leipzig: 1834).]
36
[Kierkegaard's Latin translations of Philippians, Colossians, and I and II Thessalonians in their entirety.]
37
[Kierkegaard's Latin translations of Colossians 1:14, 24; 2:11, 22.]
40
The error in the doctrine of predestination, which one will finally find in the N.T. if he is misled by a single word such as πρóθεσιν (for example, Romans 8:28), consists in this: πρóθεσιν means a preconceived plan, to be sure, but this is to be interpreted to mean the whole of Christianity, its manifestation in its wholeness was determined from eternity; the individual, on the other hand, is called according to a teaching, of which the whole relationship to time is determined from eternity, but in such a way that it cannot thereby be stated that his call is from eternity.
46
Fausts Leben, Thaten und Höllenfahrt in fünf Büchen, neue verbesserte Auflage. 1799.
This book is by a man named Klinger; see encyclopedia. Faust is presented as the inventor of printing (see p. 3), and Satan vows that this invention is going to saddle the world with a heap of troubles (see his lines, pp 28-37). Thus the idea of having the world be destroyed by books, found in Andersen's Walking Tour, chapter 1, comes from the legend of Faust.
p. 65. Faust: "ich wollte einen Teufel haben und keinen meines Geschlectes."
p. 221. Here we find the description of a visionary: Ueber dem sog er (that is, the visionary) gleich einem Trocknen Schwamme die Thorheiten und Charlatanerien ein, die andre ausheckten, ein Umstand, wodurch sich die Schwärmer von den Philosophen gänzlich unterscheiden; denn diese hassen und verachten die Hypothesen eines andern, da jene allen Unrath des menschlichen Geistes annehmen, und sich zu eigen machen. —
It is also quite remarkable how Satan (see p. 378 etc.) shows Faust the horrible and widespread consequences of his acts, and how Klinger in a note (p. 385) develops the idea that the whole human race, from king to beggar, each according to his ability, is collectively the creator of the so-called moral world. Klinger promises to develop this in greater detail in his Giafar.
47
Faust im Gewande der Zeit — Ein Schattenspiel mit Licht von Harro Harring dem Friesen von Ibenshof an der Nordsee. Leipzig: 1831.
48
Szenen aus Fausts Leben, von Schr., Offenbach: 1792 (presumably the same one v. Raumer mentions, p. 196, and calls Schreiber).*
* This book belongs to the University Library.
He points out in his preface that there is an aspect of Faust that is suitable for dramatic treatment: "dass nämlich der Mensch nicht gemacht ist für dem Umgang mit höhern Wesen, und dass er es nicht ungestraft wagen dürfte, aus dem Kreise heraus zu treten." — ..... His taking leave of his father is moving. His meeting the traveler (see p. 24) is comic. — He then has him continue his journey and encounter life's various characters, both the friendly and genial and the ludicrous — for example, p. 28, his encounter with the young man..... The scene with the young man in the hut is excellent. The scene in the learned society is really funny. Faust's observations (p.41) at the Baltic Sea are also really notable......
Of the particular beautiful things I point out only the fisherman's song, p. 108.
[Song transcribed.]
49
[Der Faust der Morgenländer oder Wanderungen Ben Hafis. Erzählers der Reisen vor der Sündfluth. Bagdad; 1797.... [Reading notes and excerpts.]
March 7, 1835
51
Historische Taschenbuch, herausgegeben von Friedrich v. Raumer. Füftes Jahrgang. Leipzig: 1834. Pp. 128-210.
P. 129, 133] Did Faust actually exist? ..... All this is far too shrouded in legend, something like the story about his dog, in which an evil spirit is supposed to have been hidden. — ..... [P.144]. He was in Leipzig, and there are two pictures of it here. They are printed in Raumer. .....
I will cite only some of the literature. Raumer gives it in great detail.
Neumann et C. C. Kirchner, auctor et respondens, dissertatio historica de Fausto praestigiatore. Wittemberg: 1683.4, 1742, 1743, 1746.
Bouterwek, Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit, Band IX, p. 422.
Ueber Calderons wunderthatige Magus ein Beitrag zum Verstandniss der Faustischen Fabel, v. Dr. Rosenkrantz, 1829.8
[P.203 f.] Schriften über Güthes Faust.
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Ueber Göthes Faust und dessen Fortsetzung nebst einem Anhange vom ewigen Juden. Leipzig: 1824.8.
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Aetetische Vorlesungen über Göthes Faust, als Beitrag zur Anerkennung wissenschaftlicher Kunst Beurtheilung. Herausgegeben von Dr. H. F. W. Hinrichs. Halle: 1825.8.
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Vorlesungen von Wolf über Göthes Faust,1829 in Jena gehalten, nicht gedrucht.
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Vorlesungen über Göthes Faust von K. E. Schubarth. Berlin: 1830.
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Heroldstimme zu Göthes Faust, ersten und zweiten Theils mit besondre Beziehung auf die Schlusscene des ersten Theils, v. C. F. C. G-l. Leipzig: 1831.8
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L. B. (Bechstein) die Darstellung der Tragödie Faust von Göthe auf der Bühne. Ein Zeitgemässes Wort Für Theater Directionen, Schauspieler und Bühnenfreunde. Stuttgardt: 1831.12.
