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Goethe's Faust
I started thinking about what Goethe actually meant by the “Eternal-Feminine” since it seems to be a kind of universal victim for Faustian man to seduce (this from reading the biographies of the Romantics as much as their writings). I found some interesting info on Wikipedia:
“The eternal feminine is a psychological archetype or philosophical principle that idealizes an immutable concept of ‘woman’. It is one component of gender essentialism, the belief that men and women have different core ‘essences’ that cannot be altered by time or environment. The conceptual ideal was particularly vivid in the 19th century, when women were often depicted as angelic, responsible for drawing men upward on a moral and spiritual path”
“The concept of the ‘eternal feminine’ (German, das Ewig-Weibliche) was particularly important to Goethe, who introduces it at the end of Faust, Part 2. For Goethe, ‘woman ' symbolized pure contemplation, in contrast to masculine action. The feminine principle is further articulated by Nietzsche within a continuity of life and death, based in large part on his readings of ancient Greek literature, since in Greek culture both childbirth and the care of the dead were managed by women. Domesticity, and the power to redeem and serve as moral guardian, were also components of the ‘eternal feminine’. The virtues of women were inherently private, while those of men were public.”
“In the history of Christianity, and particularly in Catholic theology, the ideology of the ‘eternal feminine’ replaced older views of women as inherently inferior and more sinful than men.”
But I have to say my favorite gloss comes from Simone de Beauvoir:
“Simone de Beauvoir regarded the ‘eternal feminine’ as a patriarchal myth that constructs women as a passive ‘erotic, birthing or nurturing body’ excluded from playing the role of a subject who experiences and acts.”
From Goethe's letters & conversations
p 539 - Writing about how the implementation of the conception for Faust has changed and improved over the 50 years he spent on it: “I am like one who in his youth has a great deal of small silver and copper money; which in the course of his life he constantly changes for the better, so that at last the property of his youth stands before him in pieces of pure gold.”
This reminds me of my own thoughts on how my mind seems to find more in texts now than when I first read them in my youth. Turning base metals into gold is an apt way of putting this, especially considering Goethe’s interest in alchemy.
This reminds me of something I read recently about a NASA satellite mission where the original satellite was destroyed so that they had to build a 2nd one. In the years this took, a similar, but less powerful Japanese satellite went into service and they learned so much from that data that they were able to revise their original plan for the NASA satellite so that they now expect to get much better information than they would have if the original launch had been successful. Good luck, bad luck....
p 540 “The French... now begin to think aright on these matters. Classic and Romantic, say they, are equally good: the only point is to use these forms with judgement, and to be capable of excellence -- you can be absurd in both [I would have said “either”], and then one is as worthless as the other. This, I think, is rational enough, and may content us for a while.”
p 541 - Talking about spectacular theatrical effects like elephants and fire and dragons reminds me of Michael Bey. Faust would have been the Transformers of the early 19th century.
The Boy Charioteer is Euphorion! Sounds silly until you think about it and then it makes perfect sense. The corollary is that, while “poetry which spends itself without reserve” (Source HERE) is doomed, it is also immortal.
p 542 - “Some singular thoughts pass through my head... [after reading the French translation of Faust] This book is now read in a language over which Voltaire ruled fifty years ago. You cannot understand my thoughts upon this subject, and have no idea the influence Voltaire and his great contemporaries had in my youth, how they governed the whole civilized world. My biography does not clearly show the influence of these men in my youth, and what pains it cost me to defend myself against them and to maintain my own ground in a true relation to nature.”
I had just been thinking about translation. Again. Since I only read one language, I can’t really judge this for myself, but, it stands to reason, that there are occasionally translators more talented than the original author. There must be at least some passages that sing in translation but plod in the original. Also, translators have an opportunity to “tune” books for a different time. I’m reminded about an idea I ran into in college of a writer in the 20th century sitting down and writing Don Quixote, I think it was, word for word as an original text. But it wasn’t the “same” book because writing the same words centuries apart means something very different. Much of this particular text would read as ironic or surreal if written today.
A translator might even insert ideas into a book that are not the author's. And in some cases no one would be the wiser. In fact, I suspect this happens all the time since people read what they want to read in some books -- Faust being the perfect example -- and if they then translate the text they will emphasize that interpretation.
X p 544 - On his approach to composing Faust “... the only matter of importance is, that the single masses [discrete sections] should be clear and significant while the whole always remains incommensurable -- and even on that account, like an unsolved problem, constantly lures mankind to study it again and again.” Mission accomplished!
He talks about having the manuscript of the 2nd part “stitched together” and I thought he was speaking figuratively but he meant literally.
X p 559 - Madame de Stael describes Mephisto as, “a civilized Devil... his figure is ugly, low, and crooked; he is awkward without timidity, disdainful without pride...” Sounds like Naphtha.
X “In the character of Faustus, all the weaknesses of humanity are concentrated: desire for knowledge, and fatigue of labour; wish of success and satiety of pleasure... Faustus has more ambition than strength; and this inward agitation produces his revolt against nature, and makes him have recourse to all manner of sorceries, in order to escape from the hard but necessary conditions imposed upon mortality.”
