The Abyss Above: Philosophy and Poetic Madness in Plato, Hölderlin, and Nietzsche

by Silke-Maria Weineck

Overview

Uses the figure of the mad poet to explore the connections between madness and creativity.

In The Abyss Above, Silke-Maria Weineck offers the first sustained discussion of the relationship between poetic madness and philosophy. Focusing on the mad poet as a key figure in what Plato called "the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry," Weineck explores key texts from antiquity to modernity in order to understand why we have come to associate art with irrationality. She shows that the philosophy of madness concedes to the mad a privilege that continues to haunt the Western dream of reason, and that the theory of creative madness always strains the discourse on authenticity, pitching the controlled, repeatable, but restrained labor of philosophy against the spontaneous production of poetic texts said to be, by definition, unique.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780791488287
Publisher:	State University of New York Press
Publication date:	02/01/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	180
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Silke-Maria Weineck is Assistant Professor of German Studies at the University of Michigan.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations


Introduction: Future Perfect

Cassandra, or the Belated Truth of Madness
Total and Restricted Madness
The Limits of Madness and the Limits of Philosophy
From Divine Reason to Madness under the Death of God
Epilogue

1. Talking About Homer: Poetic Madness, Philosophy, and the Birth of Criticism

Talking about Homer
Phaedrus: Madly Made Meaning
Philosophy's Mad Demon

2. The Abyss Above: Hölderlin: Madness, Philosophy, and Tragedy in the Absence of the Gods

Introduction: Madness and the Labor of Poetry
Translating Greece
Antigone and Oedipus: Madness and Sign

3. Nietzsche: The Marketplaces of Madness

Introduction: Nietzsche's Madness and the Fear of Contamination
Nietzsche's Madmen (1): The Artist in the Ditch, or from Metaphysics to Metaphysiology
Nietzsche's Madmen (2): Meta-Morality, or the Madness of New Thought
Nietzsche's Madmen (3): The Last Madman on the Marketplace
The Hyperborean: La Vache Qui Danse

Conclusion: Logos and Pallaksch: Paul Celan's "Tübingen, Jänner"

Anachrony
Appropriation
Anamnesis

Notes


Bibliography


Index

Editorial Reviews

"…an original contribution to the study of philosophy and literature." — CHOICE

"This book is a major contribution to the exploration of madness. Weineck's original readings demonstrate her admirable grasp of German intellectual history and literature. Her argumentation is sophisticated." — Karin Bauer, author of Adorno's Nietzschean Narratives: Critiques of Ideology, Readings of Wagner

"No one intending to think or write on Plato, Hölderlin, or Nietzsche can afford to do so without a knowledge of Weineck's chapters." — Stanley Corngold, author of Complex Pleasure: Forms of Feeling in German Literature

"Absolutely fascinating on every page. One learns from Weineck's way of putting things as well as from the points themselves. " — John McCumber, author of Poetic Interaction: Language, Freedom, Reason

From the Publisher