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Ueber Erklärung und Fortsetzung des "Faust" im Allgemeinen und insbesondre über "Christliches Nachspiel zur Tragoedie Faust," von K. Rosenkranz. Leipzig: 1831.
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Vorlesungen über Göthes Faust, von F. A. Rauch. Büdingen: 1830.
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Sehr treffende Bermerkungen und Erlaüterungen über Göthes Faust gibt Falk in seinem Buche, "Göthe aus näherem Umgang dargestelt." —
[P.206] Erzählungen.
Doctor Faust, eine Erzählung, von Hamilton, frei übersetzt, v. Mylius. Im zweiten Bande der Bibliothek der Romane. Das französische Original führt den Titel: l'enchanteur Faustus.
Fausts Leben, Thaten und Höllenfahrt in fünf Büchern, v. Klinger.*
* In margin: In Student Association Library.
Faust, v. Mainz, Gemälde aus der Mitte des funfzehnten Jarhunderts, v. I. M. Kamarack. Leipzig: 1794.
Der umgekehrte Faust oder Froschs Jugendjahre, v. Seybold. Heidelberg: 1816.
Fausts Lehrling eine kleine Erzählung, v. Gerle. Im dritten Theile von des Verfassers Schattenrisse und Mondnachts Bilder. Leipzig: 1824.8
Faustus ein Gedicht in lyrischer Form, v. Ludvig Bechstein. Leipzig: 1832.4.—+
+ In margin: In the Athenæum. See 1834 catalog, p. 156.
[P. 205] Opern.
Dr. Fausts Mantel ein Zauberspiel mit Gesang i zwei Akten, v. Adolph Baüerle. Wien: 1819.8
Faust Trauerspiel mit Gesang und Tanz, v. Julius v. Voss. Berlin: 1824.8
Faust Oper in vier Aufzügen, v. Bernard. Musik v. Spohr.
Fausto, opera seria, in drei Akten in Paris zum ersten Male gegeben im März. 1831. Die Musik v. Fräulein Louise Bertin.
52
Faust und D. Juan, Tragoedie in fünf Akten, v. Grabbe. Frankfurt: 1829.8.
53
[Pp. 159 ff.] It is related in the so-called Dr. Joh. Faustens Miracel, Kunst und Wunderbrech, how Faust made contact with the devil, and not until the devil Aziel came, who, in reply to Faust's question how fast he was, said: As fast as human thought — not until then did he become involved with him. Lessing has made use of this in having the spirit say he was as fast as the transition from evil to good. —
See v. Raumer, p. 161. —
[P. 196.] See Lessing, his letters on the most recent literature, pt. 1, p. 103, and Analekten für die Litteratur, pt. 1, p. 210, also pt. 2 of his Theatralischem Nachlasse.
54
It is indeed curious that the legend has provided Faust with a dog in which the devil conceals himself (see v. Raumer, p. 133). It seems to me that the legend thereby wants to suggest that for a man like Faust, for whom all conditions of life were so utterly askew and who had such a canted stance toward everything, that for him, I say, the dog, this usually faithful companion to man, here did in fact retain his character as faithful but also became an evil spirit who, in line with his faithfulness, never deserted him.
March 16, 1835
59
Just as a constituent development from the Protestant view of the Bible as constituting the Church led to the establishment of a new branch of knowledge, namely, introductory scientific scholarship in which one sought to prove that by having its origin in the apostles it had the right to constitute the Church, so also the theory about the apostolic symbols leads to an introductory scientific scholarship.
60
Hoffmanns Schriften, X, "Meister Floh,", p. 287.
"Wie sprach er zu sich selbst ein Mensch, der die geheimsten Gedanken seiner Bruder erforscht, bringt über den diese verhängnisvolle Gabe nicht jenes entsetzliches Verhätnitz, welches den ewigen Juden traf, der durch das bunteste Gewühl der Welt, ohne Freude, ohne Hoffnung, ohne Schmerz, in dumpfer Gleichgültigkeit, die das caput mortuum der Verzweiflung ist, wie durch eine unwirthbare trostlose Einöde wandelte"
September 1, 1835
61
It is also remarkable that Germany has its Faust, Italy and Spain their Don Juan, the Jews (??) the Wandering Jew, Denmark and north Germany, Eulenspiegel.
October 1, 1835
62
The legend about the Wandering Jew is told in its entirety in Ein Volksbüchlein. Munich: 1835.
(The Student Association has it.)
This legend, which has an altogether Christian coloration, excludes the ascetic-religious aspect, just as with Faust.
October 13, 1835
64
Concerning the Wandering Jew.
(Ahasverus. Shoemaker. Cartophilus. Doorman.)
See Almindelig Morskabslœsning i Danmark og Norge by Nyerup. Copenhagen: 1816.
