ROBERT B. HEILMAN AND
ERIC VOEGELIN
ERIC VOEGELIN INSTITUTE SERIES IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Other Books in the Series Art and Intellect in the Philosophy of Étienne Gilson by Francesca Aran Murphy Augustine and Politics as Longing in the World by John von Heyking Eros, Wisdom, and Silence: Plato’s Erotic Dialogues by James M. Rhodes A Government of Laws: Political Theory, Religion, and the American Founding by Ellis Sandoz Hans Jonas: The Integrity of Thinking by David J. Levy Lonergan and the Philosophy of Historical Existence by Thomas J. McPartland The Narrow Path of Freedom and Other Essays by Eugene Davidson New Political Religions, or an Analysis of Modern Terrorism by Barry Cooper Transcendence and History: The Search for Ultimacy from Ancient Societies to Postmodernity by Glenn Hughes Voegelin, Schelling, and the Philosophy of Historical Existence by Jerry Day
ROBERT B. HEILMAN AND
ERIC VOEGELIN A Friendship in Letters 1944 – 1984 Edited with an Introduction by
Charles R. Embry Foreword by
Champlin B. Heilman
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI PRESS COLUMBIA AND LONDON
Copyright © by The Curators of the University of Missouri University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri Printed and bound in the United States of America All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Heilman, Robert Bechtold, 1906– Robert B. Heilman and Eric Voegelin : a friendship in letters, 1944–1984 / edited with an introduction by Charles R. Embry ; foreword by Champlin B. Heilman. p. cm. — (Eric Voegelin Institute series in political philosophy) Includes index. ISBN 0-8262-1507-6 1. Voegelin, Eric, 1901—Correspondence. 2. Heilman, Robert Bechtold, 1906—Correspondence. 3. Political scientists—Correspondence. I. Title: Friendship in letters, 1944–1984. II. Voegelin, Eric, 1901– III. Embry, Charles R., 1942– IV. Title. V. Series. JC263.V632H44 2004 320'.092'2—dc22 2003022024 This paper meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, z., . Designer: Kristie lee Typesetter: Crane Composition, Inc. Printer and binder: The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group Typefaces: Adobe Garamond
Publication of this book has been assisted by generous contributions from Eugene Davidson, Texas A&M University–Commerce, and the Eric Voegelin Institute.
To Polly
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CONTENTS
Foreword by Champlin B. Heilman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Editorial Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Letters Delightful Acquisition Letters ‒, ‒ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . With a Humble Request Letters ‒, ‒ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Philia Politike Letters ‒, ‒ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hurried over the Face of the Earth Letters ‒, ‒ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Not a Postscript at All but a New Essay Letters ‒, ‒ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What Was Formed at That Time Holds Together Letters ‒, ‒ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix A Chronology of Letters and Locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix B Number of Letters and Publications Referenced in Letters . . . . . . . . . Appendix C Selected Enclosures in Various Letters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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FOREWORD Champlin B. Heilman
The kind invitation to write a foreword for a collection of my father’s correspondence with Eric Voegelin brings up powerful feelings because my dad, the consummate letter writer, sits, letterless, at age ninety-six, wheelchair bound, in a dementia ward to which he refers, entirely without irony, as his “club,” whose fellow residents are his “team.” However, my focus is not my father’s dramatic change, but rather that for seventy-two years letters were a constant and dominant part of his life. The letters in this volume testify to my father’s erudition and eloquence, so in this foreword I want to reflect on his letter-writing habit as I observed it and as I experienced it through nearly forty-three years of weekly exchanges. His last letters in would lose their way, might change direction from one recipient to another midway, or be addressed oddly, as when he wrote to his nephew (a dean at Auburn University) as the “Dean in Alabama”; often they would not be sent at all. Still, he tried to write as he had since age twenty-two, when he went off to graduate school: a letter a week to his family and then a flood of letters at various intervals to a staggering range of recipients, all reflecting his great faith that the written word is the best form of communication. He was ever skeptical of telephones, fearing that they were costly instruments of bad news. Sometimes I suspect that this skepticism had more to do with his helplessness when faced with any kind of mechanical task, even those involving the machines he loved, like changing ribbons on his Smith Corona (later Royal). He always used a portable typewriter, feeling that the “electrics” were way too finicky for his pounding, and stuck with his portable to the end, utterly refusing to join the world of “word processing,” a phrase he felt was an abomination. The computer itself he thought a curse since it would not, as some hapless but well-meaning colleague asserted, “help [him] to write better and faster.” He thought he composed quite well enough on the typewriter. Had he become a computer user, I think that he would have still sent his letters by U.S. mail rather than by e-mail, believing that important matters like letters deserve a more traditional and formal delivery. ix
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Pound he did; my earliest recollections of going-to-sleep sounds were of his typing in the neighboring room. He was a four-finger typist—rapid and virtually error free—and his many secretaries were in awe that so few fingers could produce so many pages of manuscript so rapidly and accurately. While his article and manuscript composition was more often reserved for the library, where first drafts were handwritten, letter writing dominated his office: each day’s mail was carefully lined up for reply by typewriter, an efficiency that sometimes must have dismayed his correspondents, particularly when Robert’s reply made it into the same day’s return mail. This decades-long pattern continued into later years when I would line up letters for him, only to return several weeks later and find the stack much as I had left it. Even then he would disappear to his desk to “answer some letters,” as he would say. Since correspondence was for him a form of written conversation, he maintained certain expectations for both himself and his correspondents. Not the least of these was timeliness, a fluid standard that varied considerably, depending upon subject matter, correspondent, urgency of material, and a mutually if informally agreed-upon pattern of frequency. For example, Robert constantly wrote letters to the editors of the Seattle Times, a paper he “memorized” daily, badgering them about grammatical and spelling errors or oddities in expression, but rarely about editorial issues; he grumbled that the Times did not respond to all his letters, and was relieved when a Times columnist (whose name, coincidentally, was Robert Heilman) told him that his letters were posted as admonitions to write more carefully. As head of the English department, Robert developed over the years many relationships with students who later became correspondents. One of these former students was James Cole, now retired from the University of Wyoming at Laramie. In a recent letter he remembered my father’s epistolary style: “Your father was a faithful correspondent, writing detailed, incisive letters, always friendly and personal, with good humor as with wit. His head apparently ran lickety split all the time and his words kept [up] in a dazzling kind of spontaneous performance that . . . was a pleasure to behold.” For a while when he was head of the English department at the University of Washington, Robert responded to people’s letters with questions about language, sort of a “Dr. English– Dear Abby” responsibility that he seemed to enjoy. These single-response episodes he dispatched fully and carefully in a few days whether the correspondent was a schoolboy from Missouri or a worker in a local sawmill. He and I exchanged letters weekly, usually a couple of single-spaced pages written on Sunday; if either of us wrote later, an apology was issued. The frequency of his letters to Eric varied, depending on their personal schedules as well as the subject matter of the letters; sometimes, unusual delays occurred.
Foreword by Champlin B. Heilman
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While a fluid punctuality was always a primary expectation, Robert also expected both himself and his correspondents to read carefully and to respond appropriately, either noting or commenting on particular items. I developed the habit, after paternal scoldings, of outlining items on which he would expect some sort of response, and often more than half my letter would be taken up with these topics. His expectation to be answered by his correspondents sometimes proved painfully expensive, especially at tax time when he would pound out a page or two of single-spaced questions about his return only to be dismayed that his bill contained a significant increase due to the CPA having spent “billable hours” responding to his questions. That dismay often turned to fury, a fury that he never understood was caused in part by his epistolary instincts. For Robert, the epistolary give-and-take was like a good conversation, but even better in that many such pleasurable conversations could be happening simultaneously with family members, old friends, colleagues, institutional writers of various kinds, and of course with his favorites like Eric, who led him to think and understand in new ways. Beyond punctuality and careful responses, Robert and Eric shared institutional frustrations, humor, and a sense of language. For example, Robert felt that a search committee he chaired wanted someone who was “safe and simple” rather than adventurous and visionary, and Eric noted of a proposed humanities program that at least “some of the faculty will be compelled to read the books they are supposed to discuss.” Both men could also be humorous; for example, Robert was especially funny when he lamented to me his perpetual failure to have one of his many submissions to the New Yorker published. Eric commented humorously on his favorite place for inspiration—“sitting in the bathtub and smoking a cigar”—and disagreed with a couple of LSU colleagues named French and Frye by punning that he was neither “French nor fried.” Both Robert and Eric responded to the language of their correspondents or to writers they might be discussing. Since my style was fairly pragmatic, Robert would compliment me on being unexpectedly fluent or witty, much as he appreciated my cousin’s letters that were “playful” and “lively”; others’ letters he condemned as too “flat.” Similarly, Eric felt that a colleague was guilty of “circumlocutory heaviness.” Finally, just as Robert and Eric dealt with shared intellectual issues, particularly in regard to manuscripts in progress, Robert and I would exchange letters on my teaching, particularly novels or ideas I was playing with in regard to motivating high school students. He was pleased to hear that his introductory material on novels or ideas on tragedy and melodrama actually made their way, even if casually, into my classrooms. The tone of these exchanges was definitely more paternal than professorial.
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That paternal tone also typifies my sense of Eric, although avuncular might be more accurate a word. As a small boy, I found him gentle and friendly, if distant; perhaps he was just bemused at the small, towheaded creature that would occupy a bed when the two couples were socializing. Later, when I visited Munich and the Voegelins took me in, I found him almost constantly smiling at this fellow who was between student and soldier. While Lissy, who was always talkative and warm, would show me around by taking me to their country cottage, to museums, or to lunch, occasionally the three of us would go in the evening to a concert and once to see the opera Wozzeck. This opera so excited Eric that contrary to his usual affable distance he expounded on it to us vigorously. Later, after Eric and Lissy came to the Hoover Institution, my wife and I exchanged several meals with them; always Eric was friendly and curious about our lives as teachers and parents of two small children. One such meal occurred when Robert and Ruth were staying in Palo Alto with us, and we all marveled at the lunar landing. Overall, Eric was amiable and interested, qualities his and Robert’s letters often reflect, especially as the two men inquired about Lissy, Ruth, Pete, or Mike (the Heilman family cat, named for the LSU mascot). Now that the era of Robert’s correspondence with Eric and me has ended, I fear that a useful, pleasurable, and valuable way of connecting with family, friends, and colleagues is giving way to the ubiquitous e-mail with its ephemeral convenience and speed. I miss the epistolary connection with my dad, I miss those weekly, written discussions that cemented and expanded a filial bond, and, judging from the flow of letters to him from all over the nation, many others will miss their regular exchanges with him as well, maybe even the Seattle Times. Champlin B. Heilman Palo Alto, California December 2002
A C K N OW L E D G M E N T S
It is my happy task now to acknowledge those persons who supported this endeavor in various ways; of course, their generous support and help in no way makes them responsible for any errors or lapses that appear herein. First I would like to thank the many people at Texas A&M University–Commerce who have provided various types of support—both recently and through the years. Mathew Kanjirathinkal, graduate dean until August , provided several minigrants that supported this project in its early stages. These enabled me to examine the Voegelin Papers (microfilmed) at the Eric Voegelin Institute at Louisiana State University, and the Heilman Papers at the University of Washington, Seattle. I continue to appreciate his support and recognition of my work. I am very grateful that Elton Stetson, interim dean of the graduate school, has continued the support of the graduate school for this project. Natalie Henderson, doctoral degree coordinator, has always promptly answered all my pleas for help and provided administrative support for my research. Finnie Murray, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, approved several research-load reductions that helped me finish the manuscript and complete the tasks necessary for its publication. I would also like to thank Paul Lenchner, head of the political science department, for his encouragement and steadfastness throughout various crises, his openness to a variety of academic activities, and, finally, for his support of a course-load reduction to complete this manuscript. I want also to thank College of Arts and Sciences dean Finnie Murray for granting this time to complete the manuscript. Charles Elliott, my friend and department head for many years, supported all the crazy projects throughout my career here, projects that ultimately culminated in this one. Assistant Dean Linda Matthei of the College of Arts and Sciences provided additional funds for travel to the Eric Voegelin Institute. Michael Odom, adjunct professor of art and friend, helped with the identification of American artists. Philippe Seminet, assistant professor of literature and languages, helped me understand French phrases and customs. My colleagues in the political science department, JoAnn DiGeorgio-Lutz and Ayo Ogundele, have provided welcome infusions of energy and new ideas for the old curmudgeons such as myself. To my students, Sarah Gammage Ramm, Jackie Barr, and Gretchen Boettcher, who helped me with various onerous proofreading tasks, xiii
xiv
Acknowledgments
I extend my thanks. The political science administrative assistant Jana Dooley happily attended to those tasks that would otherwise make our jobs much more difficult. Graduate assistants Aashit Shah and Hillary Gleason provided further proofreading support. I would be remiss in my acknowledgments if I did not recognize the daily support provided me by the professional staff of the James G. Gee Library of Texas A&M University–Commerce and thank them for their help. Diane Downing, director, Scott Downing, interlibrary loan librarian, and Carolyn Trezevant, reference librarian, have, over the years, taught me much about resources and have always helped me when I came up against problems I thought insoluble. Marsha Keenan maintains the Internet databases that were indispensable in the preparation of this book. I received help from a distance, too. Wanda Ashley, coordinator of the Eric Voegelin Institute at Louisiana State University, helped make my several visits to the microfilmed Voegelin Papers both pleasant and profitable. Gary Lundell and Karyl Winn, as well as the entire staff of the Manuscripts, Special Collections, University Archives made me welcome and were most helpful while I worked in the Heilman Papers at the University of Washington, Seattle. Gary Lundell, as well as Carol A. Leadenham, assistant archivist for reference of the Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, provided very timely support late in the revision process, and I acknowledge their help with a special thankyou. The staff of the Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, were also helpful to me on the occasion of my visit there in August . Emily C. Howie, reference librarian, Library of Congress, provided information on the U.S. Congress. Scott Segrest, political science doctoral student at Louisiana State University, enthusiastically supported my early work on this project and generously checked various items in the Voegelin Papers microfilm. Germain J. Bienvenu, of the Special Collections Public Services division of Louisiana State University Libraries, provided answers via e-mail, and other staff members of Special Collections pointed me in the correct directions for ferreting out information during my visits there. Christine Weideman, archivist at Yale University Library, answered questions via e-mail as did Bob Bykofsky, records manager of the Rockefeller Foundation. The Voegelin scholars Manfred Henningsen, Geoffrey L. Price, Hans-Jörg Sigwart, and Gilbert Weiss supplied information—also via e-mail—that helped me annotate several of the letters. I acknowledge and thank them for their generous responses to these requests. Both Steve Ealy of the Liberty Fund and Brendan Purcell, lecturer in philosophy at University College, Dublin, encouraged me early to pursue this project when it seemed only a slight possibility.
Acknowledgments
xv
To Brenda Bell, Dick Fulkerson, and Jim Reynolds, colleagues and friends who for many years encouraged my interests in literature and who—fortunately— never took me as seriously as I wanted to be taken, thank you for the years of conversation and argument. I also acknowledge with gratitude the friendship of Mary Elaine and Bob House, who, in remaining committed to the life of the mind and creative endeavors, have constantly challenged my ideas in conversation, but have never faltered in their support. I want to say a special thanks to Champlin B. Heilman who, on behalf of his father, granted permission to publish material from the Heilman Papers, generously consented to write a foreword for this volume, and enthusiastically read the correspondence in manuscript. I wish especially to thank three people at the University of Missouri Press: Beverly Jarrett, for her early interest in this project and for her continued support and advice during its development; Jane Lago, for her helpful advice early in the revising process; and Julianna Schroeder, for the scrupulous copyediting that saved me from many embarrassing inconsistencies and errors. Finally, I wish to thank three special persons who have long believed in and encouraged my work on literature and philosophy. My mentor and friend, Ellis Sandoz, introduced me to political philosophy and Eric Voegelin forty years ago when I was a graduating senior at Louisiana Tech University. I thank him for showing me the way long ago. To Tim Hoye, my friend and colleague (as well as professor of government and history at Texas Woman’s University), thank you for those spirited conversations in which we never allowed the other to finish his sentence and for your devotion to a common enterprise. To Polly Detels, my wife, I dedicate this book, for without her love, devotion, and encouragement I would not have traveled this part of the road.
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E D I TO R I A L N OT E S
There are letters in the correspondence between Robert B. Heilman and Eric Voegelin; that this collection includes results from my inclusion of a letter from Lissy Voegelin to Heilman approving his request to dedicate Magic in the Web: Action and Language in Othello to Eric. This is Letter . Also, included with Letter , a note written by Heilman, there is a note written to Eric by Ruth Heilman. Of the letters, Heilman wrote and Voegelin wrote . The first letter was probably written in or , although the first letter with the date including year was written by Voegelin on July , . Most of the letters were found in the Voegelin Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, box , folder . Several were found in other boxes of the Voegelin Papers, and fifty-four were found in various accessions of the Robert B. Heilman Papers, Manuscripts, Special Collections, University Archives, University of Washington Libraries. The Heilman Papers were given to the University of Washington Libraries in twentynine separate accessions and there are several boxes that are “unaccessed.” I was permitted to examine the materials of these boxes by the librarians of the Manuscripts, Special Collections, University Archives, but I found no additional letters. It is apparent from reading the correspondence that several letters—perhaps as many as three or four—are missing. These letters may, of course, no longer exist, but then they may turn up in some unsuspected folder. For the most part, the letters appear in this volume as they were written. For convenience of reading I have standardized dating of the letters and spelling of a writer’s name (such as Dostoevsky). Letters that were written entirely by hand are indicated with “[OH]” (original holograph) at the top. Angle brackets (< >) indicate that a remark, signature, or other material was handwritten onto an otherwise typed letter. If a marginal note occurs in a letter, I have indicated in square brackets ([ ]) the place that remark appears on the page of the original. Some of the letters were unsigned because they are transcribed from copies found in the writer’s files; I have inserted the customary signature—Bob or Eric—in brackets. I have italicized all book titles and foreign phrases except for Latin phrases that have passed into general English usage. In the case of obvious typographical errors or minor misspellings, I changed these silently. Punctuation has remained essentially unchanged, except I silently changed punctuation to conform xvii
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Editorial Notes
to standard typographical practice (such as placing colons and semicolons outside quotation marks, and periods and commas within them) and a few minor commas for clarity in sentences. I have also silently eliminated some unnecessary dashes if a comma or period was already present. Where persons are referred to only by their surnames, I have supplied upon the first appearance of the surname their given names—where these could be determined—in brackets in the text. If a title for an article or offprint that is mentioned does not appear in the letter and I could determine same, I placed it (with citation) in a footnote. Words that are added for clarification of meaning, I placed in brackets. Where brackets appear in the original, I changed these to ordinary parentheses. For reasons unknown to me, Heilman spelled “Lissy” in various ways; I have left these various spellings unchanged.
ROBERT B. HEILMAN AND
ERIC VOEGELIN
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I N T RO D U C T I O N
A special pleasure it is to say my thanks to my friend and colleague Professor Robert B. Heilman (University of Washington) for his help in improving my English. His thorough analysis of sections of the manuscript, his reasoned advice with regard to grammar and style, his congenial understanding of relations between philosophical subject matter and means of linguistic expression, have had a pervasive effect. I can only hope that the disciple will not disappoint the master too deeply.1
Thus wrote Eric Voegelin in the final paragraph of his acknowledgments in Israel and Revelation (1956). Robert B. Heilman responded immediately after receiving the book; he wrote Voegelin: I owned the book for an hour or two before, in that preliminary leafing through the “back matter” and the “front matter” by which one explores the periphery, I came across the “Acknowledgments” and the last paragraph on the page. I am very much touched, as I am overwhelmed by your excessive generosity. . . . I should be in danger of a bad case of pride did not Ruth come to my spiritual rescue by remarking firmly, “What a paradox! You as master and Eric as disciple!” (I will omit her punctuation of this by exclamatory breathing.) I am disposed to go beyond a literal reading of the paragraph and to take it rather as evidence of a kindly personal feeling—a very fine thing to have. There is nothing more gratifying than “my friend and colleague.” (Letter 66) Heilman’s response—emphasizing as it does Voegelin’s phrase “my friend and colleague”—acknowledged in turn the central components of the relationship between Robert B. Heilman (b. 1906) and Eric Voegelin (1901–1985) that flowered in 1942 and lasted to Voegelin’s death in 1985. The forty-year correspondence opens a window on the nature and extent of their friendship, as well as their absorption in literary criticism. That Voegelin in his acknowledgments connected the terms friend and colleague indicates a recognition of both the personal and 1. See the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 14, Order and History, vol. 1, Israel and Revelation (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2001), 25.
1
2
Robert B. Heilman and Eric Voegelin
professional dimensions of his relationship with Heilman. The personal dimensions of the friendship include expressions of loving concern for the other person and his family, while the intellectual dimensions include both matters of the calculative intellect and academic issues, as well as the noetic as symbolized in Plato and Aristotle. Although the noetic dimension of their friendship is never articulated directly in the correspondence (or elsewhere as far as I am aware), the relationship between Heilman and Voegelin was rooted to a large extent in Aristotle’s homonoia, or like-mindedness. And while over time the relationship also exhibited those other characteristics of Aristotle’s description of friendship—the useful and the pleasant—it displayed a shared love of the Good, which according to Aristotle characterizes the best form of friendship, and a common commitment to excellence. Voegelin specifically refers to participation in the nous while responding to Heilman’s argument that politics is melodrama. He asserts: Politics is indeed melodrama, if politics is understood as a relation between friend and foe; as a compulsion to take sides in a struggle for power. . . . Insofar as politics actually assumes this form, and unfortunately it does all too often, the description is empirically adequate, and your thesis is correct. This conception of politics, however, is in radical opposition to the classic conception of Aristotle: that the essence of politics is the philia politike, the friendship which institutes a cooperative community among men, and that this friendship is possible among men insofar as they participate in the common nous, in the spirit or mind. (Letter 84)
The Friendship Robert Bechtold Heilman was born in Philadelphia, was educated in English literature, and received degrees from Lafayette College (A.B., 1927), Ohio State University (M.A., 1930), and Harvard University (Ph.D., 1935). After teaching at the University of Maine, Orono, Heilman joined the English department of Louisiana State University in 1935. Eric Voegelin was born in Cologne, Germany, moved with his family to Vienna in 1910, and received his Dr. rerum politicarum from the University of Vienna in 1922. After the Anschluss, Voegelin fled Austria to Switzerland, and from there he emigrated with his wife, Lissy, to the United States. He took a position in the government department at Louisiana State University in 1942. It was here that the friendship began.
Introduction
3
In his recollection of Eric Voegelin in The Professor and the Profession, Heilman remembers that he first met Voegelin when he lectured at Louisiana State University in 1940 or 1941; they became better acquainted after Eric and Lissy moved to Baton Rouge. By the time the Heilmans moved to Seattle in 1948 so that Bob could head the English department at the University of Washington, the friendship between Bob and Eric, which included Ruth and Lissy, had developed the marks of a lifelong friendship. This friendship would ultimately sustain three sets of correspondence: a forty-year correspondence between Heilman and Voegelin, a correspondence between Ruth and Lissy that lasted beyond the death of Eric in 1985, and a correspondence between Lissy and Robert after Ruth died in November 1985. After being courted by various universities in this country and abroad, Voegelin left Louisiana State University to become a professor at the University of Munich and founded there the Institut für Politische Wissenschaft in 1958 (renamed Geschwister-Scholl-Institut für Politische Wissenschaft Universität München in 1968). He left the University of Munich in 1969 to become Henry Salvatori Distinguished Scholar at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, at Stanford University. There he became a senior research fellow in 1974 and held that position until his death. Heilman retired from the University of Washington in 1976 and was appointed professor emeritus the same year. Robert Heilman was the consummate academic professional. Having chosen English literature and criticism as his professional foci, he devoted his life to these interests. Not only did he cultivate this commitment through research and publication, he actively served English higher education and the American professoriate. As the “executive officer” (department head) of the English department at the University of Washington from 1948 through 1971, he defended would-be visiting lecturers Kenneth Burke, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Malcolm Cowley against university administrations influenced by conservative, anticommunist critics, all the while attending to the daily work of leading and 2. Robert Bechtold Heilman, The Professor and the Profession (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999), 85. 3. In 1991, six years after Eric’s death, Heilman would dedicate The Southern Connection: Essays by Robert Bechtold Heilman (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991) to “Alex B. Daspit, Thomas and Josie Kirby, Lissy Voegelin. Friends from LSU days to the present.” 4. Some of Lissy Voegelin’s letters to Ruth and Robert may be found in the Robert B. Heilman Papers, accession 1000–5–90–19, box 3, folder 5. 5. See Appendix B, which matches the letters with publications referenced in correspondence, year by year.
4
Robert B. Heilman and Eric Voegelin
administering a large department at a major university. He belonged to and served in national leadership positions in the Modern Language Association of America, the American Association of University Professors, the Shakespeare Association of America, and Phi Beta Kappa. In Autobiographical Reflections, Voegelin recalled that his acquaintance with Heilman, Cleanth Brooks, and Robert Penn Warren of the English department at LSU was especially important to him “because I now had access to the interesting movement of literary criticism and gained the friendship of men who were authorities in English literature and language.” The intellectual connection with Heilman was made soon after Voegelin moved to LSU. As Voegelin worked his way back into the primary documents from which the History of Political Ideas would grow, as his understanding of these documents deepened and changed, he came to believe that consultation with scholars from various disciplines— Greek philologists, theologians, specialists in ancient myths, as well as literary critics—was a central part of his enterprise. The personal and social dimensions of the friendship were likewise established early. In July 1944 Voegelin wrote a long letter from Harvard telling Heilman that Lissy had written him about the chicken creole she had enjoyed at the Heilmans’ the previous Sunday; he added that he was jealous because he had to put up with Harvard people and dull Sundays. He had been able, however, to learn certain things in Harvard Yard. He wrote: 6. For documents and newspaper clippings relating to the controversies involving Burke, Oppenheimer, and Cowley, see Heilman Papers, accession 1000–2–71–16, box 11, folders 7–10 and 12. Correspondence and documents relating to the administrative business of the English department while he was executive officer are to be found in the Robert B. Heilman Papers, accession 1000–2–71–16, boxes 1–12, as well as in correspondence found throughout the twenty-nine accessions. See also the note to Letter 40, Robert B. Heilman to Eric Voegelin, October 14, 1952, in the Voegelin Papers, box 63, folder 11. Heilman also published articles on these affairs; see Heilman, “Cowley as University Professor: Episodes in a Societal Neurosis” (Horns of Plenty: Malcolm Cowley and His Generation 1, no. 3 [fall 1988]: 12–25); and “Burke as Political Threat: A Chronicle of the 1950s” (Horns of Plenty: Malcolm Cowley and His Generation 2, no. 1 [spring 1989]: 19–26). 7. Eric Voegelin, Autobiographical Reflections, ed. Ellis Sandoz (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 59. Brooks, Warren, and Heilman were active participants in the debates occurring within the discipline of literary criticism and were members of the movement generally known as “the New Criticism,” which opposed the hegemony of historical studies in the study and interpretation of literature. Intermittent discussions of and/or references to some of these issues may be found in Letters 35, 56, 57, 64, 65, 66, 137. 8. Protesting to Heilman in 1981, Voegelin asserted that “my business consists in knowing people from whom I can learn something” (Letter 146).
