Friedrich Nietzsche and Weimar Classicism by Paul Bishop, R. H. Stephenson

Abstract

MLR, 102.3, 2007 893 Horkheimer's twentieth-century considerations also inform Frank's study; at one point, Frank argues that Fontane, inDer Stechlin, anticipates the central thesis of Dialektik derAufkldrung (p. 2o6). In a similar vein,Youngman rather reducesAdorno and Horkheimer's work to the assertion that 'theprescientific power ofmagic and the power of science have the same roots' (p. io8), and the author's rhetorical strategy throughout is to introduce a literaryexcerpt, assail previous critical judgements of the passage, and then to offerhis own interpretation, concluding with another reference to his mantra on the dialectic of theEnlightenment, which takes on the repetitious quality of a train station announcement. Youngman's thesis is, tomy eyes, notmuch more than a variation on, rather than radically different from, those already investigated by the likes ofMahr and Heini mann, although inYoungman's eyes those authors' scientific positivism meant that theywere on thewrong side of the 'thirdculture' debate. It is thereforeperhaps not a surprise thatYoungman spends much time assailing previous critical assessments. Nevertheless, however much he castigates others for 'not going farenough' in their analyses,much aswith Frank, there isnothing particularly startling about his reread ings ofBahnwdrter Thiel orEffiBriest, and indeed they strike this reader at times as rather forced and tendentious. What is trulynoticeable about reading these books in concert is thatboth make a strong argument for the continued significance of the train as an important literary emblem at a timewhen railway technology has become part of the everyday (liter ary) landscape. This iswhere Youngman's book, in particular, seems like amissed opportunity. For such a thesis about the continuing importance of the train could be extended to look at the representation of the railway in twentieth-century cul tural artefacts, to track how the longer-term cultural significance of the train as an ambivalent emblem of progress and catastrophe, sketched initially for thenineteenth century by Schivelbusch and reiterated in theseworthwhile studies, remains present in twentieth-century society and culture. UNIVERSITY OFABERDEEN SIMONWARD Friedrich Nietzsche and Weimar Classicism. By PAUL BISHOP and R. H. STEPHEN SON. (Studies inGerman Literature, Linguistics, and Culture) Rochester, NY: Camden House. 2005. Xi+28I pp. $8o; (45. ISBN 978-1-57I 13-280-2. As the authors are quick to acknowledge, theirs is not the firstattempt to connect Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophical concerns with those ofWeimar Classicism. Paul Bishop and Roger Stephenson's study of thisconnection is,however,more ambitious thanmost. Adopting Nietzsche's own notion that themeaning of a phenomenon can be uncovered by tracing its genealogy, Bishop and Stephenson claim to identify in the aesthetics ofGoethe and Schiller 'themissing perspective' in our understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy. Without it, they assert, 'the framework, and hence the structure, ofNietzsche's thinking isdistorted to thepoint of unintelligibility' (p. I). To support thisbold claim theauthors attempt todefineWeimar Classicism at the outset and then to furnish proof thatNietzsche's outlook was decisively shaped by it. Wisely, the authors do not arrive at a single definition of Weimar Classicism. The term isdelimited bymeans of definitions ex negativo (with referenceprimarily to the philosophies of Friedrich Schlegel, Hegel, and Schelling), notions of 'Schein', 'tota lity',aesthetic paganism, and 'serious play', aswell as passing reference to Wilkinson andWilloughby's belief thatGoethe and Schiller were participating in a 'perennial aesthetic'. The nearest thatBishop and Stephenson come to a definition ofWeimar Classicism is theirassertion that 'theoverriding concern in the cultural theorizing of 894 Reviews Goethe and Schiller is to make conceptual room fora reasoned account ofour aesthetic experience of human lifeand theuniverse we live in' (p. 14).This debatable assump tion is followed immediately by theno less controversial claim that this concern also informsNietzsche's understanding of theworld as an aesthetic phenomenon, which he articulates twice inDie Geburt der Tragodie but later repudiates. The great strengthof thisstudy lies in itserudite and lucid discussions ofDie Geburt der Trag6die and Also sprachZarathustra in the firstthree chapters. The authors lo cate and examine aspects ofWeimar aesthetics which find expression inNietzsche's firstpublished work and inZarathustra, a textwhich Bishop and Stephenson choose to call Nietzsche's 'aesthetic gospel'. The authors cite innumerable allusions in these texts toGoethean and Schillerian concepts but tend to interpret them as evidence of derivation...