The German Classics Vol III by Friedrich von Schiller

The Ideal and the Actual Life

"Cast from thee, Earth, the bitter and real,
High from this cramp'd and dungeon being, spring
Into the Realm of the Ideal!"

The Homage of the Arts

"ARTS
We hate the deceivers,
Despisers of heaven;
We seek among morals
Who to virtue are given.
Where pure hearts have welcome
To give to a friend,
We will build habitations
To dwell without end."

"POETRY
O'er realms of thought- the Word my winged tool."

I love the concept of the arts dwelling not only in an individual, but through humanity, and using the individual to continue their eternal existence. Reminds me of Thomas Mann's The Beloved Returns when Goethe says, "Say, if you will that I am the flame, and into me the poor moth flings itself. Yet in the chance and change of things I am the candle too, giving my body that the light may burn." (See Mann label). It is as if the human body is nothing but a dwelling place to use our imagination to exist. Surprisingly, this genius is dependent on humanity- for without an imagination- it cannot be appreciated.

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Published by The German Publican Soc (1913)

Colomba and Carmen by Prosper Merimee

In both stories, the heroines have an extremely wild and rebellious character. I liked how he addresses the gypsy theme- showing much respect for them. In Colomba- I did not like the Englishwoman and how Orso accepted being "civilized"- which is what the English love to do. I hated how she was capricious and arrogant- thinking she was so special and unique. How Orso's wild and passionate personality submitted before her. Carmen was my favorite, portraying a very strong character, a strong woman.


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Pub by P.F. Collier & Son

Lélia by George Sand

"Isn't it sad to revive centuries that no longer exist and force them to entertain us now? Aren't these costumes of the past, which represent vanished generations, a frightening lesson to make us recall the brevity of human life in the midst of all this drunken festivity (...) They have passed on without dreaming of the generations that preceded them or of the ones to follow, without dreaming that they themselves, who were covered with gold and perfume and who surrounded themselves with luxuries, were awaiting the cold of the shroud and the oblivion of the tomb."

Morbid truth. Depressing!

"Nature has nothing rare enough within the treasuring of its naive joys to appease the thirst for happiness within us. We must have heaven, and we don't have it!
That is why we seek heaven in a creature like ourselves, and we expand on this creature all that high energy we've been given to use more nobly. We refuse God the emotion of adoration, an emotion which was put in us to return to God alone. We transfer it to an incomplete, feeble human being who becomes the god of our idolatrous cult."

"My God, is love only to be found in a desirous heart, in a suffering imagination, in the dreams which lull us during lonely nights? Is love an impalpable breath? Is love a meteor that burns and dies. Is it a world? My God, what is love?"

"Reverie can evoke nothing, because in the creations of thought nothing is as beautiful as brute, savage nature. One must look and feel before nature: the greatest poet invents the least."

Nothing in our minds can compare to the spontaneity of nature... it is the ultimate continuously living and refreshing masterpiece- the poet just needs to learn how to describe nature- something that is impossible to do perfectly. For to describe is to analyze. To analyze is to take away from the real meaning. A poet needs to learn how to enjoy nature- and let that be expressed.

"But what use have these voyages been to me? Have I ever seen anything which resembled my fantasies? Oh, how poor nature seemed to me, the sky leaden and the sea narrow, in contrast to the lands, skies and oceans that I crossed in my immaterial flight! What beauty is left to charm us in real life, what strengths are left to enjoy and admire in the human soul when the imagination has spend everything in advance by an abuse of its powers?"

This spending in "advance" was an abuse to the imagination's powers because it has a limit, it only goes so far as our mind has learned. The imagination cannot imagine something that is not connected to something that already exists: it is forever dependent on reality. It would be like craving some spice in a far off land that no one has ever discovered. I suppose the "pleasures" of the imagination consists mostly in the element of disillusion- taking reality and blurring it. Then it goes beyond the reality, into something more, or less- an added ingredient that creates the perfect realm. We fancy whatever we would like to happen in the reality. In the end, it always comes back to reality.

"How grave and solemn are those cries of time, which sound like a death cry, breaking indifferently on the resonant walls of dwellings or on echoless tombs."

"You are right to say that poetry has led men astray. She has desolated the real world, cold, poor, and wretched as it is compared to the dreams she creates. Drunk with her promises, lulled by her sweet mockeries, I could never resign myself to reality. Poetry has created other sensitives in me that nothing on earth could satisfy (...)"

