Meeting Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, our meeting had three parts:\u00a0Announcements,\u00a0Presentations,\u00a0Artistic Offering<\/strong>.\u00a0This summary is a bit lengthy because we covered a lot of ground. Lecture \/ Presentation Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n Gayle and I gave presentations that complemented one another thematically.<\/p>\n I started off by discussing the cello suites and lute suites of Bach<\/strong>, which have been occupying my\u00a0attention recently. In these suites, as in much of Bach\u2019s music, Bach achieves a magical\u00a0balance (to use a term from Novalis) in which the music \u201chovers\u201d between the sacred\u00a0and secular \u2014 denying neither, honoring both, finding revelation in balance. I used this example to\u00a0draw attention to how important music was for Hermann Hesse. Although the novel we are reading\u00a0includes only examples from the visual arts, those familiar with\u00a0The Glass Bead Game<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Steppenwolf<\/i>\u00a0will have encountered musical references in those books. In\u00a0Steppenwolf<\/i>, for example, Hesse makes much of the \u201cImmortals\u201d \u2014 prominent among the said company is Mozart.<\/p>\n The music of Mozart, like the music of Bach \u2014 like much of the humanist literary tradition that we inherit from the Renaissance \u2014 strives for a \u201chovering” balance (the word \u201chover\u201d as Novalis uses it) \u2014 balance such that the world of the senses is not lost for love of the spirit and the world of the spirit is not lost for love of the world of the senses. I made reference to our previous work with Goethe and to the famous closing lines of Wolfram von Eschenbach\u2019s\u00a0Parzival<\/i>, a poem that I hope we can spend more time with in the future, since it stands so importantly at the beginning of the literary tradition we are studying:<\/p>\n \u201cA\u00a0life so ennobled that God is not robbed of the soul through fault of the body,\u00a0and which can\u00a0obtain\u00a0the world\u2019s favor with dignity,\u00a0that\u00a0is a worthy\u00a0work.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I suggested that we resist the temptation to read Hesse\u2019s novel in a topical way \u2014 but rather that we\u00a0play with it as a fairy tale, parable, or a drama in the tradition of Schiller \u2014 \u00a0or even, to use the word\u00a0in its older sense \u2014 as \u201cRomance.\u201d I referenced past meetings in which Terry loved to share his\u00a0understanding of the poem\u00a0Sir Gawain and the Green Knight<\/i> \u2014 in which \u201cromance” and \u201cadventure\u201d\u00a0indicate the Grand Adventure of Becoming Human. Does either character in Hesse\u2019s novel meet the mark? Narcissus entertains, one might argue, a Mephistophelian role in respect to the awakening of Goldmund. Goldmund, once awakened to the \u201csiren call\u201d of the Grand Adventure, then ventures forth into the world, for better or worse, sallying hither and yon, and facing various trials, often in the style of two other famous lover\/philanderers, Gawain and Faust.<\/p>\n Although Goldmund lacks Faust\u2019s characteristic cruelties, he also lacks Gawain’s martial panache. Goldmund is an artist \u2014 but a very undisciplined one, to be sure! Never sticking to the task. Always \u201cback sliding\u201d \u2014 as Master Niklaus might complain \u2014 and not living up to his talented potential, really. But is this a fault? Recall that for Novalis, the calling to become a Poet is also, in truth, the calling to the Grand Adventure \u2014 it is not a summons to scribble verse. It is a summons to Wake Up! To discover one\u2019s wyrd \u2014 to use an older Anglo Saxon term. Compare, again, to Parzival<\/i>. Compare also Goldmund\u2019s many love affairs to\u00a0Goethe\u2019s activities \u2014 or, if that is not your cup of tea \u2014 then think of the ending of\u00a0Faust<\/i>\u00a0and of the\u00a0scenes in Part 2 of that play that concern us with \u201cthe Mothers.\u201d True, one problem with Hesse\u2019s novel: it\u2019s too much of a boy\u2019s book. But Hesse is in grand company, is he not? Consider the scenes in Klingsohr\u2019s Fairy Tale in\u00a0Heinrich von Ofterdingen<\/i>\u00a0and the role of the \u201cmother\u201d and the feminine in\u00a0that “fairy tale.” And then read Goldmund\u2019s final words:<\/p>\n \u201cBut\u00a0how will you die when your time comes, Narcissus, since you have no mother?\u00a0Without a\u00a0mother, one cannot love. Without a mother, one cannot die.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Why Bother?<\/strong><\/p>\n E. M. Forster\u2019s famous motto\u00a0\u201cOnly Connect\u201d\u00a0is useful here. What do we do when we \u201cstudy\u201d\u00a0literature? Well, along with perhaps (maybe) awakening to the Grand Adventure of Becoming\u00a0Human: we compare and we contrast and (hopefully) make connections \u2014 if things go accordingly\u00a0as they should, we might even learn to \u201cthink\u201d like a poet, in the sense that Novalis uses the word: we\u00a0might learn to think with metaphor, to balance contradictions artfully \u2014 or following the words of\u00a0Keats<\/strong>, we might learn a capacity for what Keats famously called\u00a0\u201cNegative Capability\u201d<\/p>\n “Several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously \u2014 I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason \u2014 Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half knowledge. This pursued through Volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.” — From a letter written by Keats in December, 1817<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I mention\u00a0Keats\u00a0here because we featured Keats at the end of our meeting last night. As mentioned earlier, it\u00a0is\u00a0helpful to read the word \u201cPoet\u201d here with all the magical idealist connotations for human becoming\u00a0that Novalis helps us to understand.