The “Yawning Chasm between Reason and Feeling”: The Dæmoniacal/Dionysian Seduction of the Abyss in Russian Symbolist Poetry

Mikhail Vrubel’s “A Seated Demon” (1890)

THE “YAWNING CHASM BETWEEN REASON AND FEELING”: THE DÆMONIACAL/DIONYSIAN SEDUCTION OF THE ABYSS IN RUSSIAN SYMBOLIST POETRY

The catalyst for the literary explosion of the Russian Silver Age can be accurately traced to Symbolism. Symbolism was imported into Russia during the fin de siècle from France, where such pioneers as Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, Stephane Mallarmé, and Paul Valéry had helped to engineer it as the first truly modern poetic style. Members of the Russian intelligentsia, an amalgamation of petty nobles from the old aristocracy (dvoriane) and the mandarins of the Russian bureaucratic class, were generally educated in the French language. They were thus aware of recent literary trends afoot in France, and were often receptive to their cultural influence.

“On the Causes of the Present Decline and New Currents in Contemporary Russian Literature,” a long critical essay by Dmitrii Merezhkovskii, was published in 1892, setting in motion the Symbolist movement in Russia. In this essay he bemoaned the poverty of literary genius in Russia after the death of Dostoevskii. He felt that there should be a distinctly modern literary form to express the content of modernity — content which had been shaped by the aftermath of the epistemological crisis of Kant. Citing the example of the French Symbolism, Merezhkovskii proposed that Russian poets adopt a similar poetic program and attempt to transcend the limits of knowledge. His argument captured the literary imagination of the day, and many responded to his national call for a fresh poetic form to frame the content of modernity.

The Russian language lent itself well to Symbolist verse, and soon Konstantin Balmont, Valerii Briusov, and Fedor Sologub established themselves as the premier representatives of the new genre. Cafés, clubs, and salons began to thrive as popular purlieus for Symbolist intellectuals. The æsthetic philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Oscar Wilde were frequent topics of discussion. Its incorporation of the religious philosophy of Vladimir Solovev, which was widely-read at the time, also helped secure Symbolism’s favorable public reception. The further assimilation of nineteenth-century Russian influences such as Gogol and Leskov, Symbolism swiftly gained acceptance amongst the intelligentsia and cultural elite. After the initial wave of Symbolism had won the general recognition of the Russian public, Aleksandr Blok, Viacheslav Ivanov, and Andrei Bely eventually surfaced as the new poetic masters in the movement. Blok’s career would be celebrated in all its stages, and he was judged by many to be the greatest national poet since Pushkin. His poem “The Stranger” became a defining piece of Russian literature. Bely, a longtime friend of Blok’s, was likewise adored in his time, publishing Petersburg in 1916, which would go on to become one of the most famous literary accounts of life in the Russian imperial capital. With the successful promotion of the Symbolist æsthetic, Russia was finally ushered into the modern European literary discourse.†

Updates

Karl Leonhard Reinhold

 

I’ve diligently read through F.H. Jacobi’s 1785 Letters Concerning the Doctrine of Spinoza in Conversations with Lessing and Mendelssohn and K.L. Reinhold’s 1789 The Foundation of Philosophical Knowledge over the last two days. From here I’m going to proceed to G.E. Schulze’s 1790 Aenesidemus essay, which harshly challenged the claims of Kantian-Reinholdian philosophy from the perspective of Humean skepticism. After that I can finally advance into Fichte’s and Maimon’s contributions to the fate of the Critical philosophy in the 1790’s.

No clever observations, groundbreaking realizations, or didactic expositions today, folks. But you can expect something along these lines in the next couple days. I’m quite confident that this study I’m making will prepare me well for an inquiry into François Laruelle’s notion of “the One.” Perhaps a comment on the new Speculative Heresy blog is in the works.

In the meantime, however, I’ve received the latest revision of my paper on Spinoza and Leibniz from Boston University’s Arché magazine for undergraduate philosophy. This piece will appear in the forthcoming issue. Check out the current articles on their site, however; they have an interview with Jaako Hintikka!

From Kant’s Critiques to the “Spinoza Controversy”

 

Today I finished reading Kant’s Critique of Judgment.  This was my first reading of this work in its entirety; it has been my goal (now accomplished) in the last three weeks to read all three Critiques from start to finish, chronologically, interrupted only by reading his essays “What is Enlightenment?”, “Perpetual Peace,” and “Speculative Beginning of Human History.”  While all these works are excellent, the third Critique might be my favorite.  Kant didn’t even realize how good it is.

Now I plan to begin exploring in earnest the famous “Spinoza controversy” that involved Lessing, Mendelssohn, Jacobi and others in the 1780’s and, along with the presentation of Kant’s critical philosophy, dominated the philosophical scene therein.  As a preliminary measure, I’ve been brushing up on Spinoza’s Ethics.  From there, I hope to finally familiarize myself with Jacobi’s work from this period.

