Headstrom, Birger R.

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THE AESTHETIC WRITINGS OF SCHILLERBY BIRGER R. IIEADSTROMWHEN Schiller turned to Kant, he hoped to find in the Kantianphilosophy an escape from the conflict between the principles ofart and his creative impulses, to which his early philosophic studieshad given rise, and to regain, as well, his inner life and artisticspontaneity which they had destroyed. Exactly how he felt aboutthe matter can be seen from a letter to Korner, in which he sa}-s:"I am full of eagerness for some poetic task and particularly mypen is itching to be at 'W'allenstein." Really it is only in art itselfthat I feel my strength. In theorizing I have to plague myself allthe while about principles. There I am only a dilettante. Hut itis precisely for the sake of artistic creation that I wish to philoso-phize. Criticism must repair the damage it has done me. And ithas done me great damage indeed; for I miss in myself these manyyears that boldness, that living fire, that was mine before I knewa rule. Xow I see myself in the act of creating and fashioning; Iobserve the play of inspiration, and m\' imagination works lessfreely, since it is conscious of being watched. But if I once reachthe point where artistic procedure becomes natural, like educationfor the well-nurtured man, then my fancy will get back its old free-dom, and know no bounds but those of its own making." In short,what he sought, and did find, was a poetical inodus vivendi betweennatural impulse and artistic rule.It was at the academy at Stuttgart that Schiller obtained, fromthe "Institutes" of Ferguson, his first ideas on aesthetic philosophy.For Ferguson, in whom there was no distinction between the moraland aesthetic domain, all truth is beauty, "the most natural beautyin the world being honesty and moral truth." Also, for him, perfec-tion was made to depend on harmony and proportion ; moral beautyupon the harmony of the individual soul wdth the general scheme236 THE OPEN COURTof things ; while wrong action was equally looked upon as imperfec-tion. And virtue, inclining toward the general harmon\-, meant,necessarily, happiness. Such were the thoughts that defined Schil-ler's early philosophic writings, as the letters of Julius and Raphael,and the second book of The Ghostseer. But towards the end of hisfirst year at \\'eimar, a new field of exploration was opened to him.Vov the author of The Gods of Greece and The Artists as oneof the essential factors in human perfectibility, had assumed suchvast proportions of importance that he felt it of the gravest con-cern to understand it, this feeling, in fact, largely influencing himto utilize the Danish pension to a th(3rough stud\' of the Kantianaesthetics.A course of lectures on the theor\- of traged\' was the initialresult of this interest in art, and though the\' were never publishedtheir general import is contained in the two essays, "On the RationalBasis of Pleasure in Tragic Themes," and "( )n the Tragic Art."Tn the former, Schiller began b\' first contending that art has nohigher aim than the giving of pleasure, sa\ing that its aim is notmorality but "free pleasvn-e," by "free" meaning subject to no lawbut its own. and that if morality becomes its final aim it ceases tobe "free." He then passed on to a discussion of the problem of ourexperiencing pleasure in painful representations. To him, all plea-sure descends from the ])erception of Zzwckiuliscii/keit (the qual-ity of adaptability to the furtherance of an end) ; and as man meantto be happ\', human suffering must be a "maladaption" which affectspain. Since, howe\er, we are incited to activity by this pain, reasonrecognizes in it a higher "adaptation" and therefore knowing it isgood for us we take pleasure in our own pain. From which hearrived at the conclusion that the effect of tragedy is dependentupon the proportion in which this higher sense of adaptation ispresent.The gist of this argument is that aesthetic judgments are con-sidered to be dependent uj^on concepts of the mind, the reason, withits various abstractions, being viewed as the prior and dominatingfactor. Tn the other of the two essays we find, nevertheless, thatemotional excitement may give pleasure in and of itself; andthough numerous illustrations are given which indicate that Schillerdid not neglect the non-rational element in the pleasure afforded byTHE AESTTII-.TIC WRITI XC.S OF SCTIH.TJ:R 2.Vtraged}', \et he attached little importance to it for he claimed ihatwe are ac(|uainted with onl\- two sources of pleasure, the satisfac-tion of the inclination for happiness and the fulhllment of morallaws. After strug-j^lin^- with such hazy abstractions, he hnally at-tempted a practical discussion of tragedy graduall\- coming to regardits sole aim as being the excitation of "s\mpathy."B\- the \'ear 1793. Schiller had become familiar whh aestheticspeculations and moreover had found what he considered as a weakpoint in the S}-stem of Kant, that if