tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8222625576455946162.post95464863735114110..comments2024-03-26T23:02:26.307+01:00Comments on silvae: David WilkieUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8222625576455946162.post-38470952177342072672010-11-19T08:40:40.820+01:002010-11-19T08:40:40.820+01:00Dear Minna,
Many thanks. As Doc Boone says in &quo...Dear Minna,<br />Many thanks. As Doc Boone says in "Stagecoach": Professional compliments are always pleasing. I was unkind to W.G. Sebald, I know that. I do think that "Die Ringe des Saturn" is a great, strange and fascinating book but I don't care about the rest. I don't think that I really was unkind to Kierkegaard. This little essay was ironic but was written "con amore", he is a great writer and a writer I love. As to Heinrich von Kleist: I thought of writing about him. But then I found (some months ago) a book about Kleist by the Hungarian writer Lázlo F. Földényi "Heinrich von Kleist: Im Netz der Wörter" (1999). Startlingly original. I have never seen anything like that. The best book about Kleist that I ever read. I knew something about the author because I had read his book "Melancholie" (1988) which, too, was a fascinating book. And so Kleist will have to wait for the moment.<br />Yours,<br />Jayjayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03297885808320517891noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8222625576455946162.post-18846298568449179782010-11-19T02:48:54.087+01:002010-11-19T02:48:54.087+01:00Entschuldigung for not being relevant to the above...Entschuldigung for not being relevant to the above post: <br /><br />I came across this blog by accident, and what a blog! What a mixture of pop culture and 'high culture' - Brit Ekland and Hegel, Heidegger and Gilda ...I am still reading through the pieces, trying to put together the fun and the scholarship and make sense of it all. <br />I wondered, Herr Jay, koennten Sie vielleicht etwas ueber Kleist schreiben? I am curious to know your opinion about him. You have been ziemlich unkind towards two of my favourite depressives, Kierkegaard und Sebald, what about Kleist?<br /><br />Specifically: Was he a great writer or a Narr? Or was he a Narr or a Genie? What is the source of Germans' fascination with him? I remember a year or so ago more biographies were published about him, which generated much debate - was he mad or just disturbed(as exactly the same question can be asked about the Prince of Denmark)? Was he fundamentally gesund or today we would certainly send him off to a psychiatric clinic, was he homosexual, was he a nationalistic fanatic or a democrat?<br /><br />He lived a short life, which did not allow him to write that much. Is he an overrated writer, with boring stories and plays, or was he a great soul, a great writer? Much has been made of his 'modernity'; he certainly strikes me as very 'modern', not fitting the Romantic mindset of his time and anticipating Kafka. When we say a writer/thinker was 'modern' for his/her time, we are paying him/her tribute - with Ehrfurcht we view him as 'modern' in the sense of anticipated the Zeitgeist which has not yet arrived. One can definitely see this modernity in that brief late work about the puppet theatre (the exact title?). But 'modern' in the sense of being ahead of one's time - is this necessarily such a virtue and why is it such a virtue? (Virtue in the sense of literary and intellectual value, if it is a right word). <br /><br />What is the source of German fascination with him and speculation about him? Is it the manner of his death, tragic and violent, because he died so young, was good-looking, was misunderstood and an outsider? Is this contemporary fascination to do with the Romantic cult of the Genie as an outsider, and the Romantic cult of suicide and sickness of the soul, that survives in the 'German mind' today, or was he really really great? <br /><br />Here is an Aufgabe for you lieber Herr Jay!<br /><br />MinnaUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01926032608764535772noreply@blogger.com