Musarion
Musarion or The Philosophy of the Graces. A poem in three books is a philosophical story of verse by Christoph Martin Wieland . He worked on it between 1764 and 1767, but did not publish it until 1768 with the Reich publisher in Leipzig, after his publisher Geßner in Zurich had rejected the text because of feared difficulties with the censorship. The text has been revised again and again for the following editions; the last edition appeared in 1795 in the 9th volume of Wieland's complete works .
In it, Wieland criticizes enthusiasm and dogmatism and instead pleads - in the spirit of enlightenment - for a measured, cosmopolitan way of thinking and living.
action
The action takes place on an estate near Athens during the Hellenistic period.
first book
Young Phanias strolls around his garden sullenly and thoughtfully. A short time ago he was still enjoying life to the full in Athens - but now that he has no more money, he laments the vanity of everything earthly and the impermanence of friendship. Like Hercules at the crossroads , he believes he has to choose between a life of pleasure and lust on the one hand and a virtuous life in search of fame and wisdom on the other. He chooses the latter and therefore flees from all temptations.
He sees his former girlfriend Musarion and hides from her, but she follows him. From their dialogue the reader learns that the two were friends for a long time, until he once surprised them asleep and immediately fell in love with this sight. She wanted to cure him (and herself as well) of this "crush" through a superficial relationship with a " dude [s]". This gave the impetus for Phanias' change: The time of passions and enthusiasm was over for him. Musarion mocks him because he dresses in rags like the Cynics , and admonishes him not to let the vicissitudes of fate determine his way of thinking: true happiness lies in friendship and the enjoyment of nature, not in material prosperity. Phanias, however, wants to isolate himself from all external stimuli and only draw happiness from inside himself - however, a look in love by Musarion upsets him and contradicts the attitude he has just expressed.
Evening comes, and Musarion asks Phanias to spend the night with him so that he doesn't have to return to the city at night. At first he fends off and then admits that he already has visitors: two philosophers, namely Kleanth, a stoic , and Theophron, a Pythagorean . Musarion insists on getting to know them and they both go to the house.
second book
The philosophers have now got into each other's hair and are fighting when Musarion and Phanias arrive at the house. Phanias is embarrassed by the situation, Musarion seems to flatter the philosophers with ironic comments, but actually makes fun of them. The fact that the stoic Kleanth lets himself be flattered by her reveals that no one is immune from self-love . Musarion wants Kleanth and Theophron to debate their thoughts at table so that they can learn from them. Kleanth boasts of his virtuous, celibate way of life, while Theophron defends pleasure - provided it is spiritual pleasure. The soul is supposed to be cleansed of everything corporeal and thereby made more godlike - ironically, he stares at Musarion's breasts during these remarks, which causes the conversation to stall. He also defends the enjoyment of music, since it is an image of the harmony of the spheres .
Both philosophers embarrass themselves with behavior that contradicts their teachings: While Theophron cannot take his eyes off Musarion's slave Chloe and wants to impress her with music and dance, Kleanth drinks too much wine, talks himself into a rage and in the end has to get away from the others be carried out. Meanwhile, Phanias and Musarion communicate with each other with a glance: She notices that he (despite his assurances) is still in love with her.
Third book
Phanias visits Musarion in her room at night and confesses his love to her. Musarion replies that she loves him too, but with a “gentle drive” and not with “enthusiasm”. When she withdraws from his embrace, he is offended, and she declares that she wants to make sure that it is not just a whim with him.
Then the two talk about Kleanth and Theophron: Phanias makes fun of them and is ashamed of having previously admired them as wise men. Musarion, however, sees something meaningful in their two systems and finds it "human" that the philosophers themselves are less wise than the systems they defend. She also understands Phanias: in a situation in which he was deprived of all pleasure, he willingly accepted teachings that extol deprivation and value the world of ideas more than earthly pleasures.
Only then does Musarion give himself up to Phanias. The couple has a happy time ahead of them “equally far from poverty and proud abundance”. Phanias did not know through the philosophers but through love what true happiness is.
Preface to the 2nd edition
For the second edition, published in March 1769, Wieland wrote a kind of open letter to Christian Felix Weisse instead of a foreword . In it he thanks White for his praise of the Musarion and expresses his joy at "the favorable judgment of so many other connoisseurs" that he received for this work. Wieland believed that “after so many all too imperfect attempts” he had now created a work that will outlast him.
Furthermore, he confesses that he designed the figure of Musarion as a "faithful representation of the figure [s] of a spirit" and gives an insight into his own way of life:
“Your philosophy is the one I live by; their way of thinking, their principles, their taste, their mood are mine. The mild light in which it looks at human things; this balance between enthusiasm and cold-heartedness, [...] this light joke, through which she knows how to separate the exaggerated , improper , chimerical [...] from the real in such a gentle way that she is imperceptible to certain tough minds; this Socratic irony , [...] this indulgence for the imperfections of human nature - [...] all these features [...] are the lineaments of my own mind and heart. "
style
Wieland combines an artful, complex sentence structure with a cheerful, ironic , and sometimes mocking tone. He uses a variety of allusions and references to figures from Greek and Roman mythology and history as well as to people from his present day - since not all references could be known to the contemporary reader either, he added explanatory notes to the text.
The phrase "not seeing the forest for the trees" comes from Wieland - he used it in several of his works, including Musarion : In the second book, the authorial narrator comments on the fact that Kleanth and Theophron do not notice the tender exchange of gaze between Musarion and Phanias , with the words: "The gentlemen of this kind often blinds too much light, / They do not see the forest for the trees."
Web links
literature
- Wieland's works in four volumes. Third volume. Selected and introduced by Hans Böhm. Aufbau-Verlag Berlin and Weimar 1967, pp. 5-49.
- Dirk von Petersdorff : How much metaphysics does the Enlightenment need? : Christoph Martin Wieland's "Musarion". In: Mercury . German magazine for European thinking. No. 667 (11/2004), pp. 1009-1019.
- Gottfried Willems : From Eternal Truth to Eternal Peace. ›Enlightenment‹ in the literature of the 18th century, particularly in Lessing's › Nathan ‹ and Wieland's ›Musarion‹. In: Wieland Studies Vol. 3. Ed. Klaus Manger and v. Wieland Archive Biberach. Sigmaringen: Thorbecke 1996. pp. 10-46.
- Gottfried Willems: Hans Castorp and Hercules at the crossroads. The body-soul problem and its turn in the sense of enlightened humanity in Thomas Mann's " Zauberberg " and Wieland's "Musarion". In: Affirmative Knowledge. Commemorative publication for TJ Reed . Tübingen 2004. pp. 145-162.