Epilogue, References
Epilogue: Nietzsche, New Orleans, New York
In Hamlet we have been taken out of ourselves and into a world more intense than any we personally know or may hope to know. We are thrown into a tumult of energy and passion as universal as life and nature itself. Yet we have seen it in a way that arouses our pity as well as our fear (the two emotions that Aristotle associated with tragedy), expressed in the most elevated language. Nietzsche sensed a shift here, from Dionysian universality to Apollinian delight in beautiful particulars. He says:
Let me to give a few contemporary instances that indicate Nietzsche's point on a social level. I had occasion this past year of visiting two cities which still suffer from recent trauma, inflicted upon individuals, to be sure, but in such numbers that we may that the city itself has been traumatized.
The first was New Orleans, which has far from recovered from the devastation and brutality of Hurricane Katrina and the human response to it.
This city has always used the art form of music to transcend death, in its musical funerals in which is expressed its unique artform known as New Orleans jazz. Although still vibrant, this is now more a tourist attraction and a way of preserving a cultural identity than a vital force.
A few visual artists have actually focused on the devastation itself as a subject. Paintings transcend destruction in its extraction of universal form, while its its subject throws us back into the physical power of the storm.
More significant than the physical devastation, however, is the human trauma. Everyone has their own story, rich and poor alike. Yet there is also a warm humor in people's relations with one another. Everyone who lived through it seems on familiar terms with everyone else, as part of an extended family or small-town community. This humor is an important form of transcendence, which we have seen also in our play, exemplified by Hamlet as he deals with life's horrors in many forms, from human pomposity to ghostly commandments to the smell of death.
The other city I visited was New York. Again, everyone has their own story of trauma, if not themselves personally then someone close to them. The destruction of the Twin Towers and 5000 people is less visible than that of Katrina in New Orleans. But I happened to be there on September 11, the anniversary of the attack, walking the riverfront in Brooklyn. Two giant searchlights sending beams into the sky from the site of the Towers offered transcendence of the scene in visual terms.
What impressed me more, however, was two free performances I attended. One was at "pebble beach" in Dumbo Park (the acronym for "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Off-Ramp"). A dance troupe did its commemoration of the event at sunset, in front of the city skyline. There was both the leaping transcendence of the human spirit and the quiet expression of dependency and helplessness, both Dionysian modes of being expressed in the Apollonian medium of dance and music.
.
The other performance I attended was in the Music Barge, a local waterfront institution in Brooklyn. The composer told of his experience sitting in his office in Lower Manhattan on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. I cannot repeat it, not because it was horrific but because it would not be the same here. Then he played a theme and variations that he had composed, one section for each part of his experience: the first aircraft, the second, the sirens of the rescuers, the collapse of the buildings, people running, and the trip home. The music was partly melodious, partly dissonant, partly sorrowful, and partly nostalgic. It exemplifies a final quote from Nietzsche:
Both these performances were expressions o that transcended the horror while still returning us to it, in forms typical of New York City as the center of American high culture.
In both cities, I noticed an avoidance of the topic of blame. No doubt there were deep feelings about this subject, but agreement that diversity of views would have diluted the main message, of the horror too great for explanation. Yet there was a sense that we who imagine ourselves immune from the horror are precisely those who should know that it can happen to us, that it is our smugness that can be our undoing in the hands of fate.
References.
A. Alchemical works cited, in chronological order.
Rosarium Philosophorum, 1550 or1558, Frankfurt, woodcuts.
Quinta Essentia, 1574 or1579, Leipzig. Leonhard Thurneisser zum Thurn, author, Hans Steinman, publisher and probable engraver
Splendor Solis, 1582, London. “Salomon Trismosin,” author. Illuminated manuscript.
Pandora, 1582 or 1588, Basel. Hieronymus Reusner, author.
Utriusque Cosmi, Vol. II, 1617, London. Robert Fludd, author, Johann Theodor de Bry, engraver
Atalanta Fugiens, 1618, Oppenheim. Michael Maier, author, Johann Theodor de Bry, engraver
Viatorium (The Wayfarer’s Guide), 1618, Oppenheim. Michael Maier, author, Johann Theodor de Bry engraver.
Tripus Aereus (The GoldenTripod), 1618, Frankfurt. Michael Maier, author, Lucas Jennis, publisher and probable engraver.
Philosophia Reformata, 1622, Frankfurt. Johann Daniel Mylius, author, Balthazar or Baltzer Schwann, engraver, Lucas Jennis, publisher.
Viatorum Spagyricum, 1625, Frankfurt. Herbrandt Jamsthaler, author, Lucas Jennis, publisher and probable engraver.