Escort Carriers
Here's the final chapter (ha!) about naval aviation during the Pacific War. As I said before, the U.S. Navy was reluctant to accept anything but large, high speed aircraft carriers at the beginning of the war. But the Battle of the Atlantic (against German U-boats) had suggested the need for smaller carriers that could either escort convoys or sail in independent hunter-killer groups along with destroyers and destroyer escorts. In either case, the small carriers would carry aircraft that would spot and then attack enemy submarines with depth charges.
Relatively quickly, new shipyards started by businessmen like Henry Kaiser and Stephen Bechtel started churning out hundreds of small freighters and tankers to replace the hundreds of merchant ships sunk by the enemy. It was realized that some of these relatively inexpensive vessels could be converted into tiny aircraft carriers. These ships were slow and had short flight decks so required a catapult to launch aircraft. For self defense they mounted a single 5” gun, usually placed on the stern -- referred to as “the peashooter.” The ships, designated CVEs, helped turn the tide against the U-boats in the Atlantic and then, as they were commissioned in ever greater numbers (eventually over 100), were used in the Pacific both in an anti-submarine role, but also as auxiliary support for the many amphibious landings. Instead of the Navy’s big fleet carriers being tied down to provide air support for the Marines and Army troops ashore, this dull but important task was turned over to swarms of little CVEs. Or at least that was their intended role.
In the crucial phase of the Battles of Leyte Gulf, what the U.S. Navy came to call the Battle Off Samar, three task groups of these converted merchant ships (sixteen CVEs all together, in three groups designated Taffy 1, 2, and 3), accompanied by a modest escort of destroyers and destroyer escorts (abbreviated destroyers with reduced speed and armament designed primarily for the anti-submarine role) were busily doing their assigned job of providing air support to the troops recently landed on the island of Leyte while providing anti-submarine sweeps around the many ships involved in supporting the landing. The tiny airgroups aboard these little CVEs consisted of second line aircraft (for example, an improved version of the F4F designated FM-2 with which the Navy started the war instead of the newer F6F) and pilots trained to perform the limited tasks expected of these ships -- but not to attack enemy warships at sea. Since this invasion was also protected by the four task groups of the massive Third Fleet, all those Essex and Independence-class carriers mentioned above and now deployed in large numbers, there was no reason for the CVE crews and the crews of their escorts to think about facing the main force of the IJN... until the morning when enemy shells started landing around the six CVEs of Taffy 3 and the lookouts reported a massive force of enemy battleships and cruisers -- the largest force to engage in a surface battle over the whole course of the war -- not far away and closing at high speed.
For generations, Japanese and American naval officers had planned for and envisioned a “decisive battle” to be fought in the western Pacific by their respective navies. Ships and weapons of all kinds had been designed and built with this battle in mind. This was It, or as close to It as reality was going to give them, but it was unlike anything anyone had imagined. On the American side, all the new battleships, cruisers, and aircraft carriers were hundreds of miles away chasing illusions. On the Japanese side, the commanders hadn’t known that these task forces of tiny carriers existed, so they assumed that they were facing Third Fleet -- that the CVEs were CVs and CVLs. That the DDs were cruisers and the DEs were destroyers. Because they misidentified the ships, they also overestimated the distance to the targets (the ships must be further away to appear so small). As a result they tended to overshoot their targets. In short, everyone was at a loss.
In this most improbably battle (possibly of all time) the small and slow U.S.N. ships managed to dodge and spar with the vastly (ridiculously) superior IJN fleet. The Japanese ships sunk one CVE, two DD, and a DE (13,000 tons of shipping) before giving up the fight in frustration. (A second CVE was sunk by a kamikaze later in the day.) But the American DDs and a very bold DE launched torpedo attacks that scattered the Japanese formations and damaged some ships while the bombers attacked with depth charges or anything they could find (instead of the usual torpedoes and armor piercing bombs) while fighters strafed decks and bridges, sometimes zooming around the ships even after they ran out of ammunition just to confuse and distract the Japanese. In the end three Japanese heavy cruisers were sunk (44,000 tons of shipping) and another limped home after losing her bow to a torpedo. Arguably, this was the U.S. Navy’s finest hour during the Pacific War -- or at least Seventh Fleet’s finest hour, it was not a great day for Third Fleet.
When Admiral Kurita, the Japanese commander ordered his ships to turn away to re-group, Admiral Sprague, the American commander of Taffy 3, heard a nearby sailor, who seems not to have grasped that they had been fleeing for their lives for two and a half hours, exclaim: "Damn it, boys, they're getting away!"
Let me re-word this: The Imperial Japanese Navy had spent a generation building up and training a fighting fleet for the purpose of annihilating the U.S. Navy in the Western Pacific. The closest they came to realizing this dream involved not the U.S. "Big Blue Fleet" or even Seventh Fleet's Battle Force, but the U.S.N. Junior Varsity -- designated "Taffy 3" and commanded by Rear Admiral Clifton (Ziggy) Sprague -- and the "capital" ships were only converted freighters. And still they are driven off after suffering greater losses than their surprised American foe.
Let me re-word this: The Imperial Japanese Navy had spent a generation building up and training a fighting fleet for the purpose of annihilating the U.S. Navy in the Western Pacific. The closest they came to realizing this dream involved not the U.S. "Big Blue Fleet" or even Seventh Fleet's Battle Force, but the U.S.N. Junior Varsity -- designated "Taffy 3" and commanded by Rear Admiral Clifton (Ziggy) Sprague -- and the "capital" ships were only converted freighters. And still they are driven off after suffering greater losses than their surprised American foe.
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