Goethe and the concept of the Eternal Feminine

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

In tribute to the eternal feminine.

The eternal feminine is a psychological archetype or philosophical principle that idealizes an immutable concept of “woman”. It is one component of gender essentialism, the belief that men and women have different core “essences” that cannot be altered by time or environment. The concept is commonly associated with the genius Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who mentioned it near the end of his famous " Faust". It’s also mentioned by many other individualities from Plato to Jakob Böhme.

Eros is the main theme of Platos Symposium. The philosophical ideas of Plato are presented in the form of dialogues that occur between the guests of a banquet that takes place in the Agathons house in Athens. Each guest is asked to deliver a speech in
praise to the god Eros. The guests say the Eros makes people dutiful and brave, that he
is young and beautiful, that Eros inspires lovers to give their lives for each other, and
that it is a source of the highest bliss. As Love brings peace to the world of men and to
the nature, it thereby defeats evil. One of the guests named Aristophanes asserts that
love has a healing power in this imperfect world: “For Love is of all the Gods the most
friendly to mortals; and the physician of those wounds, whose cure would be the
greatest happiness which could be conferred upon the human race” (Plato 26).
Aristophanes proceeds further by telling an interesting legend which can explain
the reason of the power and tragedy of sexual attraction. Based on the legend as told by
Aristophanes, the true original man was not of male or female gender but was
androgynous. This androgynous race was strong and became a threat to gods: “They
were strong also, and had aspiring thoughts. They it was who levied war against the
Gods” (Plato 27). The Gods, in return, punished the proud people by cutting them in
half (male and female) which made the humans weaker and produced the tragic
attraction of the two sexes. The two halves are constantly seeking each other out and
trying to reunite, but even the sexual union can only be temporal though it became
since then the only mode of procreation for the new human race:
In this manner is generation not produced, by the union of male and female;
so that from the embrace of a man and woman the race is propagated . . .
from this period, mutual Love has naturally existed in human beings; that
reconciler and bond of union of their original nature, which seeks to make
two, one, and to heal the divided nature of man. Every one of us is thus the
half of what may be properly termed a man, and like a flat fish cut in two, is
imperfect portion of an entire whole, perpetually necessitated to seek the half
belonging to him (Plato 29).

Goethes representation of the Eternal Feminine has a strong redemptive element to it which becomes apparent in the concluding part of the drama Faust. The very essence of this concluding episode is Fausts salvation, his escape from the clutches of Mephisto and eternal damnation.
The leading agent of salvation is the Feminine principle. Mater Gloriosa is at its center.
Faust is being fought over by an army of the feminine and attractive Angels who battle
the powers of Satan with love and use their charms to disarm Satan. Another feminine
figure, Gretchen, is leading Faust to his new world, again surrounded by female
repented sinners: Magna Peccatrix, Mulier Smaritana, and Maria Aegyptica.

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

For Goethe, “woman” symbolized pure contemplation, in contrast to masculine action. The feminine principle is further articulated by Nietzsche within a continuity of life and death, based in large part on his readings of ancient Greek literature, since in Greek culture both childbirth and the care of the dead were managed by women. Domesticity, and the power to redeem and serve as moral guardian, were also components of the “eternal feminine”. The virtues of women were inherently private, while those of men were public.

Faust praises Nature’s regenerating powers and compares this process to the
religious idea of resurrection. In the same passage, Faust talks about people who also
like everything alive, like any animal or plant are drawn to the gentle raises of the
springs son “Jeder sonnt sich heute so gern.” (Goethe 920. 50). Faust reads his ode of praise to the nature while observing the people celebrating Easter. However, it would be misleading to ascribe a Christian meaning to Fausts words. Resurrection of the Lord
has little significance to Faust, just like in the Prologue in Heaven Goethe used Christian
imagery to convey his own world view. Though Faust mentions that people are
celebrating the Lords resurrection “Sie feiern die Auferstehung des Herrn” (Goethe 922. 50) and adds that they themselves got resurrected. What really caused that “resurrection” are the warm life giving rays of the spring son and the magic regenerating power of nature and not the Lord of Christianity. What is meant by the Easter here is the pagan celebration of the spring common to many cultures. It is not coincidental that this passage follows Fausts unsuccessful suicide attempt. The bells of
the Church proclaiming Christ`s resurrection, the sound of which prevents Faust from
killing himself, are no more than a lucky coincidence, a natural occurrence rather than
Divine intervention in a Christian sense of this word. What saved Faust is the Eternal
Feminine, the nature that takes care of its creatures and which allowed Faust to keep his
sweet childhood memories associated with the beautiful, enchanting sound of the
church bells in the sweet, serene moments of late spring. To this Nature alone directes
Faust his devotion, this is Nature with all her basic elements (the Ocean/ the Water, the
Fire, the Air, the Earth) that is praised in a religious fashion and to which one should
sing such hymns as the following:
So herrsche denn Eros, der alles begonnen!
Heil dem Meere! Heil den Wogen!
Von dem heiligen Feuer umzogen;
Heil dem Wasser! Heil dem Feuer!
Heil dem seltnen Abenteuer!
ALL ALLE! Heil den mildgewognen Lüften!
Heil geheimnisreichen Grüften!
Hochgefeiert seid allhier
Element ihr alle vier! (8479-8487. 348).