it were futile to try to establishan objective criterion of beauty all aesthetic judgments must necess-arilv be reduced to a matter of taste,—a most undesirable conclu-sion. To Kant, the aesthetic faculty came imder the jurisdiction ofthe ''judgment,'" a judgment, according to him. being teleologic ifimplying a pre-existing notion to which the objectixe is expected toconform, aesthetic if the object gixes rise directl\- to pleasure orpain; in other words, though we have an interest in the good andthe agreeable, the beautiful is that which i)leases us without a[)])eal-ing to an\- interest, llowexer. this is merely its character under thecategor\' of ([ualitw for under that of (|uantit\- it is uni\ersal •j)lea-sure, while under that of relation it is a form of adaptation. And,tinallv, under modalit}' it is "necessary" because of the sensuscommunis of mankind, that is. it is determined rather l)\- theiragreement in taste than b\- an\" objective criterion.Aesthetics, then, for Kant was a subjecti\e matter. To him,it was not so much as what made objects beautiful, but rather asto how we "judge" them to be beautiful: in short, the essence ofbeauty was to please without reference to an\- intellectual conce])tsuch as objective attributes of form, proportion, harmon_\-, etc. Thefault with this is that a judgment which has no connection withthe intellect is not a judgment but a feeling, but despite this he had,at least, the merit of distincth' showing the necessit}- of distinguish-ing more clearl_\- between the beautiful and the good and agreeable.Furthermore, though insisting that beaut}' could not depend upon amental concept, he recognized "adaptation," notwithstanding itsbeing a concept of the mind, as a form of beauty, meeting this in-consistency, however, by making a distinction between free beautx'( pulchritudo vaga ) and adherent beauty (pulchritudo adhaerens).And, lasth", though he held that the highest use of beaut\- is to238 THE OrEN COURTsymbolize moral truth, he claimed, at the same time, that pure beautywas impossible in a moral action since it does not please in and ofitself.With such a philosophy, Schiller could not be satisfied. In aletter to the Prince of Augustenburg, dated the 9th of February,1793, he clearly expressed his attitude by sa}ing in part: "When Iconsider how closely our feeling for the beautiful and the great isconnected with the noblest part of our being, it is impossible forme to regard this feeling as a mere subjective play of the emotionalfaculty, capable of none but empirical rul'es. It seems to me thatbeauty too. as well as truth and right, must rest upon eternal founda-tions, and that the original laws of the reason must also be the lawsof taste. It is true that the circumstance of our feeling beauty andnot cognizing it seems to cut off all hoi)e of our finding a universallaw for it, because every judgment emanating from this source is ajudgment of experience. As a rule people accept an explanation ofbeauty onlv becatise it harmonizes in particular cases with the ver-dict of feeling, whereas, if there were really such a thing as thecognition of beauty from principles, we should trust the verdict offeeling because it coincides with our explanation of the beautiful.Instead of testing and correcting our feelings b\' means of prin-ciples, we test aesthetic principles by our feelings."In a series of letters to Korner, Schiller now set about to solvethe problem which Kant had regarded as impossible of solution.Although he agreed with the latter's view that beauty cannot dependupon a mental concept,^—the feeling of pleasure is the prior fact,he could not. at the same time, shake ofif the conviction that beautymust in some way fall under the laws of reason. He escaped fromthis difficulty, however, by removing the aesthetic faculty from thejurisdiction of Kant's "judgment" and giving it to the "practicalreason." his argument being that the practical reason must havefreedom just as well as the "pure reason" rationality, for freedomis the form instinctively applied by the practical reason upon thepresentation of an object, and is satisfied when, and only when, theobject is free and autonomous. Furthermore, practical reason, uponthe presentation of an object, can discard all concepts of the purereason and if then the object appears free, autonomous, it is satis-fied, the effect thus produced is pleasurable and we call it beauty.THE AESTIIF.TIC WRITINGS OF SCHII-LER 239HowcAei", as Schiller ])ointed out. it is all a c[uestion of appearancefor the object is not free as freedom is onl}- possible in the super-sensual world, yet the practical reason imputes this freedom to it.Hence he arrived to his solution that beaut\' is freedom in theappearance ( Freheit in der Erscheinung ).This doctrine Schiller applied, in a letter of February 23. 