Introduction
5
you learn a lot here about the war. For instance, that it will be over before next spring. Reason: the grass in the Harvard Yard. The lawns were trampled into mud by the army; this year they were reseeded and fenced in: —the vox populi says: the Corporation would not invest $1 in grass-seed, unless they had precise information that the new grass will stay and not be trampled down again—by a crop of soldiers. —I also know when the next world war will start. The statisticians have found that there is a 100% correlation between the outbreak of world wars and the celebration of world fairs in Switzerland. World fairs in Switzerland were held in 1914 and 1939, and the wars broke duly out. The next world fair is in 1964!! (Letter 4)
Two events later in 1944 demonstrate the trust and goodwill that had already developed between the Heilmans and the Voegelins. Acting as agents for the Voegelins, who were away from Baton Rouge, the Heilmans purchased a house on their behalf. Bob also accompanied Eric to his naturalization hearing where he would testify to Voegelin’s “potential for good citizenship.” From the first the two men seem to have been drawn together by a recognition that they were engaged in a common enterprise and that they shared common philosophical and academic values. Both were committed to an understanding of literature as expressions of the human experience, to precision of linguistic expression, and to excellence in scholarship. Moreover, they shared an opposition to positivism and historicism in the social sciences and humanities. Each commented on the other’s work during the first three years of the correspondence. In 1946 Voegelin wrote an eight-page letter commenting on the manuscript of Heilman’s work in progress, an analysis of Shakespeare’s King Lear. Heilman incorporated some of Voegelin’s suggestions, which included quotations from Goethe, into the final manuscript, published in 1948 as This Great Stage: Image and Structure in King Lear. The next letter in the correspondence, dated November 4, 1947, contains responses by Heilman to one of Voegelin’s working manuscripts for the History of Political Ideas. Nine days later Voegelin wrote his now-famous letter on The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. The intellectual dimension of the friendship was thus firmly established by the time the Heilmans moved to Seattle in 1948. As befits such a friendship, the correspondence between Heilman and Voegelin ranged over many topics. From family matters to LSU gossip to travelogues, 9. Heilman, Professor, 91, 93. For Heilman’s complete recollection of Voegelin, see pp. 85–102. 10. Robert Bechtold Heilman, This Great Stage: Image and Structure in King Lear (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1948).
6
Robert B. Heilman and Eric Voegelin
from brief exchanges upon current political and cultural issues to extended comments on academic politics, from substantial exchanges on philosophical and literary issues to extensive commentaries on each other’s manuscripts and publications, Heilman and Voegelin reveal the depth and warmth of their friendship in these letters. Heilman’s admiration for Voegelin and his work took several forms: He would praise Voegelin’s insights in his latest manuscript or article; he eagerly commented on and edited Voegelin’s manuscripts; and he campaigned to keep Voegelin in the United States when Voegelin began to look for a different position in the early 1950s. Voegelin’s affection and respect for Heilman’s skills as a literary critic and writer were articulated in attempts to persuade Heilman to return to LSU, in praise for his work on Shakespeare and drama as well as for his elegant English style, in his invitation to Heilman to lecture to students in Munich, and in the eagerness with which he looked forward to visits to or from Heilman. Heilman’s admiration for Voegelin’s work and Voegelin’s confidence and trust in Heilman appear early, for example in the following exchange of 1952: I am coming with a humble request today. Enclosed you will find the MS of the first chapter of the History of Political Ideas, which [is] supposed to develop the principles of interpretation for the whole subsequent study. The chapter, thus, has a certain importance, both as the first one and as the statement of principles. Hence, I should like to have it written as well as my inevitable shortcomings will allow. I wonder whether you would read it (it has only thirteen pages), and while reading it mark on the margin any awkwardness that still will need ironing out. Of course, I know that you are busy and that my request smacks of impertinence; and I shall not be surprised if you tell me flatly that you just don’t have the time for it. Nevertheless, you will see that this is not the sort of thing that I could give to just anybody for correction; and you are simply my last resort. (Letter 37)
Ten days later Heilman replied: That you ask me to read the MS is of course only an honor. . . . You know how much I relish getting each piece of the opus that comes along. Once again this time the usual experience, within my own limits, of feeling let in on a complete new world, of having it organized, of seeing some of the time how it can be used, and of having here and there the excitement of finding a correspondence—so it seems—to some little idea of my own. (Letter 38)
Introduction
7
In the same letter, Heilman detailed how he approached the editing of Voegelin’s manuscript: As for reading the MS, that I have done with tireless literalness, putting down—and often at what length!—every measly little question or uncertainty or ignorance or stupidity that came to me, on the theory that the business here was to try to be helpful, and that it was better to risk being a bonehead and raise the issues than to look brighter, perhaps, and let them go unraised. You will have to labor through my notes, of course, but it won’t take you very long to decide whether they are idiotic or really have [a] point. I am selfish enough to hope that a few of them do have a point, but realistic enough not to have too many illusions about it. I decided that you know me well enough so that in asking me to read the MS you knew precisely how much risk you took of getting a well-meaning incomprehension that would have to be taken as the bale of chaff amid the few grains of positive assistance. (Letter 38)
In Autobiographical Reflections (1973), Voegelin would gratefully recall this service of twenty years earlier. I especially want to mention the help extended by Robert B. Heilman, who introduced me to certain secrets of the American history of literature and who was kind enough to help me with my difficulties in acquiring an idiomatic English style. I still remember as most important one occasion when he went through a manuscript of mine, of about twenty pages, and marked off every single idiomatic mistake, so that I had a good list of the mistakes that I had to improve generally. Heilman’s analysis, I must say, was the turning point in my understanding of English and helped me gradually to acquire a moderate mastery of the language.
Heilman’s admiration for Voegelin’s work was often accompanied by frustration that he lacked sufficient philosophical training to comprehend and make use of it in his own work. In his response to The Ecumenic Age, he wrote, “As to the hundreds of supporting ideas developed in the course of the exegesis, I only wish I had what it would take to take them in, naturalize them, and make them productive citizens in my own intellectual economy. Alas!” (Letter 139). Despite his 11. The manuscript with Heilman’s comments and corrections may be found in the Voegelin Papers, box 65, folder 1. It is designated there as Introduction to Order and History, vol. 1, Israel and Revelation, 1956, TS, Robert B. Heilman to Eric Voegelin, May 13, 1952. 12. Voegelin, Autobiographical Reflections, 59.
8
Robert B. Heilman and Eric Voegelin
feelings of inadequacy, Heilman committed himself to helping Voegelin improve his English fluency and this commitment represents a concrete and continuing manifestation throughout the friendship of his belief in the value and quality of Voegelin’s work. His commitment was not confined to direct commentary on Voegelin’s manuscripts and publications. When Eugene Webb was preparing a glossary of Voegelin’s terms for inclusion in his book, Eric Voegelin: Philosopher of History, Heilman read and commented on the entire glossary. In a note accompanying his commentary, Heilman wrote to Webb that In a sense I am making the same kind of notes here that I have generally made on EV texts and then asked him about, usually eliciting a deep sigh meaning the labored suppression of impatience, which appears in sentences beginning, “Vell, you see, Bop,” etc. I think that the problems represented in my queries are the same problems that arise in well-intending, favorable readers who presumably have some kind of intellectual equipment but are not professional theologians or metaphysicians. To that extent I think they are worth considering. What lies behind them is my most earnest wish that Eric would get across to people to whom he is not getting across, not getting across, I think, less because of foreignness of the ideas than because of the impenetrability of the linguistic medium.
Believing that Voegelin was a national asset and should be kept in the United States, Heilman made various attempts to advocate Voegelin’s hiring at the University of Washington. He also encouraged Voegelin’s interests in positions at Yale and Johns Hopkins and, in the case of Yale, counseled Voegelin on the politics of the situation. Voegelin decided, however, to leave the United States for a professorship and the opportunity to establish an institute for political science at the University of Munich. While at Munich, he returned to the United States periodically to teach at the University of Notre Dame. During one of these sojourns at Notre Dame, he was mugged returning home from town one evening. When Heilman inquired whether the unpleasant experience might destroy Voegelin’s willingness to return to America, Voegelin assured him that it had not (see Letter 91). 13. Robert B. Heilman to Eugene Webb, July 18, 1979, Heilman Papers, accession 1000–7– 90–60, folder VF 1933. 14. See Letters 17, 20, 23, 38, 66, 90 (especially), and Voegelin’s response in Letter 91. After Voegelin told Heilman that he was returning to the United States in order to take a position at the
Introduction
9
Voegelin’s respect for Heilman as a friend and colleague also found expression early in the correspondence. In the spring of 1949 Voegelin announced: “You will have heard that [William O.] Scroggs is retiring; we want a bigger and better dean; we want Heilman—I am a member of the boosters’ club” (Letter 22). Four years later in 1953, Voegelin tried again to persuade Heilman to return to LSU: “Bob [Harris] has told Pete Taylor to use the new Boyd Professorships to get some good people back here, first of all you. Would you consider that a possibility? $9600” (Letter 46). Heilman’s negative response with explanation afforded Voegelin an additional opportunity to reaffirm his admiration and respect for Heilman’s quality as a literary critic. He wrote: It is certainly a matter of great regret to us that you roundly refuse even to consider the possibility of coming back here—though this possibility up to now is no more than an idea thrown in[to] a conversation with the Dean. Your reasons are clear to me, in the sense of clarity of expression, but the professed “confidence” crisis is not clear to me at all with regard to its basis in reality. Look at your “Alcestis and The Cocktail Party”—what else, for heaven’s sake, do you want by way of achievement as a literary critic? Or look at the incidental remark in your letter: “This view of naturalistic tragedy that man is good enough, or the counter-view . . . that man is exclusively a son of a bitch.” There you have formulated the two halves of Calvinism and Pelagianism into which in America the wholeness of man has fallen apart. (Letter 48)
After learning that Heilman had won the Explicator Prize for 1956 with Magic in the Web: Action and Language in Othello—a work he much admired—Voegelin wrote “do you begin to believe now that you are quite good? I hope Ruth is hammering it into you” (Letter 76). Perhaps one of the greatest and most telling testaments to Voegelin’s respect Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Heilman wrote: “We were delighted to hear from you both that you will be at Stanford, which has obviously beaten everybody to the punch, and therefore undermined my usual inclination to feel that the actuality of that place is generally less than the reputation. Cleanth and I were both remarking that we’d failed to get any action out of our own institutions. Three cheers for Stanford” (Letter 112). 15. See also Letters 47, 48, 49, and 50 for further exchanges on the Boyd professorship issue. Voegelin himself was selected as one of the three original Boyd Professors at LSU in 1953. 16. The Explicator, a literary magazine published at the University of South Carolina during the 1950s, ran an annual contest to choose “the best book of explication de texte.” The judges who chose Heilman’s book for this award were Elizabeth Nitchie of Goucher College, Charles C. Walcutt of Queens College, and William K. Wimsatt of Yale University.
10
Robert B. Heilman and Eric Voegelin
and admiration appears in a letter of 1964: “May I venture a question both humble and impertinent? Could you come to Munich, not only to visit with us, but also to give a talk to our students? They have heard about you, as you can imagine, and would appreciate it greatly to see you in the flesh and to have you for a discussion” (Letter 92). After Heilman had lectured to Voegelin’s seminar, Voegelin reported: And now, most important, your lectures. They were greatly appreciated by the students and the staff of the Institute. Not only because of their content, but above all because of their linguistic quality and delivery. With regard to the public lecture I heard from students that they were not able to follow you in every detail, but that it did not matter as they were entranced by the music of your language—what higher compliment could be paid to a Shakespearean scholar? As to the content—the role given to Shakespeare—your analysis moves along the same line as our studies do in the Institute; and as far as art is concerned, they run parallel to [Hans] Sedlmayr’s studies on modern art as a cult. . . . May I add, together with my admiration for these splendid lectures, my thanks for the impression you have made on the students. What these German boys need most, is to be confronted with solid examples of humanistic culture—and you certainly have confronted them. (Letter 103)
Voegelin admired and envied Heilman’s mastery of English language style, and as we have seen he was very grateful for the help that Heilman had extended to him throughout the years of their friendship. Although he very often followed Heilman’s editorial advice without objection, he was forced to eschew this advice on other occasions because of the philosophical implications such changes would bring with them. On these occasions Voegelin’s affection for his friend is evident in the explanations he gave for his failure to take Heilman’s advice. In his 1952 response to Heilman’s marking of the manuscript for chapter 1 of Order and History, Voegelin wrote: There were . . . a few emendations which I hesitated to accept, and I should like to explain one of the two of the hesitations—partly in order to justify my rebellious conduct, partly because the illumination which I received from your correction might also be of interest to you. For, even though I did not accept the emendation, it stirred up extremely interesting problems in a philosophy of language. Let me give you an example: “This horror induced Plato . . . to make the true order of society dependent on the rule of men whose proper attunement to divine being manifests itself in their true theology.”
Introduction
11
You suggest to change the end of the sentence to: “. . . in their possessing (or mastering) the true theology.” I did not follow your suggestion, though I am fully aware that it would bring a substantial improvement in style, for the following reason: In the history of philosophy, from Plato to Schelling, there rages the great debate on the question: who possesses whom? Does man possess a theology or does a theology possess man? . . . If I insert the verb possess into the passage in question I prejudge a theoretical issue that is a major topic in the work—and besides I would prejudge it in the wrong direction. The only permissible solution would be [a] cumbersome dialectical formula (“possess, while being possessed by” or something of the sort) that would divert attention from the main purpose of the sentence. So I left it, though with regrets. (Letter 39)
In 1974 (Letter 133) Heilman, commenting on Voegelin’s offprint “Reason: The Classic Experience,” raised his concerns with Voegelin’s use of the word tension in the phrase “tension toward the ground.” In 1976 Heilman noted again Voegelin’s nonidiomatic use of the word. This time Voegelin explained: As always I could learn a lot from your detailed praise and criticism (even with page-references!). And I am deeply in sorrow about the “tension” of human existence which is characterized by its direction toward the ground of existence. I simply do not know how to describe this phenomenon other than by the word tension which the Latins have already used to render the Greek tasis or tonos in reality. The Latin tensio derives from the verb tendere, which means, just as the English tend, being stretched or tending in a certain direction toward something. I am a bit at a loss to understand why the philosophical meaning of tension, which stresses the directional factor in the existential tension, should cause such difficulty? Especially since the cognitive direction of consciousness is covered by the related term intentionality. . . . But obviously, such questions need talk rather than writing. We shall arrive in London on July 11th, and probably stay until the fourteenth. Then we shall try to organize some visit to the southern cathedrals (Salisbury, Winchester, Canterbury, not to forget Stonehenge). We are looking forward very much to seeing you both as soon as possible. (Letter 140)
Voegelin’s affection for his friend Bob found expression in a letter Voegelin wrote from Munich in 1959 when Heilman’s son, Pete, who was traveling in Europe, landed in Munich. I happened to stand on the balcony . . . when he came down the street, and recognized him immediately by his gait and general appearance, so closely it
12
Robert B. Heilman and Eric Voegelin
resembled yours. And that resemblance was even more striking at closer inspection—not only his features, but his gestures, his way of throwing back his head, of being deliberate and thoughtful, his careful speech, his choice vocabulary, his wellbred gentleness, and above all his way of being articulate. It was a curious experience to talk with the younger edition of an old friend. (Letter 84)
From the beginning of the correspondence in the 1940s, Heilman and Voegelin had participated in a common quest for understanding literature, especially tragedy. The last work written by Heilman and sent by him to Voegelin was Tragedy and Melodrama, published in 1968. After Heilman published The Iceman, the Arsonist, and the Troubled Agent: Tragedy and Melodrama on the Modern Stage (1973), he did not send Voegelin a copy on the grounds that it only extended the argument of Tragedy and Melodrama. He writes: “My flamboyantly entitled The Iceman, the Arsonist, and the Troubled Agent . . . came out a few weeks ago. Since it is only a continuation of Tragedy and Melodrama, with more recent drama as the subject, but no new theory to speak of, I will spare you by not sending you a copy” (Letter 131). That he was working on The Ways of the World: Comedy and Society (1978), Heilman mentioned in Letter 142. Possibly he did not send Voegelin a copy, for it does not appear in the Eric Voegelin Library, which was given in its entirety to the Institute of Political Science of the University of Erlangen by Lissy Voegelin. Heilman continued into the late 1970s to work on tragedy and melodrama as genres that expressed modern experiences, ideas that he and Voegelin had shared into the late 1950s and early 1960s. He also extended his work to dramatic comedy. During this same time Voegelin’s interests were expanding. Commenting upon his recently published Anamnesis: Zur Theorie der Geschichte und Politik (1966), Voegelin wrote, “I wanted to experiment with a new literary form in philosophy” (Letter 110). In 1967, he wrote Heilman: “You see, I am degenerating more and more into a theologian” (Letter 111). By 1973 the scope of Voegelin’s work included archaeological and prehistorical questions (Letter 132). Thus, by 1976, Voegelin’s and Heilman’s academic paths had substantially diverged, 17. I find no written record that Voegelin commented on this book, although there is an earlier letter in which Voegelin commented on Heilman’s article “Fashions in Melodrama,” which later became part of Tragedy and Melodrama: Versions of Experience (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968). In Letter 84, Voegelin commented that after reading “Fashions in Melodrama” he was gratified “to see that we are both on the same track.” 18. Later, The Ways of the World: Comedy and Society (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1978) won the Christian Gauss Prize of Phi Beta Kappa.
Introduction
13
a divergence acknowledged in Voegelin’s response to Heilman’s remarks on The Ecumenic Age: “But I must tell you that I am deeply touched by the time and labor you have invested in reading a book that, after all, moves somewhat on the periphery of your main interests” (Letter 140). This divergence, and perhaps other factors, would lead to a lessening in the frequency of letters, a change in the pattern of letters exchanged, and ultimately to what Heilman would call a “thinning:” The disparity between the Giver and the Taker roles led, as it seemed to me it must, to a thinning of our relationship. . . . Listening, however enthusiastic, was not enough. I knew that Eric felt pressed by the vastness of the intellectual tasks in which he was engaged, and by the sense of a rapidly diminishing time in which to carry them out. I came to feel that I could be most helpful by not taking up time he could use more profitably in his study. We gradually reduced the number of our visits to the Voegelins, but there was never any diminution of their wonderful cordiality.
An Exemplary Year in the Correspondence While in the late correspondence there is very little discussion of ideas, from the late 1940s into the early 1960s there were seven significant exchanges (of two or more letters each) of ideas and statements of philosophical principles. One of the most important exchanges took place in 1956. That year both men published major works; Heilman published his study of Othello, Magic in the Web, on which he had been working at least since 1951, and Voegelin published the first volume of Order and History—Israel and Revelation—the first book-length study to result from The History of Political Ideas, on which he had worked since 1939. These publications launched one of the most important exchanges of 19. Heilman, Professor, 102. 20. Of the 151 letters in the men’s forty-year correspondence, 11 were exchanged in 1956, compared with 13 in 1964 and 10 in 1969. Of the approximately 126,000 words in the entire correspondence, the 1956 letters contain approximately 8,500 words while the 1964 and 1969 letters contain ca. 6,150 and ca. 4,500 words respectively. While the 1964 and 1969 letters are important for the friendship between the two, they are much less important as exchanges of ideas than the 1956 letters. 21. For a discussion of the history and vicissitudes of this proposed work, see Thomas A. Hollweck and Ellis Sandoz, “General Introduction to the Series,” in the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 19, History of Political Ideas, vol. 1, Hellenism, Rome, and Early Christianity, ed. Athanasios Moulakis (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997).
14
Robert B. Heilman and Eric Voegelin
ideas in the entire correspondence, as well as the opportunity, noted above, for each to acknowledge publicly the influence and contributions of the other. The 1956 exchange opens with a letter from Heilman requesting a reference for his Guggenheim Fellowship application. He extended congratulations to Voegelin on his own Guggenheim and then proceeded to “a lesser thing: do you get away from Baton Rouge about June 1? My Othello book should be out near the end of the month, and I want to send you a copy, but I don’t want to have one either come when you aren’t there, or become a burden in some foreign port” (Letter 58). Voegelin replied briefly on May 19 that he would be happy to write for Heilman’s Guggenheim and then provided his schedule through an early November return to Baton Rouge. He concluded, “And now for the ‘lesser thing,’ you understater—your Othello. I am looking very much forward to it; I am delighted to hear that you want to send me [a] copy fresh from the oven; and it would be splendid if it were here about the 5th or 6th” (Letter 59). On June 8 Voegelin confirmed that he had received Magic in the Web and registered surprise at having the book dedicated to him, “a complete outsider to the ‘profession.’ ” Pressed for time, and leaving for a conference in Pennsylvania, he promised to take the book with him (Letter 60). On July 20 Heilman wrote to Voegelin from Cortland, New York—he was conducting research at the Cornell Library in nearby Ithaca—that he and Ruth were in the East for part of the summer and were hoping to make “at least an overnight stop in Cambridge to see you both” (Letter 61). Voegelin quickly wrote back on July 23 to “hasten to get our schedules straightened out so that we may get together if possible.” Voegelin indicated that he would have to be in Cambridge for two more weeks and that he was very busy reading page proofs, constructing indexes, and writing a preface for Israel and Revelation. But, he asserted, “I want to see you at all cost” (Letter 62). Before Heilman could reply, Voegelin wrote on July 24 to convey again his gratitude for the dedication: “Last night I finished reading your Magic in the Web—and at last I can thank you for the dedication in the only way I can thank, by response to the contents” (Letter 63). His response opens with the observation that the formal quality of the book—its construction, which requires the reader “to read from the beginning in order to get its full import”—“is intimately bound up with your method and your philosophical position.” Voegelin identified “exhaustion of the source” as the first principle of Magic, and explained that this formal principle was the fundamental attitude with which he ap22. Voegelin constructed three indexes for Israel and Revelation: Biblical References, Modern Authors, and Subjects and Names.
Introduction
15
proached classical literary texts himself: “no adequate interpretation of a major work is possible, unless the interpreter assumes the role of the disciple who has everything to learn from the master.” Exhaustion of the source is rooted, Voegelin continued, in several assumptions: (1) that the author “knew” what he was doing; (2) that the parts of the text work together; and (3) that the “texture of the linguistic corpus” gives rise to meaning, thus precluding any preconceptions vis-à-vis characters or motifs brought to the work by the interpreter. “Under all these aspects,” he wrote, “your book is a model of interpretation.” The second hermeneutic principle that accompanies exhaustion of the source, he continued, requires that “the terminology of the interpretation, if not identical with the language symbols of the source . . . must not be introduced from the ‘outside,’ but be developed in close contact with the source itself for the purpose of differentiating the meanings which are apparent in the work.” This principle must be rigorously followed to avoid imposing an interpretation that the work itself does not sustain. Voegelin complimented Heilman’s discipline in adhering to this second principle, which “forced upon you a richness of vocabulary for expressing nuances of emotions and ethical attitudes.” Next he asserted that the work of the literary critic is simply an analytical, rational continuation of the poet’s work along the tracks laid out in the work of art itself. The discipline of rigorously adhering to the language of the play extends from a “strand of compact motifs to the more immediate differentiations and distinctions in terms of a phenomenology of morals.” Because philosophical anthropology lies at the heart of literary criticism, and because of the compactness of the symbolic language of the poet, the literary critic can only rely upon the “linguistic corpus” until he has exhausted the meanings embedded therein. At that point the critic must develop a “system” of interpretation that extends the poet’s compact symbolizations in the same direction indicated by the poet into a philosophically critical language. In other words, the critic must translate the analytical immediacy of the poet’s compact symbolism “of the whole of human nature carried by the magic in the web,” into the rational order of his work, in which the “whole of human nature” must “now be carried by the 23. Voegelin is groping toward an adequate articulation of what he later designates “reflective distance.” Thirteen years later, in “Postscript: On Paradise and Revolution” (finished in December 1969) to the letter on Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, Voegelin was moving toward formulating a symbol for denoting this awareness, which in his late work would be called “reflective distance.” In the postscript, however, he used the phrase “the critical consciousness of reality” as a requirement for a reader, “critical distance” that must be maintained by the artist at some level to make the work of art possible, and “critical reader” who must supply a “secondary critical distance” if the artist does not develop it (see Southern Review, n.s., 7 [1971]: 27, 39–40).
16
Robert B. Heilman and Eric Voegelin
magic of the system.” “And here,” Voegelin enthused, “I am now full of admiration for your qualities as a philosopher. For you have arranged the problem of human nature in the technically perfect order of progress from the peripheral to the center of personality. . . . You begin with . . . the problem of appearance and reality; and you end with the categories of existence and spiritual order.” Voegelin found Heilman’s “conception of ‘parts’ of a tragedy” generally important for the historical and social sciences, as well as for literary criticism. He wrote: You have used, or created, an ontological category that brings to philosophical consciousness that action and language, body and soul, emotion and expression, experience and symbol, etc., though they must be distinguished, are all “parts” of a whole, in this case of “tragedy” as a literary genus. The ultimate consubstantiality of all being is recognized, when everything—from a storm, or a sword, or a part of the body, through actions and speeches, to essences of character and spiritual transfigurations of a soul—is part of the web that mysteriously carries the meaning of being and existence. (Letter 63)
Finally, Voegelin offered a point, “if not of disagreement, at least of hesitation in acceptance,” in reference to Heilman’s formulation of a modern variant of tragedy: a situation in which a character intended as tragic “never knows what hit him.” Voegelin pondered whether the term tragedy applied under such circumstances and then raised the more general problem of a particular culture’s spiritual substance and the necessity of creating an appropriate symbolic form to articulate that substance. The letter of July 24 ends with his observation that We have no tragedies today. The phenomenon of the mass man cannot be brought on stage authentically. The appropriate methods for describing it are 24. In his friend’s explication of Othello, Voegelin recognized an affirmation from Shakespeare of a crucial component in his developing philosophy, that is, the consubstantiality of all being and the access of that consubstantiality through the concrete consciousness of an individual human being. In The New Science of Politics (1952) Voegelin had formulated this insight: “Science starts from the prescientific existence of man, from his participation in the world with his body, soul, intellect, and spirit, from his primary grip on all the realms of being that is assured to him because his own nature is their epitome” (Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 5, Modernity without Restraint: The Political Religions; The New Science of Politics; Science, Politics, and Gnosticism, ed. Manfred Henningsen [Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000], 91; see also the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 6, Anamnesis, ed. David Walsh, trans. M. J. Hanak, Gerhart Niemeyer et al. [Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2002], 398).