[Dan1 (Dan~)]

Eros was a male god and one of the ones born closer to the original and first creative chaos.
If I remember right.

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

Dan - Yes. Eros is a male god, son of Aphrodite. But some myths paint him out to be a primordial god.

---

Socrates concluded that Eros, or Love, is a striving for Wisdom and that Wisdom
is the most significant and the most desirable of all things. Wisdom is the goal of all
desire. One achieves Wisdom through philosophy which is an “intermediate state
between ignorance and wisdom” (Plato 47).
Plato via Socrates communicated one important quality of Love and that is its
dynamic and contradictory nature. By repeating the word “intermediate” many times
Plato shows that Love is not a fixed entity, but a mobile power that pulls the lovers to
the new heights and leads them to the most important virtues and values. Eros moves
the world to perfection, it is dynamic and it makes the world dynamic. Eros leads
humans to beauty and fruitful spirituality. Thus, Love/Eros is the source of all creativity:
“Wherefore, whenever that which is pregnant with the generative principle approaches
what is beautiful, it becomes transported with delight, and is poured forth in
overflowing pleasure and propagates” (Plato 51). Plato noticed here another important
quality of love in relation to the material world. Love maintains life on the level of the
species by propagation in every creature. It counteracts the law of death that is present
everywhere in natural world. “In this manner everything mortal is preserved: not that it
is constant and eternal, like that which is divine; but that in the place of what has grown
old and is departed, it leaves another new like that which it was itself…” (Plato 53).
Every creature dies on the individual level but continues to live on at the level of the
species: “Wonder not, then, if everything by nature cherishes that which was produced
from itself, for this earnest Love is a tendency towards eternity” (Plato 53). This striving
for perfection meant not merely an intellectual contemplation for Plato. Plato believed
that the ideal of eternal perfection should be reflected by the creation of a society that
would resemble the perfect divine world through justice, laws and proper organization:
“The greatest and most admirable wisdom is that which regulates the government and
states, and which is called moderation and justice” (Plato 54).

Plato via Socrates pointed out another important quality of Love. It is always the
love of the supreme beauty and beauty cannot be defined or limited to the beautiful
proportions of the material body of a human being or of an animal. Beauty can be
anything material since the sole reason why anything can be experienced as beautiful is
through the participation in the highest Beauty which is essentially harmony and unity.
It is good, wise, excellent and virtuous. All these qualities bring out the most important
characteristic of Love, which is that it is the key to immortality: “it is not easy to find a
better assistant than Love in seeking to communicate immortality to our human
natures” (Plato 58).

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

Plato`s teachings of the Eternal Feminine, as well as other aspects of the thought
of the great philosopher, have influenced and continue to influence Western
philosophical and theological thought up to the present day: The neo-Platonic
Philosophy, the ideas of the Church Fathers, the Cabbalistic Jewish Mysticism, and the
Christian Mysticism of Jacob Böhme have all been inspired by Plato. Although these
thinkers and their schools of thought are different in many aspects, they all have similar
goals in common: to explain the higher spiritual reality and the mystery of the universe
by giving a special attention to the Feminine principle and by trying to define the
special role of this principle and trying to juxtapose it to the Masculine principle or that
of the eternal Father which plays the central role in the Jewish-Christian tradition.

Böhme and the Divine Sophia:

Böhme brings the irrational into the Divine. He makes the unexplainable, the
bottomless abyss, the inexhaustible source of all life, of all creativity. God, or the Divine
for Böhme, is all in all (the light and darkness). His Eternal Feminine, or the Divine
Sophia, is the Gods Other, the perfect universe, the perfect humanity. What was Böhmes presentation of the Eternal Feminine? He gave the Eternal feminine a Biblical
name he found in the Old Testament—Sophia, Gods Wisdom. There is one passage in Proverbs that gives the following characteristic of the Gods Wisdom and makes her
mysterious appearance a riddle to be solved for the mystics and theologians:
Then I was by him, as one brought up with him,
And I was daily his delight,
Rejoicing always before him,
Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth.
And my delights were with the sons of men (Proverbs 8:30-31, 836).
Wisdom hath builded her house,
She hath hewn out her seven pillars: (Proverbs 9:1, 836).

