From: "T. Murphy" <tmorpheme-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: hating the modern
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2000 20:43:47 +0900



Mea culpa: I did not remember correctly at all. I did have in mind the
lectures on the "Unity of European Culture", delivered as radio broadcasts
in 1946; but as Pat points out, there is only praise for Goethe there and no
mention of fascism at all. It has been about ten years since I read those
lectures, and so perhaps my mind created a short inaccurate path between the
mention of Goethe and what Eliot calls the "gradual closing of the mental
frontiers of Europe" and the idea that "the newer German writers ... more
and more saying what could be understood, if understood at all, only in
Germany".

Feeling fairly foolish all today, I spent some time in the library trying to
trace back some of the possible reasons that this idea could have become so
fixed in my mind. The immediate effects of this have been a bit disturbing
since I have found only left writers discussing the issue of fascism and
anti-romanticism.

For example, this passage in Raymond Williams's Culture and Society:

"Thus, even if the Romantic view that 'man is intrinsically good, spoilt by
circumstances' is rejected, its alternative, in Hulme, is not 'that he is
intrinsically limited, but disciplined by order and tradition' towards
perfection; it is, rather, 'that he is intrinsically limited, but
disciplined by order and tradition to something fairly decent'. The idea of
perfection is wrongly imported from the quite separate religious sphere.
Romanticism is 'split religion', and in the same way culture, by the time of
Arnold's definition of it, would also be, for Hulme, 'spilt religion'.
This argument is Hulme's major contribution; it has since been widely
popularized, notably by T.S. Eliot." (192-193)

On the following page, Williams goes on to discuss Hulme's views on
politics, suggesting:

"The combination of 'revolutionary economics' with the 'classical' spirit in
ethics seemed to him likely to be emancipating, but the combination has not
yet occurred, in practice, except in the degrading caricature of Fascism,
with which Hulme in certain moods can be associated, but from which he is
essentially to be distinguished because of his adherence to equality...".
(194-195)

In other words, Williams seems to be associating an anti-romantic position
with a tendency to fascism, drawing the entirely opposite conclusion to a
number of the contributions to the recent debate...

Williams also mentions fascism in relation to Carlyle and to Lawrence (only
to reject it in both cases).

I am now thinking that the whole debate around fascism and
romanticism/anti-romanticism needs to be looked at more closely. What other
sources are there for the development of arguments about the intellectual
roots of fascism after the Second World War?

Terry


----- Original Message -----
From: <Patsloane-AT-aol.com>
To: <modernism-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Thursday, June 01, 2000 8:00 PM
Subject: Re: hating the modern


> In a message dated 6/1/00 1:15:51 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> tmorpheme-AT-hotmail.com writes:
>
> > If I remember correctly T.S.
> >  Eliot tried to narrow it a little further, blaming Goethe rather than
all
> >  romantics.
>
> Do you have a reference for that? I only recall that just after World War
II,
> Eliot received the Goethe Prize. And in his accpetance speech he reminded
his
> German audience of the commonplace that the Westerrn tradition goes back
to
> "the prophets of Israel" as well as the Greeks.  I don't recall his ever
> blaming Goethe for fascism, or even discussing fascism in relation to
Goethe.
>
> pat
>