20
PARTISAN REVIEW
IV
The fashionable attempt to understand great thinkers or
artists in terms of their historical situation leads to as much misun–
derstanding as understanding. Neither shortcomings nor tragedy
should be blamed on "the time." One should first consider whether
other ages-and here one should not think solely of the Middle Ages
of which, moreover, one usually does not know too much-were en–
tirely different. Nor should one rush into psychological explanations
without asking whether writers of a different psychological constitu–
tion fare very differently. Nietzsche's and Rilke's profound solitude,
broken only briefly by the philosopher's friendship with Wagner and
the poet's with Rodin, and the encounter of both, fifteen years apart,
with Lou Salome, seems to have affected their work and invites psy–
chological and historical explanations. I shall give the merest sugges–
tion of each kind of approach.
In personal life both men were exceedingly shy and retiring.
Their passion was set free only when they wrote. The world has
gained because they poured all their feelings into their books; but
the histrionics which others vent casually on their friends have here
become part of the work. Solitude, while greatly increasing the in–
tensity of feeling, diminishes the powers of self-criticism.
Or: it was the age that condemned these men to utter lone–
liness. And that very lack of ordinary communication which keeps
the writer's experience undefiled by common preconceptions also
makes for a lack of disciplined scrutiny. We find the same faults in
the last two great books of James Joyce and already in the Second
Part of
Faust
which Goethe kept secret until his death. At the begin–
ning of the nineteenth century the artist loses contact with his audi–
ence and as a result becomes undisciplined. By way of contrast,
Aeschylus and Sophocles contended against each other before an in–
terested public which they were educating in the process. Nietzsche
and Rilke stood alone without rivals or audience, and what little
adulation each received only made matters worse.
Such explanations do not go deep enough. Shakespeare had an
audience and wrote with the immediate aim of having his plays per–
formed, and there was no lack of rivals except insofar as
his
greatness
precludes our giving them that name. Yet what striking lack of
