CLASSICAL AND CHRISTIAN IDEAS OF WORLD HARMONY Prolegomena to an Interpretation of the Word "Stimmung" Part I By LEO SPITZER Die Sonne t?nt, nach alter Weise In Brudersph?ren Wettgesang. (Goethe, Faust) Und so ist wieder jede Kreatur nur ein Ton, eine Schattierung einer grossen Harmonie, die man auch im Ganzen und Grossen studieren muss, sonst ist jedes Einzelne nur ein toter Buchstabe. (Goethe to Knebel, November 17, 1789) In the following study I propose to reconstruct the many-layered Occidental background for a German word: the concept of world harmony which underlies the word Stimmung. This task implies a survey of the whole semantic "field", as itwas developed in different epochs and literatures : the concept and the words expressing it had to be brought face to face, and in the words, in turn, the seman tic kernel and the emotional connotations with their variations and fluctuations in time had to be considered. A "Stimmungsgeschichte" of the word Stimmung was necessary. I hope that this historical development will spontaneously, if gradually, emerge from the mosaic of texts to which I wished my running text to be subordinated: the consistency of the texture of verbal and conceptual asso ciations and motifs through the centuries seems to me to be herewith established. "Avez-vous un texte?" was the insistent question which the famous positivist Fustel de Coulanges was wont to address to his pupils when they made a historical statement. The student in historical semantics must ask: "Have you many texts?", for only with a great number of them is one enabled to visualize their ever-recurrent pattern. I realize that the medieval art of tapestry (which P?guy has revived in literature), with its possibility of showing a constant motif along with the labyrinth of interwoven ramifications, would be a more adequate medium of treatment than is the necessarily linear run of the words of language. And, in any case, I shall be obliged, in the notes, to anticipate or recapitulate the events which cannot be treated at their historical place. I came across the problem of Stimmung (which has been quite inadequately treated by Germaniste) when working on that of "Milieu and Ambiance"?to which I consider it to be a parallel; it has been necessary, in some cases, to discuss the same expressions in both studies, though I have sought to avoid as much as possible any duplication. Here, as in the companion study, I "take the word seriously": the development of thought is always shown together with the development of word usage; in fact, it is development of thought which, I believe, provokes linguistic innovation while, on the other hand, preservation of thought betrays itself in linguistic conservatism. In both studies stress is laid more on preservation of word material than on its renewal : Stimmung ultimately echoes Greek words, just as ambiente, ambiance echo the Greek ? ,? ?these 409 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 1 Feb 2014 11:33:48 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 410 TRADITIO = equations are no more astonishing than are those of French il est?ils sont Indo-European *esti?*sonti, although scholars in linguistics have hitherto shown more interest in the latter type, that is, in the morphological patterns into which the ideological contents of Occidental civilization have been poured, than in the expressions for the contents itself. It is a fact that the mo^t current ab stract words have a Greco-Latin philosophical and religious background, though theymay look thoroughly German?a background which has not always been in vestigated as was done in the case of ? ? > misericordia > Barmherzigkeit. Thus, on the concrete linguistico-historical continuity from ancient Greece and Rome via the Christian Middle Ages ("quella Roma onde Christo ? Romano") to our modern secularized civilization, one can rather learn from historians of religion and philology than from "system-minded" linguistic comparatists who are little interested in the philosophical and religious ancestry of modern think ing. I shall always remember the words of a colleague of mine, a German his torian of art, of atheistic convictions: one day, striding up and down his room as he discussed with his students the Christian elements of our civilization, he stopped short and, looking down at the antique rugs on which he had been treading, he confessed, with bad grace: "Christianity is like these good old rugs: the more you trample them the less they fade." And somewhat similar must be, the experience of a linguist devoted to historical semantics: he will always dis cover an ancient "religious tapestry" of Greco-Roman-Christian origin. The continuity of our inheritance in the philosophical field, nay the continuity of philosophical style itself in the last 2500 years, is a miracle no less astounding than are the equations of the comparatists. One of the main dangers involved in the treatment of the theme ofWorld Music through the ages is the harmonizing habit of thought which is historically at the bottom of this