108. Faust - III. & Marco Scutaro

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Goethe's Faust

Classical Walpurgis Night

On the Upper Peneios
p 425-426 - “...In Goethe’s drama... the Sirens have a positive function, above all through the musical medium of their choral song... the Sirens appear to symbolize music itself as artistic medium and song as a privileged vehicle of celebration... they bring the entire ‘Classical Walpurgis Night’ to its climactic conclusion, when they celebrate Eros, ‘who engendered it all!’... opening the choral voice of the festival to the cosmos in the very last verses...”


On the Lower Peneios
p 428 - “...Manto, as seer or Sybil...resides motionless, indeed dreaming... and thus asleep -- within the temple of Apollo, which she serves as priestess. The descent to the underworld that she offers Faust, because she applauds his boundless longing for Helena, his striving beyond the limits of the possible (7488) consists primarily in a journey inward, as if to the realm of the unconscious....”


Cassandra, Helen's sister in law, is also a priestess of Apollo, but I don't see how that is relevant. Still, why did Goethe throw this in? The man is devious.

Rocky Inlets of the Aegean Sea
p 433 - “...The mythical festival of life and love, procreation and organic evolution, at the shores of the Aegean Sea includes the fulfillment of Homunculus’s quest for being, achieved when he shatters his glass against the shell of Aphrodite, which is being ridden by the nymph Galatea, whom this diminutive spirit chases out to sea in an erotic frenzy. This act of self-sacrifice and self-engendering in the sea serves as an analogy, if also a contrast, to the union of Faust and Helena in the act that follows: an analogy, insofar as the erotic desire of Homunculus resembles the striving of the Faustian will for ideal beauty; a contrast, insofar as the transformation and reaction of Homunculus demonstrates nature’s own process of generation and evolution, which contrasts with Faust’s experience in his marriage to ideal beauty...”

p 437-438 - “...The interaction of these deities and their linear ascent is understood by Schelling to signify a process of spiritual and cultural growth or the creation of consciousness, proceeding from the primal urge of nature through erotic union toward complete consciousness and intelligence. The final stage in this development consists of a recapitulation of the process of ascent at a higher level of intelligence in the Olympian realm... The entire event is preeminently Faustian, despite the absence of Faust himself, in its essential and pervasive striving toward re-creation and self-fulfilment...”


The Helena Act

Before the Palace of Menelaus at Sparta
p 441 - “...Helena embodies the ideal of classical beauty just as Faust represents the Germanic or Romantic spirit of infinite striving, and the offspring of their union, Euphorion, who was described by Goethe as the spirit of poetry, may be called the Byronic spirit of ‘modern’ poetry. The historical scope and structure of the Helena, as Goethe emphasized... extends across three thousand years of Western cultural tradition, from the fall of Troy... to the battle of Missolonghi in 1824 , when Byron died of fever... The Helena must thus be understood as a mythical-poetic recapitulation or re-creation of that cultural history, a theatrical event in symbolic terms: the marriage of Faust and Helena to produce the self-consuming spirit of modern poetry as the synthesis of the ancient and the medieval, the union of classicism and Romanticism.”

p 442 - “Also important and difficult to follow through the Helena is the developing thematic self-awareness of this phantasmagoria as a mythic reality. The advance of dramatic action is more than a recapitulation of cultural history; a corresponding development of reflective understanding accompanies this action as a perspective or implied response imposed upon characters and audience alike. At the outset, for instance, Helena assumes that she really exists, as if she were arriving home from Troy to Sparta in historical truth. Only gradually, above all through the dialogue exchange with Phorcyas-Mephisto, does she become aware that she is only a spirit from the underworld, an ideal (however powerful her role as ideal), an Idol (line 8879; here translated as ‘myth’)... His [Phorcyas-Mephisto as stage manager] presence in the Helena provides a constant reminder -- or it should do so -- that the entire sequence is no more than a poetic or theatrical event, a phantasmagoria upon a stage, constructed and directed by the devil and populated with spirits. Our task as audience is to maintain a conscious awareness that this vast panoramic spectacle is no more than that. We submit to the illusion of this theater only at the peril of our understanding. What it means for us as it unfolds in and advances is essentially the same, so Goethe implies, as the meaning of our cultural tradition itself, insofar as it is accessible to us through the experience of art... The result for him, [Faust] as always, in this greatest instance of striving for the moment of ideal fulfillment, is error and failure. The meaning of all this for us, who only observe it as audience, need not constitute perhaps a corresponding error and failure. That question is left open, however, by the silence of Mephistopheles at the end (after line 10038), when he removes his mask and costume as if ‘to provide in an epilogue such comment on the play as might be necessary.’”


The Graiae as models for the devouring crones in the Snow dream? line 7970. 

