Bettina von Arnim's Romantic Philosophy in Die Günderode

This article puts forward a philosophical interpretation of Bettina von Arnim's epistolary book Die Günderode, in the following stages. First I situate von Arnim's work in relation to women's participation in early German Romanticism and idealism. The ideal of Symphilosophie, which was integral to Romantic epistemology, created possibilities for women to participate in philosophical discussion, albeit not on equal terms with men. This suggested that perhaps Symphilosophie between women could be more equal and reciprocal. However, interpreters have considered the Sym- in Günderrode and von Arnim's Symphilosophie more than the -philosophie, whereas here I foreground Die Günderode's rich philosophical content. I trace the stages in the unfolding dialogue between Günderrode and von Arnim and identify von Arnim's philosophical standpoint as it emerges from this dialogue. For Günderrode, finite beings are attracted together and can only fully unite by dying and superseding their boundaries. This feeds into a gigantic cosmic process through which the earth spiritualizes itself, progressively transcending its own materiality. Von Arnim likewise thinks that all finite beings are dynamically interconnected within the earth's creative process. But, unlike Günderrode, von Arnim thinks that finite beings can realize their interconnectedness within life without needing to die, which means in turn that material nature can rise into successive levels of spirit without its materiality having to be superseded. This metaphysical difference orchestrates many other philosophical disagreements between the two women. I then conclude that on balance, and with significant qualifications, Die Günderode embodies a successful Symphilosophie between women, but that von Arnim is simultaneously pointing out the fragility of Symphilosophie. The more independence dialogue partners have, the more liable they are to move away in new directions and abandon or outgrow the conversation, just as Günderrode turns away from von Arnim by the end of the book.

Last breath, Sensing Life

Drawing on electronic artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s installation Last Breath (2012), this chapter explores the sonic sensibility of life. It discusses (un)knowing and (dis)locating a body through sound, sensing the plasticity of life through assembled breath and voice, and the urge for insisting on life. The chapter looks at (1) Lozano-Hemmer’s aesthetics and related works, (2) conceptions of life as informed by nineteenth-century German Romanticism and twentieth-century continental and materialist philosophies, (3) preservation and mobility of sound via sound recording technologies, (4) voice as a biometric portrait, and (5) the capacity of inanimate things for expression.

World Soul

The concept of the world soul is difficult to understand in large part because over the course of history it has been invoked to very different ends and within the frameworks of very different philosophical systems, with very different concepts of the world soul emerging as a result. This volume brings together eleven chapters by leading philosophers in their respective fields that collectively explore the various ways in which this concept has been understood and employed, covering the following philosophical areas: Platonism, Stoicism, Medieval, Indian (Vedāntic), Kabbalah, Renaissance, Early Modern, German Romanticism, German Idealism, American Transcendentalism, and contemporary quantum mechanics and panpsychism theories. In addition, short reflections illuminate the impact the concept of the world soul has had on a small selection of areas outside of philosophy: harmony, biology (spontaneous generation), the music of Henry Purcell, psychoanalysis, and Gaia theories.

Karl Barth’s Calvin: A Weimar Prophet

This chapter explores Karl Barth’s early reception of John Calvin at the time of his initial post-liberal engagement with classical Protestant authors. For Barth, the Genevan Reformer easily belonged in a pantheon of theologians that included Augustine, Thomas, Luther, and Schleiermacher. However, Barth’s Calvin was not antiquarian or historical but of thoroughly modern vintage, even romantic and modernist in certain respects. The chapter contends that Barth fashioned an image of Calvin in the tumultuous years of the Weimar Republic that was of thoroughly modern vintage. Although he immersed himself in primary sources, Barth’s presentation of the Reformer owed much to German romanticism as well as Weimar modernism, including such notable intellectuals as Hermann Hesse, Stefan Zweig, and Max Weber.

The German Roots of Russian Orientalism: Hafiz’s Poetry in Early-20th-Century Russian Song

The Russian arts were as fascinated by exotic languages, cultures, and locales as their Western European counterparts, and at first glance, Russian settings of the poetry of Hafiz appears to form part of the broader field of musical exoticism in general, and Russian orientalism in particular. This chapter begins by examining the relationship between empire and music, before setting out a rather different account of Russian musical orientalism, one marked by a complex transnational flow of literary and musical influences, as well as practices of translation, imitation, cultural appropriation, and cross-border artistic exchange. Whilst forming part of a broader tendency to imagine visions of a supposed ‘orient’ that had little to do with any documented anthropological, ethnographic, philological, or linguistic reality, Russian settings of Hafiz’s poetry are ultimately the result of the import of elements of German romanticism. Here, writers, translators, and commentators co-opted a range of ‘exotic’ literatures in an attempt to distinguish themselves from the dominance of French classicism and fashion an autonomous form of German nationalism, key elements of which were then incorporated into mid-nineteenth-century Russian culture (as in the case of Afanasy Fet’s translations of Georg Daumer’s well-known ‘versions’ of Hafiz). Accordingly, Hafiz figures not so much as the object of orientalist representation (although there is certainly a strong element of that to the songs discussed here), but as an exemplary figure within a complex network of literary mediation.

Progress

This article begins from the assumption that what was once an integral dimension of progress—the development of literature and of art more generally—now lies outside its scope. The essay falls into three parts that juxtapose French with German intellectual history. The first part examines the notion of literary progress developed by Charles Perrault and Fontenelle, as well as the opposition to it by Boileau and other antiquarians, during the querelle des Anciens et des Modernes in the later seventeenth century. The second part treats the reception of those arguments during the eighteenth century by J. C. Gottsched, J. J. Bodmer, and J. J. Breitinger. Special attention is given to the paradox that Gottsched, the leader of the German antiquarians, and Bodmer, the leader of the German progressives, were equally devoted to the Leibnizian-Wolffian philosophical system and thus that German Romanticism, heavily indebted to Bodmer's poetics, had roots in rationalist philosophy. The essay's third part discusses ideas of literary progress in the writings of the early Romantics J. G. Herder and Friedrich Schlegel. As these discussions show, the conception of general progress was formed in a field that has since dissociated itself from progress's march.