Introduction
17
again philosophy, the reflections of the moralist—or the work of the literary critic—all of them addressed not to the general public (which has ceased to exist) but to the enclaves of spiritual and intellectual culture that survive precariously the periods of disorder.
After this the Heilmans visited the Voegelins in Cambridge, where they had ample opportunity to discuss Magic in the Web before Heilman answered the July 24 letter in a letter dated August 19. After thanking Voegelin for a generous and thorough reading, Heilman proceeded to the substance of Voegelin’s critique: “Some of the principles I can consciously claim,” he wrote, “others I fear I have just blundered into” (Letter 64). He then considered Voegelin’s central proposition that the interpreter must assume “the role of the disciple who has everything to learn from the master.” In a sense one can get out of it only what one brings to it; except perhaps that if one, so to speak, lies open to it fully enough and long enough, it may enable him actually to effect some transcendence of his own limitations (an interesting possibility, that, which just came into my consciousness, as I was writing this, and which needs further thought). But always in writing I wished I had a Voegelin vocabulary for the phenomena of mind and spirit present in the play. (Letter 64)
Heilman wrote that he hoped to have displayed “an adequate order of ideas (‘the whole conception of human nature’) by means of which to make the critical statement.” He asserted that the conception of parts was implicitly assumed in critical practice even though it did not appear to have widespread formal acceptance in contemporary criticism. In fact, he acknowledged that his elaboration of the doctrine of parts was aimed at the neo-Aristotelians at Chicago who seemed to him “rigidly doctrinaire” and who would, at any rate, probably “jump all over me.” Finally, he reminded Voegelin that during their visit in Cambridge they had talked about the possibility of a “modern variant of tragedy” but that he would have to think more about it. At this point in the letter, Heilman raised an issue that would provide Voegelin the occasion to elaborate upon his own vocation as a scholar. Heilman observed: Two theoretical points of mine you did not mention, probably because they seemed either obvious one[s] on the one hand, or on the other too perverse to talk about. I mention these only because I do not feel completely sure
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Robert B. Heilman and Eric Voegelin
of myself and wondered how the propositions looked to you. The first was the effort to distinguish two aspects of a work—the “was” and the “is.” To this formulation I was driven by the dominance of historical studies, in which it is assumed that the work has a single reality which is derivable only from the historical context. This seems dangerous nonsense to me (and I need not explain to you that I do not contemn historical studies), for it appears to deny the existence of a non-historical permanence which I find inseparable from myth, fable, the artistic formulations of the imagination, etc. . . . The second point followed from this: my assumption of the power of the critic to view the work, at least in part, non-historically, i.e., to transcend the intellectual and cultural climate of his own time and thus to be able to identify in the work those elements that conform to the eternal truth of things. The historical relativists argue, of course, not only that the work is relative only to its times, but that the mind of the critic is relative only to his own times, in which he is hopelessly enclosed. Therefore the practice of literary history is the only true humility in the literary student; the critic who pretends to be doing anything but historicizing is an egomaniac. So I postulate his share in the divine power to see all times in simultaneity. Frivolous? Reckless? (Letter 64)
He ended the letter with the hope that “it isn’t another eight years until we see you and Lissie again.” Voegelin wrote again three days after Heilman’s letter of August 19. The general phenomenon identified by Heilman in his letter was familiar to Voegelin, and he asserted that it was, indeed, the Victorian hangover of historical relativism. The various questions which you indicate in your letter seem to me to be all connected with efforts to find the critical basis beyond historical relativism, and by that token they are connected with each other. The question of the “was” and the “is” that you raise is, for instance, in my opinion only another facet of the question raised earlier in your letter that, on the one hand, one can only get out of the play what one brings to it while, on the other hand, if one lays oneself open to the play, one can get considerably more out of it than one thought one had brought to it. Let me dwell a bit on this issue, because it is after all the central issue of my life as a scholar and apparently yours, too. The occupation with works of art, poetry, philosophy, mythical imagination, and so forth, makes sense only, if it is conducted as an inquiry into the nature of man. That sentence, while it excludes historicism, does not exclude history, for it is peculiar to the nature of man that it unfolds its potentialities historically. Not that historically anything “new” comes up—human nature is
Introduction
19
always wholly present—but there are modes of clarity and degrees of comprehensiveness in man’s understanding of his self and his position in the world. Obviously Plato and Shakespeare are clearer and more comprehensive in the understanding of man than is Dr. Jones of Cow College. Hence, the study of the classics is the principal instrument of self-education; and if one studies them with loving care, as you most truly observe, one all of a sudden discovers that one’s understanding of a great work increases (and also one’s ability to communicate such understanding) for the good reason that the student has increased through the process of study—and that after all is the purpose of the enterprise. (At least it is my purpose in spending the time of my life in the study of prophets, philosophers, and saints). . . . History is the unfolding of the human Psyche; historiography is the reconstruction of the unfolding through the psyche of the historian. The basis of historical interpretation is the identity of substance (the psyche) in the object and the subject of interpretation; and its purpose is participation in the great dialogue that goes through the centuries among men about their nature and destiny. And participation is impossible without growth in stature (within the personal limitations) toward the rank of the best; and that growth is impossible unless one recognizes authority and surrenders to it. (Letter 65)
The last clause of this passage—“that growth is impossible unless one recognizes authority and submits to it”—deepens the meaning of the central principle of Voegelin’s literary criticism, which had been formulated with the aim of accurately interpreting a work of the imagination. Heilman had responded to that formulation with the (sudden) thought “that if one, so to speak, lies open to it fully enough and long enough, it may enable him actually to effect some transcendence of his own limitations” (Letter 64). Now, Voegelin clarified that “submitting to authority” and “learning from the master” leads one to the discovery of what one could not have expected prior to the submission, that is, the education of the disciple. Submission to the authority of a major work or writer— a Plato or a Shakespeare, for example—represents the crucial stance for one who would educate himself in dialogue with a classical writer, and who would thus 25. As a rather amusing twist to the idea of lying open to a work of literature, I quote the last few lines of Voegelin’s letter to Heilman on Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw: “I hope you do not take it in ill that I pester you with this long letter. It is, of course, an unmitigated presumption that I should express myself at length on James, exactly one week after I have read any work at all of his for the first time. Nevertheless, I think, you will have seen that just now I am lying flat on my stomach in admiration for James. And such a prostrate position sometimes distorts the perspective” (Letter 11).
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participate in “the great dialogue that goes through the centuries among men about their nature and destiny.” At this point Voegelin turned the tables on Heilman’s historical relativists, noting that it is the relativists who are indeed the egomaniacs: because they maintain that no one can be understood, they themselves do not have to confront their own mediocrity. One would not even need to address their argument were it not for the social force of historical relativism: one may well follow the Roman question: cui bono? Who profits by the assumption that works of the mind are so thoroughly determined by historical circumstance that the pursuit of truth about the nature of man is not recognizable in them? The answer is obvious: the spiteful mediocrity which hates excellence. The argument of historical relativism is the defense of the little man against recognition of greatness. If Plato is encased in the circumstances of the 4th c. B.C. and Mr. Jones in the circumstances of the 20th c. A.D. the community of the psyche is interrupted; no confrontation from man to man is possible; the discomfort discovering and admitting one’s own smallness before the great is averted; and above all, the obligations arising through confrontation with greatness have disappeared. All men are on the same level of circumstanced equality. Behind the personal viciousness that puts social strength into historical relativism, there lies the much larger issue of the revolt against God and the escape into gnosticism. For “the measure of man is God,” and the life of the psyche is the life in truth. By interrupting communication with those who live in truth, the life in truth itself is avoided. Historical relativism is the radical attack on the communication of truth through the dialogue in history. (Letter 65)
But for a few historical examples of his point and an observation about the illiteracy of the neo-Aristotelian “Chicago school,” the conversation that had begun on July 24 with Voegelin’s response to Magic in the Web seems to end here. In the antepenultimate paragraph of his letter, he mused: The summer advances. Your visit was a high-point. To see you and Ruth and after so many years, and in so excellent shape, was truly refreshing. I am getting now in the years, where one has known people for a sufficient period of time to see what has become of them. And the cases are rare where the “promising young men” of their thirties have not become the disappointing blighters of their fifties. But when the psyche is healthy, aging is not a blight but a growth.
Introduction
21
Three more letters—one from Heilman and two from Voegelin—were to follow in this remarkable year. On October 13, Heilman wrote to Voegelin after receiving a copy of Israel and Revelation and reading Voegelin’s formal acknowledgment of his contribution to Voegelin’s idiomatic English. He praised Voegelin’s style for its “easy mastery of a technical vocabulary” that rises to a “combination of knowledge and feeling,” that sometimes “infuses a passage with especial power, as of the scholar and prophet in one,” and that occasionally produces “a kind of poetic effect” (Letter 66). He continued: It’s hardly becoming of me to go beyond the verbal medium, but I have to say that in reading just a few pages I experience again that very rare feeling of being in the presence not only of great learning, which is clear to all, and not only of great learning conjoined with the seer’s passion, which is much less frequent than scholarship alone, but of this combination held with a sort of serenity in which are both power and wisdom. And here, lest I become embarrassing, I stop. I will read, as you know, with limited competence, but with a lot of application and enthusiasm, and with enough gifts to learn I hope, and with the kind of perspicacity that will enable me to steal for the embellishment of anything I may do hereafter. Lest the unlimited admiration of even a grammarian become corrupting, I will for your welfare include the modifying influence of Ruth’s comment on the book, “But it has no illustrations!”
In the same letter Heilman applauded Voegelin’s remarks on historical relativism from the previous letter and commented on the connection between Voegelin’s statement that the study of art “makes sense only if it is conducted as an inquiry into the nature of man” and a sentence from Israel and Revelation that “Amnesia with regard to past achievement is one of the most important social phenomena.” He wrote: In teaching the literature of the past I keep feeling that the best thing one can do with it is to try to combat the characteristic amnesia of the 20th century— not basically an amnesia of events and phenomena (though that is always conspicuous) but an amnesia with regard to the full human potential. Even in the Victorian novel (which is likely to be revered now on what seem to me to be very insubstantial grounds, that is, that it was “really revolutionary” and saw through the foibles of its age) I find a spiritual breadth that one hardly gets today, for instance, a presentation of the human capacity to move toward a discipline of the ego, toward caritas. In that sense, at least, it has a view of human
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nature, of human possibility, that is needed in the interest of truth. Our own discoveries about ourselves are almost exclusively in the direction of our Iagoism.
In a brief letter dated October 17, 1956, Voegelin thanked Heilman for his generous letter and noted how Ruth is most refreshing with her complaint about the lack of illustrations—incidentally, I agree with her. One could do really quite something through the addition of two dozen photographs to a work of this nature. The changing styles of the royal portraits in Mesopotamia and Egypt are an eye-opener for the spiritual development; they reveal subtleties that cannot be caught by the literary texts and their interpretation. (Letter 67)
Finally, in a letter dated December 29, 1956, from Frankfurt am Main, Voegelin remarked on the pressure of affairs, assured Heilman that his Guggenheim appraisal of him (a copy of which he enclosed) had gone to the foundation in due time, and reported on his negotiations concerning a position in Munich. He remarked that spending Christmas in Vienna with Lissy’s family had been quite interesting because of the number of Hungarian emigrants filling the city: What strikes one in talking with these people (historians, journalists, etc.) is the long-range view which they take: the manifold of the Byzantine and Asiatic cultures, as living in the manifold of Eastern peoples, is a living reality. Marxism is one, but not a very important, representative expression for these people—now on the wane. What interest[s] is what will come afterwards. And there they regret that so little is really known in the West about the undercurrents of experiences and ideas in the East. They consider it the most important task for science, to find out a good deal more about Eastern living culture than is known in the West today. The Western literature, including the American, about Communism—based as it is on the reading of a few books and articles of persons who hold the limelight—they consider ludicrous. (Letter 68)
Over the course of the correspondence between the two friends, multiple exchanges of ideas like that of 1956 occurred, but in 1971 such exchanges gave way to reports on current work or the provision of an article offprint. From January 1971 through 1984, only twenty letters passed between them; of these Heilman wrote twelve and Voegelin eight. Heilman’s last letter to Voegelin, dated December 8, 1981, reads in part:
Introduction
23
How very charming and generous of you and Lissi to propose lunching Ruth and me once again. What sponges we are—not only of the bounty of both of you but especially of your time. I rather feel that, like ladies about to be hanged some years back, you might well “plead your belly,” i.e., its filled state, relinquish the lunch, assign the care of the ladies to me, and devote the needed time to your desk. But then, alas, we should miss your wit. So I can’t push the really sensible idea too hard. (Letter 150)
And then he ended with: Ruth coughs, and I hear the melodies of tinnitis. But we make out. You both sound in excellent shape. Good. Au voir, Best greetings to you both, Bob
In the last years of the correspondence, Ruth and Lissy visited often on the phone, and from time to time Bob and Eric would join them in the phone conversations. Since Eric and Lissy lived in Stanford, and Pete Heilman and his family lived in Palo Alto, Bob and Ruth Heilman visited the Voegelins from time to time when they were in the area; they last visited the Voegelins in December 1984, about ten days before Eric’s death in January 1985. In a recollection of Voegelin, Heilman wrote: After Eric’s death the matter [of the decreasing number of visits] came up in a conversation between Lissy and me. Perhaps I brought it up, wanting to explain myself, no doubt hoping to have been seen as considerate and helpful rather than indifferent or unfriendly. Lissy’s comment went something like this: “Yes, Eric noticed that you weren’t coming over as much. He wondered why. He was very sad about it. He was very fond of you.”
In Voegelin, Heilman had encountered a thinker who “kept me on my toes and seeing over the usual border lines” (Letter 109). Heilman would thus describe himself as the “taker” in his relationship with Voegelin, but Voegelin had found more in Heilman: a sympathetic, enthusiastic, and imaginative reader who was eager to attend meticulously to Voegelin’s English style. He saw also in 26. Heilman, Professor, 101. 27. Ibid., 102.
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Heilman an American intellectual untainted by the dominant trends in the philosophical thought of Europe and firmly rooted in the texts and spirit of English and American literature and culture. When Heilman spoke of himself as “a native informant” for Voegelin on the American South, he spoke truer than he knew. Heilman was the “native informant” on America—an informant whom Voegelin could trust to approach his own ideas as an intelligent and sensitive American interlocutor. In 1928 Voegelin had described his introduction, through the offices of his mentor John R. Commons, to the American mind: The stranger to any culture always faces the difficulty of making his way from the periphery, where isolated details perplex him, to the center where they can be understood. And only rarely is he lucky enough to find this deepest meaning embodied in a living person, so that almost effortlessly he obtains direct access to the center of a culture.
Voegelin might have said the same, later, of Robert Heilman. Beneath appearances—the decreasing number of letters exchanged, the “thinning” of the friendship, as Heilman put it—ran the deep and abiding friendship founded at LSU and nourished, thereafter, more by letters than by the infrequent face-to-face meetings. In 1975, Eric wrote to Bob, “It was a great pleasure to have you all here for X-mas. With you here, I was just reminiscing, and having seen the [Robert] Harrises in November in Charlottesville, and having letters from Cleanth Brooks, Louisiana was not such a bad place at all. What was formed at that time holds together” (Letter 135).
28. Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 1, On the Form of the American Mind, ed. Jürgen Gebhardt and Barry Cooper, trans. Ruth Hein (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995), 1.
D E L I G H T F U L AC QU I S I T I O N Letters 1–36, 1944–1952
1. Baton Rouge, May 27 [No Year] Dear Eric: To fortify—or destroy, as it might be—my easy generalization about [William] Blake I have checked the OHEL Bibliography (II, 347 ff.),1 and I find that I was substantially right, although I had not known the amount of the relatively recent work on Blake. Editions of Works: Facsimile, 1880–1900. Of complete works, other—see: 1874, 1898 [1893] ([William Butler] Yeats and [Edwin John] Ellis); next, 1904. Of selections, 1839, 1874, 1887, 1880, 1893. The facts indicate very limited 19th century interest. Biography: [Alexander] Gilchrist 1888 ff., [Frederick] Tatham 1906, others since. Studies: There are a number of essays, all apparently biographical and superficial, scattered through the 19th century. Nothing by anybody of critical stature. The beginning of consistent interest appears late in the century, as the following notations show: 1869—[Algernon Charles] Swinburne 1877—[Henry Gay] Hewlett 1893—[Joseph Antoine] Milsand, Littérature anglaise et philosophie (Dijon) 1895—[Richard] Garnett 1896—James Thomson 1900—R. Kassner, Die Mystik, der Künstler, und das Leben (Leipzig) 1903—[William Butler] Yeats 1906—Richter, H., Wm. Blake (Strasburg) 1907—P. Berger, Wm. Blake: Mysticisme et Poesie (Paris; tr. D. H. Conner, 1914) 1907—Stepford Brooke 1907—[Arthur] Symons 1909—[Basil] de Selincourt 1. Oxford History of English Literature.
25
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1910—[G. K.] Chesterton 1910—T. Sturge Moore, Art and Life: Wm. Blake and his Aesthetic
And many others since, “too numerous to mention,” but the following look interesting for one reason or another: B. Fehr, “Wm. Blake und die Kabbala,” in Eng. Studien, 1930 Ba Han, M., Wm. Blake: His Mysticism, Bordeaux, 1924 “ The Evolution of Blakean Philosophy, Rangoon, 1926 Pierce, F. E., “Etymology as Explanation in Blake,” Phil. Qu. 1931 White, H. C., The Mysticism of Wm. Blake, Madison, 1927 ([Cleanth] Brooks doesn’t think much of the female who wrote this)
By the way, I know that you don’t need and haven’t time to read this stuff: I send it along only because you might be curious about the details. Sincerely,
2. [No date] Dear Eric, During some talk last night I happened to mention this poem by Hardy to Lissie, who thought you might be interested in it: On an Invitation to the United States My ardors for <*>emprize now lost Since life has bared its bones to me, I shrink to seek a modern coast Whose riper times have yet to be; Where the new regions claim them free From that long drip of human tears Which peoples old in tragedy Have left upon the centuried years. For, <*>wonning in those ancient lands, Encased and lettered as a tomb, And scored with prints of perished hands, And chronicled with dates of doom, Though my own Being bear no bloom I trace the lives such scenes enshrine, Give past exemplars present room, And their experience count as mine.
Delightful Acquisition, 1944–1952
27
The charm of the hosts and the delightfulness of the other company and the suavity of the schwimp and the lovely deceptive mildness of the champagne all made a beautiful dreamless night and a clear sky this morning. Encore! <* note his use of archaic words as part of [a] method of creating [an] atmosphere of age of the Europe to which he belongs.>
3. University, Louisiana [No Date] [OH] Dear Voegelin, Did you happen to see the note on Dostoevsky by James Farrell, the Chicago left-wing realist, in the N.Y. Times Book Review Section, January 9, 1944, p. 3? What he says about Dostoevsky, by way of explication, ties in very prettily with your recent remarks on (a) Russia and (b) the inevitability of suffering in the world; and his objections to D. are a fine illustration of “optimistic rationalism.” Regards, Heilman
4. Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 12, 1944 [OH] Dear Bob: I just had an enthusiastic letter from Lissy, telling of chicken creole, nice people and generally, a lovely Sunday she spent with you and your family—but the chicken creole came first. I envied her very much; nothing of the sort is to be had here; just beans, Harvard people and dull Sundays. Last night—it was terribly hot—I wanted to drink a glass of beer, the first since I am here; nothing doing: of all days it was the day of primary elections. But then you learn a lot here about the war. For instance, that it will be over before next spring. Reason: the grass in the Harvard Yard. The lawns were trampled into mud by the army; this year they were reseeded and fenced in: —the vox populi says: the Corporation would not invest $1 in grass-seed, unless they had precise information that the new grass will stay and not be trampled down again—by a crop of soldiers. I also know when the next world war will start. The statisticians have found that there is a 100% correlation between the outbreak of world wars and the celebration of world fairs in Switzerland. World fairs in Switzerland were held in 1914 and in 1939, and the wars broke duly out. The next world fair is in 1964!!—that’s the sort of [thing?] you can learn nowhere but at Harvard.
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Otherwise, I am drowned in German constitutional history of the Middle Ages. It is a horrible experience, particularly the East. I am all in favor that the Russians get East Prussia after what I have gone through with it. —By the way, I wonder how soon they will get it: whether that [indecipherable] drive will go on, or whether it will stop somewhere around Königsberg. Macmillan and Harcourt-Brace, both seem to be interested now in the “book.” But, oh!, the time they take to make up their minds! In my next life I shall become a publisher; it seems to be a more leisurely occupation than that of a writer. I hope very much, they will be through “considering” by September so that I can give a definite answer to [?] Williamson. Please, give my regards to Ruth: I regret infinitely that I could not enjoy her company, nor the chicken creole, last Sunday, together with Lissy (please note that Ruth’s company comes first with me, and the chicken creole second). Yours very sincerely, Eric Voegelin
5. Baton Rouge, July 21 [1944] Dear Eric, I am delighted enough at hearing from you to forgive the additional “n” with which you adorned my name; it set Mr. [Lewis B.] Lucky and the whole Legion Security Committee on me, being considered prima facie evidence of enemy-alienism. And my forgiveness would have to be increased, also, by my consideration of Ruth’s pleasure at the position which you gave her in your list of the lovely things to be enjoyed on a Heilman Sunday. Yet I must say for Lissy that her own placing of the chicken at the top of her joys showed, after all, a quite exquisite tact: since her own cooking cannot be excelled, what better point on which to offer praise to a rival? Now if you always ate at the Piccadilly, her praise of Ruth’s chicken would have to be considered indeed to be lacking in finesse. Your news of the Harvard mind and its functioning is all delightful: the stories about the grass and the world fairs in Switzerland and their predictive values have had a nice little circulation hereabouts. I hope that your search for beer is not always impeded by the local political activities, and that the publishers hasten on to a quick realization of what they have got—and then start bidding against each other. It would be interesting to have you here to discuss all the events of the last twenty-four hours—“fateful” ones, as the press would say: the fall of the Tojo cabinet, the conclusion of the Democratic campaign, the progress of the war,
Delightful Acquisition, 1944–1952
29
and most of all the events (or alleged events) inside Germany. Being victims of the spirit of journalism, we all hung on radios all day today; nobody gets anything done; and when it is all over, no one knows much either. LSU continues its businesslike decline: at the moment we are all in a stew as to who will succeed the deposed [Wendell H.] Stephenson. Even [John Earle] Uhler, the Strode of LSU, has been mentioned; the very best we can hope for is [Fred C.] Frey. Rumors fly; fama crescit eundo; at the moment fama is, amidst her growth, busily engaged in firing Brooks and me. After five years I am almost used to this execution by act-of-tongue. On personal grounds alone, but very strongly on them, we all anticipate your return in the fall. My best wishes for a “productive” summer. Sincerely yours,
6. Baton Rouge, October 25, 1944 Dear Eric, Thank you very much for the reprints. Siger comes somewhat as an old friend, but not one who doesn’t need further cultivation. Some of the Nietzsche materials are familiar, but here they come in a pattern which I am glad to have. 2. The headlines for the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate on July 20, 1944, included the following: “Six Nazis Killed in Quarrel: Disagreement over Hitler Strategy Leads to Fatal Shooting,” and “Tojo’s Entire Government Resigns in Japanese Upset: Hirohito Plans Parley with Home Affairs Minister to Direct Complete Reorganization, Form New Cabinet.” For July 21, 1944, they included the following: “Hitler Reveals Army Plot to Overthrow Nazi Regime: Bomb Explosion Fails to Kill Fuehrer; Would-be Assassin Dies; Himmler Begins Purge of ‘Usurpers,’” and “Hirohito Names ‘Copremiers’ of New Jap Military Regime.” 3. Wendell H. Stephenson was professor of history and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in 1944. John Earle Uhler was a member of the LSU English faculty who wrote a locally controversial novel, Cane Juice. The novel led to his firing; later he was reinstated with the help of the ACLU and AAUP. He was also a member of a faction in the department opposed to Heilman, Brooks, and Warren (see Thomas W. Cutrer, Parnassus on the Mississippi: The Southern Review and the Baton Rouge Literary Community, 1935–1942 [Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984], 18–19). Strode taught English at the University of Alabama (1914–1963), wrote travel books, wrote a biography of Jefferson Davis, and edited Jefferson Davis’s letters. In 1949, Fred C. Frey was dean of the university; he was replaced in 1953 by Charles E. Smith. 4. “Rumor gathers strength as it goes”: a reference to Virgil Aeneid 4.174–75. 5. Voegelin, “Siger de Brabant,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 4 (June 1944): 507– 26, reprinted in the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 20, History of Political Ideas, vol. 2, ed. Peter von Sivers (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997), chap. 11. 6. Voegelin, “Nietzsche, the Crisis, and the War,” Journal of Politics 6 (1944): 177–212; reprinted
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I hope that this article gets around to some of the popular philosophers who speak so easily and knowingly of Nietzsche; and I wish there could be general circulation of the interpretation of the meaning of the “war-guilt” business. It’s remarkably convincing. But I enjoyed the whole thing: in the realm of information, not only the Nietzsche but the establishing of the positions of [George] Santayana, [Stefan] George, etc.: and in the realm of style, the nice understatement, like the one concerning [Crane] Brinton, or that on [Rohan d’Olier] Butler on p. 186. Since we’ve been on this before, may I point out three or four minor matters of idiom? P. 198, for “despair to find” read “despair of finding;” p. 199, for “blame others to be” read “blame others for being,” and for “ripe to fall” read “ripe and ready to fall”; p. 202, for “insistence to create” read “insistence upon creating.” Very sincerely,
7. Baton Rouge, November 20 [probably 1944] Dear Eric, I have finally read your contribution to the symposium on research in political theory, and I have profited from it—as usual. To me it was pure, delightful acquisition of information to read what have been the theories as to the substance of political theory; and what seemed to me to go most to the heart of the matter is the distinction between political theory as the study of governmental authority and political theory as including “problems of spiritual disintegration and regeneration, and of the community-creating political myth . . .” No idioms marked! I tried several of the others, but truth to tell, they seemed relatively on the surface; so I went away. One Ruth Beattie, whom I sent to you in the fall, assures me that she will be “eternally” grateful therefor. All regards, in the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 10, Published Essays, 1940–1952, ed. Ellis Sandoz (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000), chap. 5. 7. On November 20–21, 1943, Voegelin participated in “Research in Political Theory: A Symposium” at the American Political Science Association annual meeting. This was a meeting of the Political Theory Panel of the Research Committee of the APSA. Voegelin’s contribution was published as “Political Theory and the Pattern of General History,” American Political Science Review 38 (1944): 746–54, reprinted in the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 10, Published Essays, 1940–1952, ed. Ellis Sandoz (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000), chap. 6.
