The beautiful and the Sublime

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  Shulammite 楼主 2014-11-19 10:38:28

  Of National Character in so far as it depends upon a Sense of the Beautiful and the Sublime Among the peoples of our continent, in my opinion, the Italians and the French are distinguished by their sense of the beautiful, while the Germans, the English and the Spaniards by their sense of the sublime. Holland may be taken for the country where this finer taste becomes rather unnoticeable. The beautiful itself is either enchanting or touching, or radiating ( lachend ) or enticing. The first kind has something of the sublime, and the mind( Gemuet) when feeling it is deeply stirred or enthusiastic, but when feeling the second kind it is smiling and joyful. The first of these sentiments seems especially appropriate to the Italians, while the second is appropriately to the French. In the kind of national character which responds to the expression of the sublime[the sublime again may differ], it may be the terrifying kind which inclines toward the quixotic, or it may be a sense for the noble or for the magnificent. I believe there is good reason to attribute the first kind of sentiment to the Spaniard; the second sort to the English and the third to the German. The sense for magnificent is not original as are the other kinds of taste, and it is peculiar to the feeling for the sublime of shimmering lustre; for this feeling is a mixed sentiment [compounded of the sense] for the beautiful and the sublime. In this mixture each of the components, considered by itself, is cooler, and hence the mind is free enough to notice examples in linking the two, while it also needs their stimulus. The German, therefore, will have less feeling when contemplating the beautiful than the Frenchman, and less of that which relates to the sublime than the Englishman, but in those cases where both ought to appear linked,[the mixed feeling] will be more in keeping with his sentiment, and he will avoid those errors which result from too far-reaching a force of each of these kinds of sentiments. I will touch only briefly on the arts and sciences whose choice will confirm the taste of the nations which we have attributed to sculpture and architecture. All these fine arts meet an equally fine taste in France, although their beauty is less touching here The taste in regard to poetic and oratorical perfection in France stresses beauty, while in England it stresses the lofty[ sentiments]. In France, subtle wit, comedy, laughing satire, amorous play and an easy and naturally flowing diction are quite inborn(original). In England, by contrast,[we find] thoughts of deep content, tragedy, epic poetry and the heavy gold of wit which under the French hammer may be stretched into thin sheets of great surface. In Germany, wit is seen as through a foil. Formerly it was loud, but through(good)j examples and the intelligence of the nation it has become more charming and noble, but charming with less naïveté, and noble with less bold inspiration than among the other two peoples... The national characters are most clearly marked in their morals, and therefore we will consider their different sense of the beautiful and the sublime from this stand point.The spaniard is serous, discreet and truthful. There are few merchants who are more honest than the Spanish. He has a proud soul and more feeling for great than for beautiful deeds. Since in his mixture there is little of a kind and gentle goodwill, the Spaniard is often hard and sometimes cruel. THe auto da fe is maintained not so much because of superstition, but because of the quixotic inclination of this nation which is moved by a spectacle that is venerable and terrifying and where it can witness a San Benito painted with figures of Satan delivered into the flames which a raging devotion has lighted. One cannot say that the Spaniard is more haughty or more amorous than someone from another people, but he is both in a quixotic, adventurous way which is strange and unusual. to leave one's plow and to parade in a long coat and sword upon one's beloved by a special compliment at a bull-fight where the beauties of the country can for once be seen unveiled, and then to plunge oneself into a dangerous fight with a wild animal, these are unusual and strange deeds which deviate far from what is natural. The Italian seems to have feelings which are a mixture of the French and Spanish; more of a sense of the beautiful than the latter, and more of a sense of the sublime than the former. In this way the various traits of his moral character may be explained. The Frenchman has a dominant sense of the morally beautiful. He is gracious, polite and obliging. He quickly becomes intimate, is gay and free in meeting others, and such an expression as "a man of bon ton"or "a lady of bon ton"has a comprehensible meaning only for him who has acquired the gracious sense of a Frenchman. Even his sublime sentiments, of which he has quite a few, are subordinated to his sense of the beautiful and they receive their intensity by their harmonizing with the sense of the beautiful. The Frenchman loves to be witty, and he will therefore readily subordinate truth to a sudden idea. But where one cannot be witty he shows as thorough an insight as anyone from any other nation,e.g. in mathematics and in the other dry and deep arts and sciences. A bon mot does not in France have the fleeting value it has elsewhere; it is eagerly disseminated and preserved in books like the most important events. The French man is a quiet citizen and take revenge upon the tax collector by satires or by remonstrances in parliament. Such acts after having given to the people's fathers beautiful patriotic appearance accomplish no more than being crowned by a praiseworthy rebuke and being celebrated in ingenious paeans of praise. The object to which the merits and capacities of this nation and mostly related is woman. not that woman s more loved or respected than elsewhere, but because she offers the best excuse [for men] to display the very popular talents of wit, of graciousness and of good manners in their best lights; for the rest a vain person of either sex, at all times, only dallies with himself, and the other is only his toy. Since the French do not at all lack noble qualities( and yet these qualities can only be animated by a sense of the beautiful), the beautiful sex could have a more powerful influence in rousing the most noble deeds of the make than anywhere else in the world if efforts were made to favor this tendency of the national spirit. It is too bad that lilies won't spin.

