Interpreting Hamlet’s Pregnant Silences: Nietzsche and Benjamin

POETICA ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 315-333
Author(s):  
Björn Quiring
Keyword(s):  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Eternal Return ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
The World ◽  
Birth Of Tragedy ◽  
Circulus Vitiosus

Abstract In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the protagonist frequently and eloquently refers to his own taciturnity and to the fundamental insights into the ways of the world that this silence conceals from his interlocutors. It is partly due to this emphasis on a pivotal inaccessibilty that the play has provoked numerous philosophical interpretations. For example, Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy and Walter Benjamin in Origin of the German Trauerspiel have dealt with Hamlet’s loquacious refusal to communicate, and their interpretations, while problematic in some respects, can contribute to a better understanding of the drama, especially when they are placed in relation to one another. While Nietzsche’s somewhat forced interpretation traces Hamlet’s silence to the Dionysian experience of ancient tragedy, Benjamin’s counter-interpretation construes this silence as the expression of a specifically Protestant, melancholic conception of history, as well as of its dialectical overcoming. Although Origin of the German Trauerspiel convincingly demonstrates that Hamlet transforms his relationship to society and its language in the course of the play by reinterpreting the contingency of historical events as manifestations of eternal providence, a closer reading of the drama shows that this reinterpretation is not, as Benjamin claims, unfolding a genuinely Christian dialectic, at the endpoint of which stands the blissful silence of assured salvation. Rather, this reinterpretation appears as the expression of an amor fati that in many respects prefigures Nietzsche’s categorical affirmation of blind necessity; Hamlet’s interpretation of the course of the world as a circulus vitiosus resembles the idea of the eternal return, embracing this figure of thought in its most hopeless and most seminal form: as an apotheosis of endless annihilation.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Holt ◽  
Daniel Hjorth
Keyword(s):  
Friedrich Nietzsche ◽  
Eternal Return ◽  
Will To Power ◽  
The World ◽  
Birth Of Tragedy ◽  
Last Man ◽  
The Last Man

In The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music (1872), Friedrich Nietzsche refined and intensified his thoughts on the profound problem of pessimism and the tragic. Nearly all of Nietzsche’s work can be read as an evocation and exemplification of Prometheus, a tragic figure in The Birth of Tragedy that breaches the world of humans and gods. This chapter examines the sense of tragedy in The Birth of Tragedy, along with genealogy, the concept of ressentiment, happiness of the last man, eternal return and will to power, creation and negation, and organization.

Staging the World: The Devils as Theatrum Mundi

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 496-514
Author(s):  
Christophe Van Eecke
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Tidal Wave ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Mise En Abyme ◽  
Political Allegory ◽  
The World

When Ken Russell's film The Devils was released in 1971 it generated a tidal wave of adverse criticism. The film tells the story of a libertine priest, Grandier, who was burnt at the stake for witchcraft in the French city of Loudun in the early seventeenth century. Because of its extended scenes of sexual hysteria among cloistered nuns, the film soon acquired a reputation for scandal and outrage. This has obscured the very serious political issues that the film addresses. This article argues that The Devils should be read primarily as a political allegory. It shows that the film is structured as a theatrum mundi, which is the allegorical trope of the world as a stage. Rather than as a conventional recreation of historical events (in the tradition of the costume film), Russell treats the trial against Grandier as a comment on the nature of power and politics in general. This is not only reflected in the overall allegorical structure of the theatrum mundi, but also in the use of the film's highly modernist (and therefore timeless) sets, in Russell's use of the mise-en-abyme (a self-reflexive embedded play) and in the introduction of a number of burlesque sequences, all of which are geared towards achieving the film's allegorical import.

Materialism and Legal Historiography, from Bachelard to Benjamin

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Christopher Tomlins
Keyword(s):  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
First Century ◽  
Gaston Bachelard ◽  
Spatial Justice ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
New Materialisms ◽  
The World ◽  
Prime Elements ◽  
Cultural Turn

As the linguistic/cultural turn of the last fifty years has begun to ebb, sociolegal and legal-humanist scholarship has seen an accelerating return to materiality. This chapter asks what relationship may be forthcoming between the “new materialisms” and “vibrant matter” of recent years, and the older materialisms—both historical and literary, both Marxist and non-Marxist—that held sway prior to post-structuralism. What impact might such a relationship have on the forms, notably “spatial justice,” that materiality is assuming in contemporary legal studies? To attempt answers, the chapter turns to two figures from more than half a century ago: Gaston Bachelard—once famous, now mostly forgotten; and Walter Benjamin—once largely forgotten, now famous. A prolific and much-admired writer between 1930 and 1960, Bachelard pursued two trajectories of inquiry: a dialectical and materialist and historical (but non-Marxist) philosophy of science; and a poetics of the material imagination based on inquiry into the literary reception and representation of the prime elements—earth, water, fire, and air. Between the late 1920s and 1940, meanwhile, Benjamin developed an idiosyncratic but potent form of historical materialism dedicated to “arousing [the world] from its dream of itself.” The chapter argues that by mobilizing Bachelard and Benjamin for scholarship at the intersection of law and the humanities, old and new materialisms can be brought into a satisfying conjunction that simultaneously offers a poetics for spatial justice and lays a foundation for a materialist legal historiography for the twenty-first century.

Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

1986 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 197-216
Author(s):  
Michael Tanner
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Classical Scholarship ◽  
The World ◽  
Birth Of Tragedy ◽  
Tragic Drama ◽  
Good And Evil

Although Nietzsche's greatness is recognized more universally now than ever before, the nature of that greatness is still widely misunderstood, and that unfortunately means that before I discuss any of Beyond Good and Evil (henceforth BGE) in any detail, I must make some general remarks about his work, his development and the kind of way in which I think that it is best to read him. Unlike any of the other philosophers that this series includes, except Marx and Engels, Nietzsche is very much concerned to address his contemporaries, because he was aware of a specific historical predicament, one which he would only see as having worsened in ways which he predicted with astonishing precision in the century since he wrote his great series of works. For he was above all a philosopher of culture, which is to say that his primary concern was always with the forces that determine the nature of a particular civilization, and with the possibilities of achievement which that civilization consequently had open to it. One of the reasons that The Birth of Tragedy, his first book, published when he was twenty-eight, created such a surge of hostility in the world of classical scholarship was that in it, whilst undertaking an investigation of what made possible the achievements of fifth century BC Greece in tragic drama, he felt it necessary to elicit the whole set of fundamental beliefs which the Greeks shared, and also to draw metaphysical conclusions from the fact that they were able to experience life in such a way that they needed great tragedies in order to endure it.

A Luz Branca da Neve

2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (46) ◽  
pp. 31-38
Author(s):  
Carlos João Correia ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Mann ◽  
Major Theme ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Death Drive ◽  
The World ◽  
Birth Of Tragedy

This essay aims to examine how Thomas Mann reinterprets, in the novel “The Magic Mountain”, Nietzsche’s view of the world expressed in “The Birth of Tragedy”. The Olympic world becomes in the novel of Mann, a sanatorium where the death drive controls everything. Several interpretations for this ironic reading of the magic mountain symbol are offered, in particular the idea that death must not hypnotise us, a major theme of “Snow scene” of the novel.

scholarly journals Zulu Empire Decolonised: The Epic Story of the Zulu from Pre-Colonial Times to the 21st Century by Shalo Mbatha Johannesburg, South Africa: iZigi Publishing, 2021, p. 392. ISBN: 978-0-620-89782-2

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. p23
Author(s):  
Berrington X. S. Ntombela
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
The World

The Zulu Empire is one of the well-known empires in Africa and the world. It is well-known for having resisted and militarily defeated the English army in the battle of Isandlwana. However, history writers who predominantly wrote from the outsider perspective distorted a lot of historical events. This article reviews a book written by Shalo Mbatha entitled “Zulu Empire Decolonised: The Epic Story of the Zulu from Pre-colonial Times to the 21st Century”. The article argues how the title remains true to the project of decolonisation. It further demonstrates how Shalo reverses the popular history created by colonisers by presenting events as known by those who lived through them. Her greatest success is in writing the history in the language of the colonised, thus restoring their dignity and having them rewrite their own history.  

scholarly journals TOOLS IN VIRAL TIMES: QUESTIONING THE USE OF TECHNOLOGIES IN MEXICAN SCHOOLING PRACTICES

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alonso Casanueva
Keyword(s):  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Radio Waves ◽  
Witch Trials ◽  
The World ◽  
Technological Tools ◽  
Critical Theorist ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
The Many ◽  
Schooling Practices ◽  
The City

From 1929 to 1932, the German critical theorist Walter Benjamin broadcast a radio show intended for children, «Enlightenment for Children» (Aufklärung für Kinder). His program consisted of illuminating lessons that bound together culture and history in creative ways, to teach children about the world. Used as a tool for convivial purposes, the radio waves transported German kinder to the sites where witch trials happened, or to learn the secret language built into the city walls of Berlin, or to wonder about the life of the Romani and imagine the features of the many characters that formed part of Benjamin’s radio plays. It was an imaginative pedagogical exercise that has made me wonder about the possibilities of technological tools in the service of learning experiences.

The Rhythm of History

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saitya Brata Das
Keyword(s):  
Soren Kierkegaard ◽  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Franz Rosenzweig ◽  
Historical Reason ◽  
The World

This chapter presents a reading of the posthumously published fragment The Ages of the World (Die Weltalter) to show that the deconstruction of sovereignty demands a re-thinking of the question of history. Confronting Hegel's pantheistic-immanent philosophy of history, it attempts to reveal an eschatological vision of history at work in Schelling's The Ages of the World which radically puts into question the secularising theodicy formulated by Hegel in his lectures on the philosophy of history. He thereby opens up the possibility, later elaborated by Søren Kierkegaard, Franz Rosenzweig, and Walter Benjamin, of a messianic-eschatological critique of historical Reason. Such an eschatological-messianic conception of history, by withdrawing from the triumphal march of universal world-historical politics, gives voice to those who are oppressed by the irresistible demand of progress.