Literature:
particularly dissertations, one by Prof. Christopher Schulz in Königsberg, 1689; one by Prof. Carl Anton in Helmstad, 1755. These are in the University Library, also one sub praesidio Gotfried Thilonis, de Judaeo immortali, Wittemburg, 1672; one under Prof. Sebastian Neimann's chairmanship, de duobus testibus vivis passionis dominicae, Jena, 1668; the third, defended in Regensen, by Caspar Kildgaard, Hafniæ, 1733: de Judaeo non mortali. —
1835
65
(The Wandering Jew seems to have his prototype in the fig tree that Christ commanded to wither away.)
March 28, 1835
72
Goethe's Werke, XVIII. Stuttgart, Tübingen: 1828. —
Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, 1, 2, 3... [reading notes and quoted passages from pp. 51, 175, 191, 220, 221, 226].
Lehrjahre, 5, 6 ... [reading notes and quoted passages from pp. 73, 90 ff., 255 ff.].
Lehrjahre, 7, 8 ... [reading note.]
Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre oder die Entsagenden, 1 ...
[Reading notes and quoted passages from pp 49, 52, 55. For text see Pap., XII, pp. 212-13.]
1836
74
Goethe aus näherm persölichen Umgange dargestellt. Ein nachgelassenes Werk von Johannes Falk. Leipzig: 1832.
[Reading notes and quoted passages from pp. 1, 4, 8, 11, 13, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 50 ff., 66, 77, 78, 207, and 209. For text see Pap., XIII, pp. 214-17.]
75
Goethe's Leben von Dr. Heinrich Döring, zweite ergäanzte Ausgabe. Weimar: 1833.
[Reading notes and quoted passage from pp. 16.]
76
Addenda to my previous excerpts from Falk, pp. 79 ff. [i.e. I C 74]...
[Quotations; for text see Pap., XII, pp. 217-19.]
77
Generally speaking, it is rather amazing that Goethe was not free from a certain superstitiousness. See Anhang zu J. W. Goethe's Leben by Döring. Weimar: 1833 ... [quotations from p. 28].
78
Baggesens samtlige Værker.
V, p. 472 ("Gjengangeren og han selv" ... [quotation from poem].
79
There is a very remarkable passage in a poem of the Middle Ages which I have never read or seen any mention of but have only heard. It is called "Dance of Death" or something like that, and death is represented as dancing with various people and carrying on a dialogue with them. Finally, Death comes to a cradle in which a baby is lying; Death bows over the cradle and invites the child to dance, but the child answers:
Hr. Todt, dass kann ich nicht verstahn:
Ich soll tanzen und kann noch nicht gahn.
81
Volkslieder der Serben, metrisch übersetzt und historisch eingeleibet v. Talvi. Zwei Bände, zweite Auflage. Halle, Leipzig: 1835.
82
Erzählungen und Märchen, herausgegeben v. Friedrich Heinrich v. der Hagen. 1ster Band. Prenzlau: 1825.
In volume II of this collection (Prenzlau: 1826), p. 325 ff., there is a Serbian tale with the title "Bärensohn" ..... There is a striking similarity between this story and what is told here in the north about Thor and his adventures ...... Now he comes to a farmer and once again he wants to enter an eating match, but the farmer recommends that before touching the food he should cross himself and say "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"; when he had done that he was surfeited before he had eaten half the food placed before him......
A very singular, naive, childish tone runs through the whole story, * which is characterized by numerous contradictions in the determination of the size of the persons appearing in the poem. In other respects, as mentioned, there is a striking similarity to the Scandinavian, which can be reserved perhaps for a convenient time.
* In margin: See Mag. Hamerich on Ragnarok, p. 93 note.
83
Esthetic Miscellany No. 2
See preceding part, i.e., volume, in I C 82.
* In volume I of the Erzählungen cited there are also some Arabian tales (pp. 1-48[49]), Italian (pp.48-66[51-77]), etc., a very interesting ghost-story, "der heilige Drei Königs Abend" [pp. 111-26], one with more of a moral aspiration, "Erkenne Dich selbst, so erkennen Dich die Andern" [pp. 129-37]. The story about "Virgilius der Zauberer" is extraordinary. There are two pieces about him, one [pp. 147-52] from an ancient manuscript, the other (pp. 156-209) from an old Dutch chapbook.
* In margin:
Really poetic, too, is the ending the legends attribute to several people — for example, see volume I, p. 138 [-41], "der Höllenjäger.". It tells that at the time Donatus was the Roman emperor there lived a knight named Laurentzius, whose land was coveted by the emperor, who therefore commanded him to go out and find (for the emperor) a black horse, a black dog, and a black falcon, and if he were unable to do so he was never to come back. The knight went away and actually got what he was after (incidentally, the manner in which he gets it is very interesting; his wife advises him to go to his confessor and confess all his sins etc.); he returns, and now the emperor goes hunting with the black dog, the black horse, and the black falcon, but he is never seen again.
See Nordiske Kæmpehistorier by Rafn, II, p. 628, about Didrik of Bern (but here it seems to be with a positive result.)
With reference to this see some appended observations under the designation A [i.e., I C 85].