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  Shulammite 楼主 2014-12-07 13:33:25

  The shortcoming which limits this national character is the silly or insipid, or, to use a more polite expression, the lighthearted. Important matters are treated as jokes, and trivialities occasion serious effort. In his old age, the Frenchman still sings gay songs and is gallant to a lady, as much as he can be. In making these comments I have great witnesses from that nation itself on my side, and retreat behind a Montesquieu and a d'Álembert, in order to protect myself against possible indignation.

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  Shulammite 楼主 2014-12-07 14:18:27

  The Englishman is in the beginning of every acquaintance cold and indifferent toward a stranger. He is little inclined to offer small services; but if he becomes a friend, he is prepared to render great service. He makes little effort to be witty in conversation, but he is reasonable and dignified. He is a poor imitator, does not bother about other people's opinions, and follows only his own taste. In relation to woman he is not gracious, like a Frenchman, but he shows her greater respect and perhaps even carries this too far, since he frequently concedes to his wife unlimited regard. He is constant, at times to the point of stubbornness, bold and determined, often to the point of recklessness and he acts according to his principles, usually being almost headstrong. He easily becomes an odd fellow, not from vanity, readily allow his tastes to be distorted in order to be agreeable or imitative; therefore he is rarely liked as much as a Frenchman, but if he is well known, he is more highly respected. the German has an emotional structure( Gefuehl) which is a mixture of the Englishman's and the Frenchman's, but it appears to be nearer the former, and the greater similarity to the latter is artificial and imitated. He has a happy mixture of the sense of the beautiful and of the sublime, and if he does not equal a frenchman in the first, nor an Englishman in the second quality, he excels both in combing them. He shows greater grace in intercourse than an Englishman, and while he does not bring as much agreeable vivacity and wit to a social gathering as a French man, he displays greater modesty and reason. He is, as in all kinds of matters of taste, as in love, rather methodical. In combing the beautiful with the sublime, he is cool enough in feeling to occupy his mind with considerations of good manners, of magnificence and of public opinion. Therefore family, title and status are matters of great importance to him both in civil life and in love affairs. He asks, much more than the other two nations, what people may think of him, and if there is anything in his character which would suggest the wish for a major improvement, it is this weakness, as a result of which he does not make bold to be original, although he has the necessary talents the German concerns himself so much with the opinion of others that it deprives his moral qualities of all firmness, making them changeable and falsely artificial. If we apply these thoughts to any particular case, for example to evaluate the sense of honor in different peoples, the following national differences appear. The sentiment of honor is in the frenchman vanity, in the Spaniard haughtiness, in the English man pride, in the German ostentation... These expression seem at first sight to mean the same thing, but they signify very noticeable differences. Vanity seeks acclaim, is fickle and changeable, but in external conduct is polite. The haughty is filled with a sense of falsely imagined great qualities, does not compete for the acclaim of others, in conduct is stiff and arrogant. Pride is really only a greater consciousness of one's own value which may often be quite justified, but the conduct of the proudman who is also vain. The acclaim which he seeks from others titles, pedigrees and display. The German is badly infected with this weakness. words such as gracious, well-inclined, high and well-born and similar bombast make his address stiff and clumsy and prevent the beautiful simplicity which other people can give their diction. The conduct of a ostentatious man is ceremonious in intercourse. In love, the German and the Englishman have a pretty good stomach, a bit fine in sentiment, but of