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8. Cortland, NY, July 3, 1945 [OH]8 Dear Eric, Here’s a ¶ from a recent Nation which, if you haven’t seen it, may amuse you. Our trip was very hot but uneventful except for some anomalous—but apparently innocuous—doings in the motor. For some reason—perhaps that I’m having a bit of [a] hangover from my brief illness—it exhausted me, and I’ve been good for nothing since we’ve come here. And things to be done are piled up. I hope that your social pleasures undergo a diminuendo so that you can get into really exhausting work. I can say this now that we’re no longer around, for we very much enjoyed seeing you. Our best wishes to you and to Lissie. Cordially, Bob
9. April 9, 1946 Dear Robert: I have finished the Lear, —and I am still enchanted. It is a masterpiece of careful, exhaustive analysis; and the organization of the subject-matter according to the strata of meaning, from the sight-pattern to the religious attitudes, is flawless. No criticism can be leveled against the construction of the whole. And the only desideratum is, as I told you over the telephone, an Introduction for the non-professional reader that would inform him on the state of the Learquestion so that he can appreciate what you are doing and why. Of course, you will not expect a dilettante to indulge in a critical evaluation of details. Only to prove the carefulness of my reading let me relate some of the notes which I penciled down while going through the MS. Concerning the sight-pattern. This whole part raises an interesting problem of method. You try to analyse the pattern of imagery, that is of the structure of the poetic medium by which a meaning is conveyed that itself transcends the level of sensual symbolisms, that is of the sight, clothes, etc., expressions. This enterprise poses two questions: (1) Not all of the language-body of the drama has significance as symbolism for the transcendent meaning. A word like “see” may have symbolic function in the structure of the whole, or it may be irrelevant to it because its meaning is confined to a limited pragmatic context—as when a person would say “Look 8. This note was written on a clipping from an article in the Nation. I have not been able to find the issue from which it was clipped.
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here” or “There you see” in a determinative, pragmatic sense, without implications concerning the metaphysical problem of “insight.” Here begins the art of the interpreter who has to catch all the “sees” which have a function as transcendent symbols and to omit the “sees” that have no such function. As far as I know the King Lear[,] you have done an excellent job of catching the sight-symbols. I have found only two occasions for notes: (a) On p. 21 you catch the “see” in IV, 7, line 55: I will not swear these are my hands: let’s see; I feel this pin prick.
I think you can defend this “see” as symbolic[;] though, if it stood alone, it would perhaps be a border-case. I do not find mentioned in this context, however, the preceding lines: I should e’en die with pity, To see another thus.
These lines would give support to the symbolism of line 55, and should perhaps not be separated from the second “see.” (Though they are quoted in another context.) (b) I do find in IV, 6 a “see” that I do not remember having been mentioned in your study, though this may be simply my oversight. And I am too lazy to recheck. Anyway here it is: Edgar: Let’s see these pockets; the letters that he speaks of May be my friends. . . . Let us see: Leave, gentle wax; [sic] and, manners, blame us not; To know our enemies’ minds, we’ld rip their hearts; Their papers, is more lawful.
Here the relation between the “see” and the intelligence to be gained by opening the letters is explicit. (2) The sight-pattern that runs through the King Lear can be a basic symbolic structure for the higher levels of meaning because the world of the senses is loaded, indeed, with meanings beyond the physical context. “Ice” is not just water at a certain temperature; it is “icy.” And “eyes” are not just optical apparatuses but mediums of intelligence. Here, as far as I can see, lies the root of the symbolic value which words denoting sensual objects and functions can gain in the context of a poem. The word-body of a verse can be loaded with meanings
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beyond the meaning explicitly contained in the sentence as a grammatical unit. That is to say: in a poem (and for that matter also in good prose; with certain limits) the implied meaning of the word-body can be used to echo, amplify, surround with fringes, etc., the explicit meaning of the statements. This raises the second methodological question: the question of the interlocking of wordsymbols as carriers of implied meanings, with the explicit meanings of the text. You have solved the problem of interpretation correctly, if I may be so insolent as to venture the opinion, by first elaborating the word-pattern as the carrier of the implied meaning and then proceeding to the levels of explicit meaning. You have also indicated the shift from the implied to the explicit level of meaning by a skillful change in terminology: you speak of the sight-pattern and the clothespattern, but quite rightly of the nature-theme. The affair becomes complicated, however, in the madness-pattern. I do not see in this later change of terminology an inconsistency but rather an indication of the methodological difficulty. For madness, indeed, belongs to the level of explicit meanings as well as to the level of the senses in its variants of real and assumed madness in the acting persons. The methodologically consistent solution would be, in my opinion, to adopt a theory of meaning that would permit [one] to see the whole poem as one world of meaning from the sensually implied (in objects, actions, states of mind of the dramatis personae, etc.) to the most explicit (in blunt metaphysical propositions in oratio directa). —As it is, I have the feeling there is a crack in method insofar as the “sight-pattern” analysis leans a bit heavily on the objective, physical structure of the word-body. That does not mean that the term “pattern” should be abandoned. On the contrary, it should be retained. But it should be made clear that a poem can have a pattern, because it has a word-body; and that it can have a word-body because the body is a carrier of meaning. Nothing, therefore, should be changed in the text. But a few judicious remarks on the problem here indicated would probably enhance the value of a masterful analysis and be a contribution to a theory of poetry. The nature-theme. The locus criticus of the nature-theme is I, 2. You have dealt with it at length on pp. 64 ff. and 123 ff. And, I think, you have got every ounce of meaning out of the scene that is in it. Here I would have to make only one suggestion—always with apologies for my insolence: that this central topic needs a bit [of ] “pulling together.” Again nothing need be changed[,] but a few summarizing words might be in place which elucidate the internal structure of this most carefully knit scene. As I understand it, the problem is the following: The conceptual apparatus of Shakespeare in handling the problem of nature
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is humanistic. The position of Edmund (Thou, nature, art my goddess) is the sophistic conflict between physis and nomos. The nomos, the order of society, appears as “the plague of custom” and “the curiosity of nations”—non-obligatory for the man who represents nature in the form of the forces of the individual. The Hellenic natural man of Critias and Callicles is the model, as well as, perhaps, the virtù of the Machiavellian demonic personality. The existence of man is natural, the substance is the natural will. (“Rationalism” seems to me only a component in this idea of man as a demonic natural agent). —Gloucester on the other hand (These late eclipses, etc.), represents the nature-complex of the Timaios. As against the physis of Edmund he stands for the order of the whole, the nomos. —Both positions have their right and their wrong—indicated in the self-revelations and mutual criticisms of the two representatives. The physis of Edmund is at fault for the reason stated explicitly by Gloucester: “Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects.” That is to say: the view of nature which disregards the sympathetic texture of the nomos can calculate eclipses and explain them rationally, yet etc. the sympathetic context is thereby not abolished. Here lies the wrong of Edmund and the right of Gloucester whose nature is not entirely superstitious or superficial. (This point would also have to be taken into account in the explanation of Gloucester’s religious development). —At the same time, however, this passage contains Gloucester’s admission of his wrong: for the eclipses can be calculated, and there is really a nature in the perspective of the calculating, pragmatic will that one cannot neglect without incurring sanctions. —Edmund again admits the wrong of his position in the self-revelation (which you have pointed out very finely) when he wills the “base to top the legitimate,” motivated by his resentment without any reason. The consciousness of this irrational violation of order (the nomos) is present from the beginning and is acknowledged as the guilt in the last scene (V, 3: “The wheel is come full circle”) when the wheel of the nomos remains victorious over the will of the physis. —The wrong of Gloucester is brought out, finally, by Edmund in his caustic analysis of the rationalizing motives of Gloucester in shoving responsibility on necessity and denying the will as an independent agent. —(One more level of meaning seems to be touched in Edgar’s line: “How long have you been a sectary astronomical?” This seems to be a sally against the astrological fad among Shakespeare’s contemporaries). Minor points. p. 22 (pencil mark); “probably” perhaps too cautious; the line 263 hardly leaves a doubt, that indeed the “promised end” is meant.
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p. 29 the word “appearances” reminds me that all appearances are dissolved in V, 3: “The weight of this and time we must obey, Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.”
p. 115 (pencil mark; see also the pencil mark on p. 67): “Christian transvaluation of Lear’s pagan world”: This transvaluation is going on in Lear himself perhaps more strongly than your comments on pp. 67 and 115 would suggest. At least, that is how I understand the lines in V, 3 beginning: “No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison. . . .”
The stratum of rulership is likened here in the most revolutionary manner to the sphere of the Gods—and hence unsuitable for man who knows his limits. The humble are praised who are “God’s spies”; theirs is the lasting reality: “and we’ll wear out In a wall’d prison, packs and sects of great ones That ebb and flow by the moon.”
Almost a Dostoevsky touch. (There are interesting angles to the “common man”). p. 136. The discussion of the oath “By Apollo.” These oaths of Lear and Kent carry perhaps a meaning that would fit in your sight-pattern interpretation. Apollo is the God of Light, who also can strike with blindness. Lear’s oath “Now, by Apollo,—”
follows Kent’s lines “See better, Lear, and let me still remain The true blank of thine eye.”
and it is followed by Kent’s rejection “Now, By Apollo, king, Thou swearst thy gods in vain.”
Lay the accent on the “by Apollo,” and you get an interesting meaning that would be fortified by the second oath “By Jupiter” which Kent obeys—Jupiter is the God of governmental order. There also may be some meaning in the exchanging of oaths “By Jupiter,” “By Juno” in II, 4, due to Kent’s insistence that it is the son and daughter who commit the outrage. Those women.
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The closing scene. There are two interesting final touches to the sight-pattern on the occasion of the death of Lear. Lear’s “Look on her, look, her lips . . .” is taken up by Edgar’s “Look up, my lord.” But the time for looking at last has given way to sightless death. Extremely important for the whole structure of the tragedy seem to me the closing lines of Albany: “The oldest hath borne most: we that are young, Shall never see so much, nor live so long.”
The question imposes itself: Why should the younger generation not live so long as the older, and experience the same disorder again? The answer seems to be that with the end of the tragedy we do not simply pass on to the next generation who will give us a repeat performance of the Lear, but that we leave the “old age” in the sense of the saeculum senescens and enter a new era. The theme of “age” (your MS pp. 68 ff.) would be enlarged beyond the biological age of the dramatis personae into the “aging of the ages.” And the old age in the biological sense, which has caused so much disorder, would be a symbol of the senescence of the saeculum. In the new era, people will not grow so old (but also not see so much). The tragedy is not a “history” but is removed into a mythical aion before the present. Goethe, Shakespeare und kein Ende (1813). Some excerpts that might interest you. “On Shakespeare has been said so much that it might seem as if nothing were left to be said; still, it is the quality of the spirit that it will move the spirit without end.” “If we call Shakespeare one of the greatest poets we mean to say that not easily anybody ever perceived the world as he did; that not easily anybody who ever expressed his inner intuition thereby transposed the reader in a higher degree into a consciousness of the world. It becomes for us completely diaphanous: all of a sudden we find [ourselves] as confidants of virtue and vice, of greatness, littleness, nobility, damnation—and all this, and even more, through the simplest means. If, however, we ask what these means are, it would seem at first sight as if he worked for our eyes; but we are deceived: the works of Shakespeare are not for the eyes of the body.” “The eye may be called the clearest sense by means of which communication is most easily possible. But the inner sense is still clearer and it is reached by the most perfect means of communication, by the word: for the word is really moving and fertile while what we perceive by the eye stands before us strangely and by far not so efficaciously. Shakespeare speaks to our inner sense: it ani-
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mates our imagination and a world of imagery with a complete effectiveness of which we can hardly give an account.” “Shakespeare associates with the spirit of the world (Weltgeist); like it, he penetrates the world; to neither one anything is hidden. But while it is the business of the world-spirit to preserve the secret, frequently even after the deed, it is for the poet to betray the secret and to make us the confidants of the deed.” “Everywhere is England, girded by the ocean, ringed by mist and clouds, active in all quarters of the world. The poet lived in a noble and important age and represents its form, and even mis-form, with great serenity.” “Hardly will be found another poet who realizes in his single works every time another idea, an idea which is operative throughout the whole work—as can be shown in Shakespeare’s.” —“The whole Coriolanus is permeated by the frustration that the mass will not recognize the quality of the better man. Caesar embodies the idea that the aristoi do not want to see the first place occupied because they believe mistakenly that they can act collectively. Anthony and Cleopatra says with [a] thousand tongues that indulgence and action are incompatible.”
<E. V.>
10. November 4, 1947 Dear Eric, My delay in returning your MS to you has meant not that I have been slow in getting to it (except that I was away for several days), but that I have been reading it very slowly and doing considerable re-reading in order to make myself as sure as nature permits me to be that I got the point. I think that the complex materials of Chapter 5 are excellently organized and presented, and, beyond that, make fascinating reading from end to end. What one senses, if a tyro may venture such a point, is an absolute mastery of the materials, and one has the impression that the Laws could not have been expounded in any other way. 9. The MS to which Heilman is referring no longer exists in the form that he read it, unless it may by chance be found in someone else’s correspondence with Voegelin as a copy. The problem of manuscripts dealing with the early materials of the History of Political Ideas is excellently stated by Athanasios Moulakis, in vol. 19 of the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, in his introduction to Voegelin’s History of Political Ideas, vol. 1, ed. Athanasios Moulakis (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997).
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Aside from the unfolding of the substance, one especially enjoys the constant irony, sometimes almost entirely concealed, at the views of the Laws which prevail in a liberal, secularist world. And such a lovely parenthesis as “inseparable parochialism (some call it love of freedom) . . .” And again, such fine clarity and force of definition as in “the law of the spirit: that doing evil is worse than suffering evil.” As always in reading your MSS I have the page-by-page feeling of learning, not so importantly in the realm of historical information<*> [top:] <not that there isn’t a world of that!> as of truth generally. I enjoy something that I do not think will be widely perceived—the strong emotional undercurrent that gives a touch of poetic quality to your exposition at those moments when, as one sees even before you make the point explicitly, there is a parallel between the existential situation which Plato deplores and the 20th century way of life. You will pardon the element of selfish pleasure that creeps in when I feel, as I perhaps should not do, that your exposition of the form of the Laws is a validation of my procedures with respect to Lear. I like the symbolic poem which you have written at the end, using as your materials the legend about Plato’s death. If I am correct it works on three different levels. At a very few places I have marked matters of idiom, etc. But there are so few that it becomes rather ostentatious to mark those that are still apparent. How you have mastered the language! On p. 414 I am in doubt about the word casuistry, which in general usage means almost exclusively “equivocal, specious reasoning.” At several places where I felt some lack of clarity I found that on re-reading I could clear myself up. Indeed, in the whole 100 or so pages there is only one passage which, after several re-readings, I still am not sure about. I think I have got the point straightened out ; but I am not quite sure; and it may be that the exposition could be sharpened up a little for the aid of other such numbskulls as I (if we are worth the effort). This passage is the last several pp. of “2. Theocracy and the Invisible Church,” i.e., pp. 149–153. On p. 349 you say that theocracy is Plato’s limit, that he cannot see that the solution must be in the form of the church, that is, the invisible church. At this point one has a mental picture of a shortcoming in Platonic thought. On pp. 350 and 351 you indicate that the Laws represent a compromise with the frailty of men—the Pauline, ecclesiastical phase of the heroic thought that appeared in the Republic (the analogy with the development from the Sermon on the Mount to the Pauline 10. There is a discrepancy in the pagination to which Heilman refers in this paragraph. Since the manuscript no longer exists, these cannot be corrected (see preceding footnote.)
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church is wonderfully lucid and illuminating). Here, then, one has a picture of a concession that Plato is making, and one wonders about its relationship to the <*>failure [left:] noted on p. 349—or are the two points just juxtaposed without there being any relationship between them? (Doubtless this point should not come into the reader’s mind; I am only indicating that in the arrangement of the materials it does.) Then on 352 you clarify partially by saying that theocracy is Plato’s limit in that he does “not distinguish temporal and spiritual order.” I take it this means that the polis is not an adequate embodiment of the spirit—but I’m not sure, and perhaps a little amplification would help here. Then the final point—that the deficient theocrat has still written a religious poem which in its character as art does reach the universal of which he falls short as political theorist (correct?). Thus the final contrasting picture which comes to my mind is this: Polis: temporal Form is not determined by spirit
Laws as poem: universal Form is determined by spirit
If this is all messed up, all I can do is confess to stupidity; but if it is correct or approximately correct as a reading of your text, then I think that a little fuller discussion and perhaps sharper pointing, especially of the antithesis of theocratic concept and poem, might help. I have noted down this loose commentary on the several pages simply to show the kind of minor—obviously not very serious—obstacles one runs into in the passage as a whole. But in view of what is accomplished by the whole chapter, this is hardly more than a quibble. I am privileged to have read the section, and I remarked again to Ruth, as I have done so often, that this work must be on our ready reference shelf about the hearth as soon as it is printed. Yours,
11. November 13, 194711 Dear Robert: With avidity I have swallowed your interpretation of the Turn of the Screw, as well as your article on the Freudian interpretation. Both pieces have gratified me 11. Since this letter was edited for publication in the Southern Review (n.s. 7 [1971]: 9–24), I have included it here virtually as it was originally written by Voegelin. For clarity the following minor changes were made: a few amendments were made using brackets, a comma was silently deleted, and house-keeper was regularized to the closed spelling.
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very much. The article on the Freudian interpretation is a revelation for an outsider concerning what is going on in the select circles of intellectual interpreters of literature—if I hadn’t just had my hair cut, it would have stood on end. Your own interpretation (for what my opinion is worth) looks most convincing to me. That is, indeed, the proper method to be employed: follow the pattern of symbols and see what emerges by way of meaning. I must qualify my agreement, however, in one point: I agree as far as you go; but in my opinion (again for what it is worth) you are not going far enough. If I try to substantiate this opinion, I find myself, however, at a bad disadvantage. Of course, I know nothing about James; and there seem to be extant various utterances of his by which he himself has indicated a line of interpretation—and again, of them I know nothing except what you quote in your article. This is a particularly awkward situation because the suggestions for further interpretation (which I shall permit myself presently) seem not to agree with the lines indicated by James himself. Let me state, therefore, the principle which I am following in my suggestions: the basis for the analysis of a literary work must be the work itself; if the author has expressed himself on the meaning of his work, such utterances are most valuable if they clear up obscure points; but if (as it seems to be in this case) the utterances of the author are in open conflict with the text of his work, then the meaning offered by the text has to prevail. This, by the way, is a nice puzzle for you as a historian of literature; thank God, I can express myself about a work of James without professional responsibility.
I. Let me anticipate a few results of the analysis so that we have firm points of reference for the remarks concerning details. I believe that the Turn of the Screw is a study, not on the mystery of good and evil only, but on this mystery in relation to the complex of consciousness-conscience-virtue. Specifically, I have the suspicion that this study of the tensions of the soul has a coloration to its generic character which permits us to characterize it more closely as a study of the Puritan variant of the generic problem. Moreover, in the symbolization of this problem through the persons and movements of the story, all of the figures are of equal importance. The characterization of the study as a piece of childpsychology is not wrong, but it touches only one aspect of the whole structure. Let me begin, not with the children but with the grown-ups—an order which is permissible because the children enter the stage later. (The chronology of entrance, by the way, is of extreme importance for the symbolic play.)
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The grown-ups are, in the order of their social hierarchy, the employer, the governess and the housekeeper. They symbolize, in this order, God, the soul, and the earthy, common-sense existence. The soul is released by God to enter on its struggle with forces of good and evil (children and apparitions). This release has the form of an employment and of its acceptance on very interesting conditions. The central problem of the relation between God and the soul is the problem of communication. In the prelude to the story itself the relation is characterized explicitly as one of confidence with erotic implications. The “prospective patron” is “a gentleman, a bachelor in the prime of his life, such a figure as had never risen, save in a dream or an old novel, before a fluttered, anxious girl out of a Hampshire vicarage.” The gentleman is ready to employ the girl under the curious condition: “That she should never trouble him—but never, never: neither appeal nor complain nor write about anything; only meet all questions herself, receive all moneys from his solicitor, take the whole thing over and let him alone.” The soul is on her own, burdened with full responsibility for its problems, equipped with nothing but the embodiment (money from the solicitor) which is the scene of the struggle. The girl accepts: “She promised to do this, and she mentioned to me that when, for a moment, disburdened, delighted, he held her hand, thanking her for her sacrifice, she already felt rewarded.” At this point, the mystery of good and evil begins to unfold. There is the “gentleman,” “rich, but fearfully extravagant,” “of good looks, of expensive habits, of charming ways with women,” unloading the responsibility on the girl (the anima); and there is the girl, accepting an employment which looks like a sacrifice—for whom? for God! It is a fascinating sacrifice, which has its “reward” in the “obligation” to the employer; it is for him that she undergoes the ordeal. “She succumbed to his seduction.” Is God a seducer? We shall see. Meanwhile, the sacrifice is not quite imaginary. We learn, that the girl had a “predecessor” who met a horrible end; and we learn that there were others who refused employment on such conditions. Others have rejected employment in this fashion. This seems to be the crucial point for answering the question whether the study of the soul is, indeed, generic, or whether it has a specific coloration. The strange condition is the assumption of full responsibility, without recourse to communication (prayers for help) and consequently without help (grace). From the beginning, James has defined his study carefully as a study of the demonically closed soul; of a soul which is possessed by the pride of handling the problem of good and evil by its own means; and the means which is at the disposition of this soul is the selfmastery and control of the spiritual forces (the symbol of the governess)—ending in a horrible defeat.
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II. The key-passage concerning the problem of communication occurs in Chapter XIII of the story. The situation between the governess and the children has reached the critical point where both parties to the struggle know that the other knows but keep silent on their mutual knowledge. The unbearable tension, the sense of imminent peril, however, increase the moments when they discuss the “precious question that had helped through many a peril:” “When do you think he will come? Don’t you think we ought to write?” But they do not communicate; they only talk about the writing; and the inquiry carries off many an “awkwardness.” The situation, however, has gone beyond an “awkwardness” that can be carried off by “inquiring” whether “He” will come. It would be urgently necessary that “He” comes really and saves them from the peril. But why do they not write to “their uncle in Harley Street,” the uncle in the street of the physicians, to the great healer? The failure to write is complicated. The children actually want to write; and, as a matter of fact, they have written; but the governess has intercepted the letters. The “inquiry” thus remains at the stage of an expectation of the coming. “We lived in much profusion of theory that he might at any moment arrive to mingle in our circle.” But will he really come and save them? “It was impossible to have given less encouragement than he had done to such a doctrine, but if we had not had the doctrine to fall back upon we should have deprived each other of some of our finest exhibitions.” And what are these fine exhibitions? The psychology of these “exhibitions” is one of the masterpieces in the story. The analysis of the “exhibition” begins with the flat statement: “He never wrote to them.” But why does the uncle not write to the children? Perhaps “that may have been selfish.” But it is not quite selfish; the relationship between the employer and the governess enters this strange silence of the uncle for his children. His silence “was a part of the flattery of his trust of me; for the way in which a man pays his highest tribute to a woman is apt to be but by the more festal celebration of one of the sacred laws of his comfort.” The responsible rule over the forces of good and evil is entrusted to the soul itself, as a lieutenant of God. It is most “flattering”; the employer knows how to handle women; the vanity is tickled by the divine charge of salvation by proxy. Hence the governess intercepts the missives of the children; “I held that I carried out the spirit of the pledge given not to appeal to him.” The legalistic formulation of “the spirit of the pledge” shows that the anima is up to tricks. The letter of the pledge had only said that she, the governess, should not appeal to the employer; the interpretation of the spirit, that the children should not write, is her own. The employer had only enjoined the
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governing conscience, the responsible ego, not to appeal to him; he had not enjoined that no appeal should rise to him from the depth of the soul, overriding freedom, conscience and ego. The “spirit” of non-communication, and of the repression of the desire for communication, is not the spirit of the employer; it is the spirit of the governess. Moreover, the governess does not simply intercept the letters; she lets the children know “that their own letters were but charming literary exercises.” She does not simply interrupt the communication of the children; she poisons their effusion by the consciousness that the attempt to reach the “employer” is a literary exercise, not a real appeal that even could reach its address. And why this peculiar game of the make-believe appeals? These letters “were too beautiful to be posted; I kept them myself; I have them all to this hour.” The letters were not just too beautiful to be thrown away; they were too beautiful “to be posted.” The motive of the interception begins to emerge: it is not the “spirit” of the pledge; it is the vanity and jealousy of the soul bent on self-salvation. The governess does not discourage the letters to be written; on the contrary, she lets the children write them in the full consciousness that they will reach nobody but the governess herself. The cry for salvation becomes a game; it “added to the satiric effect” of the supposition that the savior “might at any moment be among us.” And then follows the revelatory sentence: “It was exactly as if my charges knew how almost more awkward than anything else that might be for me.” —that is, if the real savior would come and by his coming humble the pride of the governess who has undertaken to rule her charges by her own means. And one step deeper into the abyss of the pride of self-salvation: the governess notes that in all this nothing appeared more extraordinary “than the mere fact that, in spite of my tension and of their triumph, I never lost patience with them. Adorable they must in truth have been, I now reflect, that I didn’t in these days hate them!” When the crisis has advanced (Chapters XVI, XVII) to the open outbreak of the daemonic forces, the governess at last is ready to direct her appeal to the employer. But now the situation is reversed; now it is her letter that no longer can reach the employer; Miles in whom the daemonic forces have gained the ascendancy, intercepts and burns the letter, thus preparing the final tragedy without the hope of grace.
