5/26/2015

Contemplating Novalis's Bildung

Reading Novalis' Fragments, I am musing about his notion of "organic poetry". It is clear that for a philosopher poetry is not mere a literary work, but first and foremost an art of life. "To become a human being is an art," (LFI #87) so speaks the philosopher. As is philosophy a never-ending process of Bildung (self-education, "conversation with oneself" leading to the "revelation of the self", LFI #21), i. e. the unity of imagination and understanding ("the poem of understanding", LFI #24) that strenghtens the powers of the individual with the powers of humanity, it is apparent, that poetry is a part of the Bildung-process.
Poetry works in the same way as philosophy (and state as well). It makes an individual the instrument of the whole, and the whole becomes the instrument of an individual (LFI #25). "Poetry is the basis of society as virtue is the basis of the state," asserts Novalis in his Logological Fragment no. 31. So what does this Bildung-process mean? Is it a kind of a cognitive accumulation? Is it education as an information accumulation?
No, this process is "organic", meaning that it is an elevation of the human being above himself (LFI #37). It is a process, hardly a methodological mechanism. It is similar to planting or cultivation (culture). The process is a self-regulated movement (LFI #21). Bildung has its own individual rules interconnected with the whole via its self-understanding and imagination (and the harmony of both). It reminds me the homeostasis, as it is used by Roger Scruton in his political philosophy (see references below). Bildung in this sense of its meaning is a cultural self-education growing from individual's desire for transcendence (his drive to God, to the whole). The desired unity is hardly monolitic, being the unity in manifold. This can be approached only by the means of diverse community realization, through a critical self-reflexive discussion (SEP).
Therefore Bildung is a historical process, an organic cultural growth, uniting understanding and imagination, enriching the logical philosophy with imagination (LFI #13). The living reflexive philosophy is practical and it is art. Moreover, the philosophy is not only a solipsistic dreaming, but it is irrevocably intersubjective: "Every word is a word to conjure with. Whichever spirit calls - another such appears." (LFI #6) Nowadays it is the time for the union of hitherto purely mechanical (discursive) and purely intuitive (dynamic) thinking (LFI #10). That process is collaborative and is done within a community.
That Bildung-process means hardly the progress of the Enlightenment. Novalis emphasises, that Bildung is the process of seeking "the original meaning":

"The world must be made Romantic ... By endowing the commonplace with a higher meaning, the ordinary with mysterious respect, the known with the dignity of the unknown, the finite with the appearance of the infinite, I am making it Romantic." (LFI #66)

It reminds me Heidegger's notion of Lichtung, the site of truth (aletheia). Lichtung comes from lichten, "to clear", and represents a possibility of truth as revelation, i. e. truth is a kind of never-ending process. Thus not truth as it is in the Platonic cognitive notion of idea, but as it is in the Aristotelian dynamic energeia. We should avoid reaching the ideas, because we have to immerse in disclosure (aletheia means Unverborgenheit). The truth obtains its presence in Freien der Lichtung, in the free space of the Lichtung (GA14: 82). The practical aspect of the process of disclosure is affirmed by Aristotelian ethics in Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics.
Bildung-process is a never-ending cultural growth therefore, based on collaborative self-education and self-transcendence, uniting understanding and imagination in harmony. The non-cognitive Bildung leads us not only towards a self-reflexive democracy, but towards the disclosure of truth as such.

References


  1. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics (eds. Robert C. Bartlett - Susan D. Collins). Chicago - London: The University of Chicago Press, 2011.
  2. Abbrev. GA14 refers to Das Ende der Philosophie und die Aufgabe des Denkens in Martin Heidegger, Gesamtausgabe: Band 14: Zur Sache des Denkens. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 2007.
  3. Abbrev. LFI refers to Logological Fragments I in Novalis, Philosophical Writings (ed. Margaret Mahony Stoljar). Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997.
  4. Abbrev. SEP refers to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry: Gjesdal, Kristin, "Georg Friedrich Philipp von Hardenberg [Novalis]", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/novalis/>.
  5. Roger Scruton, The Meaning of Conservatism. South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine's Press, 2002.

4/26/2015

Toward Rustic Mind (Religiosity in Kachyňa's Night of a Bride)

Just a brief note on religiosity in Czech movies. The Night of a Bride (Noc nevěsty, 1967), a film directed by Karel Kachyňa (based on a novel by Jan Procházka), is a dark story set in 1950's Czech village. One of the movie's protagonists, the "lady" (orig. "slečna", starred by Jana Brejchová), is an extraordinary nun returning home. We can see her when she arrives in the village at the moment of a suicide of her father during the times of Soviet-style collectivisation in Czechoslovakia.

