The Case of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms.
reasons?_… Perhaps her name, to use a Greek word is _Baubo_?—Oh these
Greeks, they understood the art of _living!_ For this it is needful to
halt bravely at the surface, at the fold, at the skin, to worship
appearance, and to believe in forms, tones, words, and the whole _Olympus
of appearance_! These Greeks were superficial—from _profundity_.… And are
we not returning to precisely the same thing, we dare-devils of intellect
who have scaled the highest and most dangerous pinnacles of present
thought, in order to look around us from that height, in order to _look
down_ from that height? Are we not precisely in this respect—_Greeks_?
Worshippers of form, of tones, of words? Precisely on that
account—_artists_?
SELECTED APHORISMS FROM NIETZSCHE’S RETROSPECT OF HIS YEARS OF FRIENDSHIP
WITH WAGNER.
(_Summer 1878._)
1.
My blunder was this, I travelled to Bayreuth with an ideal in my breast,
and was thus doomed to experience the bitterest disappointment. The
preponderance of ugliness, grotesqueness and strong pepper thoroughly
repelled me.
2.
I utterly disagree with those who were dissatisfied with the decorations,
the scenery and the mechanical contrivances at Bayreuth. Far too much
industry and ingenuity was applied to the task of chaining the imagination
to matters which did not belie their _epic_ origin. But as to the
naturalism of the attitudes, of the singing, compared with the orchestra!!
What affected, artificial and depraved tones, what a distortion of nature,
were we made to hear!
3.
We are witnessing the death agony of the _last Art_: Bayreuth has
convinced me of this.
4.
My picture of Wagner, completely surpassed him; I had depicted an _ideal
monster_—one, however, which is perhaps quite capable of kindling the
enthusiasm of artists. The real Wagner, Bayreuth as it actually is, was
only like a bad, final proof, pulled on inferior paper from the engraving
which was my creation. My longing to see real men and their motives,
received an extraordinary impetus from this humiliating experience.
5.
This, to my sorrow, is what I realised; a good deal even struck me with
sudden fear. At last I felt, however, that if only I could be strong
enough to take sides against myself and what I most loved I would find the
road to truth and get solace and encouragement from it—and in this way I
became filled with a sensation of joy far greater than that upon which I
was now voluntarily turning my back.
6.
I was in love with art, passionately in love, and in the whole of
existence saw nothing else than art—and this at an age when, reasonably
enough, quite different passions usually possess the soul.
7.
_Goethe_ said: “The yearning spirit within me, which in earlier years I
may perhaps have fostered too earnestly, and which as I grew older I tried
my utmost to combat, did not seem becoming in the man, and I therefore had
to strive to attain to more complete freedom.” Conclusion?—I have had to
do the same.
8.
He who wakes us always wounds us.
9.
I do not possess the talent of being loyal, and what is still worse, I
have not even the vanity to try to appear as if I did.
10.
He who accomplishes anything that lies beyond the vision and the
experience of his acquaintances,—provokes envy and hatred masked as
pity,—prejudice regards the work as decadence, disease, seduction. Long
faces.
11.
I frankly confess that I had hoped that by means of art the Germans would
become thoroughly disgusted with _decaying Christianity_—I regarded German
mythology as a solvent, as a means of accustoming people to polytheism.
What a fright I had over the Catholic revival!!
12.
It is possible neither to suffer sufficiently acutely from life, nor to be
so lifeless and emotionally weak, as to have _need_ of Wagner’s art, as to
require it as a medium. This is the principal reason of one’s _opposition_
to it, and not baser motives; something to which we are not driven by any
personal need, and which we do not _require_, we cannot esteem so highly.
13.
It is a question either of no longer _requiring_ Wagner’s art, or of still
requiring it.
Gigantic forces lie concealed in it: _it drives one beyond its own
domain_.
14.
_Goethe_ said: “Are not Byron’s audacity, sprightliness and grandeur all
creative? We must beware of always looking for this quality in that which
is perfectly pure and moral. All _greatness_ is creative the moment we
realise it.” This should be applied to Wagner’s art.
15.
We shall always have to credit Wagner with the fact that in the second
half of the nineteenth century he impressed art upon our memory as an
important and magnificent thing. True, he did this in his own fashion, and
this was not the fashion of upright and far-seeing men.
16.
Wagner _versus_ the cautious, the cold and the contented of the world—in
this lies his greatness—he is a stranger to his age—he combats the
frivolous and the super-smart—But he also fights the just, the moderate,
those who delight in the world (like Goethe), and the mild, the people of
charm, the scientific among men—this is the reverse of the medal.
17.
Our youth was up in arms against the _soberness_ of the age. It plunged
into the cult of excess, of passion, of ecstasy, and of the blackest and
most austere conception of the world.
18.
Wagner pursues one form of madness, the age another form. Both carry on
their chase at the same speed, each is as blind and as unjust as the
other.
19.
It is very difficult to trace the course of Wagner’s inner development—no
trust must be placed in his own description of his soul’s experiences. He
writes party-pamphlets for his followers.
20.
It is extremely doubtful whether Wagner is able to bear witness about
himself.
21.
