The Philosopher and the Storyteller: Eric Voegelin and Twentieth-Century Literature - Brossura

Embry, Charles R.

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0826221521 ISBN 13: 9780826221520

Casa editrice: Univ of Missouri Pr, 2018

Riassunto

Throughout his philosophical career, Eric Voegelin had much to say about literature in both his published work and his private letters. Many of his most trenchant comments regarding the analysis of literature appear in his correspondence with critic Robert Heilman, and, through his familiarity with that exchange, Charles Embry has gained extraordinary insight into Voegelin’s literary views.

The Philosopher and the Storyteller is the first book-length study of the literary dimensions of Voegelin’s philosophy—and the first to use his philosophy to read specific novels. Bringing to bear a thorough familiarity with both Voegelin and great literature, Embry shows that novels—like myths, philosophy, and religious texts—participate in the human search for the truth of existence, and that reading literature within a Voegelinian framework exposes the existential and philosophical dimensions of those works.

Embry focuses on two key elements of Voegelin’s philosophy as important for reading literature: metaxy, the in-between of human consciousness, and metalepsis, human participation in the community of being. He shows how Voegelin’s philosophy in general is rooted in literary-symbolic interpretation and, therefore, provides a foundation for the interpretation of literature. And finally he explores Voegelin’s insistence that the soundness of literary criticism lies in the consciousness of the reader.

Embry then offers Voegelinian readings that vividly illustrate the principles of this approach. First he considers Graham Swift’s Waterland as an example of the human search for meaning in the modern world, then he explores the deformation and recovery of reality in Heimito von Doderer’s long and complex novel The Demons, and finally he examines how Flannery O’Connor’s The Violent Bear It Away mythically expresses the flux of divine presence in what Voegelin calls the Time of the Tale.

The Philosopher and the Storyteller unites fiction and philosophy in the common quest to understand our nature, our world, and our cosmos. A groundbreaking exploration of the connection between Voegelin and twentieth-century literature, this book opens a new window on the philosopher’s thought and will motivate readers to study other novels in light of this approach.

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Informazioni sull'autore

Charles R. Embry is Professor of Political Science at Texas A&M University–Commerce. He is the editor of Robert B. Heilman and Eric Voegelin: A Friendship in Letters, 1944–1984 and coeditor of Philosophy, Literature, and Politics: Essays Honoring Ellis Sandoz, both available from the University of Missouri Press.

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The Philosopher and the Storyteller

Eric Voegelin and Twentieth-Century Literature

By Charles R. Embry

University of Missouri Press

Copyright © 2008 The Curators of the University of Missouri
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8262-2152-0

Contents

Acknowledgments, 
Abbreviations of Works Cited in the Text, 
Prologue "Composed of Wonders": Literature of the Spirit, 
Part I The Philosopher, 
1. "One of My Permanent Occupations": Eric Voegelin as Literary Critic, 
2. "The Attunement of the Soul": Eric Voegelin's Search of Order, 
3. Writer, Reader, and the Adventure of Participatory Consciousness, 
Part II The Storyteller, 
4. The Barren Quest: Graham Swift's Waterland, 
5. "A Secret between Man and God": Second Reality in Heimito von Doderer's The Demons, 
6. Novel of Divine Presence: Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away, 
Epilogue "Our Love of Life, Children, Our Love of Life", 
Appendix 1. Brief Overview of the Literary Topics, 
Appendix 2. Waterland: Primary Characters and Setting, 
Appendix 3. Waterland: Chronology by Chapter Title, 
Appendix 4. Characters from The Demons Included in Chapter 5, 
Appendix 5. Heimito von Doderer: Biography, with Events from The Demons, 
Glossary, 
Works Cited, 
Index, 
Credits, 

CHAPTER 1

"One of My Permanent Occupations"

Eric Voegelin as Literary Critic

The occupation with works of art, poetry, philosophy, mythical imagination and so forth, makes sense only if it is conducted as an inquiry into the nature of man.