In volume II there are many Arabian tgales, some of them familiar, but I wish to emphasize one, "Harun Arreschyd und die beiden Bettler" [pp. 87-89], one of the most delightful short stories I have read in a long time, and which contains a fine irony upon those who trust not in providence but in men and who at first glance are successful but later lose. There follows a long romance under the title "Geschichte des Prinzen Kalaf und der Prinzessin Turandokt" [pp. 90-221], which was very tiresome because of the odd contrast between an overabundance of action and the drawn-out dull, trivial dialogue alongside. I found nothing I cared for even in the details. Nevertheless I will refer to an interesting situation [p. 139]. The cruel princess (T.) has given every suitor the condition that he solve a riddle or lose his head. A young prince has been executed just recently, and at that very execution Kalaf meets a man who is desperate about it. In his despair, this man, who is the prince's steward, throws away a picture. A picture of the cruel beauty, which, of course, Kalaf picks up. But since, unfortunately, he loses his way and it is dark, he must wait all night, burning with the desire to see this beauty. — As for the rest, there is in this whole collection really nothing notable for my enterprise. The whole thing is all too trivial and there is nothing of the splendor which folk-life expresses in a special way.
85
A.
Such a sudden disappearance — which, following an otherwise conspicuous and distinguished life (whether good or evil), sets the imagination in motion in a way calculated to make that life as grandiose as possible in order to keep that life, elevated above all and everything in other respects, from being eclipsed by death as everyone else's is — such a disappearance is not uncommon, whether I think of an Elijah or Romulus or the ultiamte in this respect, Christ's Ascension. But what I particularly want to point out here is how consistent the mode of disappearance is within the whole view which is affirmed in this kind of literature. Whereas the dominant thought in connection with a heavenly ascension is obviously the splendor that the person enters so that in a sense everything is over, at least the mood of the reader is one of peace and rest in the thought of this splendor and is not concerned about a conception of what he now in his glory is going to do (since his glory is thought of as essentially passive, as a rest in a shady region, in ambrosial fragrance, etc.) — here is the idea of letting him undertake a host of adventures (see Rafn, p. 627), and in vain does one call out to him that he should stop, but he goes off like a wandering Jew, yet with this difference that all his accoutrements (dog, horse, falcon) are reminiscent of the mighty hunger who at every moment meets a new animal, each one more remarkable than the last. As a continuation of such stories are the tales heard in many regions about the wild hunt, and the farmer familiar with such stories (it is certainly a very erroneous view that such legends supposedly have a harmful effect on the farmer; on the contrary, he is not at all fearful because of them but is at home with them) hears the barking of dogs and the galloping of horses etc. at night, all the relics of the time when the whole world was a forest inhabited by dragons, lions, etc. It is the consistent development of their whole view of life, and whereas classical antiquity, as a fitting symbol of all its striving, had Sisyphus roll the stone up until it came down again and so on over and over (the Danaides scoop water into a vat as it continues to overflow), the romantic period has the knight hold his own in the folk tale. It has been said that Christianity really developed the romantic, but if it was Christianity that did that (which, after all, is doubtful, for Christianity admittedly lures thought out beyond the earthly to something on the far side and to that extent is romantic, but that far side is a judgment or a sleep-like dormant state prior to a judgment), it was only through contact with the northern [culture], which precisely by its marriage with Christianity produced chivalry and — precisely by the conception of life and death so characteristic of northerners, a conception of life as a battle, here as well as beyond, and of death as downfall in this life parallel to downfall in the other life as a transition to standing again — gave rise to the genuinely romantic.
March, 1836
87
Forelæsninger over den nyere danske Poesie, by Molbech. Part I. Copenhagen: 1832.
They begin with Evald. After some more general observations about the relation of poetry to the life of a people and linked to this observations about our Danish poetry, on p. 18 he says that poetry should bear a distinctive mark of national life, but not art, however: "Art works ..... are everywhere equally accessibly for everyone endowed with an eye for art. When we stand before an Apollo Belvedere, before a holy family by Raphael, or a landscape by Claude Lorrain, it makes no difference if the beholder is a Spaniard or Englishman."
But surely this is not the case, for just as one who is proficient in the language in which a poetic work is written but has never lived in the country of its origin would always lack something, the national individuality by which the poet was essentially nurtured, so also one can contemplate a work of art but can never get the characteristic impression, the inner understanding of, for example, a Raphael, which we must imagine to be present for a contemporary generation. For us beholders a certain historical aspect is more prominent — which consists in contemplating that such and such was the case with that people — and a differentiating gradation in the "to what extent" one is able to live into that nationality is indeed conceivable, but one still never gets a perfectly adequate impression as does one who has imbibed with his mother's milk the ideas constitutive of that nationality. Therefore it seems somewhat narrow to want to maintain this view only with respect to poetry just because of language, for it is self-evident that if one is to understand the poem he must know the language, and therefore at the outset I specified proficiency in the language.
P. 220. Here the discussion is about "The Fisherman," and the error is pointed out in the objection that Evald's fishermen do not speak the way common people do. Evald did not aim to present only the single gallant and noble action of Hornbeck's fishermen but the whole occupation whose chores and way of life in themselves suggest a more poetic character than that of a farmer or craftsman. In his drama there is also the idea of a poetic image of the Danish sailor ..... [p.221] a poetic aim which could not but raise Evald's spirit, inflamed by love of the fatherland, to a more lofty lyrical enthusiasm than that required by a merely idyllic-emotional subject.