very conception : this habit may encroach upon the mental processes of the historical semanticist who seeks to study the conception, and who, as he follows the track of the words, may be tempted to assume semantic develop ments to be already, or still present at a particular moment?only because he knows the whole curve, the before and the after, of the development. To diag nose the vitality, the emotional force in a conception at a particular historical moment is not easy (the words may be petrified reminiscences). An historical analyst such as Professor Lovejoy, for example, would perhaps tend to distinguish many more differences inword usage than I have been able to see, who would, by natural habit, rather emphasize the bridges connecting the seventeen meanings of "nature" in the eighteenth century, than the abysses between them. I readily admit that the synthetic attitude may be a serious danger, and doubly so in a study on musica mundana to which no mortal ear can ever boast to be coldly objective: forWorld Music is, perhaps, what a German coinage could express: der Seelenheimatlaut: the music ofman's nostalgia yearning homeward?heaven ward! And yet, too intellectual an attitude toward one of the most heart inspiring cosmic conceptions ever imagined, would be an unnecessary, if not an impossible sacrifice to scholarly impassibility. We have in our republic of letters too many scholars whose abstract coolness is due largely to their lack of belief in This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 1 Feb 2014 11:33:48 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CLASSICAL AND CHRISTIAN IDEAS OF WORLD HARMONY 411 what they have chosen to study, and I feel that the scholar cannot adequately portray what he does not love with all the fibres of his heart (and even a "hating love" would be better than indifference) : I side with Phaidros in the Symposium, speaking of Eros ; y?p ?v&p woLs ijyeia&ai iravr?s ? . I must express my gratefulness to the editors of Traditio for their acceptance of an article which, with its emphasis on the linguistic, and with the prolongation entailed by treating the continuation of the Christian concept ofWorld Harmony into that of the modern Stimmung, manifestly exceeds the program of their review. They must have shared with me the belief that words are not flatus vocis but vultus animi, and that in tradition there is also included the potential self-renewal of a tradition, the auto-ignition by which old conceptions can ever be revived in later periods?even in periods of secularized thought. In addition to the different scholars who contributed information to this article and whom I shall mention in due place, I want to thank my old friend Hans Sperber for handing over to me his cards on Stimmung, and Dr. Anna Granville Hatcher for the keen criticism which is for her a necessity and for the criticized a marvelous help?and for having sensed first that what originally was a note inmy article on MA1 should rather become an article in its own right. It is a fact that the German word "Stimmung" as such is untranslatable. This does not mean that phrases such as in guter (schlechter) Stimmung sein could not easily be rendered by Fr. ?tre en bonne (mauvaise) humeur, Eng. to be in a good (bad) humor, in a good (bad) mood; die Stimmung in diesem Bilde ... (Zimmer) by atmosph?re de ce tableau (cette chambre),2 or Vambiance ; Stim mung hervorrufen by to create, to give atmosphere, cr?er une atmosph?re; die Stim mung der B?rse by Vhumeur, le climat de la bourse: f?r etwas Stimmung machen by to promote; die Seele zu Traurigkeit stimmen by disposer ?me ? la tristesse etc. But what ismissing in the main European languages is a term that would express 1Abbreviations: = NED New English Dictionary = DWb Deutsches W?rterbuch (Grimm) = REW Meyer-L?bke, Romanisches Etymologisches W?rterbuch = FEW von Wartburg, Franz?sisches Etymologisches W?rterbuch = Bloch Bloch-von Wartburg, Dictionnaire ?tymologique de la langue fran?aise = Gode(froy) F. Godefroy, Dictionnaire de Vancienne langue fran?aise = ThLL Thesaurus Linguae Latin?? = ZRPh Zeitschrift f?r romanische Philologie = PMLA Publications of theModern Language Association = MA my article on "Milieu and Ambiance" in Philosophy and Phenomeno logical Research III, 1-42; 169-218 = Reese G. Reese, Music in theMiddle Ages, New York 1940. = = OF Old French, O Sp Old Spanish etc. 2 Cf. for example L?on Vallas, Claude Debussy (English translation 1933, p. 104): "To use a phrase which has become stereotyped because of its exactness and truth?they [the an new expressive mediums] enable Debussy to create atmosphere unprecedented in its fluidity and vibration." This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 1 Feb 2014 11:33:48 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 412 TRADITIO the unity of feelings experienced by man face to face with his environment (a landscape, Nature, one's fellow-man), and would comprehend and weld together the objective (factual) and the subjective (psychological) into one harmonious unity.