7.46 Schiller — «Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen» (passages) — Epoché
What you will be able to do Read four passages from Schiller's letters Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen (1795): why write about beauty in a time of revolution, how modern culture has split the human being, what the artist owes his age, and why the human being is only fully human at play. Follow a philosophical argument written as letters to a patron: objection, answer, image, thesis. Read Schiller's antitheses and chiasmus: der Mensch spielt nur, wo er … Mensch ist, und er ist nur da ganz Mensch, wo er spielt . Use the imperative of moral advice: Lebe mit deinem Jahrhundert, aber sei nicht sein Geschöpf . Sentences from this text, before the notes. Read the German aloud; all of them come back below. German English Auf dieser groben Waage hat das geistige Verdienst der Kunst kein Gewicht, und, aller Aufmunterung beraubt, verschwindet sie von dem lärmenden Markt des Jahrhunderts. On these crude scales the spiritual merit of art has no weight, and, robbed of all encouragement, it vanishes from the noisy market of the century. Erwartungsvoll sind die Blicke des Philosophen wie des Weltmanns auf den politischen Schauplatz geheftet, wo jetzt, wie man glaubt, das große Schicksal der Menschheit verhandelt wird. The eyes of the philosopher and of the man of the world alike are fixed in expectation on the political stage, where, it is believed, the great destiny of mankind is now being decided. glaube ich nicht bloß mit meiner Neigung entschuldigen, sondern durch Grundsätze rechtfertigen zu können. I believe I can not merely excuse by my inclination but justify by principles. der Genuß wurde von der Arbeit, das Mittel vom Zweck, die Anstrengung von der Belohnung geschieden. enjoyment was separated from work, the means from the end, effort from reward. Man ist ebensogut Zeitbürger, als man Staatsbürger ist; One is just as much a citizen of one's time as a citizen of a state; So wie die edle Kunst die edle Natur überlebte, so schreitet sie derselben auch in der Begeisterung, bildend und erweckend, voran. Just as noble art outlived noble nature, so it also goes ahead of it in inspiration, shaping and awakening. Prerequisites : 7.45 — you need the figures of speech from 5.22 Vocabulary , the vocabulary of philosophy from 5.18 Vocabulary , and the period from 5.24 Vocabulary . About this text In 1791 Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), seriously ill and poor, received a pension from a Danish prince, Friedrich Christian of Augustenburg. To thank him he began a series of letters on beauty and art, which he rewrote and published in 1795 in his journal Die Horen as twenty-seven letters Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen . Their background is the French Revolution. Schiller had welcomed its ideals and was horrified by the Terror of 1793–94. His question is how a people can become free without becoming savage, and his answer is beauty: only a person whose senses and reason are in harmony, as they are in the experience of beauty, is ready for political freedom. The four passages here, about 3,400 words, come from the second, sixth, ninth and fifteenth letters and are separated by […] . The sixth letter, with its picture of the modern specialist, a small cog in a machine, became one of the founding texts of the critique of modern society. The text is that of the Hanser edition of Schiller's works (1962) in the TextGrid digital library. It keeps some of Schiller's spellings, such as Bruckstück for Bruchstück . Grammar in the text The objection anticipated. Schiller often begins with the reader's objection, in a question: Aber sollte ich von der Freiheit, die mir von Ihnen verstattet wird, nicht vielleicht einen bessern Gebrauch machen können …? and later Wird aber, möchten Sie längst schon versucht gewesen sein mir entgegenzusetzen, wird nicht das Schöne … erniedrigt …? This is the dialogue of an Erörterung as in 9.5 Writing , written by a master. Antithesis and chiasmus. The style is built on pairs: Zeitbürger and Staatsbürger , Zögling and Günstling , was sie bedürfen, nicht was sie loben . The most famous sentence is a chiasmus, the figure of 5.22 Vocabulary : der Mensch spielt nur, wo er in voller Bedeutung des Worts Mensch ist, und er ist nur da ganz Mensch, wo er spielt . The imperative of advice. In the ninth letter Schiller speaks to a young artist in the second person: Lebe mit deinem Jahrhundert, aber sei nicht sein Geschöpf; leiste deinen Zeitgenossen, aber was sie bedürfen, nicht was sie loben. The du -imperative here is solemn, not familiar. The extended image. The sixth letter compares Greek society, in which each citizen could represent the whole, with a modern state like a clockwork, Uhrwerk , of countless lifeless parts. One image carries the whole argument. Reading it a second time, section by section The second letter (paragraphs 1–5). Is it not out of place to write about art when the fate of humanity is being decided on the political stage? Schiller answers that he would not wish to live in another century, that art is a daughter of freedom, but that the age measures everything by usefulness. He will argue that the political problem can only be solved by way of the aesthetic, because it is beauty that leads to freedom. The sixth letter (paragraphs 7–10). Culture itself has wounded modern humanity. The sciences and the professions have separated, the state has become a clockwork, and the individual, chained to a small fragment of the whole, develops only one of his powers. The state remains a stranger to its citizens because their feelings find nothing in it. The ninth letter (paragraphs 12–15). The artist is the son of his age, but woe to him if he is also its pupil or its favourite. He should grow up under a distant Greek sky and return to his century like Agamemnon's son, to purify it. To the young friend of truth and beauty Schiller says: give the world the direction towards the good, and live with your century without being its creature. The fifteenth letter (paragraphs