The Violence of the Ark

2021 ◽  
pp. 154-166
Author(s):  
Rachelle Gilmour
Keyword(s):  
Walter Benjamin ◽  
The World ◽  
Divine Violence

Proposals that the violence of the ark in 2 Sam 6:7 can be explained in terms of punishment or educative violence are reviewed and shown to be unsupported by details in the text. Unlike the parallel account in 1 Chr 13 and 15, no laws are sufficient to ensure safety from the ark and the ark is simply removed. Similarly, there is a lack of evidence for punishment or educative violence in 1 Sam 6:19. It is proposed that the violence of the ark remains inexplicable, and fits the concept of Divine Violence as defined by Walter Benjamin. Divine Violence is neither a means to an end or end to a means, it is beyond law. It irrupts in the context of a misalignment in the world and is beyond ethics.

appealed to the Queen on being besieged by the wild sense, especially in the concluding cantos, of leaving Irish (see Vi4.1n). In reading this ‘darke conceit’, an iron world to enter a golden one. But do these no one could have failed to recognize these allusions. ways lead to an end that triumphantly concludes the The second point is that Spenser’s fiction, when 1596 poem, or to an impasse of the poet’s imaginat-compared to historical fact, is far too economical ive powers? For some readers, Book VI relates to the with the truth: for example, England’s intervention earlier books as Shakespeare’s final romances relate in the Netherlands under Leicester is, as A.B. Gough to his earlier plays, a crowning and fulfilment, ‘a 1921:289 concludes, ‘entirely misrepresented’. It summing up and conclusion for the entire poem and would seem that historical events are treated from for Spenser’s poetic career’ (N. Frye 1963:70; cf. a perspective that is ‘far from univocally celebratory Tonkin 1972:11). For others, Spenser’s exclamation or optimistic’, as Gregory 2000:366 argues, or in of wonder on cataloguing the names of the waters what Sidney calls their ‘universal consideration’, i.e. that attend the marriage of the Thames and the what is imminent in them, namely, their apocalyptic Medway, ‘O what an endlesse worke haue I in hand, import, as Borris 1991:11–61 argues. The third | To count the seas abundant progeny’ (IV xii point, which is properly disturbing to many readers 1.1–2), indicates that the poem, like such sixteenth-in our most slaughterous age, especially since the century romances as Amadis of Gaul, could now go matter is still part of our imaginative experience as on for ever, at least until it used up all possible virtues Healy 1992:104–09 testifies, is that Talus’s slaughter and the poet’s life. As Nohrnberg 1976:656 aptly of Irena’s subjects is rendered too brutally real in notes, ‘we find ourselves experiencing not the allegorizing, and apparently justifying, Grey’s atrocit-romance of faith or chastity, but the romance of ies in subduing Irish rebels (see V xii 26–27n). Here romance itself ’. For still others, there is a decline: Spenser is a product of his age, as was the Speaker ‘the darkening of Spenser’s spirit’ is a motif in many of the House of Commons in 1580 in reporting studies of the book, agreeing with Lewis 1936:353 the massacre of Spanish soldiers at Smerwick: ‘The that ‘the poem begins with its loftiest and most Italians pulled out by the ears at Smirwick in solemn book and thence, after a gradual descent, Ireland, and cut to pieces by the notable Service of a sinks away into its loosest and most idyllic’; and with noble Captain and Valiant Souldiers’ (D’Ewes Neuse 1968:331 that ‘the dominant sense of Book 1682:286). As this historical matter relates to Book V, VI is one of disillusionment, of the disparity between it displays the slaughter that necessarily attends the the poet’s ideals and the reality he envisions’; or that triumph of justice, illustrating the truth of the common the return to pastoral signals the failure of chivalry in adage, summum ius, summa iniuria, even as Guyon’s Book V to achieve reform (see DeNeef 1982b). destruction of the Bower shows the triumph of tem-Certainly canto x provides the strong sense of an perance. This is justice; or, at best, what justice has ending. As I have suggested, ‘it is as difficult not to become, and what its executive power displayed in see the poet intruding himself into the poem, as it is that rottweiler, Talus, has become, in our worse than not to see Shakespeare in the role of Prospero with ‘stonie’ age as the world moves towards its ‘last the breaking of the pipe, the dissolving of the vision, ruinous decay’ (proem 2.2, 6.9). In doing so, Book and our awareness (but surely the poet’s too) that his V confirms the claim by Thrasymachus in Plato’s work is being rounded out’ (1961a:202). Republic: justice is the name given by those in power Defined as ‘doing gentle deedes with franke to keep their power. It is the one virtue in the poem delight’ (vii 1.2), courtesy is an encompassing virtue that cannot be exercised by itself but within the book in a poem that sets out to ‘sing of Knights and Ladies must be over-ruled by equity, circumvented by mercy, gentle deeds’ (I proem 1.5). As such, its flowering and, in the succeeding book, countered by courtesy. would fully ‘fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline’ (Letter to Raleigh 8). Courtesy: Book VI

2014 ◽  
pp. 36-36
Keyword(s):  
Strong Sense ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One
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