It is also worth noting how much Goethe is trotting out the latest science of his times -- either his own work or the work of his contemporaries -- in a fictional/poetic form. And while I'm not reproducing this for you, know that it includes most all of the sciences then assuming their modern form in German universities. This includes both the life and physical sciences. I can’t really think of an analogy for this in more recent times. Maybe Brave New World. 


Shady Grove
p 451-452 - “The figure we are meant to recognize in the body of Euphorion is, of course, George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)... The authenticity of Byron’s genius was beyond question for Goethe; the younger English man represented, indeed embodied, the spirit of poetry that he identified with the modern, postrevolutionalry era, the period we now call Romanticism. Goethe said of him... ‘He was the greatest talent of the century,... neither ancient nor romantic but like the present day itself.’ Euphorion represents precisely the same spirit, especially within the structure of the Helena act as it surveys the entire tradition of Western literature. The death of Euphorion-Byron is the fall of modernism, if not the final collapse of the European poetic tradition. And this fall is inherent in the spirit that is destroyed, as Goethe often emphasized about Byron. His genius was magnificent but destructive, directly in opposition to the moral order of the society in which he lived and even in conflict with the spirit of the age. A magnificent description of the ‘daemonic’ force that Goethe associated with Byron and intended to demonstrate in Euphorion is provided in the final pages of Goethe’s autobiography, Poetry and Truth, Book 4, chapter 20 (written probably in 1831 and published only after the poet’s death),... ‘the daemonic element appears in this most terrifying aspect when it manifests itself predominantly in a human being. During the course of my life I have been able to observe several such men, sometimes closely, sometimes from afar. They are not always the most admirable persons, not necessarily the most intelligent nor the most gifted, and rarely are they remarkable for their goodness of heart; but an extraordinary force goes out from them, and they have an incredible power over all creatures, yes even over the elements; and who can say how far such an effect may not extend? All the moral forces banded together are powerless against them; in vain do the more enlightened among mankind strive to render them suspect either as deceivers or as deceived; they attract the masses, and they can only be vanquished by the universe itself with which they are in conflict. It is from observations of this nature that the strange and terrifying saying probably arose:... (“No one Contrary to God, unless God himself”)’”

Now this sounds a great deal like Peeperkorn. (Also, the part in bold is very similar to Clausewitz's description of a great commander.) But, doesn't this also sound like the Dionysian hero of Attic tragedy as described by Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy? (And before you shout "WTF?" recall Nietzsche's interest in Byron's Manfred.) Isn't Byron a Romantic version of an Attic hero, who Nietzsche has told us is always really Dionysus himself? And isn't Dionysus, viewed in a Christian context, daemonic? And doesn't this work really well with that last bit about "God himself?"


p 452-3 - “...Spirits from the underworld who have assumed the guise of a Greek chorus willingly abandon themselves to a process of ecstatic dissolution in which they blend into and become identical with the various activities of nature. Their voices in song begin to speak with the sounds of nature, thus providing yet a further instance of that mode of poetic language in Faust where the processes of nature are expressed directly in words. An implicit irony is also included here in that the seeming loss of personality by the Chorus also achieves a degree of fusion between spirit and substance that offsets Faust's own failure to do the same with Helena in some permanent form. Where his own phantasmagoria concluded by dissipating into mists and silence, the Chorus merge with nature so perfectly that the spirit of antiquity is renewed and fulfilled within the everyday realm of natural activity. The highest and ultimately impossible goal of human striving is thus juxtaposed with a triumphant alternative as familiar as the here and now of nature....”


There is even mention of Dionysius in the final lines of this section. Nietzsche must have loved this. 


Because i ran into something interesting today (12/10/15), I have to add a little something to this discussion of Euphorion. If Euphorion is the tragic result of the marriage of the classical and the romantic and represents the fall of the modern, than what does Ada Lovelace, Byron's only natural daughter represent. I have to quote just a few lines of that Wiki entry I linked to, "...was a British mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes on the engine include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended to be carried out by a machine. Because of this, she is often regarded as the first computer programmer." 

See also Here for a very long but interesting article about Ada and Babbage. There is just enough about "working like the Devil" and her knack of seeing the potential for Babbage's invention that he himself was unaware of, to make my connection work.

Goethe was dead before she did any of this, and even if he had still been around it's asking too much to expect him to recognize the significance of her mathematical tinkering, but, with Euphorion in mind, it's hard not to see Ada as an unexpected connection between the arch-romantic -- even ‘daemonic’ Lord Byron -- and our current cyber age. A woman and math. Goethe would never have even noticed, though Mann might have been suspicious, but even he died too soon to appreciate how computers could become the most Mephistophelian of all technologies. (Nuclear energy or the oil economy are arguably worse, but they all three have convincingly awful credentials.)

