In Vino Veritas is one section of Kierkegaard's Stages on Life's Way. In a conscious reference to Plato's Symposium, it is determined that each participant must give a speech, and that their topic shall be love. Lee M. Hollander said, "it excels Plato's work in subtlety, richness, and refined humor. To be sure, Kierkegaard has charged his creation with such romantic superabundance of delicate observations and rococo ornament that the whole comes dangerously near being improbable; whereas the older work stands solidly in reality."
By : Soren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855), translated by Lee M. Hollander (1880 - 1972)
|
The subtitle is A Recollection Related by William Afham. Paul Sponheim says in his introduction to Lowrie's translation that Afham means Byhim in Danish. The book is divided rather sharply into sections, this first being the equivalent of the first part of Either/Or and is equivalent with religiousness A. "Religiousness A is the dialectic of inward deepening; it is the relation to an eternal happiness that is not conditioned by something but is the dialectical inward deepening of the relation, consequently conditioned only by the inward deepening, which is dialectical." This is the individual who is living in an esthetic way. A young man or woman who is still maturing. Still looking for the highest good. They've found love of a woman to be the highest but none have had any experience except for the seducer. Who may or not be telling the truth. Kierkegaard says, "Even “The Seducer’s Diary” was only a possibility of horror, which the esthete in his groping existence had conjured up precisely because he, without actually being anything, had to try his hand at everything as possibility."
In a conscious reference to Plato's Symposium, it is determined that each participant must give a speech, and that their topic shall be love. Lee M. Hollander said, "it excels Plato's work in subtlety, richness, and refined humor. To be sure, Kierkegaard has charged his creation with such romantic superabundance of delicate observations and rococo ornament that the whole comes dangerously near being improbable; whereas the older work stands solidly in reality." Plato and Kierkegaard may have been testing the reader's ability to discern truth from fiction or poetry. It is possible that Plutarch's The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men may have also influenced Kierkegaard.
He has Victor Eremita, the Young Man, the Fashion Designer, Constantine, Johannes the Seducer speak about love. Constantin, the psychologist, mediates between the speakers. Tellingly for the reader, however, each account given is ultimately disheartening. The inexperienced young man, for example, considers it to be simply disturbingly puzzling. To the seducer, it is a game to be won, while the foppish fashion designer considers it to be simply a style, empty of real meaning, which he can control like any other style. These individuals believe that "he who has hidden his life has lived well." All the speakers at the banquet say "love is ludicrous."
Kierkegaard compared this section with Philine in Johann Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. He took up Goethe's Dichtung und Wahrheit (My Life: Poetry and Truth) in the third section of this book, Guilty/Not-Guilty.
Goethe reflected on his life in almost all of his books. A, or the esthete, in Stages writes about reflection because Kierkegaard has found that he has made an art of recollection and reflection also.
The art of recollecting is not easy, because in the moment of preparation it can become something different, whereas memory merely fluctuates between remembering correctly and remembering incorrectly. For example, what is homesickness? It is something remembered that is recollected. Homesickness is prompted simply by one’s being absent. The art would be to be able to feel homesickness even though one is at home. This takes proficiency in illusion. To go on living in an illusion in which there is continual dawning, never daybreak, or to reflect oneself out of all illusion is not as difficult as to reflect oneself into an illusion, plus being able to let it work on oneself with the full force of illusion even though one is fully aware. To conjure up the past for oneself is not as difficult as to conjure away the present for the sake of recollection. This is the essential art of recollection and is reflection to the second power. The ultimate in the reflective relationship between memory and recollections is to use memory against recollection. Stages on Life's Way, Hong p. 13.
Comments
Post a Comment