Böhme calls his Sophia by many names and gives her various characteristics.
When trying to explain the origins of Sophia, Böhme used the language of myth. In
accordance to the myth, Sophia was once in unity with the original man Adam. She was
his Virgin, his purity and Gods Wisdom within him, but as a result of the Fall, Adam loses his Virgin and receives a woman (here the myth resembles Platonic myth of the Androgen, described in Symposium). The goal of man is to get Gods wisdom back, to
regain his original wholeness and, thus, to unite with God again: “Aber im lichten
Prinzipium oder Mysterium gewinnt der Mensch, dank der “eingeleibten Gnade”, sein
verlorenes paradiesisches Bild zurück, wenn sich Sophia mit der Seele neu verbindet”
(Böhme qtd. in Tesch 30).

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

The Mothers represent the feminine creative principle in the drama. In this sense,
the Eternal Feminine in Goethes drama cannot be thought of as something passive and opposing the active Man, Faust, but rather a basis of his activity and the endless potential of his or any ones creativity: “The realm of the Mothers is exactly what its
name suggests: the creative matrix of all things” (Jantz 175). By descending into the
world of Mothers or ideal forms, Faust experiences what H.J. Schueler calls a
“regeneration” (Schuler 108), a spiritual rebirth, a process which makes the meaning of
the Mothers scene acquire a religious connotation. The process leading to Fausts
“rebirth,” or the initiation into the new creative realm of things, is closer to that of pre-
Christian mysteries. The Mothers scene contains a hint on Faust final Salvation just as in Prologue in Heaven. However, there is a significant difference. If in the Prologue in Heaven the Faust salvation is proclaimed by the Biblical God the Father, in the Mothers scene the Christian imagery is completely absent and the Eternal Feminine dominates the scene in the form of primordial pagan goddesses. In this scene there is also an indirect promise of Faust final Salvation, but it is not a Christian God that assures it. Fausts salvation is assured by the Eternal Feminine, the mighty power that is always in
process of creation, shaping, destroying and then again recreating and reshaping
“Gestaltung, Umgestaltung”(Goethe 6286. 266).

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

Goethian Eternal-Feminine and Nature:

Even without any previous knowledge of Goethes natural philosophy, his fascination and admiration for it become apparent when reading Faust. In this sense Faust is an ode to Nature, to its inexhaustible procreative power, to its breath taking beauty, and to its majestic greatness. This beauty and greatness stands in a sharp contrast to the ugliness and lowliness of human deeds, to the futility and smallness of their daily hustle and bustle, their miserable never-ending struggle for survival. The natural life-giving cycle is present everywhere. After beautiful colorful fall, nature seems to die, the leaves wither and are shed, the forests stand naked, the fertile earth of the fields cease to produce the life-sustaining crops. Before too long the winter comes, everything bringing frost and snow, which covers the earth under its white blanket. But with the first raise of the spring sun, the world that seemed so empty and dead begins to come to life again. The snow melts, the buds spring force, beautiful flowers appear everywhere, and forests regain their green foliage. People observed this miracle for centuries and came to the conclusion that in the process of the rebirth of nature lies the key to the immortality and they worshiped Natures life giving forces: “The eternal
cycle of life and death was suggested by the image of creatures coming forth from her
as from a womb and returning to her as to a grave.” (Jantz 455). For Goethe, the
connection between nature and immortality seems to be important. The passages in the
drama devoted to nature sound elevated and exalted, and one can hear the mixture of
awe and joy in such lines that Goethe puts in the mouth of Faust:
Vom Eise befreit sind Strom und Bäche
Durch des Frühlings holden, belebenden Blick;Im Tale grünet Hoffnungsglück;
Der alte Winter, in seiner Schwäche,
Zog sich in rauhe Berge zurück.
Von dorther sendet er, fliehend, nur
Ohnmächtige Schauer kornigen Eises
In Streifen über die grünende Flur;
Aber die Sonne duldet kein Weißes,
Überall regt sich Bildung und Streben,
Alles will sie mit Farben beleben; (903-913. 50).