De lapide philosophico, 1625, Frankfurt. “Lambsprinck,” author, Lucas Jennis, publisher and probable engraver
Anatomia auri, 1628, Frankfurt. Johann Daniel Mylius, author, Lucus Jennis, publisher and probable engraver
Actorum Chymicorum Holmiensium, 1712. Urban Hiarne, author.
B. Sources, other written works.
Bruno, G. (1964). The expulsion of the triumphant beast (J. Imerti, Ed. and Trans.). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press.
Deimling, B. (2000). Sandro Botticelli (M. Claridge, Trans.) New York: Taschen..
De Rola, S. (1988). The golden game: Alchemical engravings of the seventeenth century. New York: Thames and Hudson.
Durer, Albrecht (1965). The Complete Engravings, Etchings, and Drypoints (K.-A. Knappe, Ed.). New York: H.M. Abrams
Erasmus, D. (1991). Festina Lente. In Adages: II.i.1 to ii vi 100 (R.A.B. Mynors, Trans.) (pp. 3-17). Vol. 33 of Collected works of Erasmus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (Original work published 1508, then revised until 1536)
Erasmus, D. (1982). Crambe bis posita mors. In Adages: I.i.1 to I.v.100 (M.M. Phillips, Trans.) (pp. 262-282). Vol. 31 of Collected works of Erasmus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (Original work published 1500, then revised until 1536)
Fabricius, J. (1994). Alchemy: The medieval alchemists and their royal art. London: Diamond Books. (Original work published 1976)
Ficino, M. (1998). Three books on life (Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark, Eds. and Trans.). Tempe, AZ: Medieval and Renaissance Texts & Studies, in conjunction with The Renaissance Society of America. (Original work published 1489.)
Frye, R. M. (1984). The Renaissance Hamlet: Issues and responses in 1600. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Gatti, H. (1989). The Renaissance drama of knowledge: Giordano Bruno in England. New York: Routledge.
Graham-Dixon, Andrew (1999). The Renaissance. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Henderson, Joseph L., and Sawyer, Dyane N. (2003). Transformation of the Psyche: the Symbolic Alchemy of the Splendor Solis. New York: Brunner-Routledge.
Innes, Brian (1987). The Tarot: How to Use and Interpret the Cards. London: Macdonald & Co.
Jacobi, J. (Ed.). (1979). Paracelsus: Selected writings (N. Guterman, Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
Jenkins, H. (1982). Introduction and notes. In W. Shakespeare, Hamlet (H. Jenkins, Ed.) (pp. 1-159; notes beneath text and after it.) Walden-on-Thames, Surrey, UK: Thomas Nelson & Sons.
Joannides, P. (2001). Titian to 1518: The assumption of genius. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.
Jobert, Barthelemy. Delacroix (T. Grabar and A. Bonfante-Warren, Trans.). Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1968). "Religious ideas in alchemy." In R. F. C. Hull (Trans.), Psychology and alchemy (Vol. 12, 2nd ed., of Collected works of C. G. Jung, pp. 225-483). Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. (Original work published 1937)
Kahane, H., & Kahane, R. (1965). The krater and the grail: Hermetic sources of the Parzival. Urbana, IL: Univ. of Illinois Press.
Macrobius (1990). Commentary on the dream of Scipio (W. Stahol, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.
Martin, I. C. (1987). "Henry Vaughan and 'Hermes Trismegistus.'” In A. Rudrun (Ed.), Essential articles on Henry Vaughan (pp. 59-67). Hamden, CT: Shoe String Press.
Montaigne, Michel de, Complete Essays (1958). Donald M. Frame, trans., Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. (Original work 1580's.)
Page, Sophie (2002). Astrology in Medieval Manuscripts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Plato (1961). Timaeus (B. Jowett, Trans.). In E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Eds., The collected dialogues of Plato (pp. 1086-1151). New York: Pantheon books
Plato, Symposium. In E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Eds., The collected dialogues of Plato (pp. 526-574). New York: Pantheon books.
Pope-Hennessy, Sir John Wyndham (1993). Paradiso :the illuminations to Dante's Divine comedy by Giovanni di Paolo. New York: Random House.
Puttfarken, Thomas (2005). Titian and Tragic Painting.: Aristotle’s Poetics and the Rise of the Modern Artist. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Robinson, J. (Gen. Ed.). (1988). The Nag Hammadi Library in English. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Rogers-Gardner, B. (1992). Jung and Shakespeare: Hamlet, Othello, and the Tempest. Wilmette, IL: Chiron Publications.