P. 228. "The Romance of 'little Gunvert' ......" After that [pp. 228-29] a parallel is drawn between it and Goethe's "Der Fischer."
P. 247 has some observations about how the prose of ordinary life has been used in poetic rendering.....
P. 262 "..... Jens Immanuel Baggesen ..... Baggesen was a rare Proteus in his poetry, and the keynote of his poetry is a constant hovering on the border between earnestness and irony. Thus it can be said that his life and fate were also an everlasting surging motion without rest......"
Forelæsninger by Molbech, II.
March, 1836
88
Forelæsninger by Molbech. Part II. Copenhagen: 1832.
P. 15. "To limit the bounds of elegaic poetry to the love-relation alone is as wrong, we think, as to assume it to be only unhappy love [p.16] whose lament is to be heard in the elegy. ..... In the secret depths of feeling the chords of joy and sorrow are so clsoe to each other that the second resonates all too easily when the first is moved. In the midst of his happy heaven of love the poet can discern presentiments of the vain character of earthly joy or in the possession of bliss feel the influence of a clandestine fear of losing it." — [*]
[*] P. 84. In passing the author mentions the hymn in the early Greek and Roman churches and in this connection [p.85 note] Herder, Briefe zur Beförd, der Humanität, VII, Sämtl. W., pp. 21 ff., Preisschrift uber die Wirk, der Dichtkunst, Sämtliche Werke zur Sch. Lit., IX, pp. 419 ff. The whole thing may be of interest to me, must investigate.
P. 91. "In going through the whole store of lyric poetry collected in his (Baggesen's) works, we shall find that, both in content and in execution, most of it centers upon wholly subjective states in which, again, the main role is played by evanescent erotic moods and in part by an elegant and witty gallantry or that uncultivated relation to the other sex in the superficial forms of the modern period, a remnant of the chivalric spirit playing upon the surface of life, a kind of half ironic jest with the situations in which inclination can test how far it dares to go in this instance without becoming earnest, without overstepping the boundary where it expresses itself as passion." —
An explanation of the concept "romantic" is found in the twenty-first lecture, but some of it is not new. P. 81: "Since this (the dominant tendency to draw the eternal and the infinite, that whose measure and bounds no earthly flight can approach, down into the world of phenomena) remains eternally unattainable, even for the most powerful imagination, the most profound reason, and the ardent enthusiasm of the most ardent love, so must that which we called [p. 182] the romantic, the eternal yearning, the wistful, the infinite and unfulfilled bliss in feeling, the presentient and supraterrestrial in imagination (the foundation of the whole world of the fabulous), the mystical and the profound in thought, which simultaneously seeks to be identified with feeling and imagination — This, I say, must serve to fill in the broad chasm between idea and essence, between the eternal, the divine, the supernatural, which human striving seeks to assimilate or to bind in the various forms of art or form-kingdoms, and these forms themselves. Thus it is not the sentimental or the chivalrous or the marvelous element that constitutes the essential or necessary substance of the romantic — it is rather the infinitude, the freedom without physical barriers in the working of the imagination, in the intuiting of the ideal, in the fullness and depth of feeling, in the idea-oriented power of reflection to which we must look for that fundamental condition for the romantic and also for a large and significant share of modern art. The romantic, declares Jean Paul, is the beautiful without boundaries or the beautiful infinite, just as there is a sublime infinite."
