aere perennius:

Latin, for bronze

 

Golden Age (Apollonian):

from Greek mythology, particularly the Works and Days of Hesiod, part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through 5 Ages, Gold the first when the Golden Race of humanity lived; after the end of the first age was the Silver, then the Bronze, after this the Heroic age, with the fifth and current age being Iron.

 

dying Faust (Part II):

In Act V Faust is now an old but powerful man favoured by the king, living on the beech given to him by the Emperor he uses dikes & dams to push back the water & re-claim the lands; here he builds a castle.  Following an episode in which he orders the eviction of an old couple, he feels guilt.  He states he has learned that man should be concerned only with what is legitimately attainable not the impossible.  He envision a great project, & has begun to find his Soul & salvation through service to others & leadership in humanity's struggle to build a better world.  He mistakes the sound of men digging his own grave thinking it is continuing work on his project.  He is filled with a vision of the prosperity & happiness of the people who will someday inhabit the reclaimed lands.  He describes the utopian future he visualizes, self-reliant and confident despite his impending death.

 

The Third Kingdom (Germanic ideal):

a reference to an idea found in Arthur Moeller van den Bruck’s book Das Dritte Reich (German 'The Third Realm') 1923; a German cultural historian & writer, his book promoted German nationalism.  It formulated an "ideal" national empowerment for Germany which was most popular in a Germany desperate to rebound from Versailles.  His Third Empire is the ideal condition in which the scattered German people can achieve a common purpose & destiny.  He rejected the Second Reich of Bismarck as imperfect (It did not include Austria) & saw it as a stepping stone to a Greater German Empire.  Weimar will have to be replaced by a new revolution from the right.  He looked for a new political movement to embrace both socialism & nationalism, a unique form of German Fascism.  He was heavily influenced by Nietzsche & admired Mussolini above all others.  He was a prominent member of the Conservative Revolution group which included Spengler.  Although Spengler penned these words several years before van den Bruck’s book, the idea itself might have been current in his circles.

 

Joachim of Floris:

(1135-1202) an Italian theologian, founder of the monastic order of San Giovanni in Fiore;  considered one of the most important apocalyptic thinker of the medieval period; he theorized the dawn of a new age, based on his interpretation of verses in the Book of Revelation, in which the Church would be unnecessary and in which infidels would unite with Christians (Expositio in Apocalipsim 1196-99).

 

Ibsen:

one of the founders of modernism in theatre; Modernism was a philosophical & art movement that arose from the broad transformations in the Wes in the late 19th century; Ibsen is also referred to as "the father of realism"

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Nietzsche (Zarathustra quote):

aphorisms from Thus Spoke Zarathustra; the quote in full: “I love the great despisers, because they are the great adorers, and arrows of longing for the other shore.”

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Alexander’s life, Napoleon’s life:

these 2 historical giants were homologous, that is living during the same period in the new age of Civilization: Autumn.

 

Peripeteia:

Latin, a reversal of circumstances, or turning point; usually used with reference to works of literature.

 

Nietzsche (the Superman):

see Chapter I, page 24

 

Ibsen (Brand):

written 1865, first performed Stockholm 1867; verse drama, a play written in the style of a poem; “brand” means fire in Nordic languages; Brand is a young idealistic priest aiming to save the world, his God is derived from the Old Testament & Brand’s judgment of others is harsh & unfair; he believes in the will of man & lives by the belief "all or nothing", he cannot compromise; his beliefs render him lonely, as those around him fail when put to the test.  The meaning of the play is open to interpretation; it debates freedom of will & consequences; another theme is the imitation of Christ (the female character Agnes is derived from Agnus Dei, the lamb of God); Brand never asks anyone to sacrifice themselves, indeed he warns them off, but if they persist, they must accept the moral consequence of their choice.  The play is not only a denunciation of small-mindedness but a tragedy of the spirit that would transcend it.  It questions what the Christian message really means & God's purpose for man; it ends with an avalanche which kills the main character; this ambiguous ending (like the entire play) has been interpreted in many contradictory ways.