III. The spiritual process of the catastrophe is introduced by a page (Chapter XXII) which explains the title of the story. Flora, in fever, has disappeared with the housekeeper; the governess prepares to face Miles alone over the dinner
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table. She is badly shaken. At this juncture she felt “how my equilibrium depended on the success of my rigid will, the will to shut my eyes as tight as possible to the truth that what I had to deal with was, revoltingly, against nature.” The interruption of communication with the “employer” is now driven a step farther; the will has become rigid to be blind for the fact of the supernatural. The supernatural is, “revoltingly, against nature.” And what is this “nature”? Here James himself puts the term into ironical inverted commas. “I could only get on at all by taking ‘nature’ into my confidence and my account.” What is going on must still be happening within “nature.” The “monstrous ordeal” of the governess, can be no more than “a push in a direction unusual, of course, and unpleasant.” It can demand no more by way of treatment than the means which she has employed hitherto, that is, “another turn of the screw of ordinary human virtue.” She has a little doubt whether it will work, for, after all, this is an “attempt to supply, one’s self, all the nature.” No more will be thrown into this last battle than the nature and the will of the ego. And, let us not forget, the nature and common sense of the housekeeper has departed with Flora. So she begins turning the screw still further. The turns of the screw do not bring the desired result of salvation. The operation starts under a ray of hope. The boy is about ready for the confession, when the face of Quint appears at the window “like a sentinel before a prison.” The governess closes Miles in her arms and prevents him from seeing the horror; and the confession actually comes under way. The disappearance of the letter is cleared up, and the confession of the misconduct in school is half out. This, however, is the turning point in the operation. Miles has surrendered the rigidity of this silence. “He almost smiled at me in the desolation of his surrender, which was indeed practically, by this time, so complete that I ought to have left it there.” But she does not leave it there; the screw turns on. “I was infatuated— I was blind with victory, though even then the very effect that was to have brought him so much nearer was already that of added separation.” She presses on, extorting the confession, until she extorts the name of his ultimate evil obsession, the name of Quint. With this supreme moment of consciousness, in naming the evil one, the obsession ceases—but with the obsession ceases the life of the little soul. The evil is gone, but the good is gone, too. “His little heart, dispossessed, had stopped”; and human virtue holds in her arm a dead soul.
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IV. All this is no more than the outline of the spiritual story; we have no more than scratched the surface of the symbolism. In penetrating to the deeper layers of the structure, we may start with that other masterpiece of the story, the page on the apparition of Quint. (Chapter III.) Quint does not simply appear, without previous warning. He materializes out of the mood of the garden in which the governess takes her walk, in the twilight, at the most restful hour of the day, after her duties are discharged and the children brought to bed. What is this mood? It is the mood of possessiveness and justification. At the hour of the walk the governess can enjoy “almost with a sense of property that amused and flattered me” the beauty of the garden. It was a pleasure at these moments “to feel myself tranquil and justified.” The peace of the just soul originates in reflections “that by my discretion, my quiet good senses and general high propriety, I was giving pleasure—if he ever thought of it!—to the person to whose pressure I had responded.” She is doing what her employer expects her to do “and directly asked of me”; and what greater joy can there be than to live up to expectations and direct orders? A sense of righteousness is spreading. “I fancied myself, in short, a remarkable young woman.” And she takes comfort in the faith that her high qualities “would more publicly appear.” Something, however, was missing in this paradise of righteous fulfillment. On her walk in the garden, the governess dreams; she dreams of the face in Harley Street—that it would be “as charming as a charming story” suddenly to meet “someone.” “Someone would appear there at the turn of a path and would stand before me and smile and approve. I didn’t ask more than that—I only asked that he should know (James’ italics!); and the only way to be sure he knew would be to see it, and the kind light of it, in his handsome face.” This kind, handsome face is present to her, smiling approval, knowing her in her righteousness; and, indeed, turning out of a grove, her dream comes true, “someone” stands on the tower of the house, “someone” is looking down on her. But the figure that faces her is not the image that had been in her mind. “I had not seen it in Harley Street.” It is the face of Quint. The apparition has materialized out of her dream—and when a woman dreams of someone who will know her, it may turn out that she has dreamt of someone else.
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V. Quint has materialized out of the dream of the righteous soul to be approved and to be known, “publicly.” Let us next consider the relation of the governess to Miss Jessel, her predecessor. Miss Jessel is throughout the story associated with Flora, as the corrupting daemon of the angelic innocence of the child; as Quint is associated with Miles. But there is a moment when Miss Jessel comes closer to the governess. After the scene on the churchyard with Miles, the governess returns home with the intention of leaving her charges. What has happened? The conspiracy of silence between the governess and Miles has been broken. The boy wants to go back to the school that will not receive him back; if not to this school, then to another one. The suspense cannot drag on forever; if the governess does not find the way out, the “uncle from Harley Street” himself must “come down.” Miles asks the crucial question: “Does my uncle think what you think?” The question makes her “drop straight down on the stone slab” of a tomb by the side of which they are standing. Miles continues: Does he know “the way I’m going on?” The governess perceives that a straight answer would ultimately result in a “sacrifice” of her employer. She wants to avoid this “sacrifice” and puts the boy off: “I don’t think your uncle much cares.” But Miles can no longer be put off; the uncle can be made to come down, and if the governess will not do it, then, the boy says “with extraordinary brightness and emphasis”: “I will!” This is the point from which the governess takes her road to damnation. “The business was practically settled from the moment I never followed him.” She is agitated; but her awareness of this agitation “had somehow no power to restore me.” There she sits on a tomb that now has become her tomb. “I sat only on my tomb and read into what my little friend had said to me the fullness of its meaning.” And what is this meaning? The boy now knows that she is afraid of facing the “employer.” “He had got out of me that there was something I was much afraid of and that he should probably be able to make use of my fear to gain, for his own purpose, more freedom.” The judgment would have to be faced; the “intolerable question” of the dismissal from school would come up. “That his uncle should arrive to treat with me of these things was a solution that, strictly speaking, I ought now to have desired to bring on; but I could so little face the ugliness and the pain of it that I simply procrastinated and lived from hand to mouth.” The boy “is immensely in the right”; he has the right to ask of her: “Either you clear up with my guardian the mystery of this interruption of my studies, or you cease to expect me to lead with you a life that’s so unnatural for a boy.” The question of “nature” is touched again; and it is touched
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in its ambivalence. From the position of the boy it is “unnatural” to lead this life of seclusion in the garden by the side of the governess; his “nature” requires that the mystery of his evil be cleared up by the guardian. From the position of the governess [what] is unnatural, [is] “this sudden revelation of a consciousness and a plan” in the boy. The question can no longer be put off; its putting off is now the evasion of judgment. The consequences do not fail to appear: the boy, who now knows of her fear, has gained a new freedom, the freedom for his evil; and in the governess a strange transformation takes place. The governess is sitting on her tomb. Her pristine nature is buried; but what is the shadow that now rises from the tomb and takes the way back to the house? She does not know yet, while she leaves the churchyard in order to prepare her flight. But in the hall, “tormented with difficulties and obstacles,” “I remember sinking down at the foot of the staircase—suddenly collapsing there on the lowest step and then, with a revulsion, recalling that it was exactly where more than a month before, in the darkness of night and just so bowed with evil things, I had seen the spectre of the most horrible of women.” The sense of this identification drives her on and up the stairs, towards the schoolroom, in order to gather up some belongings. And there, at the table, sits the “predecessor” herself. The apparition rose “with an indescribable grand melancholy of indifference and detachment, and, within a dozen feet of me, stood there as my vile predecessor.” The apparition fades, but “Dark as midnight in her black dress, her haggard beauty and her unutterable woe, she had looked at me long enough to appear to say that her right to sit at my table was as good as mine to sit at hers.” The identification has advanced, and there is an instant of chill feeling “that it was I who was the intruder.” In wild protest against this inversion, the governess cries out loudly; and the air is cleared for the moment.
VI. “There was nothing in the room the next minute but the sunshine and a sense that I must stay.” Miss Jessel has come close to the governess; their fate is linked; the relief is only momentary. The children return from church; the atmosphere is now heavy with the suspense of catastrophe. Miles has gained his new “freedom.” On the first occasion he uses it to charm the governess by the offer to play for her the piano for half an hour. Too late she discovers that he has bound her by his spell long enough to give Flora the opportunity to escape for the meeting with Miss Jessel. In despair she sets out with the housekeeper to save the child; they find the girl on the lawn beyond the pond; and on the other
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side of the pond, plainly visible to the governess, stands Miss Jessel. At last the evil is brought into [the] open—but now something unexpected happens. The housekeeper sees nothing, in spite of the admonitions: “She’s as big as a blazing fire! Only look, dearest woman, look—!” And Flora does not look in the direction where the governess sees the apparition; she looks at the governess herself. “Without a convulsion of her small pink face” Flora [has] not even feigned to glance in the direction of the announced prodigy; instead she turned “at me an expression of hard, still gravity, an expression absolutely new and unprecedented and that appeared to read and accuse and judge me.” The girl was somehow converted herself “into the very presence that could make me quail.” The presence of the judgment has come over the governess: “I quailed.” But not yet can she read the verdict; or rather she can read the verdict, but she is blind for its truth: “My certitude that she thoroughly saw was never greater than at that instant,” that is at the instant when the judging eyes of the girl rest on her. “In the immediate need to defend myself,” the governess calls the prodigy as witness; she directs the gaze of the girl to the spot beyond the pond: “She’s there, you little unhappy thing,—there, there, there”; and then the revealing ambiguity: “you see her as well as you see me.” But the gaze of the girl cannot be averted; her face has become that of an “old, old woman”; and “she simply showed me, without a concession, an admission of her eyes, a countenance of deeper and deeper, of indeed suddenly quite fixed, reprobation.” Flora has seen Miss Jessel, indeed, while the governess sees her predecessor yet beyond the pond, in one of “the strange and high places” where the evil spirits formerly appeared. But “Flora continued to fix me with her small mask of reprobation”; “her incomparable childish beauty had suddenly failed, had quite vanished”; “she was hideously hard; she had turned common and almost ugly.” She protests now that she never has seen anybody; she sees nobody now. “I think you are cruel. I don’t like you.” And then she wails to Mrs Grose: “Take me away, take away, —oh, take me away from her!” “From me?” cries the governess; and the little girl confirms: “From you—from you!” Flora is removed to the house; the next day she falls ill; it is decided upon that the housekeeper will take her away from the place and bring her, at last, to her uncle.
VII. The common sense and simple nature of the housekeeper have left the scene; and with her she has taken the angelic child. The “governess” has now the field
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alone with Miles. The atmosphere of the “house” has changed; the scene is set for the salvation of Miles. The governess has “hurried” Mrs. Grose out of the house[:] “Leave us, Leave us!” The boy is ready for the confession: “I’ll get it out of him. He’ll meet me—he’ll confess. If he confesses he’s saved. And if he’s saved—.” “Then you are?” —asks Mrs. Grose. Then she kisses the governess and goes, crying “I’ll save you without him!” But as soon as the housekeeper had left, “the great pinch really came.” “Now I was, I said to myself, face to face with the elements.” The “crisis” is conscious to the household; the “total wreck” can be avoided only by clutching the helm firmly. The governess wanders all over the place, “very grand and very dry”; looking as if she were ready “for any onset.” “So, for the benefit of whom it might concern, I paraded with a sick heart.” The “house” has changed; and Miles has subtly changed with his new freedom. “I scarce put it too strongly in saying that what had perhaps sprung highest was the absurdity of our prolonging the fiction that I had anything more to teach him.” Flora has suddenly become an old woman; now Miles is beyond teaching; he is grown up and has become the equal of the governess. During the meal, and while the servant girl clears the table, suddenly the eroticism of the situation springs up. “We continued silent while the maid was with us—as silent, it whimsically occurred to me, as some young couple who, on their wedding-journey, at the inn, feel shy in the presence of the waiter.” And then the boy takes up the “whimsicality” of her silent thought: “He turned round only when the waiter had left us. ‘Well—so we’re alone!’ ” Dreamlike this scene recalls the other scene in which the desire of the woman to be known had materialized in the apparition of Quint. The double-act of confession and salvation has, from the beginning, the sous entendu of a love scene. The abrupt dialogue: Are they alone? No, there are the others in the house. But they don’t count much. “It depends on what you call ‘much.’ ” “Yes, everything depends!” “You have seen much of Bly today.” “Yes, I have never been so free.” “Well, do you like it?” “Do you?” he answers smiling, with “more discrimination than I had ever heard two words contain.” It has almost gone too far. Miles softens the advance: “If we’re alone together now it’s you that are alone most.” Does she mind having his company? No, she is staying on for his sake. Then, with trembling voice, the confession (her confession): the night she sat on his bed, in the storm, “there was nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for you.” He becomes nervous, yet pretends it was a jest: it was “to get me to do something for you!” She admits, she wants his “confession.” I have described already the process in which the screw is turned and the confession is extracted; but underneath this process runs the symbolism of the love scene. The face of Quint appears at the window, visible only to the governess,
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the “white face of damnation.” “It represents but grossly what took place within me at the sight to say that on the second my decision was made; yet I believe that no woman so overwhelmed in so short a time recovered her grasp of the act.” The act is italicized by James, as in the first apparition of Quint was italicized the desire of the woman to be known. On the level of salvation “the act would be, seeing and facing what I saw and faced, to keep the boy himself unaware.” “It was like fighting with a demon for a human soul.” And the human soul, in her arms, “had a perfect dew of sweat on a lovely childish forehead.” In fact, the face of the human soul “was as white as the face against the glass.” But now the momentary relief comes; under the confession, Quint withdraws. The governess goes on turning the screw in spite of the fact that the face has withdrawn. The mystery of the dismissal from the school is revealed through a new mystery. Miles had “said things.” To whom? To friends. “I seemed to float not into clearness, but into a darker obscure, and within a minute there had come to me out of my very pity the appalling alarm of his being perhaps innocent.” The thought of Miles’ innocence is “appalling and bottomless.” For “if he were innocent, what then on earth was I? ” Still, there is no salvation either for Miles or the governess; the screw turns on. The face of Quint reappears at the window. “I felt a sick swim at the drop of my victory and all the return of my battle.” The wildness of her leap is a betrayal. The boy guesses a “presence”; but his back is turned from the window; he cannot see the face; he sees only the governess. And she, “from the midst of my act,” gives way to the impulse “to convert the climax of his dismay into the very proof of his liberation.” This climactic conversion, however, will not be due to an ending of the torture; no, she turns on the screw, and directs his attention to the apparition that he will be fully conscious of it. The boy responds, still guessing; he becomes aware and pants: “Is she here?” “She” does not understand the strange “she”; and with a sudden fury he gives back: “Miss Jessel, Miss Jessel.” The screw turns on: “It’s not Miss Jessel! But it’s at the window.” The boy himself does not sense the poisonous presence that is overwhelming to her. He guesses “in a white rage”: “It’s he? ” Still the screw turns on: “I was so determined to have all my proof that I flashed into ice to challenge him.” She wants him to explain the “he.” And at last, she gets the answer: “Peter Quint—you devil!” The surrender is perfect. “They are in my ears still, his supreme surrender of the name and his tribute to my devotion.” She has saved the soul: “I have you, but he has lost you for ever!” The governess at last is “known.” The abomination of the “act” between Miss Jessel and Quint is consummated. Miles turns towards the window, and he sees the quiet day. But the sight does not help him. In the moment in which Quint
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lost him “he uttered the cry of a creature hurled over an abyss.” The governess recovers him with a grasp that might have been that “of catching him in his fall.” The “fall” is prevented. “I caught him, yes, I held him—it may be imagined with what a passion”—until she discovers that her passion embraces a corpse. Quint is exorcized; the corpse is that of Miles, the angelic boy. And what has become of the “devil” who turned the screw, of Miss Jessel? The reporter of the story informs us: “She was a most charming person. . . . She was my sister’s governess. . . . She was the most agreeable woman I’ve ever known in her position. . . . She struck me as awfully clever and nice. . . . I liked her extremely and am glad to this day to think she liked me too.” And with whom had the governess been in love? Did she succumb to the “seduction” of the “splendid young man” in Harley Street? “The story won’t tell” said Douglas; “not in any literal vulgar way.” If it was the man in Harley Street, we must remember that his face when he “knew” her was the face of Quint. If it was Miles, we must remember that again she saw the face of Quint when she embraced Miles. Was the man in Harley Street who can seduce women the devil? But then we must remember that it was the Miss Jessel in the governess who made her turn the screw, and who made God look like the devil. What I have set forth concerns what I consider the central problem of the Turn of the Screw. But there is plenty more to be said. Above all, there is the symbolism of childhood, innocence and nature, —which you have analysed so finely. And then, there are a lot of loose ends to be gathered up. For instance, I have indicated the transformation of the governess into Miss Jessel, beginning with the scene on the churchyard; but I have not followed up the parallel process of the transformation of Miles into Quint. The crucial scene seems to be that of the night when Flora looks out of the window and Miles has disappeared from his room. The governess believes that Flora is looking at Miss Jessel and is surprised to find that she looks at Miles down on the lawn; she believes that Miles is looking at Quint, but, indeed, he is looking back at Flora. Here, Miles has already become the Quint at which the Miss Jessel in Flora is looking. That introduces the further problem of the incestuous relationship between the children, and the incestuous character of the “act” in the last scene. Quint and Miss Jessel, in the mythical pre-history of the story[,] have been united by an unspeakable bond. About the nature of this bond, the incest, seems to me no doubt in the light of the fact that in the “story” they have become the evil natures of brother and sister. This question leads further on to the relation between
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the “pre-history” (of Quint and Miss Jessel) and the “story” itself. I would suggest that the “pre-history” is the mythical, paradigmatic “act”; and that the “story” is the repetition (in the sense of the psychology of the myth) of the paradigmatic fall—culminating in the incest of the last scene. Following this line further, we arrive at the relation between the uncle who is “bachelor” and the “children.” Remember that in the world of the grown-ups the uncle, when he “knows” the governess, has the face of Quint. If I do not misunderstand the relations of these symbols completely, I would say that the ultimate, metaphysical conception of James goes back to a vision of the cosmic drama of good and evil as an incestuous affair in the divinity. The problem of the incest is carried through all levels of the symbolic structure; on every level the partners are identified as Quint and Miss Jessel; and Quint and Miss Jessel are identified by brother and sister; these would be the pairs: Uncle—the governess Quint—Miss Jessel The governess—Miles Miles—Flora
Then there is the problem of the “sacrifice.” The uncle does not want to bring a “sacrifice”; the governess shields him and brings the sacrifice in his stead, that is the sacrifice of the saving act. Miles, however, knows that the sacrifice must be brought by the uncle himself, and he suspects that ultimately the uncle might not “think” in the same manner on this point as the governess. The uncle must be compelled to bring the sacrifice. The sacrificial act of the governess, ineffectual, thus, is as much a salvation as a prevention of true salvation. In this point, I think, James is simply dealing with the problem of “self-salvation” through the demonically closed human will that has plagued everybody in the nineteenth century, particularly Nietzsche. If I take up your idea of the “Black Easter”—I should like to qualify it into the magic operation, through the turning of the screw, of a Black Salvation. I hope you do not take it in ill that I pester you with this long letter. It is, of course, an unmitigated presumption that I should express myself at length on James, exactly one week after I have read any work at all of his for the first time. Nevertheless, I think, you will have seen that just now I am lying flat on my stomach in admiration for James. And such a prostrate position sometimes distorts the perspective. Most sincerely yours, <Eric Voegelin>
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12. March 19, 1948 Dear Robert: Through the letter of Ruth to Lissy, and through a letter of yours that [Thomas] Kirby showed me, I know that you are approximately settled, that you have a house, and that you even find time for work beyond your deanly [sic] activities. I should have written you already some time ago. But there is a curious mixture of obstacles just now: on the one hand, there is not much of importance to tell; on the other hand, there is excitement of such importance that it keeps me busy in various ways. First for the gossip. The only item I know about, and about which you know, too, is our lovely stormy affair. It certainly was a psychologically interesting affair; and, as a matter of course, not appreciated in its full juicyness. The mob outbreak of the attack on the stripping lady by the very persons who had come there for the purpose of watching her performing her antics, is something to ponder about. It seems to me the typical middle-class attitude about which Karl Kraus has expressed himself at length and with poignancy. The girl herself is probably a quite gifted parcel. If she had been born into better times, say the Second Empire or the Edwardian period, she might have had a career as a delightful mistress. Since it was her misfortune to be born into our age and environment, she is reduced to taking her clothes off in public because that is about the only level of eroticism that is accessible to the senile lewdness of the middleclass youth of our time. The point is that the magnificent males whom I have just characterized congregate by the thousand to get their genital excitement; and then, somehow revolted by the mass exhibition of their baseness, take their revenge on the woman in whom this baseness is symbolic reality. —The best was the report that a co-ed socked her, yelling: You are our competition! Slightly more exciting than these goings-on is the fact that Yale begins to show visible interest in my presence. I was invited to give a lecture, for the purpose 12. Thomas Kirby was professor and head of the English department at Louisiana State University. 13. Voegelin here is recounting an incident in which a New Orleans striptease artist, Stacie “Stormy” Laurence, appeared on the LSU campus on March 4, 1948. The front-page headline of the Daily Reveille (LSU student newspaper) for March 2, 1948, read: “‘Stormy’ Vows She’s Coming Here again Thursday with Band.” The lead headline of the Reveille for March 5, 1948 reads: “Enraged Students Dunk New Orleans Strip-Teaser.” 14. Karl Kraus was writer and publisher of Die Fackel (The torch). In Autobiographical Reflections, ed. Ellis Sandoz (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), Voegelin talks about Kraus and his effort in restoring the integrity of the German language after the assault made on it by purveyors of various second realities in the early twentieth century (18).
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of getting “acquainted.” Last week I was up there; and everything seemed to go well. No word has yet been breathed about an offer; but I was studied with obvious care by the various notables; and the chairman of the department went to the extreme of saying that I was just what they would need and that he hoped for further correspondence. Same has not arrived yet. —Through Cleanth, who takes a lively supporting interest in the affair, I know that they intend to make an offer; but according to Cleanth the offer will be lousy: an Associate Professorship with $6000. In the end I would take that of course, if it should materialize, but I would feel exploited. The lecture looked to me like a great success; with discussion it lasted for two hours and could have gone on for another hour. Perhaps they are impressed and will think better of the salary. We’ll see! For the rest, the whole incident was great fun. Yale is most desirable; lavishly equipped, a touch of snobbery, somewhat like an exclusive club. I don’t mind; I like it as long as I can laugh about it. And Willmoore Kendall and Cleanth would certainly help in the laughing. I made the acquaintance of Cecil Driver; a most delightful, scholarly figure. Of course, I told him that we had his student and great admirer [Max F.] Millikan in our department; but all he said was that George would make a good naval officer. Kendall has a fellow’s suite in one of the colleges; an enormous hall, bedroom, study, kitchen, bathroom and guestroom. He takes it with composure and contemplates transforming the manyroomed establishment into a brothel next year. Cleanth seems to be well settled and is up for cooptation as fellow in one of the colleges. Tinkum seems to be resigned to the fate of spending the rest of her years among people who are lower than “Nigras.” The only trace of hesitation that I could observe was the fact that she has not yet put up curtains in her apartment. Bob Harris is in a state of profound disgruntlement. The combination of Louisiana politics, the national comedy, the international disorder, and the possibility of my leaving are simply too much. The motivations of international politics, by the way, are curious. The suicide of Jan Masaryk seems to have made more impression than almost anything else to make the blockheads see that something is not in best order. That this 15. Tinkum [Blanchard] Brooks was the wife of Cleanth Brooks. 16. Robert J. Harris was the head of the government department at Louisiana State University, 1942–1954. 17. This event is reported in the March 11, 1948, edition of the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate. The front-page headline for that day reads: “Czech Minister Takes Own Life after Two Weeks in Communist Cabinet.” Jan Masaryk was the son of Thomas G. Masaryk, Czechoslovakia’s first president, and of a Brooklyn-born mother.