Jean P. [p. 183] likens the romantic to the illumination of an area by moonlight or to the tone waves in the echo of a ringing bell, of a stroked string — a trembling sound that swims as it were, farther and farther away and finally loses itself in us and still sounds within us although outside of us it is quiet. — Furthermore [p. 183] "all poetry writing is a kind of truth-saying art, and romantic poetry writing is a presentiment of a greater future." [P. 184] Therefore the romantic has been called the poetry of presentiment. — [P. 186] But if we were to consider in toto each of the various arts with respect to its affinity to the romantic and the capacity to assume the character of the spiritually unlimited, we would find that in the graduation of this affinity they appear in an order in which tonal art takes first place, for it exceeds all other art in dealing with the infinite, the inexhaustible, the unfathomable in the world, but here only through feeling, immediately intuited; after that come poetry, painting, sculpture ..... Music as the most romantic of all the beaux arts is also the most recent; yes, we could say that genuinely musical composition, the discovery of theory of harmony and its practical application in music, belongs wholly to our period (modern painting is distinguished by chiaroscuro and the full range of color) — whereas sculpture belongs to the ancient period. — P. 189. Here it may be necessary to recall that the romantic as such is not an exclusive possession of Christian Europe; there is much romantic material in Oriental (Indian), Scandinavian, and Celtic mythology. — P. 198. Another observation which we join to that (that a poetic spirit closely related to the classical can still belong to our modern period) is this: the romantic, which we contrast to the classical, must not be confused with an exclusively spiritual or mystical striving for a union with the higher, the extrasensory. Besides its ideal foundation or essential power which gives it a predominantly spiritual, imaginative, emotional character, the romantic has an aspect oriented to the sense-world, whereby it is capable of developing and presenting its distinctive art world. This use of romantic material occurs poetically in various ways, but on the whole they can be said to have in common the characteristic of seeking and presenting a beauty in the manifold, a combination of the most motley, marvelous, fabulous [p.199], and imaginative forms and images, a comprehensible whole to the assimilating imaginative power and the beholding artistic taste. This manifoldness, which is the dominant feature of romantic artistic perception, is just as characteristic of it as the singularity, unity, and simplicity of the great, of the sublime, are characteristic of classical art. But in modern poetic works we find romantic manifoldness in many very different expressions. In the Middle Ages, for example, it appears for the most part only as rich material or incomplete elements for the poetic works in which very often move the most glorious, the nobleest, and most vivacious spirit, the purest religious faith, and the most ardent feeling, but because of a lack of background and artistic skill, they were unable to shape and treat the extraordinarily rich poetic stuff which they had acquired. Medieval poetry, which on the whole has a predominantly epic character, is therefore extremely rich in content but nonetheless frequently formless. — [P.200] Another later expression of the romantic in poetry was less authentic and less elevated than that in which the spirit is preoccupied with the mysteries of the marvelous and a living faith in the sacred and the extrasensory. Instead it clings more closely to the sense-world and to everyday life and summons the marvelous down from the religious sphere of faith and presentiment to a lower, more motley, and imaginative stage where the prodigiously marvelous, magic, and witch-arts play their game, where fairies, gnomes, elves and a host of other supernatural creatures and dark powers intrude upon human fate and the course of events.
March 24, 1836
89
Die Poesie der Troubadors, nach gedruckten og handschriftlichen Werken derselben, dargestellt v. Friedrich Diez. Zwickau: 1826....
April 22, 1836
95
Ludvig Tiecks Schriften, IV, Phantasus, part I. Berlin: 1828. p. 129. ..... Es giebt vielleicht keine Erfindung, die nicht die Allegorie, auch unbewusst, zum Grund und Boden ihres Wesens hätte. Gut und böse ist die doppelte Erscheinung, die schon das Kind in jeder Dichtung am leichtesten versteht, die uns in jeder Darstellung von neuem ergreift, die uns aus jedem Räthsel in den mannichfaltigsten Formen anspricht und sich selbst zum Verstandniss ringend auflösen will. Es giebt eine Art, das gewöhlichste Leben wie ein Mährchen anzusehn, eben so kann man sich mit dem Wundervollsten, als wäre es das Alltäglichste, vertraut machen. Man könnte sagen, alles, das Gewöhnlichste, wie das Wunderbareste, Leichteste, und Lustigste habe nur Wahrheit und ergreife uns nur darum, weil diese Allegorie im letzten Hintergrunde als Halt dem Ganzen dient, und eben darum sind auch Dantes Allegorien so überzeugend, weil sie sich bis zur greiflichsten Wirklichkeit durchgearbeitet haben. Novalis sagt: nur die Geschichte ist eine Geschichte, die auch Fabel sein kann. Doch giebt es auch viele kranke und schwache Dichtungen dieser Art, die uns nur in Begriffen herum schleppen, ohne unsre Phantasie mit zu nehmen, und diese sind die ermüdenste Unterhaltung. —
See in this connection Heyne (Romantische Schule, p. 20).
96
Ueber Goethe's Faust. Vorlesungen von Dr. K. E. Schubarth. Berlin: 1830. ...
100
From an earlier excerpt, most likely from 1835 [i.e., I C 53], Lessing's treatment of Faust, a fragment in Gothold Ephraim Lessings sämtliche Schriften, Berlin: 1794, XXII, pp. 213-231....
September 7, 1836
101
Doctor Faust
fliegendes Blatt aus Cöln.
See Knaben Wunderhorn, I, p. 214.
September 8, 1836
102
To what extent is Faust a drama of immediacy, as J. L. Heiberg says is there such a thing?).
To what extent is it proper to let Faust, on his first encounter with Mephisto, construe him as humorous (Lessing, Klinger, folk-tales, Knaben Wunderhorn, I, 214 — similar to the passage in Goethe, p. 85: Was willst du armer Teufel geben etc.). Incidentally, Goethe did this before in another passage, on p. 69: "das also war des Pudels Kern, Ein fahrender Scolast? Der Casus macht mich lachen." This is the first time Mephisto appears. Is it perhaps Goethe's intention to distinguish between der Geist (p. 34) and Mephisto (the whole nonphysical — and [p. 71] "bescheidne Warheit sage ich Dir").
What is the nature of Goethe's irony and humor — it is like thunder and lightning viewed by someone who is on a mountain and elevated above it — he has outlived them, to that extent it is more than classical (romantic-classical).
Faust is at home in the ebb and flow of irony. This is why in the first scene [pp. 29 ff.] he runs through the whole climax. He wants to embrace the macrocosm, is repulsed, then charges at the microcosm, and, repulsed there also, falls in the arms of Wagner (irony), but this irony must give rise to his humor, which now also expresses itself with respect to Wagner, p. 36 following.
