Zibaldone
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“Il est très-facile d’écrire dans [2090] cette langue” (German) “avec la simplicité de la grammaire française, tandis qu’il est impossible en français d’adopter la période allemande, et qu’ainsi donc il faut la considérer comme un moyen de plus.” [“It is very easy to write in this language with the simplicity of French grammar, while it is impossible in French to adopt the German period, and so it must be considered an extra means”], loc. cit., p. 247.
This happens because German is not fully formed, does not have a definite character or structure, etc., that are definitely correct. (And how could it be otherwise if “en Allemagne, il n’y a de goût fixe sur rien, tout est indépendant, tout est individuel. L’on juge d’un ouvrage par l’impression qu’on en reçoit, et jamais par les règles, puisqu’il n’y en a point de généralement admises: chaque auteur est libre de se créer une sphère nouvelle” [“in Germany there is no fixed taste about anything, everything is independent, everything is individual. One judges a work by the impression one receives of it, and never by the rules, since there are none that are generally agreed upon: each author is free to create a new sphere for himself”], 2nd part, ch. 1, p. 186. As the nation is and the literature, so is the language, and vice versa. The former not fully formed, the latter not fully formed, not well organized, not fixed, not [2091] defined.) Greek, in fact, would have been readily adaptable to the Latin period, and to every quality of Latin (the effects of which could be seen, according to what I say elsewhere [→Z 735ff., 1093‒94]). Not so the other way around, because Latin was fully formed, and so was Latin literature, owing to the social and political circumstances of the nation. Italian is easily and fully adaptable to the French period, etc., as, unfortunately, we can see, yet it loses its originality, and the particular and natural style of the nation that speaks it. And this is exactly the case of German when it adapts to French (and when it does not, that simply means that German is not yet fully formed), the case of Greek when, in a certain sense, it adapted to Latin, etc. This adaptability, in other words, is no different from corruptibility, and its enactment is no different from corruption. (But corruption comes after a language is perfected, and if in German such enactment does not seem to be corruption, that means that the language has not yet been perfected, and is unable to exhibit a corruption, etc.)
Since the French language is utterly unadaptable to the Italian period or to any other characteristic of Italian, or any other [2092] language, it seems that it would not be subject to any corruption that comes from foreign taste, etc. etc. (And that is also the case of French literature, customs, etc.) That is true, in fact, on the one hand, but, on the other, (1) whenever, owing to some possible political or any other circumstance, it is forced to adapt or compromise with some foreign thing or quality, contradictory to its nature, the whole entire edifice of the French language would collapse, and that language would no longer be French. (2) I have shown elsewhere [→Z 1897, 2002‒2004] how it is subject to an inevitable corruption that will arise, and, indeed, is constantly forming in its very breast, and that of the nation. Because, like all human things, this—and this in particular—is extremely variable, whereas the French language is invariable. And certainly the French language should fear corruption more from the native than from the foreign, like Italian [2093] in the 17th century, and we might also say in the 15th. (14 Nov. 1821.)
“En examinant les ouvrages dont se compose la littérature allemande, on y retrouve, suivant le génie de l’auteur, les traces de ces différentes cultures, comme on voit dans les montagnes les couches des minéraux divers que les révolutions de la terre y ont apportés. Le style change presque entièrement de nature suivant l’écrivain, et les étrangers ont besoin de faire une nouvelle étude à chaque livre nouveau qu’ils veulent comprendre” [“In examining the works that make up German literature, one finds, according to the character of the author, traces of these different cultures, as in the mountains one sees the deposits of different minerals laid there by the revolutions of the earth. The nature of the style changes almost entirely according to the writer, and foreigners have to make a new study of each new book they want to understand”], loc. cit., 2nd part, ch. 3, p. 201, end. (14 Nov. 1821.)