Quite happily, my reacquaintance with Spinoza might complement nicely the project that I have been asked to join with regard to Laruelle’s notion of “non-philosophy.”  In revisiting Spinoza’s concept of the One, I might better be able to understand Laruelle’s non-philosophical emendation pf it.

Speculative Heresy

Taylor Adkins from Fractal Ontology has invited me to participate in a new blog, Speculative Heresy, which will deal with issues of non-philosophy.  “Non-philosophy” refers to a position that has been expounded in the last few decades by prominent French thinkers such as Laruelle.  Authors from the blogs Naught Thought and Accursed Share will be contributing to this effort as well.  I am excited to have received this opportunity, and hope to do my part in this collaboration.

Thoughts on François Laruelle’s Preface and Introduction to Principles of Non-Philosophy (as translated by Fractal Ontology’s Taylor Adkins)

Thoughts on François Laruelle’s Preface and Introduction to Principles of Non-Philosophy (as translated by Fractal Ontology’s Taylor Adkins)

Taylor Adkins, from Fractal Ontology, has graciously shared with me some advanced rough drafts of his continuing translations of François Laruelle’s work from French into English. This morning I read one of the more introductory, programmatic pieces he sent — the preface and introduction to Principles of Non-Philosophy. This outlines in broad strokes Laruelle’s notion of “non-philosophy,” which, from what I gather, is one of the central themes of his work. The work exhibits an uncommon originality in its interpretations of traditional philosophical (and extra-philosophical) problems, accompanied by a casual erudition which appeals to my tastes greatly. Personally, I do foresee problems (or at least significant obstacles) which will present themselves to Laruelle’s enterprise, which may be dealt with more or less adequacy. Given the competence and ingenuity he displays in this short piece, however, I have no doubt that he will make an honest go of it. It would be ridiculous, in any case, to demand an exhaustive treatment or solution to these problems from a work which he openly admits is propaedeutic in its function (i.e., it only aims to be “the most complete introduction to non-philosophy in the absence of its realization”).

What follows are my initial thoughts in response to this piece. I will refrain from idle speculation into those sections which exceed my topical familiarity at present, and focus mostly on some of the references and implications which I take to be most plainly evident in the text. In this way I might perform some small service of gratitude to Taylor for offering his work for discussion, contributing the occasional insights my background makes available for those who are interested. It is quite possible that my own take on what Laruelle is trying to say is mistaken; aware of this fact, I welcome criticism and correction from all sides.

Departing from the continental orientation toward questions of ontology (the logic of Being) and its differential corollary of alterity which has predominated in recent years, Laruelle grounds his exposition of “non-philosophy” in its (ontology’s) traditional rival, henology (the logic of the One). This classification is misleading, however. For Laruelle’s conception of the One is highly idiosyncratic. It differs in many respects from the object of the classical Platonic, Stoical, and Spinozistic henologies — the One(s) which philosophically ground(s) the order of appearances in their modal correspondence and community with one another.

On this point we may elaborate. Specifically, Laruelle seems to take issue with the place the One occupies within philosophies and mystical tradition, as something which is accomplished or realized through the relation of its subsidiary modes. This holds whether the One is reached by speculative/dialectical ascent (as in transcendental and Hegelian logic) or through revelation or religious vision (as in mysticism). This is why categorizing Laruelle’s thought as henological is potentially confused, because any “logic” which is thought to articulate the One cannot be conceived as literal. It can appear only in scare-quotes, since the One “is immanent (to) itself rather than to a form of thought, to a ‘logic.’”

Instead of being a mere object of philosophical and mystical discourse, a metaphysical ultimate, Laruelle therefore suggests that the One is already the Real, and constitutes the sole ground by which experience (and thus philosophy) are even possible. The inversion lies here: the One does not philosophically ground reality; rather, the One really grounds philosophy (along with every other mode of knowledge or experience). Moreover, this ground is original — which is to say that it does not follow from anything, but everything follows from it. Hence his repeated emphasis on the transcendental status of the One (the Kantian “conditions necessary for the possibility of”). These two aspects, the original and the transcendental qualities of Laruelle’s One, together form the critical points on which the thrust of his argument rides.

François Laruelle

François Laruelle —

This contemporary French philosopher has been brought to my attention by Fractal Ontology’s Taylor Adkins, who has apparently taken up the task of translating some of his works. This is a generous labor for the philosophical community at large, since practically none of his thought has been rendered into English. I must say that my interest has been piqued; Taylor informed me that Laruelle is influenced by J.G. Fichte, a philosopher whose work is largely skipped over or mentioned only briefly in the history of thought. Several translated sections of his work have appeared on the Fractal Ontology blog ( here, here, and here) , which I hope to read in some depth.

Taylor has expressed an interest in discussing Fichte’s work in its relation to Laruelle’s philosophy with me, an opportunity which I welcome enthusiastically. I think we might learn a lot from one another, since our research seems to be developing along similar lines.