Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Existence and Ecstasy

I'm returning to a theme from this post, though I'm no longer considering "presence" to be an even possible translation of "Dasein". What I do think is that there is some connection between existence and ecstasy, which corresponds to the connection between being and becoming, as well as caring and daring, and, importantly, Dasein and duende.

But my problem right now is whether any of this can be taken seriously. Is it a dignified activity to be deeply concerned about existence & ecstasy as such? Did Lorca take the duende as seriously as all that? Are we meant to suffer like St. Teresa? Is philosophy, and poetry for that matter, ultimately about that suffering. Or is that kind of suffering, that kind of pathos, simply a pathology?

Yes, it will always have a certain measure of dignity to talk about Heidegger and Lorca and, perhaps, their "existential" problems. Their pathologies, if you will. But to propose outright to solve the problem of existence?

1 comment:

Andrew Shields said...

Tim Parks has been exploring the relationship between narrative and suffering in his New York Review blog posts. His conclusion seems to be that one specific type of narrative (the novel) depends for its power on the presentation of suffering.

Of course there's also the whole idea of catharsis.

And tangentially, there's this:

http://samizdatblog.blogspot.ch/2012/12/james-bond-is-no-longer-greek-god-hes.html