~ ERIC VOEGELIN TO ROBERT B. HEILMAN

There are many reasons for writing a book that relies upon the philosophical work of Eric Voegelin for the interpretation of modern literature. Not the least of these is Voegelin's own understanding of the nature of his work and vocation. In a letter dated December 19, 1955, he wrote to his friend Robert B. Heilman, the English literature scholar and literary critic:

Your letter of Dec. 11th came just in time this morning, for I wanted to write you today anyway to thank you for the delightful review of Critics and Criticism. It had thrown me into a mood of indecision, because your refined politeness left me in doubt whether I should not read the volume, because literary criticism is after all one of my permanent occupations. (AFIL, letter 57, p. 142)

Eric Voegelin considered literary criticism one of his permanent occupations because of the necessity that confronted him as he worked toward the preparation of what he intended as his first major work in English — The History of Political Ideas. In order to command his material, Voegelin began systematically working through the primary texts left by human beings who had themselves searched for, explored, and articulated the nature of their humanity and its order. Confronting these ancient documents led Voegelin to reflect upon how a modern scholar could understand these literary works by penetrating to the experiences that had engendered their articulations in stories, myths, scripture, dialogues, and treatises. While working on the History of Political Ideas in 1952, and still several years before his abandonment of that project and its replacement with Order and History (volume I was published in 1956), he wrote to his friend Heilman, asking him to read (and mark for correction any errors) the "MS of the first chapter of the History of Political Ideas, which [is] supposed to develop the principles of interpretation for the whole subsequent study. The chapter, thus, has a certain importance, both as the first one and as the statement of principles" (letter 37, May 3, 1952, p. 107). Indeed, this manuscript was to become the introduction to the heir of the abandoned History of Political Ideas, namely, Order and History. The reflections contained therein expanded beyond the development of interpretive principles that guided Voegelin's reading of texts into a philosophical search not only for manifestations of order in history but also for the ground of being and the destiny of humanity.

Voegelin's considered observations focusing specifically on literature, literary issues, and literary criticism, and the philosophical issues that flow from these — perhaps nowhere more explicitly expressed than in his correspondence with Heilman — appear in four places in that correspondence:

1. explicit principles of literary criticism expressed in letters 63 (July 24, 1956) and 65 (August 22, 1956) in response to his reading and responding to Magic in the Web, Heilman's book on Othello;

2. brief comments on interpretive method with specific statements on the use of language in imaginative works contained in letter 9 (April 9, 1946) as response to Heilman's Lear MS, later published as This Great Stage;

3. a substantive interpretation of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw found in letter 11 (November 13, 1947), supplemented by more explicit attention to the philosophical dimensions of literary interpretation in his 1971 postscript to the earlier letter, both of which are published in Southern Review;

4. a substantive sketch that focused on literature and myth found in letter 103 (August 13, 1964), which drew Heilman's attention to the symbol "Time of the Tale."

While an examination of the principles of Voegelin's criticism offers an obvious starting point in looking at his work with literature, it must be emphasized before we begin that his philosophy and philosophical work provide the framework within which these principles are embedded. In fact, Heilman recognized this characteristic in Voegelin's work. In his remembrance of Voegelin, first published in the winter 1996 issue of Southern Review, Heilman, while identifying his own form of literary criticism as "psychological" analysis, remarked that Voegelin found in literature "an interplay of philosophical issues and spiritual forces, a clash of symbols rather than a confrontation of psyches."

For a literary critic to be first and foremost a philosopher would appear to be a formidable qualification, but in returning to the Platonic understanding of that term — as Voegelin did — we find that a philosopher need only be a lover of wisdom. This is a very important understanding of the term philosopher, because it places the accent on lover without forcing a definition of wisdom. The philosophical search in which a lover of wisdom engages is fundamentally Socratic, characterized by an essential humility and knowing ignorance, which requires the philosopher to recognize that for human beings there can be no final, complete knowledge of wisdom. A philosopher must remain open to a continual search that builds, nonetheless, on the activities and insights of all individuals so engaged. The philosophical search, however, proceeds from a foundational experiential knowledge, for as Socrates says in his Apology, "to do wrong, and to disobey those who are better than myself, whether god or man, that I know to be bad and disgraceful." The philosopher then can discover and experience the ground of being even though this ground remains rooted in mystery and cognitively impenetrable. For Voegelin, as we will see, it is the human lot to exist in the metaxy, the In-Between, and to participate in reality with the "body, soul, intellect, and spirit."

