Die Zwei Welten des Zauberbergs: Castorps Transzendenz als „inward transcendence“

2021 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-81
Author(s):  
Zhu Wang

Abstract Thomas Mann’s Novel, The Magic Mountain, is characterized by the opposition of two distinct worlds. A comparative study of various novels that share the ‘two worlds’ motif demonstrates to us that the existence of the two worlds plays an essential role in the Bildungsroman. The experience with the new possibilities of life at the sanatorium has given Hans Castorp, the hero of The Magic Mountain, the access to the ideal world. Towards the end of the novel, Castorp has denied the material understanding of death, love and disease that constitutes the world of reality and has thus attained an inward transcendence, which, as Ying-shih Yü argues, characterizes the Chinese intellectual world. Mann’s conception of Bildung as pointing to socialization, which is exemplified by Castorp’s transformation, is apparently opposed to the notion of Bildung as individualization. What is implied in Castorp’s integration into the historical context, the war, is far from a failure of the Bildung, but the noblest form of its triumph.

2013 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-335
Author(s):  
Howard Lesnick

God has made man with the instinctive love of justice in him,which gradually gets developed in the world …. I do not pretendto understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eyereaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and completethe figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience.And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.Theodore Parker (1853)A strange mystery it is that Nature, omnipotent but blind, in therevolutions of her … hurryings through the abysses of space, hasbrought forth at last a child, subject still to her power, but giftedwith sight, with knowledge of good and evil, with the capacity ofjudging all the works of his unthinking mother. [Gradually, asmorality grows bolder, the claim of the ideal world begins to befelt, [giving rise to the claim] that, in some hidden manner, theworld of fact is really harmonious with the world of ideals. Thusman creates God, all-powerful and all-good, the mystic unity ofwhat is and what should be.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 31-46
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Wałczyk

Nikifor Krynicki (Epifaniusz Drowniak, 1895-1968) was one of the most popular non-academic Polish painters worldwide. To show the biblical inspiration in his creative output I chose two categories from various thematic aspects: self-portraits and landscapes with a church. There are plenty of Nikifor’s paintings showing him as a teacher, as a celebrating priest, as a bishop, or even as Christ. A pop­ular way to explain this idea of self-portraits is a psychological one: as a form of auto-therapy. This analysis is aims to show a deeper expla­nation for the biblical anthropology. Nikifor’s self-portraits as a priest celebrating the liturgy are a symbol of creative activity understood as a divine re-creation of the world. Such activity needs divine inspira­tion. Here are two paintings to recall: Potrójny autoportret (The triple self-portrait) and Autoportret w trzech postaciach (Self-portrait in three persons). The proper way to understand the self-identification with Christ needs a reference to biblical anthropology. To achieve our re­al-self we need to identify with Christ, whose death and resurrection bring about our whole humanity. The key impression we may have by showing Nikifor’s landscapes with a church is harmony. The painter used plenty of warm colors. Many of the critics are of the opinion that Nikifor created an imaginary, ideal world in his landscapes, the world he wanted to be there and not the real world. The thesis of this article is that Nikifor created not only the ideal world, but he also showed the source of the harmony – the divine order.


2021 ◽  
pp. 119-134
Author(s):  
Li Xiaoyu ◽  
I.I. Evlampiev

This article deals with the controversial issue of F.M. Dostoevsky’s concept of “Higher Individuals.” The latter are people who rise above other people and have a special influence on society and on history. The authors argue that this concept is most clearly expressed in “The Diary of a Writer” (1876) as well as in the story “The Sentence”, along with Dostoevsky’s commentaries on this story. By means of a detailed analysis of Raskolnikov’s “theory” within the novel “Crime and Punishment”, it is demonstrated that only a superficial version of the concept of “higher individuals” is refuted in the heroes’ argumentations; at the same time, the novel’s characters – Marmeladov, his wife Katerina Ivanovna, and Raskolnikov – can be viewed as examples of different degrees in the personal accomplishment of this “higher personality” state. In conclusion, it is observed how a person must go through three stages of development in order to become a “higher character”: firstly, the experience of an existential crisis and the understanding of the lack of meaning in one’s life; secondly, the “rebellion” against the Creator of the world and its laws along with the rejection of the traditional church faith, whose rejection leads this person on the edge of suicide; thirdly, the acquisition of a new faith, first of all, a faith in one’s immortality, which happens in an unusual, unorthodox form, as is well demonstrated by the character of Svidrigailov in Dostoevsky’s novel. According to Dostoevsky’s doctrine, the meaning ofimmortality lies in the continuation of a person’s existence in a new form in the earthly world or in a “parallel” world similar to the earthly one, and not in the ideal Kingdom of Heaven, as the church claims. Finally, the authors maintain that the process of a character’s transformation into a “higher individual” was consistently and fully described by Dostoevsky in the stories of Raskolnikov and Ivan Karamazov.