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drunken playboy should have committed suicide is almost unbelievable. But perhaps he has had the most horrible experience of a lucid moment; and when a frivolous moron of this sort gets a lucid moment, there is not much left but jumping out of the window. Lucid moments are a bad thing to have. I just recall that Cromwell once had one—when he chased his parliament home and called them whoremasters and drunkards. Well, that’s enough for the moment. If you can spare time from your duties it would be nice to hear from you. Most cordially yours, [Eric]
13. Seattle, April 26, 1948 Dear Eric: I have finally got fed up on waiting for the arrival of that perfect moment at which I feel free to enjoy writing a letter; it is not going to come, and in a moment of resentment at the department I am having myself the pleasure of writing you on university time. The only weak spot in this process is that your letter is at the house and so must go unanswered in the narrower sense. Forgive me please. But the most important thing in it I remember clearly—the Yale visit and the possible repercussions from it. By now I hope that the repercussion has developed into a severe rumble and the rumble into something so tangible that you can read it, study it, and make up your mind easily and happily about it. On reading your letter I was distressed by only one thing—the unimaginative dimensions of the possible offer. Maybe a prospect of a serious improvement in the faculty is almost as difficult to face at Yale as elsewhere. But we will be most delighted when something does come through if it is at all close to a palatable form, for we shall be sure that New Haven cannot always be unimaginative but must eventually come through with something like what it ought to. Ruth reminds me not to bore Baton Rougeans with comments on life in Seattle. But alas since I no longer read anything but business letters, I have to stick to the immediate scene. Don’t say I haven’t warned you. From here on, you can cease reading the letter—or let Lissie check it first to see whether it is worth the reading time (1 min. 13 sec. as they say in slick magazines). Physically we are in the main comfortable enough. The twenty-year-old house is very solid and well built, relatively inelegant by contemporary standards, but roomy and comfortable. The sloping lot presents no more difficulties to the yard-worker than does yours. We have inherited some trees, some bushes, and
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some flowers that blossom prettily. When there is any view at all we can see not only the city dump and a considerable share of city below us but, across the next hill top, an attractive stretch of snow-covered mountains. But there is rarely any view, for the Japan current and the cold air from the snow-covered mountains combine to produce almost constant cloudiness and rain. By the standards we have become used to in the last twelve years, this is a cold, damp, depressing spring. In Seattle everybody is always looking forward to that ideal period which is some other time. The faculty, who are about all the people we know so far, and we don’t really know them to speak of, nearly all belong to what I should call a middle class of university people. There is almost no redneck proletariat (Heard, Lucky, Major, etc. etc.) and almost no aristocracy (Voegelin and—well, I’m not sure). Everybody is civil, decent, orderly, liberal: I can describe the place best by saying that it would be the perfect place for Rudolf [Heberle]. Everybody is full of good works, concerned about the public weal, demonically devoted to committees, practicing sweet reason, improving the lot of mankind, and of course following the trends. No one ever suspects that there could possibly be any imperfection of any kind in liberalism. I have not yet discovered anybody from whom I could learn anything important (like you) or anyone with whom I can talk in a familiar language, able to count upon a reasonably similar background of belief (like Brooks). The closest approach to either is in a couple of Germans, a geologist named [Peter] Misch and a classicist named [Ludwig] Edelstein (the former’s father, I am told, was a distinguished philosopher and literary critic), the latter of whom, alas, is going to California. But I have not yet had real opportunity to explore the personal resources. As far as the department job is concerned: before I came, they really did everything they could to get the routine work into the hands of assistants. But a great deal of it cannot be delegated, of course, and I spend most of the day on office stuff which by any standards is very trivial. On policy, which is what I was supposed to be chiefly concerned with, I have so far little influence, and it is probable that I shall have less: the closer I come to trying to act in terms of my own convictions, the closer I come, in the eyes of the brethren, to being a creature of 18. Obviously Heilman was referring to a group of people whom Voegelin would immediately know from LSU. As nearly as I can discern, this group includes Thomas P. Heard, director of athletics; perhaps Lewis B. Lucky, associate professor of social sciences and director of the Bureau of Veterans’ Education, and perhaps Hoquet A. Major, professor of French and head of the Romance languages department. 19. Rudolf Heberle, originally from Kiel, Germany, was a member of the sociology department, Louisiana State University.
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“prejudice.” My guess at the moment is that I am a prisoner of the department and will remain so whenever I try to break out of the more immediate prison of routine work. But I shall wait until enough time elapses to permit me to see the situation more clearly. The air of the place is fairly well defined by the general indignation at Richard Weaver’s Ideas Have Consequences, most of which I should guess you would approve of. In fact, I’d be glad for your opinion of it. The central idea is that most modern evils are traceable to nominalistic habits of mind. The New York Times and the Sat. Rev. of Lit. have both called the book “fascist” etc. (Weaver believes in authority and hierarchy and has no faith whatever in progress, humanitarianism, etc.). I suppose Weaver finished up at LSU before you came. Under Cleanth’s direction he did a thesis on southern culture which made Wendell Stephenson very indignant. (The antecedent of which is thesis.) I am liking the book very much. So the problem is not to find decent people, but to find ones who have reached at least one’s own slight penetration into what lies beneath the clichés. Ruth says to remind you that the wind blows like hell here. Tsk, tsk. We look forward eagerly to hearing from either or both of you again. If we are slow in writing, it is that the pace here has so far been pretty rough. Sincerely, We roared over your ironies on the Brooks ménage—especially the Blanchard [Tinkum’s] hesitancies on New Haven.
14. Baton Rouge, May 1, 1948 Dear Robert: Your letter was a pleasure. I had suspected that your long silences had the causes which you now indicate. The routine of administration must be very unpleasant; one can only hope that with time the business can be transacted with greater speed or that you get some leisure for your own interests. I am a bit worried by the fact that you do not mention the Lear. I am looking forward to see[ing] it in print any day now. Also I regret to miss news about such important personages as Pete and Mike. This answer of mine comes almost by return mail because the Yale affair has reached a point where I am aching to tell you all about it. I wrote you that I gave 20. Pete, of course, is Ruth and Robert Heilman’s son, Champlin B. Heilman; Mike was the Heilmans’ cat.
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a lecture there on March 12th; that the lecture was a great success; that [P. E.] Corbett, the Chairman of the Department, indulged in broad hints that I was just the man they could use, and that correspondence would ensue, etc. I went home with the idea that in the course of the next two or three weeks an offer would come. As a matter of fact: nothing has come, not even a line of thanks for giving them a lecture which cost me six working-days, inconvenience, etc., and for which I did not receive an honorarium. Neither have I heard a word from Brooks since that day. (I should add that I have written, of course, very polite bread-and-butter letters to everybody concerned on the day I arrived back home.) The only information to-date is a letter from Kendall which came last week. He confirms that the lecture was a roaring success and that in particular the graduate students were overwhelmed. Then he goes on to say that hitches have developed. In an extremely vague, conspiratorial tone, he speaks of an attempt that has miscarried. That the younger members of the department had the idea of “Changing the department into a different kind of enterprise . . . if you like, to carry out a revolution; and this meant either consent or abdication on the part of the full professors.” Of all such goings-on I had not heard a word while I was in Yale. This plan was “scotched” by the gentlemen who were supposed to abdicate. Where I come into all this, I do not know; Kendall’s letter is silent on this point. Anyway, Kendall opines that either [Cecil] Driver or [Arnold] Wolfers, or both, have vetoed an appointment for me because they were afraid that my presence might invite comparisons with their performance about which they did not care. That is Kendall’s letter. Now what am I supposed to make of all this? I am afraid of even answering Kendall’s letter because I have no intention of getting involved even faintly into any idiotic conspiracy which Kendall or Brooks, or both, have cooked up. On the other hand, since there is no word from Corbett, I am completely in the dark. I miss you very much in this contingency; do you think you could give me your advice in writing, in spite of your distressing administrative situation? Harris of course, more or less, enjoys himself because the affair seems to be ended; and tells me grandiosely: Who would care to join such a department anyway? Well, I would join it as the price that has to be paid in order to be near the Yale library, and near some other quite pleasant characters outside the Department. We enjoyed very much your description of Seattle as the perfect place for Rudolph. You mention Misch. If he is the one whom I mean, his father was Georg Misch, indeed a philosopher of considerable quality. Besides, old Misch happened to be the son-in-law of [Wilhelm] Dilthey, so that your Misch would
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be Dilthey’s grandson. I should like to see the fellow; just to see what such a scion of one of the “best families” in German science looks like. For the rest, just two days ago some possibility opened to go to Vienna (to teach in a summer-school in the Law Faculty) in July. I doubt that it will materialize; the time is too short. With kindest regards to Ruth and Pete, Most sincerely yours, <Eric Voegelin>
15. May 8, 1948 Dear Eric, We are very much distressed by the way in which the Yale matter is going. In one sense I am not surprised, because what I know of Yale does not lead me to think that it has essentially a great deal more insight and imagination than other American universities. But it is a shame that such indications should have been given that action is imminent, and that after that no action should occur. My guess as to what happened is that Kendall had some interest in having you at Yale, but not enough to overcome some hesitancies as to what your presence might mean for him personally. Then Cleanth, who is very successful at setting other people in action, persuaded him that he would profit by your presence and after that greatly overestimated Kendall’s immediate political weight in the department and thus tacitly encouraged Kendall to enlarge his own estimate of what he could accomplish. (Cleanth is constantly using the figure of the smart quarterback who usefully directs the lunging fullback. But he rarely thinks of himself as the fullback.) Like Hitler, they overestimate the initial weakness of the enemy (the enemy being the people who want to keep things comfortably just the way they are now). Then when the real strength is shown, they are not ready for it. It seems to me that when you use the adjective conspiratorial to apply to the Brooks-Kendall operations, you sense precisely the tone which the thing has or is likely to have. Brooks has an innate flair for melodrama, and fifteen years at LSU did not diminish what his genes gave him. He used always to be steering Kendall into attacking this and that, and part of his great fondness for Kendall, although he did not know it himself (and it was only a part), lay in Kendall’s peculiar susceptibility to being used by Cleanth (perhaps for good ends: I do not wish the word used to have a sinister connotation). But you are absolutely right in wanting to avoid the fact or the appearance of getting identified with a bloc of plotters, even though the plot itself may be an admirable one
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whose objectives you can totally approve of. If the old-timers don’t at the moment want you, it is of course the old question of quality; but that is the truth no one can ever admit; so they will be hot on the trail of finding a real disqualification; and if you could be tied up with a backstairs operation run by a couple of young revolutionaries, they would probably feel that the Lord had given them a wonderful piece of discrediting evidence. So I think that in writing to Kendall I should try for a discreet neutrality, difficult as it is to avoid pressing questions when one’s own fortune is so much at stake. You know—cordiality, and agreeableness, and a noncommittal indication that you are always interested in knowing about interesting things going on at Yale. I do not know what Corbett’s correspondence with you is like—whether it permits you to ask a fairly direct question about the situation. My guess is that if it does not, you are in the uncomfortable position of having to do without positive information until history or some authoritative informant chooses to enlighten you. That is, if you want to play the game cagily in the hope that something may still come of it. If you simply want to have it settled with finality, if you want to know “irregardless” as some people say, you can write Corbett very candidly about the whole thing. That Cleanth doesn’t write is to be expected. He doesn’t write anyway. Two months ago I wrote him a very specific inquiry about people he knows whom we are considering for jobs, and he never acknowledged the letter. Besides, he has some gift of forgetting the unpleasant (that remark is not fair if it is taken in the worst possible sense; I do not mean it as a severe censure at all): I have rarely known him to acknowledge making a mistake (come to think of it, I know damn few people who ever do). At the moment, from a report or two which I get, I think Cleanth is a little bit in the situation of being overwhelmed by the kind of happiness that overtakes the country boy when he goes to college and makes a fraternity that somehow he never expected to make. There is that side to him. Anyway this particular bliss is liable to blot out a lot of other things. (Let me say that whenever I identify Cleanth’s clayfoot I am able to do so largely in terms of knowledge arrived at introspectively.) This is a random gabble which does nothing I fear but repeat what you have already thought out for yourself. The better irony would be that since you wrote, something has happened which changes the whole picture and invalidates these acute speculations. Contrary to my mean emphatic predictions, Mike got completely acclimated here within a week. At the moment, all he needs is vermifuge, and this is not a regional problem. Contrary to expectations of both Ruth and me, Pete has re-
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adjusted rapidly: he has fallen in with a group of congenial playmates and is so active that he has no time to think about being homesick. Ruth and I, I think, have both been much more homesick than we expected to be (which is an idiotic thing to mention to someone like you who have had real problems of adjustment). Re Yale: I had a fascinating letter from a Hopkins man who is indignant at Hopkins for letting go a couple of bright Jews. He says, “Edelstein is a truly remarkable man. Immense talents are there joined with broad and humane interests. I was very anxious to keep him here, but the local Yale clique—which always prefers amateurs and gentiles—refused to back him. The same group got rid of Harold Cherniss, who went from here to Berkeley and now to the Institute for Advanced Study, and refused to accept Richard Lattimore—a fine poet and classicist who has been compared to [Richard] Porson. They can always think of a Skullandbonzer who doesn’t know too much and holds his liquor well.” Familiar? With all our regards, Yours,
16. May 16, 1948 Dear Robert, Many thanks for your letter of May 8, with its advice in the Yale affair. On the whole, my own thoughts have moved on similar tracks but I am grateful for your confirmation since you know the persons involved and the environment much better than I do. I shall follow your advice in particular with regard to Kendall—I shall not enter into his dark hints at all but simply suggest in general terms that all news will be welcome. Nothing, by the way, has happened in the matter in the meantime. There is, however, plenty of excitement from another source. I shall tell you the story because I presume that you will enjoy to learn something about rackets and intriguing in the academic world in Europe. Towards the end of last year I had a letter from the Dean of the Law Faculty in Vienna (who is an old friend and with whom I am in correspondence) that he tried to get a summer-school organized in July of this year, that the organization proper was in the hands of [Friedrich A. von] Hayek in London (Road to Serfdom), that they wanted to 21. Richard Porson, 1759–1808, was Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Cambridge.
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bring several former professors to Vienna for this summer-school, that the Rockefeller Foundation was financing the project, that he hoped very much I would be among those chosen, and that I would hear more about it from Hayek directly. Well, I heard nothing after that—neither from Vienna, nor from Hayek. And I thought the thing had been buried. We had prepared for our summer in Cambridge, to live in the house of [Gottfried] Haberler (the economist), and were all set. —In the last week of April, Haberler told me in a letter, incidentally, that the project with Vienna had materialized after all, that he was going, that I had been considered, too, but that the Rockefeller Foundation wanted to restrict the group to economists—which sounded plausible to me because of the presence of Russians and other varmint in Vienna. Two days later, however, I received a letter from the Dean in Vienna, with a formal appointment (seal and all) as guest-lecturer for this summer, and the information that the Rockefeller people would pay transportation. Joyfully I smelled a rat. I wrote the most detached and innocent letter to the R.F., telling them of the appointment, that they were to pay, but that Haberler had written me just a few days ago that only real economists were admitted to the group, whether the invitation was not perhaps a mistake, etc. —Then for twelve days nothing happened. —On the twelfth day, the R.F. wrote. Not a word about the background of the affair; simply: that I was included in the group, that $1500 were at my disposition for the trip, that I would have to hurry to get passport and Military Permit. Next day came a letter from Haberler: the director of the Rockefeller Foundation had called him up in Cambridge, read to him my letter over the telephone, inquired why the restrictions, etc. Haberler said he knew nothing, and his information came from Hayek. That’s where we are now. Surmised result: Hayek tried to restrict the group to solid, conservative, liberal, free-trade, fathead economists (I have heard in the meanwhile of another political scientist who was included out); and the beautiful idea miscarried. After all, he probably has succeeded because it is almost impossible to get the Military Permit in time, even if I get the passport. Anyway, we are in great excitement because we do not know what is going to happen for the summer. I shall go if I get the documents, but I am not particularly eager—the $1500 sounds [like] a lot of money, but the ticket alone costs over $1000. Lissy cries because she is sure that when I go up in an airplane, the airplane will go down. And generally it’s a mess. You see, the world has its colorful spots everywhere. Kindest regards from us to all of you.
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17. Seattle, May 18, 1948 Dear Eric, You have all our good wishes for the completion of the technicalities in time to permit you this summer’s reunion in Vienna. The Hayek story is lovely; we are delighted. Patterns of academic conduct are apparently the same; but still there are levels I would say. I am still trying to get us in at the lowest possible level. I want to quote a “confidential” paragraph from Cleanth. Only corroboratory, nothing new. “Voegelin did brilliantly, but nothing has happened, and though I was told by one of the department members the other day that the dept was still interested, I don’t know. I am also told—quite confidentially of course—that Voegelin’s lecture was simply too good: that some of the members of the dept had cooled off because they thought that V’s presence here would jeopardize their own laurels. Anyway, I hope for the best, but it’s obvious that nothing is going to be done in the way of an offer for the present.” The other day I met [Thomas I.] Cook, the English political theorist who is going from here to Chicago. I should probably say “theory man” rather than “theorist.” He is a very delightful person whose god is J. S. Mill on Liberty. Since he’s leaving I took the liberty of tossing in your name as that of a theory man they ought to look into. But nothing will happen because 1) I see that I shall carry no weight at all here and 2) everybody says [Charlie] Martin the head of pol sci is such a goddamned stuffed shirt he doesn’t want anybody good in the dept. Cook is very good on local characters. He has a handsome, mildly theatricallooking blonde wife, and they are frowned on by the properer sort. As one woman said of Mrs C, “And she’s a grandmother.” Lear is now due for August. Our very best to you both,
18. Baton Rouge, November 4, 1948 Dear Robert: Your Great Stage arrived more than two weeks ago; and I must apologize for not having written earlier. But I did not want to write an empty acknowledgment; and quite a few chores have prevented my giving proper attention to your work until yesterday. I must beg you to forgive the delay of my thanks. These thanks are due for the gift as a whole, as well as specifically for your most kind autograph dedication, and for the generous mentionings in the Foreword. On
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this latter count I am now puffed with pride—except in my lucid moments when I reduce myself through the memory of your generosity and punctiliousness in such matters. Nevertheless, you ought to know that your acknowledgement has given me some stature and reputation on the campus: The other day I walked into the History Department; and a perfect stranger, some graduate student, accosted me and asked me whether I was the one who had been mentioned in your outstanding work and then expressed his sentiments respectueux (he was a Cajun or French Canadian). Now for the book itself. We have discussed the basic idea amply and you know that I am enthusiastic about this type of analysis. What I had not realized in reading the first draft (or perhaps I have forgotten it) was the scope and systematic order of problems, as it appears now in the organization of the chapters. The book as a whole is indeed, à propos of Lear, a study in philosophical anthropology at large, and specifically of the problems of human nature in a time of crisis. Under this aspect, I was particularly impressed by Chapter X and XI which, as far as I remember, were not in the draft that I have seen. If I may temper my admiration and whole-hearted agreement, as it is usual on such occasion, by disagreeing on one point, it would be the meticulous care with which you have articulated every minor problem to the last. If my memory does not deceive me, the first draft was not only briefer but fresher in expression because it left a point here and there to the intelligence of the reader. But you told me once that you would be merciless in this respect and buttress the analysis itself with prefaces, summaries, elaborations, qualifications and other aids for the poor in the mind so that the expression of your intentions would be foolproof and the marginal moron in the profession could follow the argument, even if he did not understand what it was all about. I can understand the tactical necessity of this concession; but nevertheless, I regret it personally. Another one of your opera came to my attention these days. Your very devoted disciple, Catheryn Ditchburn, brought me the volume on Forms of Modern Fiction, containing, besides 21 other papers, yours on the Turn of the Screw. I read it again with great pleasure; and I also read most of the other articles. I must say that I am very much impressed by the generally very high level of the performance; and to see that there are at least twenty-two men in the profession who can write like that, is a certain comfort to a person who is inclined to take 22. Heilman, “The Turn of the Screw as Poem,” University of Kansas City Review 14 (1948): 277– 89; reprinted in Forms of Modern Fiction: Essays Collected in Honor of Joseph Warren Beach, ed. William Van O’Connor (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1948).
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a dim view of contemporary achievement in literary analysis. This volume gives the impression that literary criticism in this country is resting on a broad and firm social basis. This does not mean that I am over-awed in every single instance by the performance. In particular, the attempt at causerie by the much praised Allen Tate struck me as sicklish with little substance and an abundance of bad taste. And the article on Hemingway, with its pathetic search for articulating the reasons why a littérateur is second-rate when he uses the emptiest of political clichés for characterizing a man’s motive to participate in the Spanish Civil War, made me think that its author still had to learn a few things in order to make his judgment more spontaneous and certain. Warren’s article on Faulkner, on the other hand, is very illuminating—but with regard to Faulkner, there remains the problem which we discussed on occasion, to what extent the value of an author’s work is affected by the choice of subject (provincial and unrepresentative); I would not dare to have an opinion concerning the question whether the subject mars Faulkner’s achievement, or whether he has not power enough to make it lucidly representative on a general human level,—anyway, in reading Faulkner, I always have the feeling that he got stuck short of full representative lucidity. Lionel Trilling’s on “Manners” is a very fine sociological study—though I suspect that one could know much more on this subject, if one goes after it, than would appear from this article (I remember a chapter on Manners in [Thomas Hobbes’s] Leviathan that might have helped him). My letter was delayed because, until a few days ago, I was strenuously occupied in giving the works to Erasmus and More. On closer study, they have assumed considerable historical significance as a first start of modernity, along with Machiavelli and [Pietro] Pomponazzi, before the crash of the Reformation occurred. With this chapter, I have now the architecture of Volume III (Modern) in shape. I am telling you this because I had the impression that Erasmus and More are also a concern of English Literature (the best study on More is by [Raymond Wilson] Chambers), and I wondered whether you would be interested enough to take a look at this chapter (if your time permits). It deviates from the conventional treatment considerably, as far as political science is 23. Voegelin here refers to volume 3 of The History of Political Ideas. For a complete history of this work and its metamorphosis into Order and History, see “General Introduction to the Series,” by Thomas A. Hollweck and Ellis Sandoz, in vol. 19 of the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, History of Political Ideas, vol. 1, ed. Athanasios Moulakis (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1997). 24. Voegelin is probably referring to R. W. Chambers, Thomas More (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1935).
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concerned; and I would be curious what you would think of it from the point of view of history of literature (which, with the exception of Chambers, is unknown to me). If you think you have the time and stomach for it (47 pages), I could send you a copy. There is much rejoicing over the election. Everybody seems to be delighted about the discomfiture of the pollsters; and that one can lick Communism and KuKluxKlan at the same time, is also most comforting. Personally I feel happy because at least I am not represented by that mug with moustache. And that dear old [John Foster] Dulles, who just has discovered that Stalin does not believe in Peaceful Change, will not be Secretary of State also is nothing to weep about. With many thanks, Cordially yours, <Eric>
19. Baton Rouge, January 1, 1949 Dear Robert: I have just come back from a meeting of the Political Science Association in Chicago. I had gone there with little expectation of enlightenment; and, on the whole, the affair was unspeakably dreary. Nevertheless, to my great surprise, I heard at least one proposition that carried the conviction of absolute truth; the proposition: “Ruth is a most charming woman.” And who do you think would spontaneously gush forth this rock-ribbed, solid axiom? It was Katie! But perhaps you are not as intimate with Katie as I am. So let me remind you that Katie is the wife of your colleague-of-leave Thomas I. Cook. I made his acquaintance in Chicago and I spent an evening at his apartment because Katie, who is ambitious in many a way, threw a reception for distinguished guests. It was a most pleasant evening because only utterly uninfluential people were present, such as [Sergius] Yacobson, [Waldemar] Gurian, [F. B.] Schick, [Heinrich Albert] Rommen and myself. Not a single big-wig or big-shot or fat cat did come. Katie was a most gracious hostess; she had prepared a huge platter of fine, cold cuts and appropriate drinks; and she assured us that there were “oodles” outside. And Katie 25. Thomas E. Dewey, who ran for president against Harry S. Truman in 1948. 26. Sergius Yacobson published “The Soviet Concept of Satellite States” (Review of Politics 11 [1949]: 184–95); Waldemar Gurian was founder of the Review of Politics at Notre Dame University. Schick taught political science at the University of Utah; Rommer taught political science at the College of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.
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is a most charming woman, too; practically a lady. She makes the most clever conversation and has seen a lot of the world. She also speaks with an ingratiating and clear voice that carries far. I noticed with interest that Waldemar Gurian (who is a sensitive, barbarian chump from Russia) winced every time when a remark of hers from the other end of the room reached his ear. (He finally withdrew into the adjoining room). Now, Katie was a godsend because I could extract from her a lot of information about the noble institution at Seattle. She is fed up with the place and wants to stay in Chicago; as a reason she gives that Seattle is a “cultural desert.” But she was considerate enough to admit that her views may be biased because she is attached to the Political Science Department. If there were more people like you and Ruth, etc., it would be different. Anyway, the P.Sc. Department seems to be a sore spot, as I was also assured by “Tommy.” The matter interested me quite a bit because shortly before Xmas I had a letter from a man named Kenneth C. Cole, who seems to be acting head, that he would like to see me in Chicago. I let him have the opportunity; and at the same time, I took a good look at him. Well, he told me that Cook was on the point of leaving for good, in case his Chicago job would be permanent, and that he was looking for a new man. That was about all; we shall continue the conversation when the situation will be clarified. Unfortunately, however, he did not only look at me but, as I said, I looked at him, too. And what I saw aroused in me the suspicion that perhaps, indeed, Seattle is not the proper place for me. He seems to be one of these arrogant New England types; as far as I could find out, he has never done anything worth mentioning, and he acts as if he were running the world and were something like an international statesman. Remarks from “Tommy” confirmed the suspicion; and the regular chairman, a certain Martin, seems to be a somewhat stuffy figure, too. —Well, the question may never arise; for I had a talk with one of the Chicago fat-cats, and I take it that it is not so certain at all, that the Chicago people want to keep Cook. He may have to go back to Seattle, unless something develops rapidly at Columbia for him—which seems to be the place of his ultimate destiny—as I learned from another source. Incidentally, I learned (not from him) that his History of Political Philosophy is known in professional circles as the “cook-book”; and that at Harvard a man loses caste when he reads it. At present he is engaged in such useful enterprises as writing a report on American Political Science for UNESCO. 27. Thomas I. Cook, History of Political Philosophy from Plato to Burke (New York: PrenticeHall, 1936).
