152 ing and the world in general, as is the case with Greek tragedy Hence the artistic

representation of suffering is an ambivalent praxis, which, like Nihilism, can be employed in both an active and reactive sense. As active it can be the work of ‘the forward striving spirit’ (KSA 12: 9 [166] p. 434), where will to power interprets

and gathers up ever more, where ‘opposites are tamed’, and yet where the contin- |

gent nature of that interpretation is recognised and in addition celebrated. As reac­ tive it can be the product of the ‘disinherited’ spirit, whose faith in the ‘tree of knowledge’ (KSA 5 p. 99) has been shattered, yet refuses to face up to the task of accepting responsibility for the creation of new values, either clinging to a residual faith in the notion of an autonomous, objective truth to the world, or seeking to an­ nihilate all values. In these responses art is used either to confirm the belief in an objective ‘order of things’, and as Vattimo notes^^ we can observe this process at work in the mid-nineteenth century fascination with popular poetry, or as a means to transcend, and ultimately escape from, the terrifying abyss of nothingness.

In his later notes from 1887, Nietzsche explicitly equates the difference between active and reactive with the difference between the Classical and Romantic styles, with, once again, the function of will to power as organisation acting as the criterion for distinguishing the two. In a note from Autumn 1887 he asks whether ‘the opposition between active and reactive does not lie hidden behind the opposi­ tion of Classical and Romantic’ (KSA 12: 9 [112] p. 400), and in a later note enti­ tled ‘Aesthetica’ from the same notebook he writes ‘In order to be Classical one

must possess all the strong, apparently contradictory gifts and desires: but such

that they go together beneath the one yoke’ (KSA 12: 9 [166] p. 433). In contrast one of Nietzsche’s main criticisms of Romanticism in his symptomatological anal­ ysis of Modernity, is its lack of organising power. In Romanticism he observes ‘the will to unity . .. but the inability to let it exercise tyranny in the most important thing, namely with regard to the work itself’ (KSA 13: 11 [312] p. 132), and it is a

criticism which Nietzsche repeats in his attacks on Wagner in The Case of Wagner

diagnosing the latter’s music as an ‘anarchy of atoms . . . hostility and chaos’ (KSA 6 p. 27), adding later in the second postscript that Wagner displays ‘the de­ cline of organisational power’ (ibid. p. 47). In other words, Romanticism is a sign of enfeebled will to power.

Nietzsche’s physiological critique of Kantian disinterestedness may be flawed inasmuch as it addresses issues which are not to be found in the text of Kant himself, but its significance lies in laying the groundwork for his own attempt to lo­ cate art firmly within the network of interests which go to characterise organic life’s engagement with the world. As Nietzsche says, ‘At bottom, Man reflects himself in things, he considers everything to be beautiful that throws back his own image’ (KSA 6 p. 123).

153

Conclusion

In this chapter I have discussed the question of the physiological in Nietzsche’s work as it relates to the themes of immanence, transcendence and the aesthetic. As such Nietzsche’s turn to the physiological accomplishes a number of tasks. First it serves to further his general offensive against the metaphysical orientation towards transcendence by grounding cognitive and evaluative processes in the physiology of the human organism. This is not to imply that Nietzsche supports some form of organicist thinking, but rather to argue that he is using the metaphor of physiology to undercut the idea of a subjective existence outside the constraints of the body. In­ terpretation is not reducible to the body, but neither is it possible without the body and hence Nietzsche is moving ever further from the metaphysics of the sublime which suggest just that possibility.

Second Nietzsche is using the biological to understanding aesthetic experi­ ence, a move which challenges the tradition from Kant onwards of the disinterested aesthetic subject. As I have suggested, Nietzsche’s primary target in this regard is not necessarily Kant per se, but rather the contemporary doctrine of I’art pour I’art. The importance of choosing this doctrine for censure will become apparent in my final chapter, where I shall be showing how for Nietzsche I’art pour I’art has per­ mitted art to be relegated to the margins of modem society, precisely through its be­ lief in the irrelevance of art to anything beyond itself. Nietzsche’s physiology of

aesthetic experience also works against a metaphysical understanding of aesthetic 4

rapture as a moment of transcendence. In other words the initial position of The

Birth of Tragedy , which constitutes a response to the sublime, is becoming modi­

fied through the altered understanding of the meaning of rapture. In that early work the sentiment of Idealism is still powerful, with all its attendant metaphysical connotations. Having recognised this weakness in his earlier writing Nietzsche is trying to reformulate an understanding of art which will make it a meaningful practice (i.e. one which evade the vacuous play of aesthetic Modernism), yet one which will not become assimilable to the Idealist or Romantic interpretation of art as offering a moment of self-transcendence.

Notes;

^ In H 69 of Being and Time which is concerned with the problem of transcendence, Heidegger constantly describes concemful being-in-the-world as attending to Dasein’s ‘whither’ [Wohin] (e.g., p. 416), its relation of ‘towards-which’ [Wozu] (e.g., p. 415), and the structure of care as constituted by ‘Being-alongside’ [Sein bei] (e.g., p. 404), all of which use spatial metaphors.

154

Most obvious of all, though, is Heidegger’s insistence on the ‘There’ [Da] of Dasein, which in his later works will become the clearing of Being’s self-disclosure.

^ E. Blondel, Nietzsche the body and culture , trans. Sean Hand (London: Athlone Press 1991)

3 See Ecce Homo ‘Why I am so clever’ § 2, Gay Science §§ 59, 306, 367, or notes from the

Nachlqfi such as KSA 13: 14 [174] p. 360-1.