 

Ibsen (Rosmersholm):

4-act play (published 1886, performed 1887); its plot revolves around ex-parson Johannes Rosmer, a representative of high ethical standards & his housekeeper, the adventuress Rebecca West, both haunted by the spirit of Rosmer’s late wife, a suicide influenced by Rebecca & her husband’s high-minded indifference to sex.  Rosmer & Rebecca must choose between bold, unrestricted freedom & the ancient, conservative traditions of Rosmer’s house.  Rosmer is persuaded by West’s emancipated spirit, while she is touched by his staid, decorous view of life.  Each contaminates the other, for differing but complementary reasons; they push each other towards the millpond (where Rosmer’s wife drowned) where they both commit suicide.  Critics described as one of Ibsen's most complex, subtle, multi-layered and ambiguous plays.

 

Ibsen (Emperor & Galilean):

conceived during his tenure in Rome (1864–1868); he began writing in 1871, published 1873, in a 10-act form too diffuse & discursive for the stage; he called it a "world drama in two parts", philosophical historical drama on the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate, addressing the world order, the state of faith & what constitutes an ideal government; it originates the idea of a "Third Reich “as a moral & political ideal, a synthesis between the realms of the flesh (in paganism) & the spirit (in Christianity); Ibsen claimed the future needed such a synthesis, a community of noble, harmonious development & freedom, producing a society in which no person can oppress another, a future to be reached by a revolution in the spirit and an internal rebirth.

 

Ibsen (Master-builder):

play (1892); Halvard Solness, the master builder, has become a hugely successful builder thru a series of coincidences (which conversely were misfortunes for his competitors).  He had previously wished for them but never did anything about them.  Even BEFORE his wife's ancestral home was destroyed by fire he imagined how he could cause such an accident & profit by dividing the now vacant lands into plots with homes for sale.  He comes to believe that he only has to wish for something to happen & it will & rationalises this as a gift from God, given so that he might carry out God's ordained work of church building.  This work has bewildered critics searching for a meaning; it is sometimes seen as an exploration of the author’s autobiographical history, or dealing with youth versus maturity, or of psychology, and other possible interpretations.

 

Hebbel:

1813-63; German poet & dramatist, added a new psychological dimension to German drama using Hegel’s concepts of history to dramatize conflicts in his historical tragedies; concerned with the historical process of change leading to new moral values rather than the individual aspects of the characters or events.

 

Wagner:

Wagner was active among socialist German nationalists in Dresden, influenced by Proudhon & Feuerbach, he even received the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin.  When discontent erupted in the unsuccessful May 1849 uprising in Dresden Wagner played a minor supporting role.  Warrants were issued for the revolutionaries' arrest & he fled, first to Paris and then Zürich.  In his article, “Art and. Revolution,” (1849) Wagner wrote: “Only the great revolution of mankind, whose beginnings erstwhile shattered Grecian tragedy, can win for us this Art work. For only this revolution can bring forth from its hidden depths, in the new beauty of a nobler Universalism, that which it once tore from the conservative spirit of a true and beautiful, but narrow-meted, culture; and tearing it engulfed.”.  It was the first of a series of polemical essays written 1849 to 1852, which included "The Artwork of the Future" and "Jewishness in Music".  They provided fuel to those who characterized Wagner as an impractical and eccentric radical idealist.  It seems possible that Wagner had however been writing in part to deliberately provoke, on the basis that any notoriety was better than no notoriety.

 

Rousseau onwards:

From Rousseau (1712–78) the Faustian Culture enters the Autumnal age of Civilization, with the Enlightenment, characterized by belief in the almightiness of reason, a Cult of "nature." & "rational" religion; Rousseau is listed with the English Rationalists (Locke) & French Encyclopaedists ( Voltaire)

 

Northern soul:

reference to the soul of the Faustian man