"Romantic Realism" and the Role of the Tristan Legend in Johan Falkberget's Den fjerde nattevakt (original) (raw)
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Reading Tristan in Ingeborg Bachmann's Ich weiss keine bessere Welt and Malina
German Life and Letters, 2007
This paper examines how the recent, controversial collection of Ingeborg Bachmann's draft poems, Ich weiß keine bessere Welt (2000), casts new light on the genesis of the acclaimed Todesarten prose. Identifying the poetological interest of the texts, the article seeks to expand the predominantly biographical response to the collection and clarify how the experience of crisis provoked a move towards prose forms during the 1960s. The article focuses on the problem of the aesthetic representation of crisis through examination of references to Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in the draft poems and in Malina, the novel published later. It explores how, in the poems, the musical motifs and allusions enable primary engagement with aspects of experience conventionally excluded from the public sphere and how the same intertextual references are developed into a sophisticated aesthetic strategy in the novel's central dream chapter, whilst retaining the crucial concern with problems of expression. Drawing on the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Arnold Schönberg and Theodor W. Adorno, ultimately the paper illuminates the beginnings of a textuality that arises out of personal crisis but develops into a metonymic mode using dream narrative and musical counterpoint to enable oblique expression of gendered cultural critique.
Tristan & Isolde: Der Mythos Des Christlichen Abenlands
As the title shows, these lines deal with the myth of Tristan and Isolde, the myth of the Christian Occident. On the basis of two works―L'amour et l'Occident, by Denis de Rougemont, who primarily considered the myth from the point of view of cultural history in its relationship to Catharism and to courtly love in the twelfth century,; and, We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love, by Robert A. Johnson, which was an attempt to synthesize Christianity and the work of C.G. Jung―the content of the myth is presented using the libretto of Richard Wagner's opera, at the same time pointing out what Wagner omitted and changed in the medieval originals. Tristan's search for his anima (in the Jungian sense), " the islands of consciousness " beyond the sea of unconsciousness, the love and death potion, and the process of individuation are also dealt with. " Romantic love, " as described by the myth, is a mistake according to Robert A. Johnson―in fact it is the Occidental mistake par excellence. The levels of the anima on the one hand and of ego-awareness on the other are confused in that an attempt is made to live out at the earthly level the anima, which is not of this world. In that case, it is only in death that this duality can be made a unity, one whole, a synthesis. Here a further investigation is made as to whether this is really so, and why. Finally, the question is asked whether " romantic love " occurs also by mistake in mysticism and in art, or whether it is due rather to the development of a higher level of consciousness that is required for passing through an essential initiation process and as a precondition for a work of art, if not perhaps part of the Royal Road …
Le Vin herbé (1941), by the Swiss composer Frank Martin (1890–1974) is an ‘Oratorio profano’ for 12 voices and chamber ensemble, which contrasts markedly with Wagner’s iconic musical treatment of the Tristan legend, Tristan und Isolde (1859). Whereas Wagner wrote his own libretto, drawing largely on the version by Gottfried von Strassburg (died c.1210), and infused by his enthusiastic reading of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), Martin’s work sets selected passages from the Roman de Tristan et Iseut (1900) by the French medievalist Joseph Bédier (1864–1938), drawing on earlier sources. An examination of relevant literature deepens understanding of the intricate relationships between these two texts and their historical forerunners, and serves to digest the philosophical and psychological models that have proved especially illuminating for appreciation of Wagner’s work. This is complemented by a narratological examination of Le Vin herbé, highlighting ways in which Martin’s libretto invites an alternative understanding of Tristan’s psyche. In particular, the relevance of Jungian concepts, such as the collective unconscious, archetypes and individuation, are explored.
Speculum, 2015
One long-term development the author does accept is a shift from a fourteenth-century concern that was primarily with learned and courtly magic (clerical necromancy, astral magic in princely circles, and so forth) to greater concern in the fifteenth century with "superstition among the common laity," especially women. Here we find practices that might be labeled "superstitious" in the usual modern sense: one could not go blind on a day when one had heard Mass; encountering a hare is bad luck. If one does not believe in such things, they appear as anxious or compulsive reflexes based on false ideas of cause and effect. They are foolish rather than demonic. But defining these superstitions and demarcating them from acceptable Christian rituals and beliefs was not easy. Denis the Carthusian thought that it was acceptable to sprinkle holy water on crops to protect them from storms, but that it was superstitious to use holy water as a defense against wolves. And Bailey quotes Daniel Hobbins's eloquent description of Gerson's guidelines for distinguishing licit and illicit practices: "like lines drawn in blowing sands." Bailey writes clearly, without jargon (postmodernism gets one footnote), and is excellent at noting changes in emphasis over time and differences between his sources without overplaying them. He knows that medieval theologians often repeated earlier medieval theologians, even to the extent of their catalogs of superstitions. Not every suspect practice they listed takes us directly to the peasant folklore of late-medieval France or Germany. Yet he is far from being unreflective and concludes with a chapter explicitly pondering the trope of "modernity" and the role the concept of superstition has played in its construction. A recurrent theme is the way that superstition was defined by authorities, by those "in a position to judge." Many of these theologians were also inquisitors. Eymerich describes his confiscation of necromantic texts from magicians, noting that "he had burned the books along with the men." By the end of the period covered in Bailey's careful and well-researched study, the fires of the great witch hunt were already ablaze.
ARTHUR’S HEIRS: COMPARING THE NORDIC AND SPANISH TRISTAN
This study emphasizes the peripheries of Europe, investigating the similarities and differences between the Medieval Arthurian Tristan tales written in Spain and Scandinavia; demonstrating how each culture deals with the material differently. By emphasizing the social and cultural contexts of each country, I analyze how these texts belong to the same Arthurian system while maintaining their own unique identity. Thus, peripheral texts are entrenched in the cultural systems that gave birth to a family of texts: they are the heirs of Arthur.
Tristan & Isolde: The Mythos of the Christian Occident
As the title shows, these lines deal with the myth of Tristan and Isolde, the myth of the Christian Occident. On the basis of two works―L'amour et l'Occident, by Denis de Rougemont, who primarily considered the myth from the point of view of cultural history in its relationship to Catharism and to courtly love in the twelfth century,; and, We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love, by Robert A. Johnson, which was an attempt to synthesize Christianity and the work of C.G. Jung―the content of the myth is presented using the libretto of Richard Wagner's opera, at the same time pointing out what Wagner omitted and changed in the medieval originals. Tristan's search for his anima (in the Jungian sense), " the islands of consciousness " beyond the sea of unconsciousness, the love and death potion, and the process of individuation are also dealt with. " Romantic love, " as described by the myth, is a mistake according to Robert A. Johnson―in fact it is the Occidental mistake par excellence. The levels of the anima on the one hand and of ego-awareness on the other are confused in that an attempt is made to live out at the earthly level the anima, which is not of this world. In that case, it is only in death that this duality can be made a unity, one whole, a synthesis. Here a further investigation is made as to whether this is really so, and why. Finally, the question is asked whether " romantic love " occurs also by mistake in mysticism and in art, or whether it is due rather to the development of a higher level of consciousness that is required for passing through an essential initiation process and as a precondition for a work of art, if not perhaps part of the Royal Road …