Santi, B. (1982). The Marble Pavement of the Cathedral of Siena. Florence: Scala.Group
Seznec, J. (1953). The survival of the pagan gods. (B. Sessions, Trans.) New York: Harper & Row. (Original work published 1940)
Shakespeare, W. (1982). Hamlet (W. Jenkins, Ed.). Walden-on-Thames, Surrey, UK: Thomas Nelson & Sons. (Original work first published 1604.)
Shakespeare, W. (1942a). As You Like It. In The complete plays and poems of William Shakespeare (W. A. Neilson & C. J. Hill, Eds.). Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press. (Original work published 1600)
Shakespeare, W. (1942b). Venus and Adonis. In The complete plays and poems of William Shakespeare (W. A. Neilson & C. J. Hill, Eds.). Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press.
Van Puyvelde, Leo (1964). Van Dyck. Brusssels: Editions Meddens.
Walther, Ingo F., & Wolf, Norbert (2005). Codices Illustres: The world’s most famous illuminated manuscripts. Koln, Germany: Taschen. (Original work published 2001)
Wind, Edgar (1958). Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance. New Haven: Yale University Press.
In Hamlet we have been taken out of ourselves and into a world more intense than any we personally know or may hope to know. We are thrown into a tumult of energy and passion as universal as life and nature itself. Yet we have seen it in a way that arouses our pity as well as our fear (the two emotions that Aristotle associated with tragedy), expressed in the most elevated language. Nietzsche sensed a shift here, from Dionysian universality to Apollinian delight in beautiful particulars. He says:
However powerfully pity affects us, it nevertheless saves us in a way from the primordial suffering of the world, just as the symbolic image of the myth saves us from the highest perception of the world-idea, just as thought and word save us from the uninhibited effusion of the unconscious will...Thus the Apollinian wrests us from the Dionysian universality, and delights us in these individuals; to them it attaches our pity, through them it satisfies our sense of beauty, which craves great and sublime forms. It parades images of life before us and moves us to a contemplative understanding of the core of life contained within them...But we an say with equal assurance that this process is nothing but a glorious illusion, the very Apollonian deception that we have just mentioned, which has the effect of relieving of us of the burden of the Dionysian surge and excess. (Birth of Tragedy Section 21, Kaufman translation, p. 128)Yet the end we are left stunned by the gratuitous slaughter, which is nonetheless nonetheless true to life itself. As Nietzsche continues:
Tragedy closes with a sound that could never come from the realm of Apollinian art. And in this process Apollonian deception is revealed for what it is, a veiling of the true Dionysian effect, which lasts for the duration of the tragedy. Such is its power that it finally forces the Apollonian drama itself into a sphere where it begins to speak with Dionysian wisdom, and where it denies itself and its Apollonian clarity. …Dionysus speaks the language of Apollo, but Apollo finally speaks the language of Dionysus, and thus is attained the supreme goal of tragedy and of art in general. (Birth of Tragedy Section 21, Kaufman translation, p. 130)What is left of the transcendence that so eludes us, as we plunge toward the "undiscovered country from which no traveler has returned"? It is in art itself, which allows us to transcend the suffering of existence. while at the same time confronting us with it all too powerfully.
Let me to give a few contemporary instances that indicate Nietzsche's point on a social level. I had occasion this past year of visiting two cities which still suffer from recent trauma, inflicted upon individuals, to be sure, but in such numbers that we may that the city itself has been traumatized.
The first was New Orleans, which has far from recovered from the devastation and brutality of Hurricane Katrina and the human response to it.
This city has always used the art form of music to transcend death, in its musical funerals in which is expressed its unique artform known as New Orleans jazz. Although still vibrant, this is now more a tourist attraction and a way of preserving a cultural identity than a vital force.
A few visual artists have actually focused on the devastation itself as a subject. Paintings transcend destruction in its extraction of universal form, while its its subject throws us back into the physical power of the storm.
More significant than the physical devastation, however, is the human trauma. Everyone has their own story, rich and poor alike. Yet there is also a warm humor in people's relations with one another. Everyone who lived through it seems on familiar terms with everyone else, as part of an extended family or small-town community. This humor is an important form of transcendence, which we have seen also in our play, exemplified by Hamlet as he deals with life's horrors in many forms, from human pomposity to ghostly commandments to the smell of death.
The other city I visited was New York. Again, everyone has their own story of trauma, if not themselves personally then someone close to them. The destruction of the Twin Towers and 5000 people is less visible than that of Katrina in New Orleans. But I happened to be there on September 11, the anniversary of the attack, walking the riverfront in Brooklyn. Two giant searchlights sending beams into the sky from the site of the Towers offered transcendence of the scene in visual terms.
