Conceptualizing the New Mythology
The new mythology needed to simultaneously produce and preserve; it was supposed to be “ein neues Bette und Gefäß für den alten ewigen Urquell der Poesie und selbst das unendliche Gedicht, welches die Keime aller andern Gedichte verhüllt” (Schlegel 312). The gardening metaphors of watering and planting connote the organic function that the mythology was supposed to play, a function that takes on new meaning in the contemporary debate. If the lack of the mythological debate is seen as a sickness, then the suggestion here is a sort of herbal remedy to the poetic problem—a mythological cure-all for the German literary ailment that would not only treat the malaise but also boost the immune system, preventing future relapses. The emphasis on finding a “Gefäß” or vessel, however, suggests the solution would be about controlling and containing the breach, issuing a sort of quarantine. This feat could not be accomplished by turning to old remedies or visiting the tribal doctor.
When Schlegel talked of a new mythology, he was not talking about resurrecting Greek gods and rebuilding their temples per se (although the latter certainly occurred in light of the Neo-Classical architecture of Karl Friedrich Schinkel); instead, he was calling for the creation a holistic state of being, akin to that of the Greeks. From the retrospective standpoint of German idealists, it had appeared that the Greeks had enjoyed a holistic society, one that could encompass all realms of human thought, politics, art, religion, science without alienating the differing fields, “but the conditions that had given rise to Greek myth could not be duplicated” (Williamson 60). Aside from the fact that it was difficult to determine what those conditions had actually been, it was also necessary to ground the new mythology in the present, especially considering the effects of the Enlightenment and endeavors in the realm of science.
Inasmuch as the need for a new mythology would be developed, its manifestation “was only a part of [a] wider revolution, the ‘phenomenon of all phenomena,’ through which humanity struggled to discover its internal laws and secret hidden powers” (Williamson 58).The Kantian shift in philosophy, transcendental idealism, required a necessary realignment of approach to discussing the phenomenal world. Schlegel argued:
Der Idealismus in jeder Form muß auf ein oder die andre Art aus sich herausgehn, um in sich zurückkehren zu können, und zu bleiben was er ist. Deswegen muß und wird sich aus seinem Schoß ein neuer ebenso grenzenloser Realismus erheben und der Idealismus also nicht bloß in seiner Entstehungsart ein Beispiel für die neue Mythologie, sondern selbst auf indirekte Art Quelle derselben werden. Die Spuren einer ähnlichen Tendenz könnt ihr schon jetzt fast überall wahrnehmen; besonders in der Physik, der es an nichts mehr zu fehlen scheint, als an einer mythologischen Ansicht der Natur. (Schlegel 315)
Idealism was to undertake a journey into and out of itself in order to transport itself back into the playing field of philosophers. This mystical initiation of idealism lends itself well to the concept of the singularity that I will address shortly.
Physics, indeed, was precisely the answer to the mythological question. There was no other area in human endeavor that seemed more aptly suited to accomplish the task of filling the gap. The appeal of physics for Schlegel and also Schelling was in its far-reaching jurisdiction, which can be seen from its broad definition at the time. With 68 volumes and over 284,000 articles, Johann Heinrich Zedler’s Grosses vollständiges Universallexicon aller Wisenschafften und Künste was printed between 1731–1754. Zedler’s article on Physick demonstrates that the concept embraced more than does the narrow scope understood today.
Das Wort: Physick oder Physica, ist eigentlich ein Griechisches Wort, so seinen Ursprung von ρύσις hat, welches iegliche Naturen, die in dem ganzen Welt-Crenz zu finden, bedeutet, daß auf solce Weise die Physick die Lehre von allen und ieden Naturen, sowol Göttlichen und geistlichen, also auch cörperlichen sen; wie denn auch bey den alten Griechen diejenigen ρύσιχοί genennet wurden, die das Wesen Gottes, und er erschaffenen Geister, wie auch der Cörper untersuchet. Doch nachgehends ist diese Lehre eingeschräncket wordern, und man hat insgemein zu ihrem Object die Natur der Cörper gefaßet. (Ziedler 1147)
The solution of this enlightenment thinker to the overwhelming scope of this definition was obvious enough: divide it up. Specialization in science and academia is still a point of hot contention today, as it was for many German philosophers at this time. Schelling saw his system as “philosophische Konstruktion” (Schelling 125, 147) and Friedrich Schiller saw the role of the modern philosopher as that of the “Scheidekünstler,” a chemist or alchemist who divided knowledge into its constituent parts (Schiller 8).
Similarly, Johann Georg Krünitz’s Oekonomische Encyklopädie acknowledges the term “Physik” with the same problematic undertone:
Naturlehre , Naturkunde, Naturwissenschaft, Physik, Lat. Physica, Physice, philosophia naturalis, Franz. Physique, ist im allgemeinen Verstande die Wissenschaft von den Eigenschaften aller erschaffenen Dinge. In dieser Bedeutung begreift also die Naturlehre nicht allein Gegenstände äußerer Sinne, sondern auch den kende Wesen. In diesem weitläuftigen Verstande würde der Umfang dieser Wissenschaft so groß seyn, daß kaum ein Menschenalter hinreichend wäre, nur den nöthigen Unterricht darin zu erhalten. Dieserwegen ist es nothwendig geworden, sie in verschiedene nicht unbeträchtliche Theile abzutheilen, und unter dem Nahmen der eigentlichen Physik oder Naturlehre nur diejenige Wissenschaft zu verstehen, welche sich mit den Eigenschaften der Dinge äußerer Sinne beschäftiget. Selbst in dieser Bedeutung ist sie zum gewöhnlichen Unterrichte auf Akademien noch zu weitläuftig, und muß daher in einem noch etwas engern Verstande genommen werden. (Krünitz 614–615)
Ironically, the problem that these Enlightenment encyclopedists had with the capacious conceptual origin of physics as the study of all natures was exactly what appealed to the early Romantic philosophers. The science of physics with its irrefutable laws of nature seemed to effortlessly harmonize and explicate the cosmos with ease and eloquence. This science, as a unifying force, seemed to lend itself well as a model for creating the mythological balm of Gilead, necessary to cure the ailment of modern literature. Nothing could be a more adequate for containing the mythological breach than everything.