Faust praises Nature’s regenerating powers and compares this process to the
religious idea of resurrection. In the same passage, Faust talks about people who also
like everything alive, like any animal or plant are drawn to the gentle raises of the
springs son “Jeder sonnt sich heute so gern.” (Goethe 920. 50). Faust reads his ode of praise to the nature while observing the people celebrating Easter. However, it would be misleading to ascribe a Christian meaning to Fausts words. Resurrection of the Lord
has little significance to Faust, just like in the Prologue in Heaven Goethe used Christian
imagery to convey his own world view. Though Faust mentions that people are
celebrating the Lords resurrection “Sie feiern die Auferstehung des Herrn” (Goethe 922. 50) and adds that they themselves got resurrected. What really caused that“resurrection” are the warm life giving rays of the spring son and the magic regenerating power of nature and not the Lord of Christianity. What is meant by the Easter here is the pagan celebration of the spring common to many cultures. It is not coincidental that this passage follows Fausts unsuccessful suicide attempt. The bells of
the Church proclaiming Christ`s resurrection, the sound of which prevents Faust from
killing himself, are no more than a lucky coincidence, a natural occurrence rather than
Divine intervention in a Christian sense of this word. What saved Faust is the Eternal
Feminine, the nature that takes care of its creatures and which allowed Faust to keep his
sweet childhood memories associated with the beautiful, enchanting sound of the
church bells in the sweet, serene moments of late spring. To this Nature alone directes
Faust his devotion, this is Nature with all her basic elements (the Ocean/ the Water, the
Fire, the Air, the Earth) that is praised in a religious fashion and to which one should
sing such hymns as the following:So herrsche denn Eros, der alles begonnen!
Heil dem Meere! Heil den Wogen!
Von dem heiligen Feuer umzogen;
Heil dem Wasser! Heil dem Feuer!
Heil dem seltnen Abenteuer!
ALL ALLE! Heil den mildgewognen Lüften!
Heil geheimnisreichen Grüften!
Hochgefeiert seid allhier
Element ihr alle vier! (8479-8487. 348).

The praise to Nature plays the role of the constantly reoccurring leitmotif in the
drama. After every ordeal, Faust finds peace and rejuvenation in nature`s bosom, to be
drawn away from it by his restless spirit until his final hour strikes and Faust enters the
realm of the Eternal Feminine to remain with her forever. Each time these meetings
(rendezvous) with Nature bring the best in Faust turn his look inward into his
contemplative self as well us upward to the spiritual and intellectual as well as
aesthetical heights. If Faust could only remain there with Nature and faithful to nature
to seek the best in himself instead of following Mephisto and bustling around with
meaningless activity, which hurts and almost ruins Faust spiritually as well as brings
ruin to others. Just like a prayer in which a believer converses with God, the following
lines are in a sense his prayer to the spirit of Nature:
Erhabner Geist, du gabst mir, gabst mir alles,
Warum ich bat. Du hast mir nicht umsonst
Dein Angesicht im Feuer zugewendet.
Gabst mir die herrliche Natur zum Königreich,
Kraft, sie zu fühlen, zu genießen. Nicht
Kalt staunenden Besuch erlaubst du nur,
Vergönnest mir in ihre tiefe Brust
Wie in den Busen eines Freunds zu schauen.
Du führst die Reihe der Lebendigen
Vor mir vorbei, und lehrst mich meine Brüder
Im stillen Busch, in Luft und Wasser kennen (Goethe 3217-3227. 142-143).

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

The Meaning of the Eternal-Feminine in Goethe’s Drama Faust:
diginole.lib.fsu.edu/etd/5076/

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

The Eternal-Feminine, to me, is a very profound and reified concept. The smoothness, delicacy and voluptuousness of the female form has always fascinated and inspired me. There is no greater ecstasy than reveling in the sexual perfection of a beautiful woman’s body. Some of my greatest artistic and philosophical visions emanated from sexual intercourse with females – very tantric experiences, which is kind of ironic, considering that, traditionally, sex is perceived as a mundane hindrance to the philosopher. But sex, for me, is very mystical. Though it’s a physical act, the spiritual nature of it, to me, supersedes the material. It is the unification of the masculine and feminine, the two become one - harmonized.

Touching on my prior quotational entries, I agree with the perception of women as symbols of immortality. Authentic sexual intercourse, from a male’s perspective, is symbolic of entering the gates of heaven, i.e., eternal life; the vagina is the " Holy of Holies ", and I don’t say that with any underlying humor whatsoever. The sexual euphoria of entering a woman is even on par with the religious notion of the ecstatic experience of entering the pearly gates. Through sex, the male ( and female ) is allowed to perpetuate himself by passing on his genetic material. The continuation of organic life is a raging, passionate love for life – a sort of animistic-teleology, if you will. The female form is the incarnation of the beauty of nature, the beauty of life and the cosmos. Call me a romantic-idealist all you want, but to know a beautiful woman intimately, for me, is like communion with an angel or goddess; something divine about it, that I can’t fully articulate.