The reason that the German language has, more than any other modern language, preserved the spirit, the direction, etc., of Teutonic—that is, resembles its mother more than any other cultured European language—is surely that the mother never was fully formed and the daughter still is not. [2094] This means that the German language, being modern, can still unquestionably resemble an ancient language, and, while sufficing for modern subjects, can have, and has, an ancient character, ancient qualities, properties not particular to the times in which it is used. And this means, in turn, that the Teutonic language, being ancient, may also have a temperament suitable for modern subjects, since it never had the strict usage, either in society or in literature, that would have given it a completed form, defining and limiting it. (Indeed, we may believe that the German language, when it is fully formed, will preserve as much of its ancient nature as makes it like Greek and Italian in those external qualities because of its similarity to the two languages in terms of social and political circumstances, and its lack of similarity [2095] to Latin and French with respect to the said circumstances, etc.)
It takes a long time for a language to receive its full form and a character at once well-defined and distinctly its own. The German language has not yet completed this, and its social and political and literary circumstances slow its progress toward that end tremendously. What uniformity can be found in a language where every writer forms a literary school by himself, where, see p. 2090, middle, there is no (1) literary, (2) social, (3) political center, and no center (4) of opinion, (5) of taste, (6) of customs, etc. etc.?
It takes a long time for a language to receive a form that belongs distinctly to the time in which it is used, etc. The French language had already produced an Amyot and a Montaigne, yet it did not have such a form, receiving one properly only at the start of the last [2096] century. How many writers who are still admired or are or are seen to be remembered with admiration did the Latin language produce, although it did not have a complete form, particular to its time, etc., except in Cicero?
Before acquiring this form, all languages are absolutely free, omnipotent (even those of nations either enslaved, or bound to a single center, and dependent on a rigid society, etc., as the French language was before Louis XIV, Latin before Cicero, and yet both were absolutely free, etc.), adaptable to anything. All have an ancient temperament, that is, an undefined, and natural, and unsubordinated temperament, for that is, in brief, the ancient character of languages, and of all else. All, as they gain a form, lose a great number of these qualities, and have to lose them, because otherwise they would not develop or become uniform, and receive an imprint of the distinct and particular time in which they acquire [2097] that form. It is starting from this point, and not from what this or that language was before this point, that we must consider the properties of a language and judge the degree of its freedom, power, daring, variety, richness, adaptability, flexibility, etc.
Italian passed this point a long time ago, French somewhat more recently. But both have passed it, and to what extent they must be considered in isolation and to what extent relatively, in the case of the above qualities, has been discussed many times. German has not yet passed this point. It cannot be judged or compared with respect to those qualities, or any others, but especially these.
I am sure that if the Russian language and Polish continue to be cultivated, and emerge from their current state as pure mirror images [2098] of French and French literature (a state in which German likewise found itself at the beginning of the last century, until nearly the middle), and begin to acquire a character, and an original form, particular to the nation and the time, I’m sure, I repeat, that at the start of this development, what today is said of German will be said of these languages and literatures, an
d that they are situated precisely in that period of formation which has begun and not been completed and is difficult to complete because of the circumstances of the nation. So, too, English and English literature in the time of Anne,1 although it had already had a Shakespeare, a truly national writer. It will be said, that is, that Russian and Polish have the character of an old language, bear a very close resemblance to their mothers, are free, flexible, varied, rich, capable of everything, bold, often obscure and irregular, and not, therefore, elegant, etc. Likewise the literatures.
