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Re: [THOUGHTS] Nabokov's Art, Bergson's "élan vital", Freudian "Todestrieb"... correction
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Former posting (excerpts): For V.Nabokov We shall never know
the meaning of
life but, as also quoted by P.Johnston, it is possible to explore
attainment and science, retainment and art. As we may also read in
B.Boyds essay: Art at its best offers us the durability that became lifes
first purpose, the variety that became its second We do not know a purpose
guaranteed from outside life, but we can add as much as we can to the
creativity of life. Purpose-Driven Life, by Brian Boyd, 2009;[ ] I
remembered Henri Bergsons hypothesis about the Élan vital and Freuds
divergent paths [ ] For him since every organism must strive after the kind
of death that belongs exclusively to its species, it was thanks to the
external obstacles that life and its variety was sustained during the
interval in which its specific road to death wasnt conquered more directly.
The outside world, for S.Freud, seems to play a role that is similar to Art
in the maintenance of life
Jansy Mello: A correction - Freud didnt use the word species (besides,
for him sex wasnt only an ancilla of art but lets not enter into that
tangle of thorns now!*)
Quoting from Beyond the Pleasure Principle (from
<http://www.bartleby.com/276/5.html> http://www.bartleby.com/276/5.html):
If then all organic instincts are conservative, historically acquired, and
are directed towards regression, towards reinstatement of something earlier,
we are obliged to place all the results of organic development to the credit
of external, disturbing and distracting influences. The rudimentary creature
would from its very beginning not have wanted to change, would, if
circumstances had remained the same, have always merely repeated the same
course of existence[ ] It would be counter to the conservative nature of
instinct if the goal of life were a state never hitherto reached[ ] If we
may assume as an experience admitting of no exception that everything living
dies from causes within itself, and returns to the inorganic, we can only
say The goal of all life is death, and, casting back, The inanimate was
there before the animate. [ ] It remains to be added that the organism is
resolved to die only in its own way; even these watchmen of life [instincts
of self-preservation, power, self-assertion] were originally the myrmidons
of death.
Freud wrote his article in 1925 and, at that time, his ideas follow
Haeckels theory of recapitulation, i.e. that ontogeny recapitulates
phylogeny.** I cannot remember any invective against S.Freud, on Nabokovs
part, that was not restricted to Freuds The Interpretation of Dreams and
his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Although V.N insistently
depreciated Freud there seems to be no exact reference to any of the works
he despised: quite probably he didnt even bother to read Freuds different
theoretical writings and research. It would have been wonderful to find his
critical opinions concerning Freuds death drive, the compulsion to
repeat or his refusal to accept that there could be in nature a drive
(commonly translated as an instinct) towards perfection.
* For Freud, of course, the artistic urge sublimates the sexual. Nabokov
reverses the relationship. As a biologist and a keen reader of Bergson, he
felt that in evolutionary terms sex shows nature at its most create, its
most imaginative. It is not the artistic aptitudes that are secondary
sexual characters as some shams and shamans have said, he writes in Lolita;
it is the other way around: sex is but the ancilla of art. (138). Cf.
Brian Boyd, Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years, p.109. [Btw: the quoted
lines were written by H.Humbert (Lolita, part 2,ch.26)].
** As registered in the wiki: The Austrian pioneer in psychoanalysis,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud> Sigmund Freud, also favored
Haeckel's doctrine. He was trained as a biologist under the influence of
recapitulation theory at the time of its domination, and retained a
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckian> Lamarckian outlook with
justification from the recapitulation theory. He also distinguished between
physical and mental recapitulation, in which the differences would become an
essential argument for his
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanism#Level_3_-_Neurotic> theory
of neuroses. (cf. S. Jay Gould, 1977).
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Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
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The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
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life but, as also quoted by P.Johnston, it is possible to explore
attainment and science, retainment and art. As we may also read in
B.Boyds essay: Art at its best offers us the durability that became lifes
first purpose, the variety that became its second We do not know a purpose
guaranteed from outside life, but we can add as much as we can to the
creativity of life. Purpose-Driven Life, by Brian Boyd, 2009;[ ] I
remembered Henri Bergsons hypothesis about the Élan vital and Freuds
divergent paths [ ] For him since every organism must strive after the kind
of death that belongs exclusively to its species, it was thanks to the
external obstacles that life and its variety was sustained during the
interval in which its specific road to death wasnt conquered more directly.
The outside world, for S.Freud, seems to play a role that is similar to Art
in the maintenance of life
Jansy Mello: A correction - Freud didnt use the word species (besides,
for him sex wasnt only an ancilla of art but lets not enter into that
tangle of thorns now!*)
Quoting from Beyond the Pleasure Principle (from
<http://www.bartleby.com/276/5.html> http://www.bartleby.com/276/5.html):
If then all organic instincts are conservative, historically acquired, and
are directed towards regression, towards reinstatement of something earlier,
we are obliged to place all the results of organic development to the credit
of external, disturbing and distracting influences. The rudimentary creature
would from its very beginning not have wanted to change, would, if
circumstances had remained the same, have always merely repeated the same
course of existence[ ] It would be counter to the conservative nature of
instinct if the goal of life were a state never hitherto reached[ ] If we
may assume as an experience admitting of no exception that everything living
dies from causes within itself, and returns to the inorganic, we can only
say The goal of all life is death, and, casting back, The inanimate was
there before the animate. [ ] It remains to be added that the organism is
resolved to die only in its own way; even these watchmen of life [instincts
of self-preservation, power, self-assertion] were originally the myrmidons
of death.
Freud wrote his article in 1925 and, at that time, his ideas follow
Haeckels theory of recapitulation, i.e. that ontogeny recapitulates
phylogeny.** I cannot remember any invective against S.Freud, on Nabokovs
part, that was not restricted to Freuds The Interpretation of Dreams and
his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Although V.N insistently
depreciated Freud there seems to be no exact reference to any of the works
he despised: quite probably he didnt even bother to read Freuds different
theoretical writings and research. It would have been wonderful to find his
critical opinions concerning Freuds death drive, the compulsion to
repeat or his refusal to accept that there could be in nature a drive
(commonly translated as an instinct) towards perfection.
* For Freud, of course, the artistic urge sublimates the sexual. Nabokov
reverses the relationship. As a biologist and a keen reader of Bergson, he
felt that in evolutionary terms sex shows nature at its most create, its
most imaginative. It is not the artistic aptitudes that are secondary
sexual characters as some shams and shamans have said, he writes in Lolita;
it is the other way around: sex is but the ancilla of art. (138). Cf.
Brian Boyd, Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years, p.109. [Btw: the quoted
lines were written by H.Humbert (Lolita, part 2,ch.26)].
** As registered in the wiki: The Austrian pioneer in psychoanalysis,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud> Sigmund Freud, also favored
Haeckel's doctrine. He was trained as a biologist under the influence of
recapitulation theory at the time of its domination, and retained a
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckian> Lamarckian outlook with
justification from the recapitulation theory. He also distinguished between
physical and mental recapitulation, in which the differences would become an
essential argument for his
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanism#Level_3_-_Neurotic> theory
of neuroses. (cf. S. Jay Gould, 1977).
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
AdaOnline: "http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/
The Nabokov Society of Japan's Annotations to Ada: http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html
The VN Bibliography Blog: http://vnbiblio.com/
Search the archive with L-Soft: https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L
Manage subscription options :http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=NABOKV-L