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But let us now come to a more serious subject, that is, to yourself. I am afraid I have sad news for you about you. I mean, we don’t miss you here; I would not go so far as to say that we are glad you are gone; but definitely, we can do without you. The reason why is that you are just a literary critic—and there are oodles of them; but we have now got the real article on the campus. I mean, literature itself. In brief, we have a genuine poet. His name is [Earl L.] Bradsher. Recently he brought out a book of poetry which created quite a stir. About the quality there is no doubt; the man is headed straight for the Oxford Book of English Verse. There is, however, considerable debate about the genesis of his masterpieces. To be exact, there are two schools of thought. The one says that it came over him; the other says it came out of him. The poet himself is vague on the point, as poets so frequently are. He says he didn’t know he had it in him— which may either mean that it was in him, only he didn’t know; or that there was nothing in him, and it came from the outside. On the other hand, he admits that “something deeply psychological” had been stirring in him for years; it could no longer be contained; it broke out. It all began when he noticed that poetry was running through his head—sometimes a whole line at a time—on the most various occasions, such as when he was dish-washing or when he was sitting on a log, hunting a squirrel for dinner. Sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night, with poetry running through him; he would get up and write it down so he wouldn’t forget it. For months he had kept it secret from his wife; but when the stage was reached where he got up in the middle of the night, naturally she found out. And it was she, of course, who overcame his modesty and pushed him into print. Moreover, he admits that his lady inspired him. You may know her; and you will be a better judge of this point than I am. His verse is striking and profound; the subject-matter ranges from an “intriguing description” of his wife, to reflections on after-life. On this latter question he has very decided opinions: he does not want to go to a heaven where angels make twangtwang! on their harps; he wants to go to a happy hunting-ground where he can make bang-bang! at the squirrels. This seems to show a certain maturity of the spiritual life. Inevitably, he was pressed to give a lecture over the radio; there was a large audience of local gentry at the studio. One of my students, who is employed by the station, told me about the impression he made. It must have been most gripping. People were sitting there, with their heads bowed, and let it sink in. When the show was over and they filed out, they still could hardly talk because they could not find words to articulate their emotions. Only now and then, one was heard muttering “Well, well!” —But I do not want to bore you further with my entirely inadequate and non-professional account. I am enclosing a
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clipping from a local paper that will give you the details by the pen of a competent literary critic—you see, even in that respect we are not left quite desolate by your departure. The Brookses were here over the holiday. We saw them for an evening at the Blanchards. Cleanth seems a bit constrained after the affair in Yale this spring; but he does not open his mouth on what happened; and I did not bring up a topic which he seems to shun. He still is very much impressed by Yale and his being there; but Tinkum is less so; the curtains (about which I wrote you in spring) are still not up. He is working on some text-book, together with Warren. I heard a bit more about Yale from Willmoore Kendall, in Chicago. I do not know whether what he tells is true; but anyway it is quite amusing after a fashion. He insists that Yale is an intellectual slum and that my lecture finished me. Not so much the lecture itself but my way of delivery. I was uncautious enough not to read from a MS. but to talk freely on the subject. Thus I created the very unfavorable impression that I knew what I was talking about and had my subjectmatter at my finger-tips; the discussion was even worse because it ranged over a variety of subjects on which I also seemed to be informed in the most improper manner. Such ungentlemanly erudition frightened at least two members of the department so thoroughly that their thumbs turned down on me. Yale is a respectable place and such casual pouring forth of knowledge which should be divulged only with all symptoms of sweat on the brow from a carefully prepared paper cannot be tolerated. Nevertheless, it may not yet be the end. When the History comes out, perhaps the matter will be taken up again. That is all the news of the moment. Don’t be so engrossed in your administration and drop a line on occasion. Most cordially yours, <Eric>
28. An account of this story, “Dr. Earl L. Bradsher Has Book Published: Poetry Volume to be Released Tomorrow Is First for Well Known University Literature Professor,” by Orene Muse, is found in the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate Magazine, November 28, 1948, 8–9. A picture of Dr. Bradsher in hunting gear with rifle is found with this article; part of the caption reads: “Many of the poems in the new book being published Monday were written while he was seated on a log waiting for a bird to make its appearance.” 29. The family of Tinkum (Blanchard) Brooks.
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20. Seattle, January 6, 1949 Dear Eric, Now I owe you answers to two excellent letters, and if the answers are not excellent, it is that the flesh is willing but the spirit weak. Anything I said about you in the book is obviously an understatement. As for the rest of it, I hope it does not too much displease you in the form into which it finally got while I ran along beside tugging at the edges like a dog at an apron and trying to make it do this or that. You and Warren both said essentially the same thing originally: make it, if anything[,] shorter. Instead I followed [Leo] Kirschbaum, who kept saying, every other page, be more explicit. Kirschbaum is a good critic in many ways, and I thought that with him as a model I would be playing for the upper middle class, so to speak, and that the nobility such as you and Warren would accept it on the grounds that the author was once a nice man, etc. Since at least one reviewer has said that the book is tedious, it is apparent that the aristocracy are a better guide to the people than the u. m. c. are. Which I should have known before. I am glad that O’Connor’s anthology, the Forms of Modern Fiction, seems to you to have some merit. About Faulkner: I find myself groping there, having certain dissatisfactions which are perhaps relatable to the characteristic which you note, his unrepresentativeness, and yet on the other hand so strongly moved by a sense of the reality of what he writes (I hope I do not seem to be praising him for realism) that I feel as if the apparent shortcoming must be the product of some critical failure of my own. I suppose my implied and loose syllogism is something to the effect that something which appears to partake so fully of life cannot be partaking of only a segment, a provincial corner, of life, but that the corner must be larger than it appears. The only work of his about which I feel able to attempt to justify the impression is The Hamlet—which seems to me to be a very fine symbolic setting forth of a decay of an old order (an aristocracy of which not much is left perhaps but which is still qualitatively superior to its successor) and its replacement by a new order dominated by a spirit of calculation (you see the Lear student seeing Lears everywhere, perhaps). Perhaps, if I am correct in finding this to be the pattern of the book, this would still not seem to you to be meaningful in a general human way; but I should argue that at least it transcends the provincial by considerable. Another book of his which I believe is not well thought of and which is not well known is The [Wild] Palms, in reading 30. Leo Kirschbaum taught English at Wayne University (later Wayne State University) in Detroit, Michigan.
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which I find an initial and continuing tendency on my part to regard it as a wellintended work which came out a potboiler, more strongly opposed, as I continue with the book by another tendency, to feel that there is a good deal there—a structure which is a little better than a somewhat perverse surface would lead one to expect, a kind of Romeo and Juliet theme<*> [left:] (done in the terms) which would be dictated by a vulgar age. This is not very well put. Both here and in other books I feel always the need of detailed analysis to reach a final conviction: you know how it is, I work six months on the Turn of the Screw, and you get it all straightened out in one night. If you can send me a carbon or some other by-copy of the More and Erasmus chapter that would not have to be returned within any set time, I would be most glad, on purely selfish grounds, to read it. I put it this way because I am normally, as you know, a slow Pa. Dutchman, and in my present life I seem never to have time even for moderate reading in my own field. But I don’t yield Voegelin when I can get it. I am glad your wide literary sympathy extends also to the recent opus by Dan’l Boone I-shot-a-bar Bradsher. You remember what he used to tell his classes about Henry James: “the trouble with James is he didn’t spend enough time down at the ole swimming hole and never got his eyes blacked enough.” Dan’l’s greatest American novelist is Fenimore Cooper. Dan’l is, by the way, the almost perfect symbol of the frontier type in its aesthetic aspect, though that is perhaps a contradiction in terms. Incidentally, I met a publisher friend in NY who told me that Bradsher’s publisher is a pay-as-you-go house. I wonder whether you happened to notice one extraordinary paragraph in the Bradsher article? Here it is, complete with its subcaption: Gets Up at Night “Yes,” laughed his attractive blonde wife. . . .—“yes, and sometimes he gets up in the middle of the night to put something down.”
That, it seems to me, is a very common experience; and any deficit incurred in the Bruce Humphries account can be wiped out by selling the paragraph as a testimonial for a certain kind of patent medicine. In fact two different kinds. Cleanth is really wonderful, the way he just forgets about little things like his political science fiasco at New Haven. It works so well that anyone else somehow gets the idea it’s ill-mannered to bring up that which is being forgotten. I would like to hear Tinkum on Yale; I gather that she has not reached the bluntness of Willmoore (Oxford) Kendall, but she can sometimes be very perverse about Cleanth’s secular religions. Have you yet heard her make any cracks about
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his fondness for driving their convertible with the top down?<*> [left:] <we expect you to continue the History of the Curtains. It is a fine symbolic drama.> Did I ever tell you, by the way, about my disgruntled acquaintance at Hopkins who commented on the anti-Semitism of the late Bowman administration? Referring to various vacancies for which good Jewish scholars were available, he wrote, “But the Yale boys who populate this Nazi village can always find some good Skullundbonzer who can hold his likker and doesn’t know too much to embarrass them.” But, as you once pointed out, Yale has its advantages, and I do hope that all is not dead there for you. But I’m not at all sure that the book is going to reassure the boys about your amenability. Now as for the theme of Katie, fat-cats, Cook-books, cookie jars in Seattle, Cole, et al. All this does not come as a complete shock to me because shortly before I left for NY I had a note from Cole, whom I don’t know, saying that he was going to see you and that he had had a note from you saying to say hello to Heilman. And before this I had written the head, Charlie Martin, a longish letter setting forth your merits (a letter tuned strictly to Charlie’s wave length; an eclectic letter; a wonderful letter to sell a piece of goods to a guy who knows what he likes; but I will cease from this); and even before that I had utilized an indirect means to have it brought to Charlie that any time he needed a theory man, etc. etc. But I never really expected anything to come of this, and all I can say at this point is that I hope it does. They have enough dough here so that at least you might get a good raise out of [Harold] Stoke on the offer if it comes. Yesterday I was having an interview with the Executive Officer in charge of Academic Personnel, who despite all that and despite his being a fugitive from philosophy into psychology, is an amiable, fairly civilized person who is quite realistic about the staff and who would really like to have a good university here. He is not an intellectual, but intellectuals do not depress him; whenever he finds a faculty member going to the library, he is full of joy and thinks maybe we will be a university after all. Anyway, after doing all the English Department business and finding, as I pretty well knew, that we agreed almost precisely about what is wrong here in Parrington Hall, I said I knew of a good man who might be made an offer here, but from what I had heard of the gov’t department I wasn’t sure how much encouragement I could honestly hold out. I said, “My man found Cole very pompous.” [Edwin R.] Guthrie said, “Lord yes, he drives away anybody he talks to.” I said, “My man has also heard things about Charlie 31. Harold Stoke was president of Louisiana State University from 1947 to 1951. 32. Edwin R. Guthrie was provost and academic vice president, University of Washington, Seattle.
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Martin.” Guthrie: “What he has heard isn’t half as bad as the reality.” Guthrie then pulled down a Who’s Who to show Charlie’s incredibly extended entry, and explained, “Just a little man trying to give himself the illusion that he is a big man.” And we exchanged a few Charlie Martin stories, e.g., “Have you heard that Charlie Martin has consented to give an interview to MacArthur?” etc. Well, this is of course a strange way to start trying to lure you to Seattle. There is of course nothing to do but tell the truth about the gov’t dep’t, and that may be prohibitive; but what I am hoping is that you will be encouraged by the understanding of the front office; both Guthrie and the president are fairly shrewd about people; and that should be a real encouragement for the future. I went on to say to Guthrie, “Well, how can I counter the awful facts?” Guthrie: “Tell your man he needn’t have anything to do with these people. He can teach his classes and spend the rest of the time in the library and associate with whom he pleases.” You would of course come in as a professor and therefore would be in no position to have to please anybody. Martin and Cole, of course, are such obvious people that you might take a certain ironic pleasure in pleasing them with a half dozen well chosen words that they would not see the other side of, and thus having them at your beck and call. However, I wish to make a vulgarer [sic] appeal. The professorial minimum is now $6000. Next year, if the budget is not axed as it apparently is not going to be, the minimum will be higher. Hold out for $7000 or any other figure that pleases your fancy. Then summers will be reasonably easy financially. Your teaching schedule will be 10 hours—2, 5-hour classes. You can reduce this to 8 by cutting a couple of hours a week, a standard practice. If a situation arises in which you would like more detailed discussion of these environs, we will both write elaborately. I should try not consciously to sell you the place. I think I have already told the worst—a worst that is manageable. If they make an offer, and if you hold out for more money, let me know: I’ll get the facts to Guthrie, just in case that might do any good. Ah, Katie. Ruth would like to claim Katie’s praise and therefore hopes that they have met but is not sure. I once saw Katie at a cocktail party. Katie arouses all the ungentlemanly Charles Boyer side of me; I wouldn’t know what else she is good for. All my regards to both of you. And I wish we might look ahead to more than a passing hour in New York. Sincerely,
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21. Baton Rouge, January 31, 1949 Dear Robert: You will say that I am a pest because I write you again after so short an interval. Should your splendid, long letter not have kept me quiet for some more time? But you are permanently pressed to my attention by the lovely things which I read about the University of Washington in general, and your department in particular, even in our local newspaper. But seriously, you have all my commiseration for being molested—because I am sure you are—by people who have nothing better to do than fool around with communism and getting themselves involved in the grand issue of academic freedom. The trouble is that these people really endanger academic freedom because they set a precedent by getting themselves fired, and because one cannot honestly maintain, for instance in the case of a social scientist, that the freedom of science (which after all is the relevant nucleus in that academic freedom stuff ) is in danger when a communist gets fired. I enjoyed, however, the low comedy that followed the dismissal, when our friend Cook handed in his resignation because he does not like such a naughty place. From his action I take it that his prospects of further employment in Chicago or Columbia must have picked up. I also would assume that now I shall hear soon from the government department—if they still have me in mind at all. As far as this latter question is concerned, let me thank you for the delightful information contained in your letter. That personnel officer seems to be a quite nice fellow; and you are certainly right that one could find a modus vivendi with the more dubious members of the department. (One of them, [Hugh A.] Bone, by the way, is a very agreeable person.) But the best would be an offer that would result in a raise here—Harris is already looking forward to $6500—for me. He uses me as a sort of spearhead; every time I get a raise, the others (Harris and [Alden L.] Powell) must get a raise, too, in order to preserve the proportions. I would not mind coming to Seattle at all; what makes me really hesitate is that even a considerable increase of income, say $1000, will practically be washed out for two years by the cost of moving and incidental expenses; and what will happen after two years when I should get a better offer in the East? Today, I am sending you a new opus of mine, on “The Origins of Scientism.” The last ten pages might interest you. [George] Jaffé has helped me 33. Alden L. Powell was a member of the Department of Government, Louisiana State University. 34. Voegelin, “The Origins of Scientism,” Social Research 15 (1948): 462–94; reprinted in the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 10, Published Essays, 1940–1952, ed. Ellis Sandoz (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000), chap. 7.
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quite a bit on the technicality of physics. I hesitate to send it to Cole because he might get frightened. —Unfortunately I cannot send the section on More at the moment because Gurian is reading it along with other parts of the modern period. I do not expect to get it back [in] under a month; but then I shall forward it immediately to you. Today my sabbatical semester is beginning. I am working on the final revision. Just now I am rewriting the Luther—a fascinating but laborious task because one has to do the whole interpretation from scratch; only in very recent years a somewhat more critical analysis of Luther has begun, after the caricaturistic Catholic and hagiographic Protestant treatment accorded to him previously. Even such elementary problems as, for instance, what was the object of Luther’s Reformation, are entirely unsettled; certain is only that he did not want to reform the Church except incidental to something quite different, and that he had nothing to say on the “state” for the excellent reason that the word did not yet exist in Western vocabulary. That washes out most of what has been said about Luther’s political ideas. Well, but I must not bore you with such shoptalk. We have a repetition of last year’s winter. Snow and ice and 18 F in the night. Lissy thinks it’s wonderful; but I get very cold feet when working late at night. With all good wishes for you, Ruth, Pete and Mike, Most sincerely yours, <Eric>
22. Baton Rouge, April 2, 1949 Dear Robert: I have not come around yet to thank you for your letter of January 27, with the interesting clipping on the sources of Coleridge’s Kubla Khan. I have not seen the monograph to which the clipping refers, but I read the poem again as well as Plato’s Ion and Phaedo. And there is, indeed, something to it. How much—is difficult to say. The last part of the poem (beginning with “A damsel with a dulcimer . . .”) takes from Ion the idea of the poet as the inspired of Dionysos, to be compared to the Bacchae. The first part of the poem takes from Phaedo elements of topography: the earth that we know as one of many such hollows in a wider earth that is suspended in heaven, the rivers that break forth in fountains and disappear in “lifeless oceans” of this vaster unknown earth, the 35. George Jaffé taught physics at Louisiana State University until he retired in 1950. 36. This letter has not been found.
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idea of our hollow as something cavernous, submarine with the sky domed over it, and an inaccessible beyond of the dome, etc. The imagery, thus, is certainly leaning on Plato. Whether the content carried by these images is Platonic, is a more intricate question. Certainly Coleridge has combined the two groups of images into a new whole. Its meaning seems to me fairly clear: the first part (the building of Kubla Khan) is the structure of the myth that the poet (second part) if in a Dionysiac state would build. Insofar, I should say, the poem is an intelligible whole; and Coleridge’s pretense that it was a fragment, might be a hoax. One, furthermore, may say that the combination of the two parts is Platonic; Plato certainly understood himself as a poet; and the myth (first part) is the product of mania (second part). The myth itself, however (that is the first part), does not look so very Platonic to me. For Coleridge, if I understand him rightly, the creation of the myth, as a symbol of human existence, is the end—Coleridge would be the “artist”; for Plato, the creation of the myth is a beginning, that is, the appeal to the sensitiveness of the soul, the attempt to give it the direction beyond the pleasure dome—Plato would be the spiritual realist, not the romantic artist. —This is as much as I can see for the moment, without going into lengthy studies of the problem; it certainly is quite interesting; and I thank you very much for drawing my attention to it. For two months now, I am on sabbatical leave; that means in practice that now I have to work all the day long and can no longer loaf the morning on the campus. I am working on the revision of the third volume (modern period); and work is progressing quite satisfactorily. Unfortunately, there are always disruptions. Two weeks ago, I had to go to Durham, [North Carolina, Duke University,] for a conference of the Brookings Institution on their new “problem method” in foreign politics. They propagate as a new method the triviality that political decisions are based on an analysis of the situation and the choice of alternative courses of action in the light of the over-all aims that we want to realize. At first, I thought that was a joke. But at the conference it turned out that such analysis seems to be news to our services, civil and military. So I changed my mind and made a little speech to the effect that I was full of admiration for the incredible progress of the state department and of the military services that now they think before they make a decision, while formerly apparently that was not the custom. The assembled officials from the state department and the various colonels did not like the speech at all, but they could not say much against it because they all had come out most politely in praising the Brookings Institution for propagating the method, promising that they would use it even more since it had proved already its value and that other government departments were thinking of introducing it, etc. Various persons present who did not
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have the guts to say it themselves were pleased that I did it. One of them offered to take me as a consultant to Germany next year. Our dear George Millikan, the fruity talker, was less pleased since he is a notable member of the staff of Brookings. And then, there are stirrings again in the East. Next Tuesday (the 5th) I shall give a talk in Johns Hopkins, again with the understanding (as last year in Yale) that I am looked over for an opening. I am full of black suspicions and firmly resolved to talk point-blank and tough unless an adequate offer is forthcoming. I just finished reading Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus. With mixed feelings. It will interest you as a further experiment in writing a novel, without a society of which one could write an epic, using mystical symbols as the instrument for interpreting the German catastrophe. While the thing as a whole is an awe-inspiring performance, I am not quite happy about this simplification of the German problem into a daemonic Germany whose story is written the humanistic German Mann. The weakness of Mann begins to show more than in earlier works. There is, for instance, a conversation between the hero and the devil; it invites comparison <with> the similar conversations in the Karamazovs and in Unamuno’s Nivola—and the comparison is not too good for Mann. The defect becomes now more clearly visible as Mann’s humanism itself—one cannot fight the devil with “human understanding”; and while Mann is afraid of the devil, he is equally reluctant to trust in God. What he wants is a “humanism tinged by religion”—whatever that means. As a result of such humanistic immanentism, he gets involved too deeply with the German disaster; it is more of a personal disaster for him than it ought to be for a man who knows that the world after all is the “world.” You will have heard that [William O.] Scroggs is retiring; we want a bigger and better dean; we want Heilman—I am a member of the boosters’ club. With regards to Ruth, Pete and Mike, Most sincerely yours, <Eric Voegelin>
23. [Seattle,] April 18, 1949 Dear Eric, Your earthquake note indeed shames me: it is the third communication of yours without acknowledgment, until now, from me, and quite aside from my reflections upon the probability of diminishing returns, I am mortified by my 37. William O. Scroggs was dean of the Graduate School at Louisiana State University.
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bad manners. It is the old story of a ragged and ill-managed life in which there is never the proper unrushed moment at which one may at least attempt to write like a gentleman instead of like an automaton going through a schedule. When the choice seems to be only between writing decently and not writing at all I am running down the middle and writing indecently, which I fear is as bad as not at all. The reports of the earthquake spread through the rest of the country are the best example of sheer journalistic irresponsibility that I have known. The quake here lasted 45 seconds; there was a mild rolling of the ground—enough to make some people feel slightly dizzy—and a very considerable creaking of walls, rattling of windows and china, rocking of chairs, cracking of plaster; from a number of buildings (probably less than 1% of the total) there dropped chimneys, a few bricks, cornices, and now and then an entire wall; no building whatever was totally destroyed; and two school-buildings which have been condemned have been so because of structural damages that are apparently almost invisible. There was, in other words, very little spectacle; you could drive thru nearly all of Seattle and be hard put to it to find visible damage; the injuries were negligible, but the fright was apparently quite considerable—especially in the gentlemen of the press. Ruth’s mother was in our house alone and was rather upset by the quivering and noises (no damage that we can find), and Pete was apparently pretty much scared by the unfirmness of terra firma and the moving of trees in a windless atmosphere. Ruth and I were in Corvallis, Oregon, where Ruth was walking the street to the 5 & 10¢ and noticed nothing, and where I was lucky enough to be leaning against a hotel wall making a phone call and thus was able, for some five seconds, to have some direct awareness of my first earthquake—in the form of strange, rather obscene movements in the wall. At Corvallis I was lecturing to the assembled AAUP’s of the state—on the topic “An Inquiry into Antihighbrowism,” which I hope I can get the AAUP Bulletin to print. I certainly owe you a glance at it, since a number of my examples are based on experiences of yours. The general line is that antihighbrowism, while it always virtuously pretends to be against falseness, affectation, etc., is really against excellence; and I proceed to various academic phenomena which are supposed to make the case. I didn’t have time to do this job but I took time because a) anything to get away from the office for a couple of days, and b) it was a means of working off an accumulation of gripes, not all of them from the present year. 38. This letter has not been found. 39. Heilman, “An Inquiry into Anti-Highbrowism,” AAUP Bulletin 6 (1949): 611–27.
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Your estimate of what will happen at Hopkins does not surprise me, since what I learn from my secret operative there convinces me that they are as antihighbrow as any state university. In classics they apparently let both [Harold] Cherniss and [Ludwig] Edelstein go without a gesture of protest; and we are getting their young classicist whom both Cherniss and Edelstein put number one on their list of prospects (this man told me that the present Greek man at Hopkins has for five consecutive years had his seminar do the subjunctive in Aristophanes). But all this obviously is one side of an incomplete story, and I hope the political science people there may have a little more insight. I judge that nothing else has happened in Fatso Martin’s department here, so that my brief—and I thought highly circumspect—effort to manage something has apparently died aborning. I gather that you wouldn’t have taken an offer from here if it had come, and I can’t say that I blame you, but it would have been pleasant to have had the offer come to life. I hear that they are now dickering with someone at Reed, unknown to me. I hope that not all your sponsors come to the same sad end that rumor is declaring for [Willmoore] Kendall. I can only record, for this mild sponsor, that for a year he has had neither bottles nor alien women nor historians in hand, but only office typewriters. The die quotation is fine, and I shall put it into a file for use when and if I get around to pack a few samples of the word into a learned discourse. Recently there has appeared an excellent book Shakespeare’s Bawdy which notes several of these cases but only a few. . . . ”The Origins of Scientism” lies at my right hand on my desk, atop a lot of junk, still unread: never the peaceful moment. Thank you very much for it; I know that when I have read it I shall be asking for other copies with which to perturb this modern, progressive community, which still feels that to fight the “supernatural” is one of the nobler and more mature achievements of the mind of man. I trust to get some results at least as fine as those you secured when belaboring Brookings with bricks at Durham. Your comment on Dr. Faustus is the only one I have seen which gets down to brass tacks, and I shall keep it at my elbow when I read that book. From your account I would say that Mann’s humanism is at least a step above the proud west coast variety, for if Mann is afraid of the devil he has at least got halfway. Here, we dispose of all evil by having a committee meeting. Probably any dirty cracks which I make about Washington should be entirely 40. Harold Cherniss taught Classics at the University of California, Berkeley, and Ludwig Edelstein taught Classics at Johns Hopkins University. 41. I find no reference to this in any of Voegelin’s previous letters. There may be a letter missing. 42. Eric Partridge, Shakespeare’s Bawdy: A Literary and Psychological Essay and a Comprehensive Glossary, rev. ed. (New York: Dutton, 1969).
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reserved for myself for having got into something that is less rewarding than exacting, and that, the further we advance beyond the honeymoon stage, progresses more and more toward difficult inimicalities. As soon as one stands for something—like not promoting people just because they are advanced in years, good citizens, pleasant fellows, and beloved of their colleagues—one becomes a Public Enemy, and it becomes a nice question how much of this one should endure, causa “duty” and self-respect, in the interests of an institution of which only a small portion wishes to progress beyond mediocrity. I have about convinced myself that duty and self-respect, insofar as they are applicable to an institutional rather than to a purely private situation, are snares by which one is kept at busy work rather than essentially important work. As you once said, once in something of this sort, it is not easy to find a comfortable way out; and I find about half my waking moments spent canvassing the catalogue of ways-out. Did I tell you about a paper which I heard Charlie Martin give about his services on a cultural mission to Japan. “We advised,” quoth Charlie, “a wide revision of their studies in the direction of positivism.” I asked whether this had been done without qualification, since, I remarked, I had observed that positivistic studies in literature were generally likely to miss the literary object entirely. Charlie then did say that of course they had especial reference to the social sciences. We often speak of you, and we includes Mike, whose argot, alas, only Ruth can understand. She has also learned Dollar’s patois; the odd thing is that Dollar and Mike do not surmount the barriers of race and language, but are reduced to the vulgar communication of hisses, claws, and murmurs. The very best from all of us. <Sincerely, Bob>
24. Baton Rouge, November 14, 1949 Dear Robert: Today came Ruth’s letter to Lissy with the heartfelt cry for information about goings-on in the region of the deans. I should have written you about the events long ago unless I had assumed that you receive ample news on such matters from more authoritative sources. So let me report what has penetrated to a comparatively uninterested observer of the scene like myself. [Fred C.] Frey is supposed to have frequently stressed that the deanship was a burden on his creative mind and that he desired at the bottom of his heart to 43. Dollar was the Heilmans’ dog; he received his name from his purchase price at the pound.