Their quality can be truly judged only later, when their formation is [2099] complete, established, perfected. I do not know what will be said then, but I can conjecture. That is, because the political circumstances of the Russians and the Poles are very different from those of the Germans, one can predict that, once begun, an effective development of their languages and literatures (especially in Russia) will progress much more rapidly than it did in Germany, and the languages will acquire a structure and a uniform and fixed nature sooner, and their character, when it has been formed, will be much farther from the ancient, much more modern and contemporary, much less free, powerful, flexible, much more bound by rules and restrictions, much weaker, and perhaps not, consequently, more graceful or less crude, etc. etc., than German. In other words, their character will again be close to French, much more than to German, [2100] so far as the difference between northern and southern allows. It will be closer to English above all, so far as the difference between a free people and an absolute government allows.1
The Italian language, too, during its formation (although later, too, it achieved a very free character), nonetheless exhibited the excessive freedom, adaptability, omnipotence characteristic of all languages at that stage. And it was equally subject to the defects that arise from such qualities. Thus, in the sixteenth century, as the Italian language was being perfected, it resembled, in Guicciardini, German in terms of the obscurity and confusion resulting from the abuse of its power to embrace within a single period an infinity of thoughts, [2101] to link together a thousand thoughts, to contain an argument, an entire discourse, an entire system or circuit of ideas, in a single period. (A quality that Staël often notes and reproaches in German.)1 Likewise, it outwardly resembled German in the abuse of inversions, metaphors, all the faculties outside logic that a language can possess, and that ours in fact possessed.
In that situation, if we had talked like the Germans, we might have believed that our language was suitable for translating. The complete opposite was believed in the 16th century, and even now, when we see the translations that were made then, we think that they were sometimes excellent as works but as translations never. When our language had been perfected, it lost those defects, and became more suitable for translating than any other perfected language. (15 Nov. 1821.)
[2102] Expression of the eyes. Why ab antico [since ancient times] have people always taken care to close the eyes of the dead? Because with their eyes open they are supposed to inspire a kind of horror. And what might be the source of this horror? The contrast between the appearance of life and the appearance and substance of death. There is so much meaning in the eyes, therefore, that they represent life, and can by themselves give the dead an appearance of life. Certainly, the eyes are the external seat of the soul, and we can easily believe that the dead animal or man whose eyes are not visible is not alive. But as long as the eyes are visible we find it hard to believe that the soul does not reside in them (as if they were inseparable from it), and the contrast between this appearance, this sort of conviction, and the certainty of the contrary, makes us shudder, especially when it comes to our fellow man, because every sensation is keen, every contrast notable in such matters (that is, the death of our fellow man), except [2103] where we have become habituated to such sensations, etc. (15 Nov. 1821.)
The same social and political and historical circumstances that made the Latin language so much more fixed and less free than Greek, and as much more rigid in comparison to Greek as it was more perfected, also made Latin literature much more fixed, perfected, fully formed, and refined than Greek, and perhaps than any other that has ever been known, including (beyond a doubt) the modern languages. But these same circumstances, and these same perfections, made its literature (like the language) much less original and varied than Greek literature. Generally speaking, the Latin writers were great by virtue of skill, the Greeks by nature. Latin writers had a sure, well-formed, rational style, the Greeks a style that was more natural than acquired, and was therefore varied and original, etc. In short, the literature is always like the language, and vice versa.
Although the majority of the great Greek writers, especially in the golden age of Greek literature, were Athenian (as many have observed, and in [2104] particular Velleius, at the end of the first book),1 and although the so-called golden age of Pericles belonged only to the Athenians, etc. etc., nonetheless neither the Greek language nor Greek literature was ever limited by those unifying terms which define, make uniform, subjugate, regulate a literature or language and make it less varied, free, original, etc. And this is because, even at that time, there was no spirit of daily social life in Athens, as there was in Rome, and because Athenian writers themselves, in that century and later, were never in any way restricted to the Athenian dialect, or to Athenian taste alone, in fact the contrary, etc. And furthermore, each writer thought and wrote by himself, and created his own school, language, style, literature, etc. (See p. 2090.) Xenophon, the so-called Attic bee, and a model of Atticism, was exiled as λακωνίζων [Sparta-loving], almost always lived outside of Athens, traveled widely in [2105] Greece, Asia, etc. (as Plato did in Egypt, Sicily, etc., and as did other great men of the time), and wrote all or almost all his works outside of Athens. (16 Nov. 1821.)