Ah, sweet woman --so ethereal and bewitching. I acknowledge that my fascination for women is, peculiarly, greater than most, but it serves me well in my endeavors.

My own edited Nietzschean styled quote: " Life without women would be a mistake."

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

Three singers who conjure up images of the Eternal-Feminine:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wfYIMyS_dI[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVh3AOHDtso[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL9KWB0M4UU[/youtube]

[Lev_Muishkin]

Wow - an entire thread chock-full of sexist bullshit.
How remarkably 19thC of you! You should take up Islam!
Have you not heard of the 1960s?

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

@Lev Muishkin

Wow - an entire thread chock-full of sexist bullshit.
How remarkably 19thC of you! You should take up Islam!
Have you not heard of the 1960s?

How did you misconstrue this thread as sexist? IT glorifies, nay, it DEIFIES women!

Where is the sexism?

[Lev_Muishkin]

@Erik_

@Lev Muishkin

Wow - an entire thread chock-full of sexist bullshit.
How remarkably 19thC of you! You should take up Islam!
Have you not heard of the 1960s?

How did you misconstrue this thread as sexist? IT glorifies, nay, it DEIFIES women!

Where is the sexism?

You are kidding??

It misunderstands women, it caricatures women. It imposes and impossible standard, a standard that woman are not given a choice over. It is a caricature invented by a man.
This is what a real woman looks like.

Here is another woman. You say you have “always” been inspired by their physical form… How do you feel about this one?

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

@Lev Muishkin

@Erik_

@Lev Muishkin

Wow - an entire thread chock-full of sexist bullshit.
How remarkably 19thC of you! You should take up Islam!
Have you not heard of the 1960s?

How did you misconstrue this thread as sexist? IT glorifies, nay, it DEIFIES women!

Where is the sexism?

You are kidding??

It misunderstands women, it caricatures women. It imposes and impossible standard, a standard that woman are not given a choice over. It is a caricature invented by a man.

Can you site examples in this thread where these purported " impossible standards " are located? It seems like you have your feet wet in feminist ideology.

Edit: Not everything is aesthetic, Lev. Without the contrast of ugliness, there would be no beauty. So, of course, I find those women hideous. That’s not me being sexist or cruel; it’s me being frank and realistic. When I say " Women inspire me ", I speak in general, in reference to beautiful women.

[Lev_Muishkin]

@Erik_

@Lev Muishkin

@Erik_

How did you misconstrue this thread as sexist? IT glorifies, nay, it DEIFIES women!

Where is the sexism?

You are kidding??

It misunderstands women, it caricatures women. It imposes and impossible standard, a standard that woman are not given a choice over. It is a caricature invented by a man.

Can you site examples in this thread where these purported " impossible standards " are located? It seems like you have your feet wet in feminist ideology.

Edit: Not everything is aesthetic, Lev. Without the contrast of ugliness, there would be no beauty. So, of course, I find those women hideous. That’s not me being sexist or cruel; it’s me being frank and realistic. When I say " Women inspire me ", I speak in general, in reference to beautiful women.

“impossible standards?”: “This thread Deifies.”

What don’t you understand about the word sexism, or deity?
When you grow up enough to attract a real woman, then come back and tell us what you find.

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

I understand the word, Lev. If you think I’m stereotyping women, or something of that nature, then sure - I suppose that’s a valid take. But note that none of this emanates from malicious or sinister intentions. This is my philosophical-poetic view on women and femininity - a framework that I strongly believe to glorify women, that profoundly appreciates them.

Yes - this will cause resentment in genetically inferior women, but life isn’t fair. It is what it is.

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

Another sublime female singer:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KdXjFDKVZA[/youtube]

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

This one was, extremely, poignant; I almost shed a tear…almost…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8k9f88gEbE[/youtube]

[Lev_Muishkin]

@Erik_

This one was, extremely, poignant; I almost shed a tear…almost…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8k9f88gEbE[/youtube]

Interesting, but, I think, confusingly attributed.
I looked for a long while before I figured out my mistake.
The band is NOT Anabasis, but Anastasis is an Album by Dead Can Dance, with a track called Anabasis.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasis_(album

The Anabasis is quite a different band.

theanabasisproject.com/TheBand.aspx

[Erik1 (Erik_)]

Yes - the band is called " Dead Can Dance ". Recently discovered them. They are excellent; compliment my aesthetics.