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Goethe, Nietzsche, and Wagner: Their Spinozan Epics of Love and Power by T. K. Seung Review by: Kate Rigby Religion & Literature, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Summer, 2007), pp. 105-108 Published by: The University of Notre Dame Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40060078 . Accessed: 12/07/2012 02:23
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Goethe, Nietzsche, and Wagner: Their Spinozan Epics of Love and Power.
T. K. Seung
Lexington Books, 2006. 402 pages. $29.95 paper.

In thishighlyoriginalcomparative T. K. Seungdrawstogetherand study, whichextendsovermore developsvariousstrandsof his earlierscholarship, thematics" to the reinthan fortyyears,in applyinghis methodof "cultural and works of of threeof the mostsignificant German, arguably terpretation Faust culture: Goethe'stwo-part drama,Nietzsche's philosophical European, The and Wagner's novel, Thus arathusfra, operatic'Gesamtkunstwerk,' Spake in different links these What works, Seung's formally very of iheKibelung. Ring is theirpoeticengagementwiththe naturalistic reconceptualisation analysis, All three, he argues,are of human destinycomprisedin Spinoza'sEthics. in with the Christianepic of contrast "Spinozanepics" that, by specifically as one of the human recast Middle the journey pantheistically Ages, they alienationand return,not to God, but to Mother Nature. Pointingto the of Spinoza'sphilosophicalmasterpiece,Seung proceeds epic-likestructure to read these artisticworksfor their philosophicalimport, the burden of which is that "the infinitesubstanceof Nature is the new God and a finite being can exist only as a mode of this infinite substance"(xvi).Thus, he asserts:
In these three epic models, the Faustian individuals come to learn through the agony of their self-assertion that the pursuit of individual sovereignty is self-defeating and self-destructive. For the absolute sovereignty can be secured only by cutting off the lifeline to Mother Nature. The Faustian individuals have to go through the trial of individuation to realize that the individual self can be fulfilled only in a greater self, whether it be the cosmic self, the communal self, or the cosmic mother.

This is,withoutdoubt,a bold claim,and one thatmanyscholars specialisIn want to or Nietzsche of in work the Goethe, dispute. Wagner might ing builds his carefuland lucidlyarguedexegesisof the texts,Seungnonetheless a strongcase in supportof his grand narrativeregardingtheir Spinozan of close reading, On one level, this constitutesa tour deforce underpinnings.
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albeit of a kind that is directedtowardsunlockinga singlelogicallyconsistent line of argumentation ratherthan multiplying meaningsand unveiling centrestagein Seung's it is the texts themselves that take aporias.Certainly, he his is intentionalist, interpretation. Although approach unapologetically His his conclusions. draws on other sources of evidence to rarely support in-text referencesto prior scholarshipare also rathersparse,other critics consistsof a generallyfiguringas sparringpartners,and the bibliography slender three pages. Only very occasionallydoes he registeruncertainty, as for example when he admitsof his readingof a particularly "baffling" "I am not sure if I have given the rightinterpassagefrom TheGayScience, pretationof Nietzsche'sreflectionon personalprovidence"(293). Clearly, for Seung, the text constitutesa code to be cracked,and he displaysconsiderablehermeneuticingenuityin doing so. Forme, this is most strikingly evidencedin his brilliantsolutionto the problemposed by the apparently otherworldly ending of Faust PartTwo,in which the Spinozanprojectof in Goethe'sterminology)is seema true (Erdensohn, becoming "earthling" the the salvation of errant hero's "immortalpart"part ingly betrayedby in a heavenlybeyond. In order to renderthis obscureepilogue consistent with the "mysticalnaturalism" that he has discernedin the workthus far, as a it Seung reinterprets "psychodrama" representingallegoricallythe within Faust's soul to his death, entailingthe surrenderof struggle prior selfishstrivingin favourof servinga wider communityand culminatingin the "mystical union of the individual self with the cosmicself in the Eternal Feminine"(145). While Goethe appropriates aspectsof Catholic imagery and even the VirginMary,he here, includingangels,anchorites,penitents does so in orderto promotean emphatically visionof natural post-Christian in the of a renascent Great Goddess,therebyrestoringthe divinity figure ancient "feminineprinciple"that had been "obliterated from the Western consciousness" will This not convince but in my religious (150). everybody; it at the an eyes is, very least, entirelyplausiblereading. of the waysin whichGoethe,Nietzscheand Wagner Seung'sexploration not only metaphorisebut also modify Spinoza'spantheismis particularly The most salient of these is Goethe's refiguringof Nature in interesting. terms of evolutionaryprocessin a bid to explain the ongoing emergence of a diverseorderof differentiated and increasingly complexbeingsout of a prior state of chaos or nothingness.In this connection, it is unfortunate that Seung has not consultedsome of the recentresearchon Romanticand Idealistreconceptualizations of Nature, such as that of Robert Richards, which points to the key role of Schelling'sNaturphilosophie in the development of evolutionarythinking,includingthat of Goethe. It shouldalso be noted thatthe introduction of processinto the conceptof Natureeffectively

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transforms pantheisminto panentheism,a term coined by the theologian C. C. E Krause (1781-1832) and inspiredby Schelling'sNaturphilosophie, for it implies that the divine is never fully disclosedin the physicalworld moment in time, which is but the continuously as it existsat any particular of an underlying naturans) productiveforce (natura changingproduct(natura naturata). Goethefurthermodifiesthe Spinozanmodel,accordingto Seung,by givFaustis redeemed with Nature an ethicalorientation: ing the reunification to the as he comes because realisation, expressedin his final belatedly only to that his task is not conquerMotherNature,but to be reunited soliloquy, with Her via "the communalbond with his fellow creatures" (117).While Nietzsche and Wagnerretain Goethe's dynamic processview of Nature, they once more eliminatethis ethicaldimension,recastingthe relationship between Nature's offspringin terms of a never-endingpower struggle, individual which can only be overcomeon the part of the "super-human" self or of with the cosmic an act of identification of means (arathustra) by the the returnto the cosmicMother(Twilight of Gods), Although cataclysmic newfoundenthusiasm cyclewas influencedby Wagner's ending of the Ring it is less insists that for Schopenhauer, pessimistic,and more NietzsSeung chean, than it might seem, as the musicalprogressionof concludingkey shiftsconnotes the idea of rebirth,promising"a new journey of creation and evolution [. . .] the only plausibleform of redemptionin the world of becoming"(335). Seung's hermeneuticendeavoursare ultimatelymore actualisingthan historicizing,and his book is somethingof an epic in its own right, with Goethe, Nietzscheand Wagnerfiguringratherlike Virgil,Beatriceand St. as guidesalongthe way to a new revelation. in Dante'sDivine Bernard Comedy For in his view, "our relentlessexploitationand contaminationof Nature of the Faustian and intensification is nothingother than the magnification one is the most fundamental ethos of Faustian the Hence problem project. for our scientificand industrialculture"(160). Here, as well as in its metaphysicalpremises,Seung's post-Christianversion of the human journey resonateswith much contemporaryecophilosophy, especiallythe similarly it nonethelessdiffers Where Mathews. of work Freya Spinozan-inspired with the question concern in is not evidently slight Seung's only markedly fellowearthlings(Natureas the of humanrelationswith other-than-human uncritical(and Many ratherthanjust the One), but also in his regrettably selfish of regarding arguments socio-biological unreferenced) incorporation differences. and gender genes Regardlessof how one might feel about his new revelation,Seung certainly succeeds in shedding fresh light on three complex works of great

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culturalsignificance. This is a compellingstudy,and one that is trulyfull of surprises!

KateRigby MonashUniversity