Author(s):  
Ying-shih Yü

This is a thematic literary study of the “Utopian world” and the “world of reality” in China's greatest pre-modern novel. It shows how an ideal imaginary world where youth, beauty and love are kept safe is closely connected with the harsh, ugly and lustful world of reality. Thus, the collapse of the ideal world is seen as inevitable because it can never resist the erosion and invasion of the world of reality.


1985 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 32-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helene E. Roberts

Aby Warburg used a system of screens, wooden frames covered with fabric, upon which he displayed photographs. He could compare images, manipulate them in different arrangements, and order them in support of a visual argument. The computer and the video screen allow present day art historians to contemplate the creation of a much larger and more sophisticated version of Warburg’s screens in an ideal network of images and data. Images of works of art will be identified by basic information and accompanied with all the relevant information of a full catalogue entry. Correctly formulated this information can be retrieved in various ways to allow for making numerous connections between works of art and revealing a variety of relationships between them. Each work can thus be studied within a visual and historical context or compared with works of art sharing similar characteristics from widely different cultures and periods. The number of works of art existing in the world is very large, and the information which may be recorded about them is immense. Forming the ideal network is a considerable undertaking and one that will take the help and co-operation of the whole art historical community.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasil Penchev

“Super-humans” is usually to be linked to Nietzsche or to Heidegger’s criticism to Nietzsche, or even to the ideology of Nazism. However, they can be properly underlain by philosophical and scientific anthropology as that biological species who will originate from humans eventually in the course of evolution. There is a series of more or less well-established facts in anthropogenesis, which would be relevant to the philosophical question about the “super-humans”: bipedalism, cooling by sweating, specific hair or its lack, omnivorous-ness, thumb opposition and apposition, vocal system of speech production, human brain, long childhood; our species is evolutionary young (about 200 000 years old), but it is the last survived descendant being genetically exceptionally homogenous (<00,01% genetic differences) of the genus “homo” (about 6 000 000 old). All this generates a few main features of our population: society, technics, language, and mind, which guarantee the contemporary absolute domination of mankind. The society has reached a natural limitation of earth. The technics depends on how much energy is produced. The mind is restricted by its carrier, i.e. by the brain. Thus only the language seems to be the frontier of any future development inducing a much better use of the former three. The recent informational technologies suggest the same. Language is defined as symbolic image of the world doubling it by an ideal or virtual world, which is fruitful for creativity and any modeling of the real world. Consequently, a gap between the material and the ideal world produces language. The language increases that gap in turn. Furthermore, the ideal world is secondary and derivative from the material world in origin and objectivity: Language serves for the world to be ordered. Thus language refers to the philosophical categories of ‘being’ and ‘time’. Any “super-language” should transcend some of those definitive borders of language and be a generalization. The involving of infinity can extend the language. Any human language is finite and addresses some finite reality. Thus the gap between reality and any model in language can be seen as that between infinity and its limitation to any finite representation: Finite representations dominate over society, technics, and the mind use. A “super-language” as an “infinite language” can be approached in a few reference frames: Husserl’s “Back to the things themselves!” if “phenomenon” in his philosophy is thought as the ‘word’ of the language of consciousness; the semantic and philosophical theory of symbol: from consciousness and language to reality; the concept of infinity in mathematics and its foundation: set or category theory; quantum mechanics and information: the coincidence of the quantum model and reality; quantum computer. Mankind is approached the problem of infinite language as the language of nature