What impressed me more, however, was two free performances I attended. One was at "pebble beach" in Dumbo Park (the acronym for "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Off-Ramp"). A dance troupe did its commemoration of the event at sunset, in front of the city skyline. There was both the leaping transcendence of the human spirit and the quiet expression of dependency and helplessness, both Dionysian modes of being expressed in the Apollonian medium of dance and music.
.
The other performance I attended was in the Music Barge, a local waterfront institution in Brooklyn. The composer told of his experience sitting in his office in Lower Manhattan on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. I cannot repeat it, not because it was horrific but because it would not be the same here. Then he played a theme and variations that he had composed, one section for each part of his experience: the first aircraft, the second, the sirens of the rescuers, the collapse of the buildings, people running, and the trip home. The music was partly melodious, partly dissonant, partly sorrowful, and partly nostalgic. It exemplifies a final quote from Nietzsche:
Existence and the world seem justified only as an aesthetic phenomenon. In this sense, it is precisely the tragic myth that tries to convince us that even the ugly and dishormonic are part of an artistic game that the will in the eternal amplitude of its pleasure plays with itself...The joy aroused by the tragic myth has the same origin as the joyous sensation of dissonance in music...For we now understand what it means to wish to see tragedy and at the same time to long to get beyond all seeing: referring to the artistically employed dissonances, we should have to characterize the corresponding state by saying that we desire to hear and yet at the same time long to get beyond all hearing...(Section 24, Kaufman translation p. 141)I do not have a photo of the composer/performer, only of the piano before he came on, with the person introducing him, holding a violin bow, in front. (As one of the last ones to arrive, my wife and I were seated in a row along the side next to the piano.)
Both these performances were expressions o that transcended the horror while still returning us to it, in forms typical of New York City as the center of American high culture.
In both cities, I noticed an avoidance of the topic of blame. No doubt there were deep feelings about this subject, but agreement that diversity of views would have diluted the main message, of the horror too great for explanation. Yet there was a sense that we who imagine ourselves immune from the horror are precisely those who should know that it can happen to us, that it is our smugness that can be our undoing in the hands of fate.
References.
A. Alchemical works cited, in chronological order.
Rosarium Philosophorum, 1550 or1558, Frankfurt, woodcuts.
Quinta Essentia, 1574 or1579, Leipzig. Leonhard Thurneisser zum Thurn, author, Hans Steinman, publisher and probable engraver
Splendor Solis, 1582, London. “Salomon Trismosin,” author. Illuminated manuscript.
Pandora, 1582 or 1588, Basel. Hieronymus Reusner, author.
Utriusque Cosmi, Vol. II, 1617, London. Robert Fludd, author, Johann Theodor de Bry, engraver
Atalanta Fugiens, 1618, Oppenheim. Michael Maier, author, Johann Theodor de Bry, engraver
Viatorium (The Wayfarer’s Guide), 1618, Oppenheim. Michael Maier, author, Johann Theodor de Bry engraver.
Tripus Aereus (The GoldenTripod), 1618, Frankfurt. Michael Maier, author, Lucas Jennis, publisher and probable engraver.
Philosophia Reformata, 1622, Frankfurt. Johann Daniel Mylius, author, Balthazar or Baltzer Schwann, engraver, Lucas Jennis, publisher.
Viatorum Spagyricum, 1625, Frankfurt. Herbrandt Jamsthaler, author, Lucas Jennis, publisher and probable engraver.
De lapide philosophico, 1625, Frankfurt. “Lambsprinck,” author, Lucas Jennis, publisher and probable engraver
Anatomia auri, 1628, Frankfurt. Johann Daniel Mylius, author, Lucus Jennis, publisher and probable engraver
Actorum Chymicorum Holmiensium, 1712. Urban Hiarne, author.
B. Sources, other written works.
Bruno, G. (1964). The expulsion of the triumphant beast (J. Imerti, Ed. and Trans.). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press.
Deimling, B. (2000). Sandro Botticelli (M. Claridge, Trans.) New York: Taschen..
De Rola, S. (1988). The golden game: Alchemical engravings of the seventeenth century. New York: Thames and Hudson.