1793.to an exposition of the relation between nature and art. Accordingto the theory, the problem of an artist is to convey, in the represen-tation of the object, the suggestion of freedom, which he can onlydo hv making it appear to follow its own law : and which it musthave and obey while seemingly free, this law ( the basis of our im-pression of freedom ) being that revealed b}' technique. FollowingKant's saying that nature is beautiful when it looks like art. andart beautiful when it looks like nature, Schiller employed a largenumber of illustrations in support of his theory, tinally concludingby saying: "Therefore the empire of taste is the empire of freedom :the beautiful world of sense being the happiest symbol of what themoral world should be, and e\ery beautiful object about me beinga happy citizen who calls out: He free like me."Schiller was aware though that this criterion of beauty was afterall an idea of the reason, a difficulty which he promised to meet,but unfortunate!}- his aesthetic correspondence with Korner was notcontinued. In 'Sla.y and June of the same }ear, that is, 1793. he wasled to test his theory of beaut\- in the human form, in an essay onWinsomeness and Dignity, by Kant's dictum that there is no purebeauty to the human form because the human form expresses themoral dignity of human nature which is but an idea of the reason.As an illustration of his point, he made use of the girdle of A'enus,sa_\ing that though \'enus was pure beauty on coming from the handof nature, her girdle made her "winsome;" winsomeness being thensomething distinct from beauty, something transferable, movable;defined as beaut}- of motion, as the element of beautv which is notpossessed by nature but which is produced b}' the object. Schillerthen went on to make a distinction between architectonic and tech-nical beaut}-, the former being a beautiful presentation of the aimsof nature, while the latter refers onl}- to the aims themselves. Andit is the former with which the aesthetic facult}' is concerned, forin the contemplation of an object it is alone affected b}- its appear-240 THE OPEX COURTance which it isolates irrespective of purpose or adaptation, thoughat the same time freedom is imputed to it by the reason. In a word,when the object is a human form this imputed freedom, by whichit appears to assert its own autonomous personahty, and which isfurthermore added to the beauty which nature creates by the law-governed adaptation of means to an end, is winsomeness.Fully satisfied that beauty consists of the two elements, sensuouspleasure, and rational gratification, caused by personality, and theadaptation to an end, Schiller next considered the questions of moralbeauty and ideal of character. Of Kant's insistence upon the cate-gorical imperative of duty, he disapproved, for a man, he claimed,above all else must be free, the slavery of duty being to him nobetter than any other kind of slavery. Inclination to duty is, how-ever, virtue, the ideal being found in a perfect state of balancebetween the sensuous nature and the rational. And as winsome-ness is the expression of a beautiful soul, so he defined "dignitx"as the expression of a lofty mind,-—the expression of that intellec-tual freedom which controls the impulses by moral strength, andmanifested in suffering ( jtdSoc ) as winsomeness in behavior(yboq).Following this essay, Schiller next published On the Siihlime,in which was included a special chapter "On the Pathetic" and"Scattered Reflections on \'arious Aesthetic Subjects." Two otherpapers "On the Artistic Use of the Wilgar and the Low," and asecond disquisition "On the Sublime," though written during thesame period were not, however, published until 1801. Like Kant,he defined the sublime as the impression produced by an objectwhich excites in man's sensuous nature a feeling of weakness anddependence, and at the same time in his rational nature a feelingof freedom and superiorit}'. He objected though to the former'sterminology, and proposed instead, for Kant's terms of the mathe-matical and dynamic w'hich he had given to the two kinds of sub-lime, the names of the theoretical and the practical, by the formermeaning that which tends to overawe the mind, by the latter thatwhich tends to overawe the feeling. But the most important phaseof the practical sublime is the subject of tragic pathos, and hereSchiller took the view that the final aim of art is the representationof the supersensuous, declaring that the essence of tragic pathos isTHE AESTHKTIC WRITINGS OF SCHILLER 241the representation of moral suiteriority under the strain of sufferinj^.The spectacle of suffering" is in itself no end, for the sensuous hasinherently no aesthetic \alue : it is the moral resistance alone that isof anv account, the suffering being needed only to prove the necess-ity of resistance. In short, the hero's suff'erings must appear realin order that he may receive proper credit for his moral trium])h.In his discussions on the sublime and the pathetic, Schiller feltat man}' times that he was on the point of being carried away intothe region of barren speculation, and to offset this tendency hethought