Saturday 10 January 2015
sturm und drang oder elective affinities
Although the land of Alsace had been in possession of the French Empire, annexed from the Holy Roman Empire, for more than a century in this most recent in a long chain of redrawing borders, there still was a large German student population at the illustrious university and the city’s architecture and high spires of its cathedral—though somewhat mistakenly—struck Goethe as quintessentially German but not in the nationalistic sense (there was no Germany, just a loose confederation of city-states, petty kingdoms and imperial monasteries with varying degrees of allegiance to the Emperor) but rather as a community united in language, in the artistic sense as well as the spoken word. Goethe became particularly keen on this notion, drawing from his own childhood experiences being educated with a very liberal curriculum that included the classics and world literature, and finding more and more frustration and dissatisfaction with his own writing projects—as meaning and passion seemed to retreat from his poems (overtures to one young mistress especially) the more he applied himself.
In Strasbourg, Goethe saw his horizons broaden and the literary world unfurled before him when he was introduced to the plays and sonnets of one bard called William Shakespeare, and found in Shakespeare’s free-wheeling and bold manner the conventions that he sought for own prose. Back at the family home, the prodigal son celebrated his first love fest to the Bard and his muse with a “Shakespeare Day” on 14 October with some of his classmates. Goethe’s family saw no harm in their son’s renewed interest in writing, as his marks had improved and would be allowed to open a small practise in first in Frankfurt then in Wetzlar. His career as a lawyer, however, was destined to be a short one—Goethe often courting contempt by demanding clemency for clients and more enlightened, progressive laws. Perhaps sensing that this was the wrong vocation or perhaps because of his moonlighting, Goethe worked extensively on his first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werthers)—a semi-autobiographical account of a failed love affair told in correspondence and climaxing in the anti-hero’s suicide. The novel was an instant sensation and helped to propel, just as Shakespeare had done for English, German into the pantheon of literary and scholarly languages. Though not the stylings of emo or goth, young men were dressing as Werther (Werther-Fieber it was called) and tragically, there were some urged to the same ending after reading the book—and not just in Germany but all over. Fearing the dangerous influence that this potentially subversive work might have if the international celebrity might be allowed to spread unabated, a writer and publisher called Christoph Friedrich Nikolai from Frankfurt an der Oder, in central Prussia, went so far as to give the story a Hollywood ending, under the title “The Joys of Young Werther.”
Napoleon was a committed fan as were many others. The political discontinuity that charaterised the Holy Roman Empire was a grave subject of consternation to outsiders, who lived under more centralised governments, but as the city-states of an equally fractious Italy during the Renaissance encouraged the arts through patronage—every little lord wanting to retain pet talent, the same sort of arrangement could be fostered in Germany, and Goethe’s book caught the attention of one young heir-apparent to the small but grand duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. This enlightened ruler ennobled Goethe—putting the von in his name—and kept him on in Weimar for the rest of his life.
The young duke was of the same line who had two-hundred fifty years earlier had the courage and the wherewithal to provide sanctuary in the Wartburg by Eisenach to another controversial figure, Martin Luther—whereas in a more unified society with no place to seek refuge, like France or England, the Reformer would have been burnt at the stake for heresy. Goethe held a number of royal offices through his career, which afforded him travel on diplomatic missions throughout Europe and experiences Goethe could not have otherwise obtained, meeting many other contemporary luminaries—while not infringing on his writing and scientific studies. Goethe was deeply interested in all facets of existence and was absolutely prodigious in many fields, having amassed the largest mineral collections in Europe, published several seminal treatises on botany, optics and anatomy (which included some inspiring observations that Charles Darwin took to heart), and meteorology (researching the forecasting nature of barometric pressure) among others.
Friday 9 January 2015
explanatory proposition, fusion paranoia or cui bono?
Not that it matters much, but the latest subject of controversial satire in the making was in fact not Muslims but rather Islamophobia itself—nor that no institution was considered sacrosanct and off-limits to ridicule, but this calming and thoughtful reflection from the editorial staff of Boing Boing came across as another neglected spot of truth and clear-thinking.
While I do not think that it is anyone’s intent to correlate civic disengagement with religiosity or that caring about politics and faith excludes cohabitation and that secular sentiments only can make a good citoyen, it is worthy to note how fast-paced and frenetic events cause people on any side to loose their skeptical inner-voice and forget that people lie and lie often in public forums. France is the host and home of probably the least radicalised elements in all of western Europe, yet we all subscribe to the trickery of pundits and martyrs willing, whereas in a more refined venue, doubt would run rampant. Without risking running a-fringe, which shuts down more reachingly creative theories, such a retreat to a safe middle distance also risks empowering that same group of believers, who manufacture crises to exploit. Such thinking, almost superstitiously, cedes power to thuggish interests by legitmising the power and influence of the caliphate but also of every other boogey man that feeds off fears and derision and oversees the surrender of freedoms and privacy. Conspiratorial thinking is not aways on target but still provides a good and robust way to gauge the patterns of our conclusions.
catagories: ๐ซ๐ท, ๐, ๐บ, foreign policy
mood board
Writing for Mental Floss, Miss Cellania introduces us to some clever alternatives to the boilerplate, filler text “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.” Sort of like the classic Kant-Generator, my favourite of the bunch is the Samuel L Ipsum. Unlike the other engines, however, that return gibberish based on a certain genre, the sample text that is delivered are actual blocks of dialogue spoken by the characters Mister Jackson has portrayed:
And unlike the greeking that’s characterised the lorem ipsum (since it’s not even sensible Latin), one runs the risk of having readers focus on what the text says, rather than how the text-layout and type-speciment looks in the presentation.
catagories: ๐ฌ, ๐, language, philosophy
hitch and bight
tres chic
The ever marvelous Nag on the Lake directs our attention to a brilliant assemblage of redesigned chicken coops with a Mid-Century Modern flair that are just as functional for their residents as they are stylish. The cosmopolitan ensemble of roost and scratch pictured is called ‘the Cocorico’ and was conceived by artist Maxime Evrard in protest to battery-farming conditions. See more inspired coop couture creations at the link.
Thursday 8 January 2015
storefront or slate and shingle
Via the Browser, here’s one prognostication for the coming year regarding “distributed content” that’s a very good and quick study.
catagories: lifestyle, networking and blogging
iconodule
Celebrated on the first Sunday of the Great Lent (1 March, this year), the Feast of the Triumph of Orthodoxy celebrates the restoration of icons, holy images, to the Church, and the victory of the iconodules—those who venerate images, the iconophiles over the iconoclasts who considered the practise idolatry.
catagories: ☦️, ๐ฌ๐ท, ๐ท๐บ, ๐น๐ท, ๐, philosophy, revolution