Incidentally, I cannot omit mentioning here that in an earlier reading of this poem I misunderstood line 3 from the bottom of page 35: nicht einmal dir, because I had overlooked einmal and taken this passage to mean that the devil would tempt Faust with the idea of his God-likeness, which consequently elevated him far above the devil. Now I see that this is not at all Goethe's meaning, even if there could be something quite right about letting Mephisto enter into such a relationship with Faust on his first appearance. —
Irony is humorously construed by Faust himself ("meiner Schüler an der Nase herum" [p. 29]). Wagner's whole relationship to him is ironical, but then, the very moment he has decided to let the senses be everything, a new disciple (profound irony) comes along. There is irony when the peasants receive him with jubilation because he had once saved them; irony, when Wagner rejoices over this but immediately looks upon the peasants' jubilation humorously. The whole scene with the dog is irony.
P. 57, top of page, is an authentic prophetic insight into the soul of every profoundly religious doubter. He personally feels how important it is for men to have such a religious point of departure, and therefore he does not think of trying to deprive them of it by mockery.
P. 64. Jehovah was not in the storm; the tranquility, however, which is poured out over Faust is nothing more than relaxation. He is already too involved with the devil, and therefore he misunderstands the gospel. The persuasions of the Kingdom of God cease. Similarly a certain tranquility is inevitable the moment the Commandant lets go of Don Juan's hand, since the struggle between the conflicting powers ceases after a fashion.
What significance is there to Mephisto's insistence that Faust repeat "herein" three times before he comes. [p. 79]
Compare Goethe's Faust with the poem in Knaben Wunderhorn, for example, F., p. 75, where he lulls him to sleep so he cannot steal away, with the change in Knaben Wunderhorn, when he paints Venus instead of Christ, whom he cannot paint.
It is curious to see the younger generation, which certainly has something Faustian about it, attach itself to the Goethean version, which in no way has anything seductive about it as Don Juan does in some aspects (in Faust none at all); it is rather as if Goethe were the gray man in Peter Schlemihl who took out of his pocket Faust's shadow, which said: justo judicio Dei damnatus sum.
Should there not also be a few moments* of inspiring cognition (is it not compatible with the idea of the devil's assistance or with the stage prior to contact with him); how much of this comes in the second part? And are they not then of an entirely different kind?
Probably Lord Byron's Manfred is Faust without a Goethean educating Mephisto?
* At least a striving in that direction, as is suggested in its own way in the popular book in Danish that I have. See p. 10.
September 8, 1836
103
In Tieck's Schriften, vol. IV, p. 462, there is a remark on Goethe's work with the theater in Weimar, declaring that on the whole it was very negative and thereby no doubt forestalled the bad, but on the other hand often cut out the work of splendid genius as well.
September 11, 1836
104
In Tieck's Schriften, vol. IV, Berlin, 1828, pp. 199 f., in the second portion of "der getreue Eckart und der Tannenhaüser," the Faustian principle appears in the nature of the sensate that wants to be gratified (for example, p. 202); likewise the story about the Mount of Venus and the life lived therein. Some passages and expressions are reminiscent of Goethe's Faust, for example, p. 210 bottom.
October 22, 1836
In margin: It is Don Juan, the musical-sensuous (see the scene in Lenau's Faust where Mephisto stikes up —). See Irische Elfenmärchen by Grimm, 1826, p. 25 etc., "Der Kleine Sackpfeifer," especially pp. 28, 29, 30.
September 29, 1837
106
Literature on Faust
This is found rather extensively in Raumer, Historisches Taschenbuch, fifth year. Berlin: 1834. Pp. 183-206.
Volksbücher...
Schriften über Faust, und die ihn erw&auuml;hnen...
Dichterische Behandlungen...
Französische Uebersetzungen...
Englische Uebersetzungen...
Schriften über Göthes Faust...
Opern...
Erzählungen...
107
The World-Famous
Master of the Black Arts
and
Sorcerer
Doctor
Johan Faust
and
the Pact He Made with the Devil,
His Amazing Life and
Horrible Death
———
Copenhagen [n.d.]
On Sale at 107 Ulkegaden
[...]
n.d., 1836
108
On page 10. It is extremely interesting to see how from another scholarly viewpoint other scholarly efforts have been attributed to Faust. See Raumer, Historisches Taschenbuch, fifth year, p. 134. (Manuscripts of the non-extant plays of Plautus would reconstruct Aristotle if he had been lost. Moehsen and Trithem.)
October 28, 1836
109
It is remarkable to note the naïvetè with which the legend given here treats Faust's relation to Mephistopheles. The inability to rise to the conception of absolute mastery over nature's powers, riches, glory, etc., is constantly manifest, and for that reason Faust gets into many scrapes, gets hold of money in all kinds of ways, accepts bribes, etc., but this of course is not conceived humorously (as it was in a certain sense in the case, for example, of Moliére's Don Juan and, if I am not mistaken, Heiberg's Don Juan; the humor lies precisely in seeing a hero like that in such a scrape). Inasmuch as the folk-consciousness has been unable to detach itself from life's barriers, to that extent its position is a kind of humorous commentary on the folk-consciousness itself, which, wanting to understand such a striving, has been unable to understand it clearly.
