Goethe & Impressions

Today's discourse divulges a truly interesting notion, regarding human nature, that hit me as I was reading Goethe's Faust, his magnum opus and an essential cornerstone of the Western Cannon. My true motif behind reading the drama was what I'd call my "homework" for today's viewing of La Damnation de Faust that I attended today with Tim.

I initially picked up Goethe's works not because he is dubbed as one of the last true romanticist renaissance men to walk this planet, but because of his profound insight into human nature and reading Faust truly changed my perspective of how the human mind works. As a polymath, Goethe mastered the dynamism of how the mind can shift from style to another with absolute fluidity. His different works each display a unique literary style and he was quoted for saying, "only those who continue to change remain my kin."

To make a long story short, the point Goethe truly bestowed me with subsequent to reading part of Faust was that ideas are mere embodiments of things that are abstract, and thus must be represented in some form of idea or model. In representing human nature through Faust, Goethe transcends that realm of mere idea and though by writing of impressions. Impressions are what I consider to be supernaturally inspired emotions or feelings. The nature of such emotions is that they may be sensual, romantic, daunting, and any other avenue that explores the multifaceted dimensions of human nature. What is the source of these impressions you may ask; well, they may range from being a spark of genius to mere creativity or imagination. Unlike dry ideas and models of the sciences, these impressions are intangible, timeless, and priceless. Unlike ideas that may be transfered from person to person through education and can be effectively mastered, impressions are bestowed upon poets, artists, and the like in the form of visions to produce via their works. These works bring these impressions to life by allowing others, i.e. me and you, to receive and feel these impressions even though we may not have the capacity to express them personally.

What I truly loved about Goethe's work though was that hi provided the reader (i.e. the recepient of these impressions) the freedom and flexibility to interpret and experience these impressions by his own freewill. Unlike what we were taught in IB World Literature that almost every work had certain motifs and messages that the writer aimed to get across, Goethe is flexible when stating, "The more incommensurable and incomprehensible for the understanding of poetic creation may be, the better." Experience it as you will is the essence of his message. Actually, Goethe even went as far as explicitly declaring that his drama is not a tool to get a specific message across.

Everyone seems caught up nowadays in trying to identify with an ideology, religion, culture, idea, etc...but what I have discovered is that this reveals insecurity, uncertainty, and complication. Why don't we submit to our impressions and not have someone preach to us what model we should emulate? I feel that it is through Goethe's works that one can truly be discover the impressions that allow humans to be moved, inspired, and elevated to something that cannot be expressed in some fixed, bounded model or ideology. To an extent, Goethe's works remind me of Sufism and the works of Rumi. Impressions allow one to transcend the mundane. For all you know these impressions may be greater than Einstein's theory of relativity because they explore something that is almost divine. Goethe's saying is a case in point: "Do not always think that everything is in vain if it is not some abstract thought or idea!"

The point I am getting at is that in our modern society, one is pressured to conform to a certain philosophy and to embrace it wholeheartedly. Radicalism is encouraged; moderation is looked upon as weak. I believe that the most important lesson I have taken away from Goethe is that no single ideology can be serve humanity from A to Z. Similar to the Gestalt theory in psychology, although several perspectives (i.e. schools of thought) exist in psychology, the human being is a holistic creature where the dualism of the mind and body merge into one. Similarly, in the realms of politics, religion, and culture, the human nature cannot be reduced to a set of boundless principles and concepts that one has to embrace totally. Hence, when one enters the world of literature, nothing is fixed and all is eternal. In this world, the vagueness and irrationality of the human mind and nature is embraced, where impressions flourish because of the different interpretations that occur during the transmission of an emotion from the writer to the reader. Every interpretation is neither right nor wrong, except that the impression that one takes away, if truly felt is never wrong. Holistically, the culminations of different interpretations from a piece of literature is what defines the writer's philosophy. To extrapolate this notion to a larger scale (i.e. the real world), one realizes that no one way of life is the right way, but a culmination of different elements, from different disciplines, is the only way to essential to strike a certain harmonious balance. The same principle applies to politics, economics, psychology, religion, and culture to name a few.
Now that I've bored you enough with my dry philosophical discourse, I shall recap my outing to the Paramount Theater this Sunday morning. After speeding through a copy of Faust I'd bought a couple of weeks ago from Blue Whale used book store, I had been anticipating the Metropolitan Opera performance of Faust in the Paramount Theater. Tim, who also takes a fancy for classicism, decided to join me for the viewing of Faust. I think many other viewers we also hyped about the screening of the opera show considering that the box office was pretty packed today. Apparently the opera itself didn't use Goethe's version of Faust, but that of Hector Berlioz, but all the same, the storyline and motifs were very similar. The only difference was the poetry and drama. I won't disclose too much regarding the storyline of Faust simply because I wouldn't dare ruin it for prospective viewers and I am sure that my synopsis would not do justice to Berlioz's masterpiece. Essentially, the moral of the drama questions the morality of human nature and whether it exists at all? If yes, is it sensible? In a word, the play reveals the chasm between good and evil that has plagued the human mind since the dawn of creation. Obviously these issues and questions and issues cannot be sufficiently be answered in a blog entry, but the only way to stop these philosophical questions from circulating in my mind was to spill my thoughts into words.

While at the theater, I was awed by the grandeur of its ambiance and design. It fell just short of comparing to the magnificent Ottoman palaces of Istanbul, but I snapped a couple of shots to share:



The theater was of course a replication of some grandiose theater in Rome, but I am glad that I have access to something that can satisfy my intellectual cravings. I look forward to the next showing of course, but I don't think that anything can compare to today's show!