There are men who try in vain to make a principle out of _themselves_.
This was the case with Wagner.
22.
Wagner’s obscurity concerning final aims; his non-antique fogginess.
23.
All Wagner’s ideas straightway become manias; he is _tyrannised_ over by
them. How can _such a man allow himself to be tyrannised over in this __
way_! For instance by his hatred of Jews. He _kills_ his themes like his
“ideas,” by means of his violent love of repeating them. The problem of
excessive length and breadth; he bores us with his raptures.
24.
“_C’est la rage de voulour penser et sentir au delà de sa force_”
(Doudan). The Wagnerites.
25.
Wagner whose ambition far exceeds his natural gifts, has tried an
incalculable number of times to achieve what lay beyond his powers—but it
almost makes one shudder to see some one assail with such persistence that
which defies conquest—the fate of his constitution.
26.
He is always thinking of the most _extreme_ expression,—in every word. But
in the end superlatives begin to pall.
27.
There is something which is in the highest degree suspicious in Wagner,
and that is Wagner’s suspicion. It is such a strong trait in him, that on
two occasions I doubted whether he were a musician at all.
28.
The proposition: “in the face of perfection there is no salvation save
love,”(16) is thoroughly Wagnerian. Profound jealousy of everything great
from which he can draw _fresh_ ideas. Hatred of all that which he cannot
approach, the Renaissance, French and Greek art in style.
29.
Wagner is jealous of all periods that have shown _restraint_: he despises
beauty and grace, and finds only his own _virtues_ in the “Germans,” and
even attributes all his failings to them.
30.
Wagner has not the power to unlock and liberate the soul of those he
frequents. Wagner is not sure of himself, but distrustful and arrogant.
His _art_ has this effect upon artists, it is envious of all rivals.
31.
_Plato’s Envy._ He would fain monopolise Socrates. He saturates the latter
with himself, pretends to adorn him (καλὸς Σωκράτης), and tries to
separate all Socratists from him in order himself to appear as the only
true apostle. But his historical presentation of him is false, even to a
parlous degree: just as Wagner’s presentation of Beethoven and Shakespeare
is false.
32.
When a dramatist speaks about himself he plays a part: this is inevitable.
When Wagner speaks about Bach and Beethoven he speaks like one for whom he
would fain be taken. But he impresses only those who are already
convinced, for his dissimulation and his genuine nature are far too
violently at variance.
33.
Wagner struggles against the “frivolity” in his nature, which to him the
ignoble (as opposed to Goethe) constituted the joy of life.
34.
Wagner has the mind of the ordinary man who prefers to trace things to
_one_ cause. The Jews do the same: one _aim_, therefore one Saviour. In
this way he simplifies German and culture; wrongly but strongly.
35.
Wagner admitted all this to himself often enough when in private communion
with his soul. I only wish he had also admitted it publicly. For what
constitutes the greatness of a character if it is not this, that he who
possesses it is able to take sides even against himself in favour of
truth.
_Wagner’s Teutonism._
36.
That which is un-German in Wagner. He lacks the German charm and grace of
a Beethoven, a Mozart, a Weber; he also lacks the flowing, cheerful fire
(_Allegro con brio_) of Beethoven and Weber. He cannot be free and easy
without being grotesque. He lacks modesty, indulges in big drums, and
always tends to surcharge his effect. He is not the good official that
Bach was. Neither has he that Goethean calm in regard to his rivals.
37.
Wagner always reaches the high-water mark of his vanity when he speaks of
the German nature (incidentally it is also the height of his imprudence);
for, if Frederick the Great’s justice, Goethe’s nobility and freedom from
envy, Beethoven’s sublime resignation, Bach’s delicately transfigured
spiritual life,—if steady work performed without any thought of glory and
success, and without envy, constitute the true _German_ qualities, would
it not seem as if Wagner almost wished to prove he is no German?
38.
Terrible wildness, abject sorrow, emptiness, the shudder of joy,
unexpectedness,—in short all the qualities peculiar to the Semitic race! I
believe that the Jews approach Wagner’s art with more understanding than
the Aryans do.
39.
A passage concerning the Jews, taken from Taine.—As it happens, I have
misled the reader, the passage does not concern Wagner at all.—But can it
be possible that Wagner is a Jew? In that case we could readily understand
his dislike of Jews.(17)
40.
Wagner’s art is absolutely the _art of the age_: an æsthetic age would
have rejected it. The more subtle people amongst us actually do reject it
even now. The _coarsifying_ of everything æsthetic.—Compared with Goethe’s
ideal it is very far behind. The moral contrast of these self-indulgent
burningly loyal creatures of Wagner, acts like a _spur_, like an irritant
and even this sensation is turned to account in obtaining an _effect_.
41.
What is it in our age that Wagner’s art expresses? That brutality and most
delicate weakness which exist side by side, that running wild of natural
instincts, and nervous hyper-sensitiveness, that thirst for emotion which
arises from fatigue and the love of fatigue.—All this is understood by the
Wagnerites.
42.
_Stupefaction or intoxication_ constitute all Wagnerian art. On the other
hand I could mention instances in which Wagner stands _higher_, in which
real joy flows from him.
43.