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Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. 35 mm slides or 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. ■A ccessing U the World's M Information since I 1938 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Order Number 8827903 Breaking down the neurotic-psychotic artifice: The subversive function of myth in Goethe, Nietzsche, Rilke and Walter Benjam in Lundgren, Neale Powell, Ph.D. Emory University, 1988 Copyright ©1989 by Lundgren, Neale Powell. All rights reserved. UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 I Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PLEASE NOTE: in all cases this material has been filmed in the best possible way from the available copy. Problems encountered with this document have been identified here with a check mark V . 1. Glossy photographs or p ages_____ 2. Colored illustrations, paper or print_______ 3. Photographs with dark background_____ 4. Illustrations are poor copy_______ 5. Pages with black marks, not original copy V 6. Print shows through as there is text on both sides of page_______ 7. Indistinct, broken or small print on several pages i / 8. Print exceeds margin requirements______ 9. Tightly bound copy with print lost in spine_______ 10. Computer printout pages with indistinct print_______ 11. Page(s) ____________ lacking when material received, and not available from school or author. 12. Page(s) ____________ seem to be missing in numbering only as text follows. 13. Two pages numbered . Text follows. 14. Curling and wrinkled p ages______ 15. Dissertation contains pages with print at a slant, filmed a s received_________ 16. Other___________________________________________________________________________ UMI I Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BREAKING DOWN THE NEUROTIC-PSYCHOTIC ARTIFICE: THE SUBVERSIVE FUNCTION OF MYTH IN GOETHE, NIETZSCHE, RILKE AND WALTER BENJAMIN By Neale Powell Lundgren B.A., Loyola University, 1976 M. A., S t John’s University, 1982 Adviser: Dr. Robert Detweiler A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts 1988 F Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BREAKING DOWN THE NEUROTIC-PSYCHOTIC ARTIFICE: THE SUBVERSIVE FUNCTION OF MYTH IN GOETHE, NIETZSCHE RILKE AND WALTER BENJAMIN Approved for the Department: Advii Dab Accepted: lean of the Graduate School ^ 4 ____ I Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ©1989 NEALE POWELL LUNDGREN All Rights Reserved r : Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. NOTICE TO BORROWERS Unpublished dissertations deposited in the Emory University Library must be used only in accordance with the stipulations prescribed by the author in the preceding statement. The author of this dissertation is: NAME Neale Powell Lundgren ADDRESS 1350 N. Morningside Drive, Apt #15 Atlanta, GA 30306 The director of this dissertation is: NAME Dr. Robert Detweiler ADDRESS Institute of the Liberal Arts Emory University Atlanta, Ga 30322 Users of this dissertation not regularly enrolled as students at Emory University are required to attest acceptance of the preceding stipulations by signing below. Libraries borrowing this dissertation for the use of their patrons are required to see that each user records here the information requested. Name of User Address Date Type of use (Examination only or copying) r Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BREAKING DOWN THE NEUROTIC-PSYCHOTIC ARTIFICE; THE SUBVERSIVE FUNCTION OF MYTH IN GOETHE, NIETZSCHE, RILKE AND WALTER BENJAMIN By Neale Powell Lundgren B.A., Loyola University, 1976 M. A., St. John's University, 1982 Adviser: Dr. Robert Detweiler An Abstract of A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Emory University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts 1988 r ~ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Breaking Down The Neurotic-Psychotic Artifice: The Subversive Function of Myth in Goethe, Nietzsche, Rilke and Walter Benjamin This dissertation re-examines the principal philosophical thrusts of the German Enlightenment period, from the perspective of their totalizing-mythological function, and investigates how this function is criti cized by the non-totalizing function of myth found within the primary mythical images in the work of Goethe, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Walter Ben jam in. Utilizing the revolutionary book by Hans Blumenberg(Work On Myth 1979) on the function of myth in German Idealism and Romanti cism, I instigate a discourse between Blumenberg's totalizing work on myth and the negative-dialectical work on myth as proposed by Theodor Adorno. I locate the German origins of this negative-dialectical myth making in the work of Goethe, specifically his non-totalizing image, Wilhelm Meister. I locate the development of this use of myth in Nietzsche's Zarathustra, and, finally, trace a similar function at work in Rilke's Malte and Walter Benjamin'shistorical materialist. Contrary to Habermas, who argues that Nietzsche opened up two roads to postmodemity, one leading to the "ontologization of aesthetics" (Heidegger) and the other to the "totalizing critique" of reason (Adorno/ Horkheimer), I put forth the argument that the Nietzschean "two roads" metaphor is useful but needs to be re-shaped, configuring one road toward the mythological history and historical mythology of Rilke and Walter Benjamin, and another road to Theodor Adorno’s"thorough critique" of reason. The need to revise Habermas’s "two roads to post-modernity" theory mythographically, rests on the primary investigation of this dissertation: to trace by de-scription the practical incarnation of the word on German soil (from the time of the classical-biblical syncretism of mythological inscription around the fourth century to our present one). I define this process of'practical incarnation" asthat word which subversively desires to de-scribe and trans-figure the neurotic (oedipal)- psychotic (narcissan) structure that has defined the parameters of Western discourse, at least since neo-Platonic Christianity influenced cultural codifications of the West. Finally, I maintain that theprimary image of criticism which emerges from the dialectical work of the writers herein, is the image of man-child, a classless, non-totalizing image implicit in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, and developed in theKind-Mensch constellation in the work of Nietzsche, Rilke, and Walter Benjamin. F Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For my mother, Antoinette tanti bacd i ' ....:.......................... Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1. The Breakdown of Language: Describing the Oedipal-Narcissan Code When the Word Was Made Flesh or When Man Said, "Let There Be Enlight enment"........................................... 1 Idealism and the Totalizing Function of Myth................. 15 The Ideological Function of Neurosis-Psychosis.............. 28 2. Breaking Open the Closed Circle of Enlightenment: The Descriptive andTrans-figurative Function of Myth in Goethe's Lehrjahre The Psychotic Function of Myth in Holderlin................... 45 Wilhelm Meister Describes andTrans-figures the Oedipal-Narcissan Code........................................................ 65 When Hyperion is Healed the Neurotic-Psychotic Bind isDescribed andTrans-figured : The Implicit Scale of Health in Goethe's Lehrjahre................................ 78 3. Amidst the World the CriticalMan-Child Creates and

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