The disadvantages of the imagination: it creates a gap between reality and dreams. This gap provides such a contrast that the poet dreams while looking at his own reality. This shocking contrast can "lead men astray". Meaning: they obsess over something they could never achieve.

"Day by day this power of love increased, exciting my sensitivity and spreading itself unrestrainedly around me. I threw all my thoughts, all my strength into the void of an elusive universe which sent me back all my sensations blunted."

"There is a refuge from God: nothingness."

"Rein in the desire of your ardent soul. Prolong this blind hope and this childishness of the heart with all your strength. These qualities live only for a day and never return. Govern wisely, guard vigilantly, and spend frugally the treasure of your illusions."

There is a fine balance between sucking your imagination dry, and enjoying them cautiously while they last. That is the difference between Sténio- who worshiped the present: nature and all its beauty- and Lélia- who craved for more and more and enjoyed them too much. To a point where they ceased to be illusions but food to feed the soul. They become a form of sustenance and ceased to be concepts and ideals.

"In the silence of the fields, amid austere country life, it is always acknowledged as the voice of God."

No one who lives so close to nature can really treasure and have respect for it without involuntary belief in God- as if believing was the same thing as acknowledging the existence of nature. this shows the wisdom of the ones who are surrounded by nature: an instinctive wisdom.

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I really enjoyed this book. It brought me a more in depth perspective on living in illusions, and living in reality. Sténio lived in a romanticized reality, that worshiped the real in such an honest and youthful way. His romantic ideas found source in the nature he saw. Lélia is a very interesting example on the life in the unreal- when the real becomes dull and unexciting while the mind is constantly spent in fleeting thoughts, thoughts that only give momentary pleasure. I take this character to be as a warning, as Sténio warned the young girl- to be careful how one uses one's illusions, and not to make more of them- expect more of them- than one is meant to. Because then, they cease to be what they are.

It was curious how she found refuge in the silent and solitary and urged the blazing youth to do the same. To give up his youth, and really, become her. She, who had so much suffering. She shouldn't have killed his love for reality by pointing out the cold aspects that make it up= she should have left him in his youth, instead of trying to et him out. I think she was threatened by it, and saw it as a sort of disease- because of her personal experiences.

Magnes was an example of the restraining of one's nature, and how one can't escape one's nature through suppression. It is bound to come out and be worse than before. I wonder why Sand had Magnes kill Lélia. What significance does it show? The one who suppressed his desires killed the one who indulged too much in them. Something to think about.

The Demon by Lermontov

"And long he gazed, with fascination
at the sweet view; as if in a dream
came as on summons from afar
and swam before him, star on star."

"Her dreams, his manner of appearing,
such flattery had not failed to reach
her heart; his sad gaze, the endearing,
the tender strangeness of his speech.
herself not knowing rhyme or reason,
she's pined and languished many days;
her heart may wish to pray in season
to holy saints, to him it prays;
worn out by struggle unabating,
if she lies down on slumber's bed,
her pillow burns, she's suffocating,
she starts up, shivering with dread;
her breast, her shoulders flame, she races
to breathe, she chokes, mist's in her eyes,
her arms are thirsting for embraces,
and on her lips a kiss that dies..."

"
...
my heaven, my hell are in your gaze.
I love you with no earthly passion,
such love that you could never find:
with rapture, in the towering fashion
of an immortal heart and mind."





















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I'm surprised Lermontov depicted this concept- for a devil be attracted to a maiden. This just seems too much of a taboo, especially at that time. I really liked how the demon was fascinated by her beauty. Why, I wonder, did she attract his attention? A mere human being? Personally, I think it was because of the "purity" she represent. Not only because she probably was a virgin, but because she had a pure MIND. Lermontov portrays this very well:

she's pined and languished many days;
her heart may wish to pray in season
to holy saints, to him it prays;

She is so affected! Her whole world is upside down! As much as she tried to keep her piety, she was deterred by him. And yet, she still tries, thinking it is her duty. Only a pure maiden would want to do good when she knows she is entering the realm of temptation. And what temptation? Those are nothing but dreams!

With what passion can a demon love?