The story is set in Christmas Eve and its night. The "lady" is the antagonist of Picin (Mnislav Hofmann), the leader of the collectivisation in the village. Karel Kachyňa presents a specific kind of magic realism herein. Kachyňa's poetics is based on a thorough portrait of the characters with a wide use of symbolic shots and dream-like cuts. Nobody is a positive character, everyone has his personal vice or sin. But Picin and the "lady" are a distillate of rustic mind. They are individualistic, proud, die-hard but devoted. He is a Communist, she is a Catholic, both of them fully disperse their selfs in ideology.


The "lady" is a nun of a very extraordinary kind. She leads villagers to a semi-illegal night mass like a mystical prophet. Her image of a saint is almost perfect, including bleeding stigmata. But there is a profane power, a priest, who does not allow her to perform her role utterly. When she tries to get the wine during an Eucharist, the priest stops her and in the climax of the story he deprives her of her symbolic power. We can see that she is far behind the borders of a Christian devotion, she performs idolatry of herself. She really wants to become the bride of Him (not "Christ", but the absolute "Him") and to be integrated into the Divine. When villagers introduce her into the village church, they carry her on their shoulders like Divine Lady.

In my viewpoint this narrative is not a schematic duel of two fanaticisms (communism and religion). It is better to understand it as a manifestation of rustic mind. You can hardly understand the mind's actions, because despite of its eccentricity it is introvert. They reminds me the characters of stories by Veljko Petrović. The hearts of the both of protagonists are wild but obscure, never opened to a confession. They are condemned to psychical insulation, where no dialogue with God is possible. This is the reason, why the movie has to end in blood: the eccentricity of their characters (and their "fanaticism") is only a manifestation of their introversion and solitude.

In the movie, the eccentric religiosity is used as an instrument for better understanding of 1950's collectivisation of Czech village. It is not a critique of fanaticism (in such a manner argues "Bonjour Tristesse" for instance) but an outstanding portrait of rustic mind.


4/24/2015

Theatre as Applied Phenomenology

I have just started my work on a new research project, a reconstruction and analysis of a theatre performance Písek (The Sand) by Arnošt Goldflam, staged in 1988 at HaDivadlo (abbreviation for Hanakian Theatre) in Brno. The lead was performed by Miloslav Maršálek. This my research is a part of a wide project focused on documentation of Czech alternative theatres in recent history. The project is directed by Josef Kovalčuk at Theatre Faculty, JAMU in Brno.

The piece was well appreciated by critics at that time: Jaroslava Suchomelová recognised some parts of the perfomance as "the best spectator's experience in the last years" (Suchomelová, 1988), a reviewer in Brněnský večerník recommended it to reader with a note that the perfomance had to be viewed attentively as an artwork full of complex meanings (ej, 1988). Even the calmest response by Jaromír Blažejovský appreciated it at least as a piece of "honest work" and the reviewer mentioned that it served "a strong tea" to spectator's soul (Blažejovský, 1988).

The work on the research is exciting in a special way for me. Alongside this project I am working on my longstanding concern, a conceptual analysis of mimesis from a viewpoint of phenomenological hermeneutics. I am focused on Gaston Bachelard's phenomenogical reduction now (in his Poetics of Space and Poetics of Dreaming) and it seems to be a good opportunity to rethink Bachelard's concept in the light of the performance.

Arnošt Goldflam widely used a motif of childhood in the play and the protagonist was set to a situation akin to Bachelard's "naive state" of phenomenological reduction. As a methodical lone the protagonist falls to his memory and imagination being a permanent day-dreamer and he even reaches his own childishness. Therefore I hope that the analysis of the performance may be worth while for the reflection of Bachelard's concept of phenomenological reduction as well - as an example of particular phenomenological approach in artwork (as an artistic method).

For more information about the play in English see a brief analysis in Burian, 2000: 170-172. 

References


ej [an acronym] "Hra o tom, co bolí" in Brněnský večerník, Brno 7. 11. 1988.
BACHELARD, Gaston. La poétique de l'espace. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1961.
BACHELARD, Gaston. La poétique de la rêverie. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1968.
BLAŽEJOVSKÝ, Jaromír. "Nová hra Arnošta Goldflama" in Rovnost, Brno 10. 3. 1988.
BURIAN, Jarka M. Modern Czech Theatre: Reflector and Conscience of a Nation. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2000.
SUCHOMELOVÁ, Jaroslava. "Z dílny HaDivadla" in Zemědělské noviny, Praha 4. 10. 1988.