For p. 1154, beginning. Regarding this cogitare [to think] and its origin and frequentative or continuative meaning (because according to its formation it could have either value), see Forcellini under Cogito, at the beginning. And note that he believes, and states, that the meaning of the verb is metaphoric in this passage of Virgil, 1st of the Georgics, 461ff.
Denique, quid vesper serus vehat, unde serenas
Ventus agat nubes, quid cogitet humidus Auster,
Sol tibi signa dabit.
[Finally, what the late evening brings, whence the wind
drives the bright clouds, what the wet south wind thinks
the sun will tell you]
(Forcellini, Cogito, end.) Now I, on the other hand, think the meaning is literal and primitive, at least in that cogitare comes from cogere in the sense of raunare [to gather, to collect], etc. The interpretation of Servius favors Forcellini’s, [2106] that of Ascensius mine. (16 Nov. 1821.)
For p. 1129, margin, end. If (and I have mentioned my suppositions elsewhere [→Z 2078]) the verb pernoctare [to pass the night] is formed from a simple noctare, the latter comes from a monosyllable nox [night]. And note that this idea of notte [night] is entirely primitive, like that of dies [day], which is also a monosyllable according to the observations I have made [→Z 1128ff.]. So, too, sol [sun], vis [force] (whence virere [to be vigorous], if vires is simply the plural of vis [strength], etc. etc.). (16 Nov. 1821.)
For p. 2063. Nonetheless, the public use of spoken English and the unity of the nation have determined and made uniform that language, and also the literature, to a much greater extent than in the case of German language and literature. (In addition, the English language is spoken in Parliament in such a way that it can be written, since members’ speeches, etc., have to be published.) And yet [2107] those circumstances were not enough to deprive English and English literature of a spirit of freedom and diversity, etc., inasmuch as England lacks a private society. The character and habits and customs of the nation are free, the English people are one of the freest in Europe, and the individual enjoys the greatest independence, so that the nation is not and could not be strictly uniform, like the French, etc. And, finally,
although England has a capital that is even more vast than that of France, nevertheless England is not contained in London, as France is in Paris, and as the Roman empire and the Latin nation once were in Rome. (16 Nov. 1821.)
I have said [→Z 1648–49, 2039–41] that the man of deep feeling is liable to become insensitive more quickly and more intensely than other men, and especially men of average sensitivity. This truth must be extended and applied to all the parts, types, etc., into which feeling [2108] is divided and expressed, like compassion, etc. etc. Although it’s very true that the man of feeling is doomed to unhappiness, still it often happens that in his youth he becomes insensitive to suffering and misfortune, and that the less susceptible he is to intense suffering after a certain period has passed, and a certain set of experiences, the more violent and terrible were his suffering and despair in his early years, and in his first trials of life. Often, he quickly reaches a point where great unhappiness can no longer disturb him deeply, and, having been excessively susceptible to being excessively disturbed, he soon comes to possess the opposite quality, that is, a habit of tranquillity and resignation so constant, and so little susceptible to despair, that any new evil is indifferent to him. (One might [2109] call this the final stage of feeling, in which even the greatest natural tendency to imagination, to sensitivity, becomes almost completely void, and even the greatest poet, or the most eloquent imaginable, loses these qualities almost entirely and irretrievably, and becomes incapable of experiencing or making use of them under any circumstances. Until that time, feeling is always keen, even in the midst of the most intense despair, or awareness of the meaninglessness of things. But, after this period, things become so empty of meaning to the sensitive man that he no longer feels even their meaninglessness, and then feeling and imagination are truly dead, and there is no recourse.) No violent act is lasting. Whereas men of average sensitivity remain more or less susceptible to [2110] keen unhappiness all their lives and can always feel new anguish, almost as much when they are old men as when they were young, as we see in ordinary men all the time. (17 Nov. 1821.)