it necessar\- to j^-esent his ideas in a i)opular form as wellas to show their relation to the practical concerns of human life. Itwas this thought that finally led him to undertake a series of lettersto the Prince of Augustenburg. declaring, in a letter of July 13.1793, that the political dream of the century, of recreating societyupon a foundation of ])ure reason, had dissoK-ed into thin air for"man" had failed to show himself fit for freedom. Though hischains mights be removed, he was still a sla\e,—a slave to unrul\'passion, despite what the centur\- had done for the enlightenmentof his mind: and what was needed was evidently rather a disciplineof the feelings. In 1795, Schiller published, in the Horcii. his "Let-ters on Aesthetic Education" of which his letters to the Prince hadformed the basis, and which serve as the most agreeable expressionof his aesthetic ])hilosoph\-. The first ten were devoted to a discus-sion of the spirit of the age and to demonstrate the necessity" ofsome form of educational process by which mankind could be ])re-pared for the higher state of freeman, the problem being, in a word,the transformation of the state-ruled-by-force into a state-ruled-by-reason. To attain this end it was necessar)' that man should firstlearn how to o\ercome the despotism of sense, which leads to sav-ager}-, and the supineness of mind, which leads to barbarism, thesavage, Schiller defining, as a man whose feelings control his prin-ciples, and a barbarian as a man whose principles destro}' his feel-ings. The man coinnie il faiit must not onl\- establish but preservea state of balance between his sensuous and rational natures. Puthow was this to be done? For neither the state nor philosoph\- couldhelp him as the former treated him as if he had no reason, the latteras if he had no feelings. For the poet, his salvation lay, then, onlyin the aesthetic sense, the love of beautv.242 THE OPEN COURTTo show how the aesthetic sense could accomphsh this Schillerhad recourse of two ultimate instincts or bents of mankind whichhe called the "thing-bent" (Sachtrieb) and the "form-bent" (Form-tricb), the problem of culture being to bring them into harmony.As a means to this latter end, he then made use of the "play-bent"or "Spieltrieb," his idea being that in the moment of aesthetic con-templation both the sensuous and rational instincts find their reckon-ing; that is. the act of escaping from the pull of thought and feelingto a mental state which satisfies both without \ielding to either wasanalogous to the act of playing, the word meaning, as he employedit, a surrender to the illusion of art. Pla} being thus s\mbolic ofthe highest self-realization, man becomes completely man only inpla}'ing.Schiller then went on to say that the natural corrective to theemotional excess which leads to savagery is what he called likeKant scJiuiclzcnde Schdnhcit (melting beauty) ; while the antidoteto the mental inertness which leads to barbarism is enerf/ischeSchojilie'it (energizing beauty, that is, the sublime), the aestheticstate being recognized as being neutral as far as it concerns theinfluencing of the will. Ikit it is because of this that it is valuablemoralK'. for when a man is under the exclusive domination of eitherprinciples or feelings he is in danger of becoming a slave, and mustbe redrawn to the neutral zone of freedom. "In a word." saidSchiller, "there is no other way of making the sensuous man rationalexce[)t b\- first making him aesthetic." The pith of all this is thatsanit\' and refinement being exigencies good art serves to realizethem and in so doing indirectly furthers progress in right living andright thinking, a seemingly small result to have been obtained by somuch laborious logic-chopping, }et after all the value of the "Let-ters" is not to be found in the logic-chopping nor in "the dreadfularrav of first princijiles, the forest huge of terminology and defini-tions where the panting intellect of weaker men wanders as in path-less thickets and at length sinks powerless to the earch, oppressedwith fatigue and suft'ocated with scholastic miasma,"^ but rather intheir wealth of suggestive comment.In conclusion, we have only to mention his later minor papersas "On the Necessary Limits of the T.eautiful," in which he took1 Carlyle's Life of Schiller.THE AESTHETIC WRITINGS OF SCHILLER 243the view that the philosopher, aimini? at truth, should not tryto write beautifullv. for being- concerned rather with fact and logicthe lure of beauty ma> endanger truth by relaxing the mind, just asit mav relax the will and endanger morality, this latter thought beingcarried still further in his essays "On the Dangers of Aesthetic Cul-ture" and "On the floral Benefit of Aesthetic Culture" which are,however, merelv an extension of ideas contained in the "Letters."

The Aesthetic Writings of Schiller.

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The Aesthetic Writings of Schiller.

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