Marco Scutaro

Baseball, again. Marco Scutaro, one of my favorite position players (second base) from the 2012 Giant’s Championship team, appears to be getting ready to retire as a Giant after having career ending back surgery. I’ve written before that I attribute the Giants’ recent success (three championships in five years) to their manager, Bruce Bochy. While I’m sure it’s great to show the world that you are really good at what you do (managing a baseball team), I think what would be really rewarding would be the satisfaction of knowing that you gave players like Marco Scutaro such a crowning achievement for their careers.

Scutaro’s baseball career started with the Cleveland Indians organization in 1994 (he’s from Venezuela). He first played in the major leagues for the NY Mets in 2002, then played for the Oakland Athletics, Toronto Blue Jays, Boston Red Soxs, and Colorado Rockies before being traded to the Giants in the middle of the 2012 season. He played most of the 2013 season and five games of the 2014 season before having the surgery that ended his career.

All this is pretty normal for a position player like Scutaro and would make for a typical but not at all distinguished career, but for those final months of the 2012 season. During the playoffs he was almost impossible to strike out and ended up as the MVP for the World Champions... every boy’s dream. It seems that most winning World Series teams have a player like Scutaro -- usually a small guy who plays in the infield and lacks power but is good at getting the crucial hit. Every time Scutaro came to the plate in 2012 you just knew the Tigers were in trouble. He was uncanny.

Only a handful of key players have stayed with the Giants for all three championships, which is sad in one respect, but it also means that there are lots of players out there with routine but forgettable baseball careers aside from the Championship rings they have from playing for the Giants for a few months or years. I don’t wear jewelry and I think those huge gaudy rings look ridiculous, but  I appreciate what they represent and what they mean to players who have devoted their lives to a game that often leaves them with little more than regrets and injuries. No wonder they jump around and hug like a bunch of tween girls when they win these things.

Here's the last Wiki has about Marco: On January 28, 2015, Scutaro was released by the Giants.^[25] The Giants re-signed Scutaro to a major league contract on June 17 and placed him on the 60-day disabled list. He will continue to rehabilitate his injury with the Giants, not with the intention of playing, but “in hopes of maintaining a quality of life and be pain-free with his family,” according to the Giants.^[26]

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79, TBK. Bk III. 1-2.

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The Brothers Karamazov

Book III. 1.
Finally we arrive at the house and meet the servants. How is Fyodor not a Foucaultian anti-hero? But, perhaps, rather than relishing the limit-experiences he goes to such trouble to instigate, he holds back at the brink and depends on Gregory to ground him to this world. He flirts with but still holds back from disaster.

p103 Corrupt and often cruel in his lust, like some poisonous insect, Fyodor Karamazov was sometimes, in moments of drunkenness, overcome by superstitious terror and a moral convulsion which took an almost physical form. "My soul simply quakes in my throat at those times," he used to say.

At such moments he liked to feel that there was near at hand, in the lodge if not in the room, a strong, faithful man [Gregory, his servant], virtuous and unlike himself . . . One who had seen all his vices and knew all his secrets, but was ready in his devotion to overlook everything, not to oppose him and above all, not to reproach him or threaten him with anything either in this world or in the next, and, in case of need, to defend him...

In this passage Gregory certainly has a Christ like aspect. And isn't this really the essence of religion? Certainly of Christianity. Someone who knows us completely but forgives us everything and will stand beside us regardless what happens.  

p104 ...Alyosha "pierced his heart" by "living with him, seeing everything and blaming nothing." Moreover, Alyosha brought with him something his father had never known before: a complete absence of contempt for him and a consistent kindness, a perfectly natural, unaffected devotion to the old man who deserved it so little. All this was a complete surprise to the old wretch who had dropped all family ties. It was a new and surprising experience for him, who had until then loved nothing but "evil." And when Alyosha had left him to join the monastery, he confessed to himself that he had learned something he had not till then been willing to learn.

So the vile Fyodor we see in these pages is the moderated version of this character, having been beneficially touched by Christian love... Now that's a scary thought.

... Gregory was cold, dignified and reserved, and spoke, weighing his words, without frivolity. It was impossible to tell at first sight whether he loved his meek, obedient wife, Marfa. But he really did love her, and she knew it. [Omniscient]

p105 Marfa was by no means foolish; she was probably more clever than her husband or, at least, more prudent than he in worldly affairs. Yet she had given in to him in everything without question or complaint ever since her marriage and she respected him for his spiritual superiority. It was remarkable how little they spoke to one another in the course of their lives; they spoke only of the most necessary daily affairs. The reserved Gregory thought over all his cares and duties alone, so that Marfa had long grown used to knowing that he did not need her advice. She felt that he respected her silence, and took it as a sign of her good sense. He had never beaten her but once, and then only slightly... [she had danced in a "Moscow" rather than the village fashion, so obviously needed some kind of a beating.] But there it ended. The beating was never repeated, and Marfa gave up dancing.