October 29, 1836
Addition:
Well, this is true not only of Faust but also of Mephistopheles, who, after all, must try all sorts of expedients; in a way, then, this lies in the past, since Faust in fact completely dominated Mephistopheles.
A counterpart to this is the enchanted shields, weapons, shirts, etc., with which those virile and most eminent warriors, with a span of one foot between teh eyes, are supplied. —
111
A humorous touch, although unconscious, is the mortgaging of different parts of his body, although in the past he did pledge himself to the devil with his skin and hair.
112
To illuminate individual national differences in the conception of the legend of Faust, he might be compared with the magician Virgilius told about in Erzählungen und Märchen, herausgegeben von F. H. von der Hagen (Prenzlau: 1825), I believe in the first volume. Görres tells about him in his work Die teutschen Volksbücher, pp. 225-229
116
Literature about the Wandering Jew.
See Almindelig Morskabslœsning i Danmark og Norge by Nyerup. Copenhagen: 1816.
Particularly dissertations: one by Prof. Christopher Shulz in Königsberg, 1869; one by Carl Anton in Helmstad, 1755. These are in the University Library, also one sub praesidio Gotfried Thilonis, de Judaeo immortali, Wittenberg: 1672; one under Prof. Sebastian Niemann's chairmanship, de duobus testibus vivis passionis dominicae, Jena: 1668; one in Regensen by Caspar Kildgaard, Hafniæ: 1733: "de Judaeo non mortali." —
See Görres, pp 201-3.
See Ein Volksbüchlein, Zweite Ausgabe. Munich: 1835, pp. 267-74.
Blade af Jerusalems Skomagers Lommebog, Copenhagen: 1833
117
The romance by A. W. Schlegel, "die Warnung", is in Auswahl deuischer Gedichte v. Dr. K. E. P. Wackernagel, Berlin: 1836, zweite Auflage, pp. 407 [ff.]
118
In Goethe's "aus meinem Leben," part 3, there is also his idea of an adaptation of the Wandering Jew, in which, true to himself, he seeks to motivate the Wandering Jew's despair.
119
Den evige Jøde, translated from the German. Copenhagen: Stadthagen Publishing Co., 1797. 246 pp.
A miserable production, unless one wants to use the book as a guide in teaching history, yet a very poetic foreground: four young people from four different nations who meet at the Leipzig Easter Fair — one is an enthusiast of Lavater's Physiognomical Fragments and practices successfully until he meets this man. Yet it is remarkable that such a connoisseur of faces does not recognize a Jew's superb, pronounced physiognomy, but this unexplained ignorance nevertheless does provide the occasion for a very interesting scene in which each one asks him in his own language what nationality he is, and replying in the language of each one, he refuses to tell. — On the whole, devoid of any significance. Who is speaking is completely forgotten, and the various disappointments — for example, that he informs a number of quarreling critics of the existence of the work whose spuriousness has been asserted, or the way he regards himself as disadvantageously presented on the stage —are very badly utilized. On the whole, there is only a frame, not content. Because it is easier, he is here conceived, as in most adaptations, more as the temporal Jew than as the eternal Jew, that is, completely atomized time is presented in its multiple, variegated forms, but on the whole, instead of the more inwardly turned eye, signifying the deepest, most silent despair, there is the perception of external objects in and for themselves, and he is endowed with a good bit of garrulousness (αλαξονεìα), characteristic of an adventurer. Those involved do not understand what he says [p/4]: that the Wandering Jew may stay only three days in one place, and it is a poetic fate which the Wandering Jew cannot cheat (for that would be the suicide of the idea) by satisfying their curiosity for three days and three nights. The only way such a thing could be done would be by emphasizing, as a contrast, how little this interested him, how little everything was compared to the sorrow he bore, which he could never alleviate by expressing it at some moment, inasmuch as there would never be moments enough —simply because he was eternal.
In margin:
The Wandering [eternal] Jew is the petrified wife of Lot brought to consciousness.
121
I will merely quote the profound words in A. W. Schlegel's romance about the Wandering Jew:
Ich bin nicht jung, ich bin nicht alt,
Mein Leben ist kein Leben.
and
der ewige Jude v. Wilhelm Müller, Taschenbuch zum geselligen Vergnügen, 1823, p 10:
So zieh' ich Tag und Nacht einher,
Das Herz so voll die Welt so leer,
Ich habe Alles schon gesehn
Und darf doch nicht zur Ruhe gehn.
August 28, 1837
123
When the artistry of conception and execution is lacking, half the pleasure is lost, no matter how piquant and interesting the situation. This can readily be seen, for example in Mittheilungen aus dem Tagebuche eines Artzes, von C. Jürgens, I-III, Brunswig: 1833....
124
The following outline on the development of comedy is in the flyvende Post of 1828, although not in the same form as this.
January 16, 1837
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