Since Voegelin's philosophy of consciousness occupies center stage in his work, the consciousness and modes of consciousness of the writer-creator, the reader, and the critic are crucial in any sort of Voegelinian literary criticism. Like the writer, the reader and the critic must rely on consciousness as the site in which the imaginative act of criticism occurs. But what is consciousness and what is the empirical ground upon which the critic's consciousness lays claim to the truth of his criticism? To begin to address this question, we must consider the hermeneutical principles of two critical letters that Voegelin wrote to Heilman in 1956.

VOEGELIN'S PRINCIPLES OF LITERARY CRITICISM

In 1956, Heilman had published his study of Othello, Magic in the Web, and dedicated it to Voegelin. This dedication furnished the occasion for a remarkable exchange of ideas on literary criticism. In the same year, Voegelin had published Israel and Revelation (volume I of Order and History), the first book-length study to result from the abandoned History of Political Ideas, on which he had worked since 1939. Voegelin's approach to literary criticism is revealed in this exchange and is susceptible of reduction to three "simple," yet interwoven and dependent, principles.

THE LITERARY CRITIC MUST EXHAUST THE SOURCE

This principle is easy enough to understand as rooted in a common-sense approach to literary texts. Of course one must first give precedence to the text itself. In order to exhaust the source, however, the critic must assume "the role of the disciple who has everything to learn from the master." The corollary to this assumption — that the critic must recognize that the author knew what he was doing when he wrote the text — is rooted not only in common sense but also in the basic humility with which a reader-critic must approach works of literature, especially the literary "classics" of antiquity. This first principle, along with its assumptions and elaborations, emerges in the context of Voegelin's letter dated July 24, 1956. He had written to Heilman in order to convey his gratitude for the dedication "in the only way I can thank, by response to the contents" (letter 63, p. 150). This response opens with the observation that the formal quality of the book — its construction, which requires the reader "to read it from the beginning in order to get its full import" — "is intimately bound up with your method and your philosophical position." Voegelin then proceeded to identify "exhaustion of the source" as the first principle of Magic, and to explain that this formal principle was the fundamental attitude with which he approached classical literary texts himself, for "no adequate interpretation of a major work is possible, unless the interpreter assumes the role of the disciple who has everything to learn from the master" (ibid.). Exhaustion of the source is grounded by several assumptions: (1) that the author "knew" what he was doing; (2) that the parts of the text work together; and (3) that the "texture of the linguistic corpus" gives rise to meaning (ibid.).

THE LITERARY CRITIC MUST RELY UPON AN INTERPRETIVE TERMINOLOGY THAT IS CONSISTENT WITH THE LANGUAGE SYMBOLS OF THE SOURCE ITSELF

This second principle grows from the first. The critic who submits to the master as a disciple must discipline himself if he is to understand the words of the master. This discipline imposes upon such a critic an interpretive terminology consistent with the language symbols of the source and will ensure, as far as possible, that an interpretive scheme that is external to the source itself will obscure neither the meanings embedded in the text nor the intentions of its author. The critic, extending the interpretation as far as the symbols will allow, thus fulfills the primary directive to "exhaust the source." Voegelin argued that exhaustion of the source requires that "the terminology of the interpretation, if not identical with the language symbols of the source (a condition that can frequently be fulfilled in the case of first-rate philosophers, but rarely in the case of a poem or a myth), must not be introduced from the 'outside', but be developed in closest contact with the source itself for the purpose of differentiating the meanings which are apparent in the work" (letter 63, p. 151). By rigorously following this second principle, the critic will avoid imposing an interpretation on the work that the work itself will not sustain.

THE CRITIC MUST DEVELOP A "SYSTEM" OF INTERPRETATION THAT EXTENDS THE POET'S COMPACT SYMBOLIZATIONS IN THE SAME DIRECTION INDICATED BY THE POET INTO A PHILOSOPHICALLY CRITICAL LANGUAGE