The Brute and other Farces by Chekhov

The Brute

"Appearances, I admit, can be deceptive. In appearance, a woman may be all poetry and romance, goddess and angel, muslin and fluff. To look at her exterior is to be transported to heaven. But I have looked at her interior, Mrs. Popov, and what did i find there- in her soul? A crocodile. And, what is more revolting, a crocodile with an illusion, a crocodile that imagines tender sentiments are its own special province, a crocodile that thinks itself queen of the realm of love!

Hilarious! What a caricature of the female! Ha! And he's not that wrong!

Thought the story was very adorable. How word can say the exact opposite of what one feels at the moment, as an attempt to hide oneself. How one's principles and beliefs can be unexpectedly shaken, just as if they never existed, and one is really the opposite of who one thinks they are. And shaken in such a glimpse of a second! As if years of principles could stand against a fraction of a moment!

The Harmfulness of Tobacco

"When she's in a bad mood,s eh calls me dumb bell. Or viper. Or Satan."

I laughed so hard when I read this- i love the emphatic sentences! This was as funny as Gogol's play. How beautifully the element of surprise is used here- to create such ironic humor. This is such a genius parody- depicting such weak men. How pathetic such men are. And i love how the quote so comically shows the weakness, of the men under tyrannical rule- their wife. They are so helpless, and so pathetic! Oh so comic! Wonderful play!

"And to stop, somewhere far away, in the middle of a field, to stand there under the wide heavens like a tree, a post, a scarecrow, and watch the bright, gentle moon overhead and forget, just forget..."

Even he was capable of fantasizing.

Swan Song

"I'm alone, like the wind in the fields."
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Goodness, Chekhov must've been such a great person to be around. Such wit and humor...Too bad he is dead.

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Pub by Grove Press

The Beloved Returns: Lotte in Weimar by Thomas Mann

"The strange thing was that these pictures and memories had this extreme vividity and brilliance, their fullness of detail, not, as it were, at first hand. It was as though memory had not originally been so concerned to preserve them in all their detail, but had to yield them up afterwards, bit by bit, word by word, out of its very depths. They had been searched out, refashioned, reproduced with all their attendant circumstance- give, so to say, a fresh coat of paint and hung in a strong light,f or the sake of the significance which they had unanticipatedly taken on."

This is referring to Goethe's taking of the memories (Lotte's). But this really relates to me. Of course in my childhood I never thought those moments held any significance for my future life- I just lived them. But now, bits and pieces from them pop out randomly and unexpectedly. Things that I haven't thought about since I've experienced them...it all seems like a dreamworld- and I willingly drown in it.

"(...)but loved without sense or aim, as a poet does."

"He must discover and choose her, realize her worth and draw her out of the darkness of the unknown to giver her his love."

"And in very truth the godlike is not to be taken quite seriously when, that is, it lodges temporarily in the human form."

Yes, the form itself doesn't appreciate the fact that he has been chosen to be a temple of the muse. It's ironic- but apparently, that is the way it naturally needs to be. For if he admired what he had inside of him, then he wouldn't be able to worship the true beauty, radiating out of him.

"(...) you could put no human dependence on it, for it was something like an emotional means to an end that was unreal and extra-human."

These "godlikes" play with their feelings and emotions as if it was something apart from themselves and they are above it.

--answer to previous quote--

"(...) poesy has nothing extra-human, aside from her divinity. (...) Truly she is a mystery, the divine made human'' actually just as human as divine, a phenomenon which reminds me one of the profoundest mysteries of our Christian doctrine- and of some charming pagan ones too. It may be because she is double, being human and divine, or perhaps because she is beauty itself' but she reminds me of that enchanting old picture of the boy who loves to gaze enraptured at his own charms. She tends to mirror herself. Smiling she reflects herself, in language, feeling, thought, and passion. (...) Why should not poesy, why should not the beautiful, recognize herself? She does, even when anguishing with passion; for she is human in her anguish but godlike in her pleasure."

Poesy is vain? That is an interesting concept. And is this vanity also a sin? Or is that all she can do but admire the beauty she reflects? Was the boy vain by looking at his own charms? But if he looked beyond himself, he would have noticed the beauty of the sun setting beyond the fields of grass. Can poesy deny that nature is more beautiful than what she describes? Can a description equal the thing described? Can a thought mirror reality?