^ See, too, Blondel’s criticism of certain post-structuralist readings of Nietzsche ‘Vom Nutzen und

Nachteil der Sprache fur das Verstandnis Nietzsches: Nietzsche und der franzôsische

Strukturalismus*, Nietzsche-Studien 10/11 (1981-2).

^ On Nietzsche’s relation to Lange see George Stack, Nietzsche and Lange (Berlin; Walter de

Gruyter 1983).

^ Arthur Schopenhauer, op. cit.. Vol. 2 p. 284.

^ See his essay ‘Nihilism: “Thus Speaks Physiology’” in Tom Darby, Béla Egyed & Ben Jones

(eds.) Nietzsche and the Rhetoric of Nihilism (Ottawa: Carleton University Press 1989), n. 4.

^ Richard Schacht, ‘Nietzsche’s Gay Science. Or, How to Naturalise Cheerfully’ in Robert

Solomon (ed.), Reading Nietzsche (New York: Oxford University Press 1988)

^ In using the word ‘Romantic’ as applicable to Wagner, Nietzsche is not necessarily using it as a historical-descriptive term as is the practice in contemporary cultural history. Rather it is used as the basis of a typology of culture, with its complement in the ‘Classical’. Neither term should be seen as historically specific. For a full analysis of Nietzsche’s understanding of Romantik see

Elrud Kunne-Ibsch, D ie Stellung N ietzsches in der Entwicklung der modernen

Literaturwissenschaft (Utrecht: Van Gorcum & Comp. N.V. 1972).

^®Michel Haar, ‘Heidegger and the Nietzschean “Physiology of Art’” in David Krell & David

Wood (eds.). Exceedingly Nietzsche. Aspects of Contemporary Nietzsche Interpretation .

LMartin Heidegger, Nietzsche. Vol. I. ‘The Will to Power as Art’, trans. David Krell (San

Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991) p. 96. All subsequent page references will be in the text. ^^On the notion of ‘Stimmung’ in Heidegger, and its importance for the notion of letting-be [Sein-lassen], see Michel Haar, ‘La Pensée et le Moi chez Heidegger: les dons et les épreuves de

l’Etre’ in Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 80 (1975). For a more general account of

Heidegger’s assimilation of Nietzsche’s thinking to the question of Being see Fawzia Assaad-

Mikhail, ‘Heidegger interprète de Nietzsche’, Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale îxxiii (1968)

who concludes (p. 29) that ‘In short it is a case, for Heidegger, of inventing with Nietzsche a philosophy of Being that would express exactly what he, Heidegger, says: of uncovering, amongst those texts which are concerned with Being, implications of a Heideggerian character and of introducing Being as the principle of a valid interpretation of the thought of Nietzsche.’

See, for example, Heidegger’s comment that ‘By having a feeling for beauty the subject has already come out of himself; he is no longer subjective, no longer a subject,’ op. cit., p. 123.

See Heidegger, Nietzsche. Vol I § 15, ‘Kant’s Doctrine of the Beautiful. Its Misinterpretation 4

155

l^See Mihailo Djuric, Nietzsche und die Metaphysik , pp. 209 - 222 and Urs Heftrich,

‘Nietzsches Auseinandersetzung mit der “Kritik der Âsthetischen Urteilskraft” ’, Nietzsche Studien

20 (1991).

l^Emst Behler has recently suggested that Nietzsche entertains both a concept of art as play, symbolised in the ideas of Tart pour Tart, and also one of art as a life-enhancing practice. I shall be arguing, however, that this sense of play in art, which Nietzsche sees in the artist’s willingness to play with truth, is far from the ideas of I’art pour I’art. Art-as-play in Nietzsche is not necessarily opposed to the idea of art-as-will to power, but rather complements it, as part of the interpretative

process. See Behler, Derrida - Nietzsche, Nietzsche - Derrida (Paderbom: Schdningh, 1988) p. 100

ff.

^ ^Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement § 5

^^Kendall Walton, Mimesis as Make-believe (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press

1990).

^^Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant-Garde , trans. M. Shaw (Manchester: Manchester University

Press, 1984). For a good general account of the Romantics’ reception of Kant’s aesthetics, and in particular his exposition of the four modalities of the aesthetic experience, see Manfred Frank,

Einfilhrung in die friihromantische Âsthetik (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1989), especially lectures 4 - 9 .

2®That Nietzsche was acquainted with the work of Hanslick and Gautier is evident from the fact that he refers to them several times in his notes. For his comments on Hanslick see KSA 7: 9 [8] p. 273; 9 [98] p. 310; 19 [259] p. 501 and KSA 8: 5 [134] p. 74. For Gautier. KSA 11: 25 [125] p. 46; KSA 12: 7 [7] p. 288 and KSA 13: 11 [296] p. 121; 23 [2] p. 600. His interest in Hanslick in the early 1870’s derives from his interest at that time in music, whereas his comments on Gautier are much more set within the context of French literary and artistic culture.

^^Heinz-Peter Pütz, Kunst und Künstlerexistenz bei Nietzsche und Thomas Mann (Bonn:

Bouvier Verlag, 1963) p. 15-16.

^^It is important to take note of Ernst Behler’s observations in his ‘Nietzsche und die

Frühromantische Schule’, Nietzsche Studien 7 (1978), that Nietzsche’s concept of Romanticism

is on the whole limited to the 'late' Romanticism of mid-19th century France, the primary figure being Victor Hugo, rather than the work of the early Romantics in Germany.

23See Gianni Vattimo, ‘Nihilism: Reactive and Active* in Tom Darby, Béla Egyed & Ben Jones (eds.), op. cit.