Abstract

In this essay I explore Schopenhauer’s position on dance, beginning with his brief, pejorative references to it in The World as Will and Representation, and then examining dance’s exclusion from his discussion of the arts there. Toward this end I then turn to Francis Sparshott’s essay on the neglect of dance in the history of aesthetics, considering his understanding of Plato’s valorization of dance, and his comment that Schopenhauer’s dance is the death-dance of Shiva. Seeking a stronger justification for Schopenhauer’s neglect and condemnation of dance in light of the opposite tendency in his Greek and Indian influences, I then suggest that Schopenhauer’s conception of madness as a form of disconnection closely linked to genius offers both a promising diagnosis for the problem of dance’s status and also a way of ameliorating it. Finally, I attempt this remedy by sewing together Schopenhauer’s conceptions of embodiment and music—reattaching its dancing shadow to his philosophy.

Highlights

  • In this essay, I will explore the relationship between Schopenhauer and dance

  • I will argue here that contemporary philosopher of dance Francis Sparshott is mistaken when he writes that Schopenhauer would have embraced dance had it been a more respectable, independent art form in his era, since Schopenhauer’s resistance to it is based, more importantly, on dance’s tendency to life-affirmation

  • I will begin with Schopenhauer’s very brief explicit mention of dance, and try to understand the exclusion of dance from his extended discussion of the individual arts. Toward this latter end I will turn to Francis Sparshott essay, which situates Schopenhauer’s thought in terms of Plato’s privileging of dance as the consummate participatory art, and which observes that Schopenhauer’s dance is that of Shiva, lord of death

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Summary

Introduction

I will explore the relationship between Schopenhauer and dance. The most important aspects of this relationship unfold in The World as Will and Representation (hereafter WWR), but there are a few brief mentions of dance outside of Schopenhauer’s magnum opus, most of which are pejorative. I will argue here that contemporary philosopher of dance Francis Sparshott is mistaken when he writes that Schopenhauer would have embraced dance had it been a more respectable, independent art form in his era, since Schopenhauer’s resistance to it is based, more importantly, on dance’s tendency to life-affirmation.

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