Author(s):  
Anna S. Sholokhova ◽  

The Stately-house novel takes a special place in the English classical literature. The estate here is of key importance in the image-structure of the work. The world of an English estate is reflected as a multi-faceted text, extremely enriched with cultural signs. Novel by Kazuo Ishiguro “The Remains of the Day” can be regarded as one of the examples of typical British aristocratic prose. The narrator and protagonist of the novel is a butler, who serves in the large English Stately home Darlington Hall. The family estate is considered by the hero as a symbol of order and harmony, and at the same time it personifies the ideal world of the past that is gradually fading away. In 1993 the director James Ivory made a film based on the Ishiguro’s novel. He created different visual images of an English estate on the screen with particular accuracy. Fictional Darlington Hall is a combination of several Stately homes located in the southwest of England. The novel by Kazuo Ishiguro and the film by J. Ivory are memories of a bygone era of British Empire, ended with the Second World War.


2012 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Albertus Kruger

Abstract This contribution argues that the notion of inversion often functions as a key literary principle in the repertoire of some ancient Near Eastern (Mesopotamian and Syro-Palestinian) “prophetic” scenarios of chaos: the world of chaos is portrayed as the direct reverse of the ideal world. Selected examples from Mesopotamia (e.g. the Marduk Prophecy) and Syro-Palestine (the Balaam inscription and various passages from the Hebrew Bible) are offered to illustrate this idea.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasil Dinev Penchev

“Super-humans” is usually to be linked to Nietzsche or to Heidegger’s criticism to Nietzsche, or even to the ideology of Nazism. However, they can be properly underlain by philosophical and scientific anthropology as that biological species who will originate from humans eventually in the course of evolution. There is a series of more or less well-established facts in anthropogenesis, which would be relevant to the philosophical question about the “super-humans”: bipedalism, cooling by sweating, specific hair or its lack, omnivorous-ness, thumb opposition and apposition, vocal system of speech production, human brain, long childhood; our species is evolutionary young (about 200 000 years old), but it is the last survived descendant being genetically exceptionally homogenous (&lt;00,01% genetic differences) of the genus “homo” (about 6 000 000 old). All this generates a few main features of our population: society, technics, language, and mind, which guarantee the contemporary absolute domination of mankind. The society has reached a natural limitation of earth. The technics depends on how much energy is produced. The mind is restricted by its carrier, i.e. by the brain. Thus only the language seems to be the frontier of any future development inducing a much better use of the former three. The recent informational technologies suggest the same. Language is defined as symbolic image of the world doubling it by an ideal or virtual world, which is fruitful for creativity and any modeling of the real world. Consequently, a gap between the material and the ideal world produces language. The language increases that gap in turn. Furthermore, the ideal world is secondary and derivative from the material world in origin and objectivity: Language serves for the world to be ordered. Thus language refers to the philosophical categories of ‘being’ and ‘time’. Any “super-language” should transcend some of those definitive borders of language and be a generalization. The involving of infinity can extend the language. Any human language is finite and addresses some finite reality. Thus the gap between reality and any model in language can be seen as that between infinity and its limitation to any finite representation: Finite representations dominate over society, technics, and the mind use. A “super-language” as an “infinite language” can be approached in a few reference frames: Husserl’s “Back to the things themselves!” if “phenomenon” in his philosophy is thought as the ‘word’ of the language of consciousness; the semantic and philosophical theory of symbol: from consciousness and language to reality; the concept of infinity in mathematics and its foundation: set or category theory; quantum mechanics and information: the coincidence of the quantum model and reality; quantum computer. Mankind is approached the problem of infinite language as the language of nature.


2018 ◽  
pp. 15-28
Author(s):  
Anna Chudzińska-Parkosadze

The article focuses on the concept of a dualistic model of the world perception in the novel Chapayev and Void by Victor Pelevin. The model represents the contrast to the notion of alchemic union that stands for the ideal pattern, which cannot be realized in Russian reality. So dualism meant as a division and separation between heroes, who cannot understand each other, concerns also the division between East and West in the historical, philosophical and cultural perspective. However, the main division, which is superior upon the others, is the dualism of reality and consciousness that in the novel transforms to the universal category. The only possible escape from this dysfunctional realm is spiritual illumination.


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