a hale and hearty taste. The Italian is in this respect moody, the spaniard fantastic, the Frenchman inclined to enjoy forbidden fruit. The religion of our continent is not a matter of willful taste, but has a more venerable origin. Hence only its excrescences and what is peculiar to particular kinds of men can indicate signs of the following main heads: credulity, superstition, fanaticism, and indifferentism. The ignorant part of every nation is credulous, although it has no finer feeling. The persuasion results merely from hearsay and apparent authority without any kind of finer feeling providing an impulse. For examples of this kind of people one must seek in the NOrth. The credulous, if he has a quixotic taste, becomes superstitious. This taste is in itself a reason for believing something more readily. Of two people of whom one has been infected by this sentiment, while the other is of a cold and temperate disposition, the first will be more easily seduced by his dominant tendency to believe something unnatural, even though he has more intelligence than the other who has not insight but by his ordinary and phlegmatic sentiment preserves himself from such an illusion. The superstitious in religion likes to imagine as standing between himself and the highest being some powerful and astonishing persons, giants of sanctity, so to speak, whom nature obeys and whose exorcising voice opens and closes the iron gates of Tartarus----men whose heads touch the heavens while their feet still rest upon the lowly earth. Common sense and its teaching will therefore have to surmount great obstacles in Spain, not because one would have to drive out ignorance, but because such common sense is obstructed by a curious taste which looks upon the natural as "common"and which never believes to be feeling the sublime unless the object of the sentiment is quixotic. Enthusiasm is so to speak a devout audacity which is caused by a certain pride and a too great self-confidence[ which imagines that is can]come close to the divine nature yet rise above the ordinary and prescribed order of nature. The enthusiast talks only of direct intuition and of the contemplative life, while the superstitious makes vows before the pictures of great and miracle-performing saints and puts his faith into the imagined and inimitable superiority of other persons over himself. Even these excrescences, as we suggested above, are manifestations of national sentiment. Hence fanaticism has, as least in former times, been encountered most in Germany and England. It is like the unnatural excrescences of the noble sentiment which belongs to the character of these nations. Such fanaticism is not nearly as damaging as the superstitious tendency, even though it is virulent at the start, because the excitment of a roving spirit gradually cools off and must in the end arrive at an orderly moderation. Superstition, on the other hand, gets imperceptible deeply rooted in a quiet and suffering mind and deprives a man thus chained of the confidence that he can shake off his noxious illusion. finally, a vain and carefree man is at all times without a strong sense of the sublime; his religion is without emotion, but is mostly a matter of fashion which he attends to with grace though remaining cold. this is the practical indifferentism toward which the French national spirit seems most inclined; from such indifferentism to impious mockery is only a step; it means, if one considers the inner value, little more than a complete rejection[of religion]...

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  此生有味 (认真的生活和老去) 2014-12-28 17:01:44

  康德小组里谈论康德美学的甚少

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  Shulammite 楼主 2014-12-28 17:04:03

  康德小组里谈论康德美学的甚少 康德小组里谈论康德美学的甚少 此生有味

  康德主要针对就不是美学，在众多著作里评论美学的可能就仅此一篇

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  此生有味 (认真的生活和老去) 2014-12-28 17:06:21

  康德主要针对就不是美学，在众多著作里评论美学的可能就仅此一篇 康德主要针对就不是美学，在众多著作里评论美学的可能就仅此一篇 Shulammite

  嗯 不过美学也的确是他哲学体系不可缺少的一部分 想了解康德美学的国外研究状况 不知阁下有无推荐？

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  Shulammite 楼主 2015-01-30 06:01:59

  嗯 不过美学也的确是他哲学体系不可缺少的一部分 想了解康德美学的国外研究状况 不知阁下有无推 嗯 不过美学也的确是他哲学体系不可缺少的一部分 想了解康德美学的国外研究状况 不知阁下有无推荐？ ... 此生有味

  我对他的美学不是特别了解，康德美学受莱布尼兹的影响很大 可以看看莱布尼兹的美学著作 美学aethesis也是感觉的意思。你要是对道德形而上学也感兴趣的 我有些译本和读物可以一起分享讨论

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