At this point, Voegelin maintained that the work of the literary critic is simply an analytical, rational continuation of an author's work along the tracks laid out in the work of art itself. The discipline, in Heilman's case, of rigorously adhering to the language of the play (Othello) extended from a "strand of compact motifs to the more immediate differentiations and distinctions in terms of a phenomenology of morals" (letter 63, p. 151). Because of the compactness of the symbolic language of the work, the literary critic can only rely upon the "linguistic corpus" until he has exhausted the meanings embedded therein. At that point, the critic must develop a "system" of interpretation that extends the poet's compact symbolizations in the same direction indicated by the poet into a philosophically critical language. After exhausting the source by following the author's symbols as far as they can be extended in interpretation, the critic must now translate the analytical immediacy of the poet's compact symbolism "of the whole of human nature that in the poem is carried by the magic in the web," into the rational order of his work in which the "whole of human nature" must "now be carried by the magic of the system." "And here," Voegelin praised Heilman for his work, "I am now full of admiration for your qualities as a philosopher. For you have arranged the problem of human nature in the technically perfect order of progress from the peripheral to the center of personality. ... You begin with ... the problem of appearance and reality; and you end with the categories of existence and spiritual order — with life and death, love and hate, eros and caritas, transfiguration and demonic silence" (letter 63, p. 152).

This final principle of literary criticism goes to the heart of the human understanding of reality and to the heart of the philosophical enterprise. Here, in 1956, Voegelin is beginning to articulate his discovery of the importance of a critical-analytical consciousness — a consciousness that is especially important in cases where the artist creates works that symbolize deformations of human consciousness and, accordingly, the structure of reality. The principles of Voegelin's literary criticism thus were articulated within a larger framework; and whenever he discoursed on literary issues in his letters to Heilman, he placed these issues within a philosophical-historical context. While in letter 57 (December 19, 1955), Voegelin had commented almost offhandedly that literary criticism was one of his "permanent occupations," we learn in letter 65 (August 22, 1956) that literary criticism "makes sense only if it is conducted as an inquiry into the nature of man" (letter 65, p. 157).

To inquire into the nature of man involves the literary critic in historical inquiry, and it is clear that Voegelin understands Heilman's literary criticism in this context, since he consistently refers to him as a historian of literature rather than as a literary critic. Responding to Heilman's comments in a letter of August 19, 1956, which focused on the historical relativism characteristic of the academic debates within the narrower discipline of literary criticism itself, Voegelin articulated his position that human existence is historical existence, that human nature is revealed in the historical documents (literature) of the past, and that the revelation of human nature in the literature of the past is thus the basis for his literary criticism. "Your letter," Voegelin writes,

supplies at least some of the items that were beyond my diagnostic abilities — and I can summarize them now as the historism apparently rampant in literary criticism.

... The various questions which you indicate in your letter seem to me to be all connected with the effort to find the critical basis beyond historical relativism, and by that token they are connected with each other. The question of the "was" and the "is" that you raise is, for instance, in my opinion only another facet of the question raised earlier in your letter that, on the one hand, one can only get out of the play what one brings to it while, on the other hand, if one lays oneself open to the play, one can get considerably more out of it than one thought one had brought to it. Let me dwell a bit on this issue, because it is after all the central issue of my life as a scholar and apparently yours, too. (letter 65, p. 156)

Dwelling upon the problem of historicism, Voegelin argued that to understand the revelation of human nature in various literary forms is the raison d'être of literary criticism itself. In the same letter, Voegelin asserts:

The occupation with works of art, poetry, philosophy, mythical imagination, and so forth, makes sense only if it is conducted as an inquiry into the nature of man. That sentence, while it excludes historicism, does not exclude history, for it is peculiar to the nature of man that it unfolds its potentialities historically. Not that historically anything "new" comes up — human nature is always wholly present — but there are modes of clarity and degrees of comprehensiveness in man's understanding of his self and his position in the world. ... Hence, the study of the classics is the principal instrument of self-education; and if one studies them with loving care, as you most truly observe, one all of a sudden discovers that one's understanding of a great work increases (and also one's ability to communicate such understanding) for the good reason that the student has increased through the process of study — and that after all is the purpose of the enterprise. (At least it is my purpose in spending the time of my life in the study of prophets, philosophers, and saints.) ... History is the unfolding of the human Psyche; historiography is the reconstruction of the unfolding through the psyche of the historian. The basis of historical interpretation is the identity of substance (the psyche) in the object and the subject of interpretation; and its purpose is participation in the great dialogue that goes through the centuries among men about their nature and destiny. And participation is impossible without growth in stature (within the personal limitations) toward the rank of the best; and that growth is impossible unless one recognizes authority and surrenders to it. (ibid., p. 157)

(Continues...)

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Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Univ of Missouri Pr
• Data di pubblicazione: 2018
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0826221521
• ISBN 13: 9780826221520
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 192
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile