Susan Tacent
  • Home
  • Events/Workshops
  • News/Publications
  • Project
  • Reading
  • Contact

Precipitated out

4/12/2018

 
Picture
One might consider this a pessimistic view of the world – a "tragedy," as she wrote to Jaspers – yet it is one that also "warms and lightens the heart" because despite the revolution's failure, through Arendt's evocation of its memory in writing, the power of revolutionary association to create community and promulgate laws gains immediacy in the eyes of her readers as something of simplicity and greatness. In fact, she kindles in the reader a revolutionary yearning. It is as if the historical personages are precipitated out of the objective historical account and returned to the living, internal stage of their own world, which in turn is conceived of as a public space. The effect is grounded in Plato's idea that literature about tragic things is not, as Aristotle posited, written to make people experience empathy. Instead, its principal aim is to keep alive in the reader (who by reading rehearses taking action) the presence of values and concepts in a world where values have been lost, and to reinvigorate moribund collective ideas. This is the idea that shaped The Human Condition as well as Arendt's essay "Tradition and the Modern Age."

Translation: The "Oddly Circuitous Path," in Unlearning with Hannah Arendt by Marie Luise Knott, translated by David Dollenmayer

Photo taken in RISD Museum, Providence RI

Comments are closed.
    Picture

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

bbe