<\/p>\n A Philosophy of Freedom?<\/strong> Two souls reside, alas, within my breast,<\/em> The figures of the\u00a0\u201cscholar lost in abstraction\u201d\u00a0and the\u00a0\u201cunthinking traveler\u201d\u00a0who enjoys life only\u00a0from\u00a0the experience of subjective feelings \u2014 these stand in contrast here, and Gayle used the\u00a0contrast to\u00a0illuminate the tensions and contrasts that greet us in the relationship of Hesse\u2019s two characters. She\u00a0closed her discussion by referring us to the cycle of lectures Awakening to\u00a0Community<\/i> (specifically\u00a0Lecture 9), and with references to\u00a0\u201creverse cultus.\u201d<\/p>\n To quote Gayle directly:<\/p>\n Narcissus and Goldmund\u00a0can be seen as a quest\u00a0for self-actualization, to use a more modern\u00a0term.\u00a0\u00a0Similarly, the theme of chapter 2 of The\u00a0Philosophy of Freedom is to characterize True\u00a0Individuality in\u00a0preparation for\u00a0[Steiner\u2019s] later treatment of ethical Individualism.<\/em> Is it possible, as Gayle suggests, that the heart of Hesse\u2019s novel lies not in either character of the\u00a0title, but elsewhere? Is Hesse, like Steiner, more concerned with how the lemniscate is woven\u00a0between world and spirit \u2014 a magical idealist theme that reminds us, again, of Novalis?<\/p>\n “La Belle Dame Sans Merci\u201d by John Keats<\/strong><\/p>\n Finally, we closed the meeting with an artistic offering: Margit\u2019s reading of John Keats\u2019 poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci<\/em>, which we related to our current studies of Hesse. One year ago, while we studied Keats, lightning struck the 200-foot redwood tree during our meeting, causing the airedale to leap onto Dan\u2019s shoulders from a flat-out slumber. As Narcissus told Goldmund: Wake Up!<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the video for those who wish to hear Margit\u2019s recital with musical accompaniment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nAs far as\u00a0Announcements<\/strong>\u00a0go:<\/p>\n\n
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Can we really say that either guy in Hesse\u2019s novel succeeds? This question lies at the heart of\u00a0the tension in the book. Gayle helped us to feel this tension ever more keenly with her presentation of\u00a0The Philosophy of Freedom <\/i>(also titled\u00a0<\/span>Philosophy of Spiritual Activity<\/i>)<\/span>.\u00a0As noted a bit earlier, she referenced Chapters 2 and 6 of that book,\u00a0and she began her presentation by drawing our attention to the motto from\u00a0Faust<\/i>\u00a0that Steiner uses.<\/p>\n
\nAnd each one from the other would be parted.<\/em>
\nThe one holds fast, in sturdy lust for love,<\/em>
\nWith clutching organs clinging to the world;<\/em>
\nThe other strongly rises from the gloom<\/em>
\nTo lofty fields of ancient heritage.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nThe hallmark of a true individuality is the\u00a0ability to gather experiences.\u00a0 A person\u00a0rich in\u00a0experience\u00a0avoids the one sidedness of both the unthinking traveler and\u00a0the scholar lost in\u00a0abstractions.<\/em>
\nSteiner will go on to explore the dichotomy\u00a0of thinking and feeling, warning that the abstract\u00a0thinker\u00a0may reduce what is\u00a0individual to a mere specimen of the concept, while the person of\u00a0feeling\u00a0derives\u00a0deep meaning only for himself.\u00a0However, [Steiner] concludes that there is a\u00a0merging of the two in the\u00a0true\u00a0individuality who reaches up with feelings to the furthest extent\u00a0into the\u00a0realm of the ideal.<\/em>
\nIt\u00a0appears to me that neither Narcissus nor Goldmund achieve this final stage of\u00a0development,\u00a0although they seem to exemplify a kind of wholeness through their\u00a0deep love when they are\u00a0together.<\/em>
\nIn his\u00a0first lecture to the Goethe Society in 1888, Steiner declares that the artist\u00a0does not bring\u00a0the\u00a0divine on to the earth by letting it flow into the world (like\u00a0the old cult); he raises the world\u00a0into the\u00a0sphere of the divine.\u00a0Much later he will share the following, which\u00a0has a similar\u00a0gesture:\u00a0\u201cIf I were to\u00a0speak pictorially, I would put it thus: the community of the cultus seeks to\u00a0draw the angels of heaven\u00a0down to the place where the cultus is being celebrated,\u00a0so that they\u00a0may be present in the\u00a0congregation, whereas the anthroposophical\u00a0community seeks to lift\u00a0human soul into super-sensible\u00a0realms so that they may\u00a0enter the company of angels.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/theliteraryarts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/Edward_Burne-Jones_-_The_Beguiling_of_Merlin.jpeg\")
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