Durer, Albrecht (1965). The Complete Engravings, Etchings, and Drypoints (K.-A. Knappe, Ed.). New York: H.M. Abrams
Erasmus, D. (1991). Festina Lente. In Adages: II.i.1 to ii vi 100 (R.A.B. Mynors, Trans.) (pp. 3-17). Vol. 33 of Collected works of Erasmus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (Original work published 1508, then revised until 1536)
Erasmus, D. (1982). Crambe bis posita mors. In Adages: I.i.1 to I.v.100 (M.M. Phillips, Trans.) (pp. 262-282). Vol. 31 of Collected works of Erasmus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (Original work published 1500, then revised until 1536)
Fabricius, J. (1994). Alchemy: The medieval alchemists and their royal art. London: Diamond Books. (Original work published 1976)
Ficino, M. (1998). Three books on life (Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark, Eds. and Trans.). Tempe, AZ: Medieval and Renaissance Texts & Studies, in conjunction with The Renaissance Society of America. (Original work published 1489.)
Frye, R. M. (1984). The Renaissance Hamlet: Issues and responses in 1600. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Gatti, H. (1989). The Renaissance drama of knowledge: Giordano Bruno in England. New York: Routledge.
Graham-Dixon, Andrew (1999). The Renaissance. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Henderson, Joseph L., and Sawyer, Dyane N. (2003). Transformation of the Psyche: the Symbolic Alchemy of the Splendor Solis. New York: Brunner-Routledge.
Innes, Brian (1987). The Tarot: How to Use and Interpret the Cards. London: Macdonald & Co.
Jacobi, J. (Ed.). (1979). Paracelsus: Selected writings (N. Guterman, Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
Jenkins, H. (1982). Introduction and notes. In W. Shakespeare, Hamlet (H. Jenkins, Ed.) (pp. 1-159; notes beneath text and after it.) Walden-on-Thames, Surrey, UK: Thomas Nelson & Sons.
Joannides, P. (2001). Titian to 1518: The assumption of genius. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.
Jobert, Barthelemy. Delacroix (T. Grabar and A. Bonfante-Warren, Trans.). Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1968). "Religious ideas in alchemy." In R. F. C. Hull (Trans.), Psychology and alchemy (Vol. 12, 2nd ed., of Collected works of C. G. Jung, pp. 225-483). Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. (Original work published 1937)
Kahane, H., & Kahane, R. (1965). The krater and the grail: Hermetic sources of the Parzival. Urbana, IL: Univ. of Illinois Press.
Macrobius (1990). Commentary on the dream of Scipio (W. Stahol, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.
Martin, I. C. (1987). "Henry Vaughan and 'Hermes Trismegistus.'” In A. Rudrun (Ed.), Essential articles on Henry Vaughan (pp. 59-67). Hamden, CT: Shoe String Press.
Montaigne, Michel de, Complete Essays (1958). Donald M. Frame, trans., Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. (Original work 1580's.)
Page, Sophie (2002). Astrology in Medieval Manuscripts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Plato (1961). Timaeus (B. Jowett, Trans.). In E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Eds., The collected dialogues of Plato (pp. 1086-1151). New York: Pantheon books
Plato, Symposium. In E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Eds., The collected dialogues of Plato (pp. 526-574). New York: Pantheon books.
Pope-Hennessy, Sir John Wyndham (1993). Paradiso :the illuminations to Dante's Divine comedy by Giovanni di Paolo. New York: Random House.
Puttfarken, Thomas (2005). Titian and Tragic Painting.: Aristotle’s Poetics and the Rise of the Modern Artist. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Robinson, J. (Gen. Ed.). (1988). The Nag Hammadi Library in English. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Rogers-Gardner, B. (1992). Jung and Shakespeare: Hamlet, Othello, and the Tempest. Wilmette, IL: Chiron Publications.
Santi, B. (1982). The Marble Pavement of the Cathedral of Siena. Florence: Scala.Group
Seznec, J. (1953). The survival of the pagan gods. (B. Sessions, Trans.) New York: Harper & Row. (Original work published 1940)
Shakespeare, W. (1982). Hamlet (W. Jenkins, Ed.). Walden-on-Thames, Surrey, UK: Thomas Nelson & Sons. (Original work first published 1604.)
Shakespeare, W. (1942a). As You Like It. In The complete plays and poems of William Shakespeare (W. A. Neilson & C. J. Hill, Eds.). Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press. (Original work published 1600)
Shakespeare, W. (1942b). Venus and Adonis. In The complete plays and poems of William Shakespeare (W. A. Neilson & C. J. Hill, Eds.). Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press.
Van Puyvelde, Leo (1964). Van Dyck. Brusssels: Editions Meddens.
Walther, Ingo F., & Wolf, Norbert (2005). Codices Illustres: The world’s most famous illuminated manuscripts. Koln, Germany: Taschen. (Original work published 2001)
Wind, Edgar (1958). Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance. New Haven: Yale University Press.
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