Charlotte says:
"Why did he need to grow so great, that youth who tempted and distracted me all summer long, that I must grow great with him and be held in lifelong bonds, into the same painful tension into which I was flung by his aimless adoration? What were my poor foolish words, that they had to be uttered for immortality? When we drove to the ball, in the carriage with my cousins, and talked about novels and the pleasure of dancing, I prattled on, never dreaming, God knows, that I was prattling for the centuries and my words were to stand for ever in cold print! I would have held my tongue or tried to say something more fit for immortality. I am ashamed, Herr Doctor, when I read it, ashamed to stand there with it in my shrine before all the people! The youth, being a poet, should have known how to make my words sound nobler and cleverer, more fitting as I stand there in my niche- it was his duty, since he dragged me into immortality against my will..."

She accepted and her fate, her destiny. What a feeling, to be immortal, to be made immortal by a poet...As she said- in cold print. How much humanity expected from her- even though she was a commoner "dragged into immortality" with the divine poet. And what a contrast- the poet that converses with the muses, the heavenly inspiration, and her- who "prattled" on about dancing. How original! That is why the poet needs this life- to depict the real!

"We gladly conceded that one may scorn poetry when one is embodied poetry itself. In fact, as just that, as the fulfillment of our most poetic dreams, did we regard this noble and handsome human being."

"But as flesh and blood always conflict to some extent with the claims of the ideal, a disappointment of these is inevitable. Frankly, it is an advantage, a clarification of the idea, when flesh and blood are absent."

How much easier it is to believe in something that hasn't a form, emotions, ...opinions! Like Mann said, it is actually easier to believe in such a thing- and even an advantage. But one may ask, an advantage to what? Just that it doesn't contradict the ideal, and does it really benefit the idealist in the end? This again is the whole, reality vs the imagination concept. It wholly depends on what the individual prefers. And for the rare idealist who also prefers reality, he needs to learn to overcome such disappointments- for it will be the death of his ideals!

"He was to us, in truth, more a personification than a person. That is a difficult distinction; perhaps after all it may be just the qualities of a person that enable him to become a personification."

Yes that is difficult; does the personality make up the person or does the person make up the personality?

"(...)as I realized that the great poet is a ruler of men; that the course of his fate, his work, and his life is effective far beyond the confines of his person, and conditions the character, the culture, and the future of the nation!"

What influence can an author(a genius, that is) have! Imagine how many people looked to Goethe to represent their culture- and at the same time, what insufferable pressure was put upon Lotte!

"For what is the possible in comparison with the actual? And yet I often think there is a kind of injustice here- and injustice due to the fact (yes, it is possible in this connection to speak of facts) that actuality takes up all the room and attracts all the admiration to itself. On the other hand, the possible, the unfulfilled, is only an outline, a guess at what might have been. (...) But where the possible still exists, if only in form of longing, of an adumbration, a whisper of what might have been- that is the sign-manual of destruction, of 'pining away'."

Destruction towards what?

"Man cannot tarry long in his conscious mind; must take from time to time refuge in his unconscious, there his being has its roots."

The unconscious is the real man inside

"That is man's prerogative on earth: to call things by name and put them in a system. They cast down their eyes before him, so to speak, when he calls them by name, for to name is to command."

Interesting- forcing authority upon something just because that something is categorized.

"The spiritual, she felt, needed to be poor, ugly, and bare of earthly honour, in order to test aright the capacity of men to honor it."

Reminds me of Christ- how he had to serve to be great.

"It was meant to contract the sense we of ten have, after contact with the beautiful, or rather fretful and condescending estrangement from ordinary life. We turn our backs with regret upon that sphere; the persistent applause down below was evidence of the fact. It was not so much enthusiastic for the actors as a means of clinging yet a little longer to the beautiful before one dropped one's hands and resigned oneself once more to the commonplace."

It is ironic how desperate we are for the beautiful, and yet so eagerly and contently we "resign" ourselves to the fate life has dealt us. A tad bit paradoxical.

"(...) and all reality and achievement are nothing but the impaired possible."

Depicts the delicate line of our lives- how easily they could go in any direction by any little touch- by any tweak- and yet how absolutely defined and even predestined they are. Like a master with his brushes, which could go in any way possible- and yet it hits the canvas at a certain point- on purpose. So that he paints what he was born to paint.

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"Say, if you will, that I am the flame, and into me the poor moth flings itself. Yet in the chance and change of things I am the candle too, giving my body that the light may burn."

So in the end it not only "eats" others, but it also consumes the one the flame occupies. As if the genius just needs a body to live (burn) in once every few centuries. Beautiful concept. As if it was beyond him too...

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The book was extremely interesting. Mann dabbles in the worship of the spiritual, which was thought provoking. The story was about Goethe's Lotte- how she dealt with being immortalized, and how Goethe's genius affected him and the people he "sacrificed" to his genius.

Also I think the book was such an insight to the lives of geniuses and even a fragment of their thought processes. It stresses the importance of such a creature for humanity- and what happens when the genius and common man meet (woman in this case) and whom benefits whom. In this case, Goethe benefited so much from observing common life, and that is how he breathed in his genius. Without such innocence such naivety- Lotte would not have been immortalized for centuries past and centuries to come.

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Pub by Alfred A. Knopf, 1940.

Narrative Poems by Alexander Pushkin & Mikhail Lermontov

Onegin's Journey by Pushkin

"Whatever feelings may have smarted
inside me then, they fled away:
They're all transmitted or departed...
Peace to you storms of yesterday!
Then my imagination ordered
deserts, and billows pearly-bordered,
sea-tumult, summits craggy-browed,
with my ideal, the maiden proud
And sufferings quite beyond redeeming...
and yet new seasons always bring
new visions; humbled is my spring
with its inebriated dreaming,
and, as a poet, I've topped up
the water-quotient in my cup."

The visual imagery here so marvelously describes the energy of the storm, and by positioning the "maiden proud" right in the middle of this electricity, cries out poetry in its most violent form. For what poet does not dream of this exact scene, this scene that is so dramatic which provides so many contrasts? -this extreme violence of nature, and the maiden proud standing it through all.

Also, I was extremely excited to find this book- because it was a "missing part" to the real Eugene Onegin. But of course this did not affect the ending whatsoever, just the journey part of Onegin was explained in more detail in this story/poem.

Pushkin is so extremely entertaining! It is as if one is watching comedy in a play. Like Graf-Nulin; hilariously written!

Mozart and Salieri by Pushkin

"I murdered sounds, and the dissected
Music like a cadaver. Harmony
Became for me an algebra."

I am so afraid of doing that! Goodness. I hope it won't become a science for me- because then it will kill it all.

" No.
To me, nothing's for laughter when a useless
Dauber is botching up Raphael's Madonna;
To me, nothing's for laughter, when some base
Buffoon in an ignoble parody
Degrades the name of Dante..."

I can actually relate to that. Some people don't accept that they don't have talent, and by this denial they blaspheme masterpieces that humble.

" If only
everybody could so feel the strength
Of harmony! But no: for in that case
The world could not continue: no one would
Trouble about life's grosser cares.' and all
Would dedicate themselves to untrammeled art!
How few of us there are, we happy idlers,
Chosen ones who spurn the ignoble call
Of mere utility, priests dedicated
Only to beauty."

Spurn means to disdain. It is interesting that he uses the same word ignoble- for both characters. It shows that they both believe in the same idea, but in different ways. Mozart here, of course, is the real genius. He is the "god: of music- so to speak and the true worshiper. And Salieri is only a novice in his worship. And yet, as he himself describes- he forgot how to truly worship- to get lost in it- and only the "idea" of worship remains. Not the act itself. Salieri raised Mozart up to the stars- consciously knowing that he himself is drifting farther away from it. Maybe that is why it bothers him so much when the old man sings Mozart- because it is insulting the rank of his ideal. Mozart on the other hand is still a worshiper, "a priest", and by getting lost in this harmony, this music, he learned its secrets. One has to let it (the mysteries of the universe, the beauty of nature) teach him. That is true genius. Maybe that is why Salieri killed Mozart- because he knew he had lost it...as I went back in the poem he clearly says,

"No, I can't fight my fate
I've been picked out to stop him, otherwise
We'll all be ruined, music's priests, its servants,
not I alone, with my dull reputation..
No, what use is it, if Mozart lives on
and reaches a new summit? by so doing
will he raise art up higher? No! as soon
As he is gone, it will sink down again:"

There! Mozart only continues to go up higher, while Salieri would descend lower. he raised the bar not only for all humanity to see, but for other Salieris- while knowing what is happening...the contrast will provide greater failure on their part. Because then, it will be all too apparent that they cannot continue being music priests at all, they would know that it is all a lie- that all their harmony became "algebra". And that is something they cannot accept- they failed their "idol".

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Pub by Vintage Books