I don't know what to make of this. Marfa seems to be a pretty typical Dostoevsky woman, really not so different from Katerina. Is this 
Dostoevsky's ideal?

p106 [Gregory and Marfa's six fingered infant child dies soon after birth] Marfa observed that, from the day of the burial, Gregory devoted himself to "religion," and took to reading the "Lives of the Saints," for the most part sitting alone and in silence... He was fond of the Book of Job, and had somehow acquired a copy of the sayings and sermons of "the God-fearing Father Isaac the Wyrian." [ This is an appropriate quote from Father Issac, "A handful of sand, thrown into the sea, is what sinning is, when compared to God’s Providence and mercy. Just like an abundant source of water is not impeded by a handful of dust, so is the Creator’s mercy not defeated by the sins of His creations."] He read this persistently for years on end, understanding very little of it but perhaps prizing and loving it the more for that. Of late he had begun to listen to the doctrines of the sect of Flagellants settled in the neighborhood. He was evidently shaken by them, but judged it unfitting to go over to the new faith...

p107 Gregory was perhaps predisposed to mysticism. And the birth and death of his deformed child had, as though by special design, been accompanied by another strange and marvelous event... on the very night after the burial of his child, Marfa was awakened by the wail of a newborn baby...

Opening the door of the bathhouse, he [Gregory] saw a sight which petrified him. An idiot girl, who wandered about the streets and was know as... (Stinking Lizaveta), had gotten into the bathhouse and had just given birth to a child. She lay dying with the baby beside her. She said nothing, for she had never been able to speak. But her story needs a chapter to itself.

I'm tempted to skip this description of the ephemeral character Lizaveta, but this passage reminds me of what has been said about Alyosha and I'm wondering what Dostoevsky sees in this.


Book III. 2.
p108 ...Spiteful and diseased, her father used to beat Lizaveta inhumanely [?] whenever she returned to him [after her mother dies]. But she rarely did so, for everyone in the town was ready to look after her as an idiot, and so specially dear to God. Her father's employers and many others in the town... tried to clothe her better, and always gave her high boots and a sheepskin coat for the winter. But, although she let them dress her up without resisting, she usually went away, preferably to the cathedral porch, and taking off all that had been given her -- kerchief, sheepskin, skirt or boots -- she left them there and walked away barefoot in her smock as before.
...
p109 ...She would walk into strange houses, and no one drove her away. Everyone was kind to her and gave her something. If she were given a penny, she would take it, and at once drop it in the alms box of the church or prison. If she were given a roll or bun in the market, she would hand it to the first child she met. Sometimes she would stop one of the richest ladies in the town and give it to her, and the lady would be pleased to take it. She herself never tasted anything but black bread and water... they knew that if she saw thousands of roubles she would not have touched a penny.

It is interesting to compare Lizaveta with Father Ferapont.

She scarcely ever went to church. She slept either on the church porch or climbed over a low fence into a kitchen garden. At least once a week she used to turn up "at home," that is at the house of her father's former employers, and in the winter she went there every night, and slept either in the passage or the cowhouse. People were amazed that she could stand such a life, but she was accustomed to it and, although she was very tiny, she was strong and healthy. Some of the townspeople declared that she did all this only from pride, but that is hardly credible. She couldn't speak, and only from time to time uttered an inarticulate grunt. How could she have been proud?

Lizaveta is impregnated either by Fyodor or by an escaped criminal and her orphan is raised by Marfa and Gregory. This child is Pavel Smerdyakov ("The Stinker"). A surname invented by Fyodor himself. Pavel becomes the third servant in the household when he grows up.

As usual, I wonder what, exactly, Dostoyevsky meant by this character. Lizaveta would seem to be the most Christian and "holy" character in the book... exceeding even Zossima and certainly Father Ferapont. Having, apparently, no intellect to sacrifice to faith, she simply lives this particular Christian ideal almost as an animal. Is she in fact a daughter of Eve? Does she share the knowledge of good and evil or is she still in a state of nature.

This is not an idle question as she is also the mother of Pavel. Dostoyevsky is diabolical in the way he piles plot on plot and hides, in plain sight, the most amazing things thanks to spectacles of distraction. The holy Lizaveta and the unholy Fodor create -- through rape, apparently -- Pavel, who plays a role in The Brothers K. not unlike the role Euphorion plays in Goethe's Faust. (Euphorion is the issue of Faust and Hellena and... well, it's complicated. I'm going to tackle Faust next, but Here's a little taste.)


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