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return to teaching and research. He expressed such virtuous sentiments once too often; Stoke took him up on it and requested him to put his sentiments in writing. The Supervisors agreed to put him back among the sociologists at his dean’s salary; and Stoke got a general ruling from the Board that any dean who had served fifteen years could do the same. I do not know under what conditions [H. V.] Howe was eased out; anyway he looks modest and satisfied; and the other day, after lunch, I saw [Richard J.] Russell, Howe, Frey and [Homer L.] Hitt play pool together—from which I conclude that Hitt wants to become a dean, too, sooner or later. [William O.] Scroggs went because of age-limit. He now has a room in the department where he assiduously reads the local papers and the Reader’s Digest; otherwise he is a pitiable figure and confesses that he does not know what to do with himself now that the deanery does not provide him with escape from his boredom. The new deans seem to do all right for the time being; they express virtuous intentions, but they had not yet time to put them into action. [Paul M.] Hebert has expressed his opinion that the crazy specialized schedules of certain schools must be broken up (Commerce has a course in Prison Management) so that the boys have time to learn something—well, we shall see. [James B.] Trant is much talked about as the next candidate for disappearance. Russell will soon be put to the acid test when I shall tap him for a grant for next summer. [Leo Joseph] Lassalle has recently informed the world that Britain can get out of her ditch if the people work hard enough. —As far as the “also ran” are concerned—I know little about the mood of Kirby except that a discreet aura of melancholy is hovering around him. —Powell is a pitiful case. He seems to consider himself a failure in life and “broods.” Bob Harris assures me that he was always the brooding type: when he received his appointment as full professor (at the age of thirty-nine) he took it sadly with the remark that it was about as far as he ever would get in life. I have suggested to Bob that Powell should be degraded to Instructor so that he again has something to look forward to. The catastrophe of disappointment occurred in summer—by the time we saw them in September, Vera had already calmed down. Again there is that atmosphere of sweet melancholy of the battle of life lost and a resignation to declining 44. Fred C. Frey was dean of the university, Louisiana State University. 45. Richard J. Russell, a geographer, was dean of the Graduate School in 1950; H. V. Howe, a geologist, was dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; and Homer L. Hitt was the head of the sociology department. 46. Paul M. Hebert was dean of the Law School, Louisiana State University. In 1950 he was dean of the university. 47. James B. Trant was dean of the College of Commerce, Louisiana State University. 48. Leo Joseph Lassalle was dean of the College of Engineering, Louisiana State University.
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years. Besides[,] Powell’s health is not the best—though just now on a trip to Knoxville I observed that for supper he had coffee and a sweet roll, followed by two candy-bars; he felt just as ill as I would have felt in the same case, but seemed to consider it a disease to which only a sick man would be exposed. I have rather the impression that he is a serious case of infantilism. My own affairs are in the smouldering stage as always before Christmas—the violent outbreaks come in spring. The John Hopkins affair is dormant for the time being; Tommy Cook is appointed for a year; we shall see what is going to happen later. I just saw [Carl Brent] Swisher, the head of the department and my chief opponent, in Knoxville (at the meeting of the Southern Association); we were together on a panel and found ourselves in hearty agreement on the world at large and the American Constitution in particular. I had a long mellow talk with him later in the day and he was positively sweet. Unfortunately, I do not know whether he is getting soft on me, or whether he has concocted a dark scheme by which he is getting rid of me for good. This summer I heard from a friend that I had made a bad impression on him last spring when I was in Baltimore because I looked like a go-getter; he was convinced that I would be head of the department as soon as [I] got there, using the position as a stepping stone for a deanship and ultimately the presidency of Johns Hopkins. That is the sort of impression I make on unbiased people! —While waiting for the presidency of Johns Hopkins, I have applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship for a trip to Europe next summer. I have procured lovely recommendations; the only hitch is that usually the Guggenheim people prefer giving fellowships for longer periods of time than three months—we shall see how it will turn out. —There is also something simmering at the Maxwell School in Syracuse. The History is strongly progressing. I am revising the first volume for the very last time. During the summer I finished the new Aristotle; and since September I have written a new section (following the chapter on Aristotle) on the theory of characters and skepticism. Just now I am rewriting the Hesiod—it will run well into fifty pages—with rather interesting discoveries concerning the emergence of metaphysical speculation from the myth. Enclosed is a sample of the Plato. It may interest you because it contains a few things about the dialogue as a form of art. The cat situation and similar problems, I take it, Lissy will report in due course to Ruth. Very sincerely yours, <With all good wishes and feelings to the family, Eric>
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25. Baton Rouge, April 3, 1950 Dear Robert: This is just a line to let you know about the general pleasure caused by your article in the periodical of the AAUP. I was green as ever with envy when I took in your accomplished style, but for the rest it was pure joy to see you informing the masses that the only excuse for writing is its quality. Lissy and myself also recognized a few materials which apparently you gathered here at LSU. Bob Harris also was greatly pleased. Bob, by the way, is in excitement. He received a request from the Office of Education whether he would go to Germany for a 3 or 6 months period in order to represent American culture to the backward areas of the world. His assignment would be Munich; they have an Amerika Institut there; and Bob, I take it, would have to give lectures on American government and democracy. He wants to do it in fall of 1951. Dashiell [Harris] declares firmly she would never leave God’s own country, and he would have to go alone. I just received preliminary information that I got a Guggenheim Fellowship for my expedition to Europe this summer; this greatly facilitates the trip, monetarily speaking. In July I hope to be in Munich in order to see [Alois] Dempf; on this occasion I also can explore the Amerika Institut. The History is going well. The revision of the first volume is progressing. I just finished a new section on the Greek tragedy—if you were here I should pester you with reading it. Aristotle’s Poetics, by the way, at the risk of shocking you, is far from impressive on the subject of tragedy. The famous definition (“pity and fear” etc.) is not good at all. Hope you have a nice summer. With all good wishes for the family in the widest possible sense, Cordially yours, <Eric>
26. Seattle, April 7, 1950 Dear Eric, Glad if you got a moment’s amusement out of the AAUP thing. From you, any compliment is a most valuable thing, even though the one on my style, I fear, is hardly deserved. Incidentally, my knowing that it would be a speech probably made the whole thing considerably milder in manner than if it had been meant for a more esoteric audience. I am sure you recognized the LSU references. Doubtless, also, it will have occurred to you that if everybody referred
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to in the text had received a fitting honorarium, your royalty check would have been pretty considerable. I am most happy that you have the Guggenheim, which settled, early enough to reduce the attendant worries, the financial problems that have beset earlier proposed excursions. Has Ruth written Lissy since learning about Lissy’s trip? We’re very glad things are working out so nicely. Since “happy” hardly seems the right word, I’ll simply wish that the trip be a fruitful one for you. I wish I could listen in on a full report from you on your return. You put me to shame with this last letter that increases my indebtedness to you. My answer to your previous letter was supposed to be written one day when I could go back over my marginalia on the Plato reprint and mention specifically those parts that had particularly impressed me. The reprint is floating around among interested colleagues who are now becoming accustomed to my phrase, “As the best man I know says, etc.” and learning to learn from the same source. Anyway, the interjected contemporary parallels were beautifully done, and what in a lesser hand might have been journalism was here a very nice gloss on the text. Yesterday I was talking to a Macmillan editor named Cecil Scott, and, when he became politely but not agonizingly deprecatory about Macmillan wealth, I suggested that they were doing some admirable penance by publishing your work, about which I ventured a few untrammeled predictions. He seemed not too well informed, so I assumed that he was a rather lesser editor. I keep looking for the book with an impatience which would permit me to accept happily something less of the perfectionist in you; one of these revisions must be the last. I would very much like to see your statement of the difficulties inherent in the pity-fear definition; I think I have never been shrewd enough to question it formally but have always felt a little uncomfortable with it through my inability to relate it satisfactorily to the form. In my drama course this year I have been experimenting with the idea of basic structures of comedy and tragedy as types: I am proceeding tentatively on the basis that the tragic conflict is the conflict within the soul, and the comic conflict is the conflict within society, or, in other terms, the conflict between the individual, whose wholeness is a datum, and other forces outside himself. The tragic conflict, of course, has outer manifesta49. Although the article Heilman is referring to could be Voegelin, “Plato’s Egyptian Myth” (Journal of Politics 9 [1947]: 307–24), it is more likely Voegelin’s “The Philosophy of Existence: Plato’s Gorgias” (Review of Politics 11 [1949]: 477–98). These two articles were absorbed into the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 16, Order and History, vol. 3, Plato and Aristotle, ed. Dante Germino (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000).
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tions of such a sort that the inner conflict becomes a kind of cosmic turmoil; in comedy it is precisely the private individual and the cosmos which don’t get involved at all. Incidentally, in this scheme of things, tragedy includes “happyending” (the conflict in the soul is not unresolvable), and comedy includes a great variety of types known popularly by other terms—melodrama, farce, problem play, and even, I think, “romantic tragedy” (the “whole” individual is destroyed by an “outer” force, not a moral or spiritual one, but by something like “society,” war, etc.). Well, you know my dreadful limitations in anthropology, so you will not be surprised at the expressions of whatever naïvetés appear in this sketch. I may eventually have to give it all up; but, I must say, so far I have found it not a schematic descriptive system to be forced upon reluctant materials, but of positive illumination in discerning an apparent order in the materials observed. I have just finished a little essay to be an introduction to an edition of Gulliver’s Travels. I virtually ignored the first three books, which seemed relatively obvious, and concentrated on the Book IV, the Voyage to the Houyhnhnms, which seemed to me to have interesting possibilities, and turned out something which seemed to me to be the final truth. Subsequently I find myself reasonably well anticipated by an eccentric scholar or two. Alas. Well, it is good that Dashiell will take no risks in furrin parts. What would Senator McCarthy think? I hope Bob goes and profits. Please give him my best. I am going to teach at California for six weeks this summer. Not at all enthusiastic about the teaching, but it will forcibly get us away from here and will also provide expenses for seeing San Francisco, etc. I continue to be regarded by my colleagues as an amiable but doctrinaire fellow who on philosophic grounds tests all tolerance and who on administrative grounds may have to be got rid of for not appreciating the many local boys who admit they teach wonderfully but have no other professional interests; and by the front office as “one of our best administrators.” Does any department chairman automatically take on, without knowing it, a kind of corruption which makes him view his colleagues with jaundiced eye, and his superiors through rose-colored glasses? With our best to both of you,
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27. [Baton Rouge,] April 18, 1950 Dear Robert: Enclosed you will find my study on “Tragedy.” I am afraid you are in for it, without any excuses on my part. The reason why is that you were unwise enough to let me know about your most recent classification of dramatic forms. What struck me as a splendid insight is your insistence that tragedy has (or at least can have) a “happy end.” That, I think, really goes to the center of the problem. And I should like very much to hear what you have to say to my dilettante attempt that seems to move in similar grooves. And then you dispense another tantalizing morsel—about Gulliver. I wanna see it; when does it come out? Where, etc.? Can one order already a copy? We have a lot of things to do just now. Lissy is leaving next week. I am racing to finish the sophists and Socrates. And just today I received a letter from Cook’s which suggests difficulties with our passage back from Europe. Heinie is going around telling people about your article in the AAUP. He is mighty proud that his pool-room activities are now immortalized. With all good wishes, <Most sincerely yours, Eric>
28. May 21, 1950 Dear Eric, Reading your MS on tragedy took me back to BR days when I used to get constant enlightenment from sections of your book—a kind of experience I have hardly had since. As you will guess, what comes across to me with particular freshness in the present essay is the account of the political developments which create the milieu in which tragedy can flourish, the analysis of that milieu, the notation of the passage of conditions favorable to tragedy, and of course the over-all definition of Aeschylean tragedy through the fine detailed considerations of the Suppliants and the Prometheus. My impressions of the Frogs were somewhat similar to yours, although I had not worked them out so well. One thing that I had especially thought of in connection with the Frogs was the rather wide range of critical attitudes which Aristophanes assembles there, so 50. This manuscript is no longer extant but was absorbed into the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 15, Order and History, vol. 2, The World of the Polis, ed. Athanasios Moulakis (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000).
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that, even when one finds him in what you nicely call the naturalistic position, he seems still to have a considerable awareness of approaches to the aesthetic object of which one may avail oneself. Your basic definition of tragedy I shall probably take over as more precise than my own tentative one and at the same time as probably more flexible. What delights me is that, unless I am misreading badly, I am not too far away from you to start with. In that connection, you will understand my pleasure in deciding, after reading your account of the Prometheus as involving “the theomorphic symbolizations of forces of the soul as acting personnel of the drama,” that this was precisely what I had been trying to say to my class about Eumenides, and in subsequently discovering that you also made this description of the Eumenides. (Incidentally, the Eumenides bothers me somewhat, perhaps because my 19th century translation ({Lewis} Campbell’s) gives the wrong note. What comes thru is a rather complacent sense of victory. I think of your two fine sentences on p. 177: “The movement of a soul toward the truth of being does not abolish the demonic reality from which it moves away. The order of the soul is nothing on which one can sit down and be happy ever after.” Am I wrong on thinking that the demonic reality represented by the Erinyes is too patly disposed of and that Athenians—like the 20th century generally—are a little too confident of having the spiritual world in hand?) The discussion of Prometheus reminded me a little of the fulminations against “romantic titanism” that I used to hear from the late Irving Babbitt. I see now where he missed, however,—in being inadequately aware of “the forces in the human soul that will create social order when they are properly balanced,” and in being inclined simply to regard Prometheus as a villain and a symbol of all the evils of progress, man-worship, etc. I like the idea that there may be a tragic situation without a tragic actor. Our times generally? I have long labored with the doctrine of catharsis and have constantly found myself opposing the position which you also oppose—namely, that the effect of tragedy is to afford a sort of necessary “relief ” from pent-up emotions (comparable to getting drunk, going to a dance, vicariously playing a football game, etc.). I always found myself embarrassed when I came across such interpretations; they seemed to imply that tragedy really had a meaning only for people with emotional constipation, that it is a kind of psychiatry, and that for “normal” people it could have no meaning. Perhaps the only thing to do, then, is to throw the doctrine out entirely. As an alternative I had sought for another possible meaning for the term (doubtless awed by authority and feeling that it must
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be “right”). In general I had toyed with the possibility that what was meant was that the specific kinds of emotional engagement experienced during the play were resolved by the play, and not permitted to continue indefinitely as if the play were coterminous with and indistinguishable from experience generally. In this view, pity and fear as the typical emotions felt by the tragic spectator have an important function—the means, so to speak, by which the spectator experiences, as you put it, “the shudder of his own fate” as bound up with that of the tragic hero (p. 173). Pity and fear are the expression of his being bound; if he were not identified with the hero, he would neither pity nor fear. However, the experiencing of pity and fear is proper to the time when the drama is in progress, not to the time afterwards; this view, of course, puts one into the position of having to assume the active pity and fear as being replaced by some sort of residuum of sympathetic contemplation which is the permanent means of “binding the soul to its own fate through representative suffering.” A victory for Dike ends pity and fear or at least modifies them; the reaching of a moral equilibrium which seems to me to be characteristic of tragedy transforms the specific emotions evoked by the plot; this is the catharsis. But the mark of the emotions remains—if one can assume this, then it is not necessary to regard catharsis as a mere ending of an experience, a final, no-traces-remaining sort of emotional phlebotomy. There may be some relevance to this hypothesizing in Joyce’s doctrine of static vs. kinetic art—an interesting idea, as I understand it, although the concepts, I think, are poorly named. The most mature kind of art is “static”; i.e., self-contained, self-resolved, un-hung-over, leaving one with an experience of a completeness, so to speak. Kinetic art merges into life; by it, one is left in an emotional state which leads to action of a non-artistic kind. This is the realm of problem play, melodrama, homiletic fiction, exhortatory rhetoric, etc. Its business is not to effect a catharsis because it is concerned not with a vision of truth but with a specific kind of action. Well, you will probably dismiss this as beside-to-the-point, as Archie says. But I thought I’d risk tossing my speculations in to see what you think of them. I hope you will not object to my having had the secretary make a copy of about 15 pp. of your MS to file with my tragedy notes. Have you seen the symposium on “religion among the intellectuals” which Partisan Review has had going on for four issues? I have found a number of the contributions rather illuminating, especially those by the poets [James] Agee and [W. H.] Auden, and that by the historian H. B. Parkes. You will of course have guessed the PR technique of having a few on one side and then lining up 51. Vol. 17, 1950
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the furious naturalists to tear the hell out of the others. I continue to be astonished, altho I suppose I should not be, by the insolent braggadocio tones of the naturalist contributors. It is almost enough to make one conclude that naturalism of itself has a stunting effect upon the growth of the personality and stops it permanently at the level of the sophomore. The funny thing about Heinie and his poolroom is that my reference was to colleagues here; I had completely forgot about the LSU applicability of the symbol. The Gulliver is an intro to a text edition to be put out by Mod Library. It’s almost entirely about the 4th voyage—an endeavor to dispose of the rather trite cries of “misanthrope” which the sentimental raise against Swift. I’ll be glad to send you a copy when it comes out, supposedly next fall some time. You’re good to ask about it. Lissie should by now be safely abroad, and you almost ready to take off. We hope all travel problems get ironed out. With best wishes from both of us.
29. Baton Rouge, May 26, 1950 Dear Robert: Thanks for your highly interesting letter. I suspected that we were thinking in this matter of tragedy along parallel lines, and I am very glad indeed to have on the whole something like an approval from an authority of your rank. Your suggestions concerning catharsis are highly valuable. I am inclined to agree with the idea that catharsis makes sense if the “fear and pity” is understood as the emotion aroused by the tragedy itself and then assuaged by it. The great question is: was that Aristotle’s intention? Perhaps—but I do not find the slightest little clue to such an interpretation in the Poetics. Why be so modest? It looks to me as if that were your very own theory! I do not consider it very probable that Aristotle had this idea in mind because generally—taking his work as a whole into consideration—the specifically Platonic sense of tragedy (which in turn is closely related to the Aeschylean paradigma) is signally absent from his work. Werner Jaeger, for instance, considers this absence the mark of Aristotelian thinking (he did not “brood” like Plato, Jaeger does not like “brooding”); and I should also say that the Ionian sense of nature as a great, untragic order is the deepest stratum of sentiment in Aristotle. 52. Robert B. Heilman contributed an introduction and bibliography to Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, A Tale of a Tub, and The Battle of the Books (New York: Random House, Modern Library College Edition, 1950), vii–xxx.
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The Partisan Review escaped me. Much to my regret. I have simply too much to do. But the worst—that is, the analysis of Greek texts—is now over. In two days I am going to leave. From Galveston to Genoa. The preparations were rather exhausting—I had to make sure that the people whom I want to see are in the places where they are supposed to be when I come there. Lissy seems to have an excellent time in Vienna—in particular, with the opera. According to her latest account she is ogling a silver-fox which seems to cost only one-fourth of what it would cost here—or so she says. All good wishes for you and the family, Cordially yours, <Eric>
30. December 1, 1950 Dear Robert: I have to apologize for having remained silent for so long. The cause is not negligence but a rather overwhelming amount of work—which is still increasing. But about that sad story a bit later. First, what interests you probably most, that is, the local situation. Bob Harris is very much occupied and excited because apparently three universities compete for his services. There seems to be a chance in Columbia (where he will teach summer-school); there is permanent interest in Illinois; and the prospects thicken in Connecticut—where, as far as I know, you have a hand. I am not quite clear yet, whether he seriously is after any of these chances, or whether he cultivates them rather with an eye to the bargaining pressure that they will give him here in LSU. Lissy, the perspicacious woman, insists that he really wants to stay here. Moreover, in February he is invited to give some lecture and seminars at Vanderbildt—but apparently there are no further intentions back of it. Only, he has to do a lot of work to prepare for the occasion. Besides he is a member of the library-building committee which absorbs a good deal of his time. On one occasion, I was called in to give my opinion on the desirability of a social science reading room in the new building; and on that occasion I learned from the mouth of [Harlan L.] McCracken that such a room was unnecessary because our students are not inclined to do research; and research is “when you read a book.” —Further excitement for Bob is provided by the drop in enrollment, and the prospects of a further drop, if the war situation 53. Harlan L. McCracken was professor of economics and head of the economics department.
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should worsen. The students, in fact, will probably be spread thinly next year, because the class of high-school students that fell out is reaching now the junior year. But beyond that critical point it does not look so bad. And if a war comes, then a lot more will be upset than just the enrollment. —A ticklish point in the department is Mr. [Andrew] Gyorgy[,] who has aroused Bob’s iron determination to get him out by the end of the next year when his contract expires. He has, indeed, committed more sins to embarrass Bob than anybody should commit—and besides he believes in the United Nations and corrupts students with his convictions—so I won’t cry when he departs. —For the rest, I am on the Library Committee this year, which gives me an opportunity to see some of my colleagues in the raw—it is a sorry lot, one cannot even work anger about the little shitters. And now about my predicament. The summer in Europe has taken three months of my time. This time certainly was not wasted but it has delayed the work on the big History. Moreover, in January I have to give the Walgreen Lectures in Chicago. They are supposed to be published, and so I write them now out for print. The topic is “Truth and Representation,” and more than two thirds is finished. That has occupied [me] since we are back, end of August, and it will take me through the Christmas vacation. It is hard work because it is my first systematic study on theoretical politics since my abortive attempts about 1930; and I want to make it as good as I can. Fortunately, as far as the problem is concerned, the thing works out much better than I had hoped for. I think I have been able to find the theoretical instruments for dealing with the problem of Western Civilization and its decline—that will be a basis for a later study on cycle theories. —With regard to the History I have got the Macmillan people at last around to publish the work in two volumes separately. The first volume, Antiquity and Middle Ages (about 1100 pages), will be finished by summer and go to print. The second volume, about the same size, will take a year more to finish. The trip to Europe, as I said, was not a waste. I undertook it primarily because I wanted to be sure that in my own work I was up to date before I embarked on publications of a systematic nature. Well, I found that I am up to date and in several respects a bit ahead of it. Nevertheless, the broad confirmation that so many other scholars are working along the same lines, was most valuable; 54. These lectures would become Voegelin’s The New Science of Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952). Reprinted in the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 5, Modernity without Restraint: The Political Religions; The New Science of Politics; and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism, ed. Manfred Henningsen (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000).
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and naturally I acquired information concerning whole ranges of problems which I myself had not worked through in sufficient detail, especially the problems of Gnosis and of certain Patres. —I arrived in Geneva and had a day there for seeing everything. At the end I had a lot of blisters but I had made even a two hours round of the medieval fortifications on the outskirts in the hills. The next day I was in Milan. The Cena of Leonardo was an overwhelming impression; it is by far not as damaged as people usually say—at least I could see enough to keep me busy for an hour. And then there was the Brera [Palace]—I was not prepared for it, and I was properly floored by a whole palace full of paintings of the Lombard schools; here I saw for the first time what a “province” in Italy really means—it is practically a nation by itself. —In Vienna I gave four lectures on “State and History.” It is difficult to be fair to the situation in Vienna. The university is a dump if compared with what it was in the 1920s. But when you come to think that there are [Otto] Brunner and [Friedrich] Heer (two of the best medieval authorities), [Albin] Lesky (a classical philologist), three or four eminent lawyers, half a dozen first rate art historians, and besides an Opera which is well on its way of [sic] becoming again the best in the world, the “dump” has its attractions after all. Nevertheless, I had not a moment’s desire to go back there; the more technical difficulties of living are so tremendous that the price would be too high. —Then we proceeded together to Salzburg, Innsbruck and Munich. In Innsbruck I saw a former colleague, a sociologist, who had been an ardent Nazi—he is reticent but still a Nazi—you gain the impression that nothing can be done—one must just wait until that generation dies out. —In Munich I saw Dempf, one of the finest philosophers at present. He confirmed an impression which I had formed already in Vienna—that all the good men are well in their forties if not fifties. There is nobody in his middle thirties who would have written an interesting book that justified the judgment that here a new authority is growing. The inroads of Hitlerism were apparently deeper than one would have assumed. Dempf himself is very much alive and pouring out the MS’s that had accumulated during the Hitler period. —Switzerland was the most fruitful. Two days <(Basel)> in conversations with Karl Jaspers, Fritz Lieb, Edgar Salin and Karl Barth is probably an event that could not be duplicated in quality in any other city in the world. And in addition there were [Hans von Urs] Balthasar in Zurich and [Olof Alfred] Gigon in Bern. Balthasar should interest you (if only you could read German); his Apocalypse is really a new standard in historiography of literature. My chief interest was in his new Theology of History; I hope I can get Gurian to publish it 55. The Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci, is in the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.
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in English. —Between Bern and Paris we stopped over in Dijon—again a great surprise because we were unprepared. There is completely preserved the medieval capital of Burgundy; and we worked hard for two days to absorb at least the most important monuments, paintings, sculptures etc. —About Paris I shall say nothing; it is simply too much what all is going on there in philosophy etc. —I have brought a ton of books; and that will keep me busy for a while with digesting. <With all good wishes, Most cordially yours, Eric>
31. Baton Rouge, July 7, 1951 Dear Robert, It is a long while I have not heard from you except in roundabout ways and, of course, through the letters of Ruth to Lissy. There is just a break in work; and I can drop a line, along with the enclosed reprint. I thought it might interest you because it has some bearing on Renaissance literature. I am teaching summer-school this year because the revision work that I am doing now can be done best at home. Still, some new items have to be added. Just now it is the turn of Homer who hitherto did not have a chapter because I had not developed the methods for analyzing the very complicated psychology in which divine inspirations, predictions of fate, dreams, conferences among the gods, etc., function as the unconscious. But now I can do it—or at least I fondly believe I can. The wrath of Achilles is already dissected to its last corner; and the fascination of Helena (a juicy morsel) is practically cleared up. In the course of this work I have become a firm believer in the existence of Homer; somebody must have written these intricately constructed works; they cannot have grown like Topsy as German philologists still maintain. You have acquired [Harold] Stoke as graduate dean for Washington, so I understand. And I take it that you had a helping hand in bringing it about. With all good wishes to you and the family, 56. There is no further indication in this letter as to what article this refers. 57. This reference to “Topsy” alludes to chapter 20 of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly. In this chapter the young slave Topsy is being interrogated by her new mistress. Asked how old she is, Topsy answers: “Dun no, missus”; asked who her mother was,
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32. Seattle, July 11, 1951 Dear Eric, Your last letter plus the Machiavelli offprint are strong reminders that I have owed you a letter for a long time. I will not give excuses; I think the ultimate one is that in writing to you I should prefer to have the illusion, at least, of having something intelligent to say, and that my present life makes the possession of any such illusion increasingly difficult; and gossip alone seems hardly to justify writing. But now I write, if only to show that I would rather engage in gossip than engage in nothing, as a means of not wholly losing contact with you. I have not read the Machiavelli, but I have read the Marx: with all that usual sense of enlightenment that comes from reading you—a virtually unique experience. One thing that kept coming to my mind in the course of reading was the apparent similarities between certain Marxian ideas and certain democratic habits of mind, or at least certain aspects of the American temper which appear inseparable from democratic thought (or from “crude democracy,” perhaps, if one can make the analogy). “. . . all life is social throughout, it has no dimension of solitude” (280). The description of the “total individual” or of “socialistic man” (293) sounds singularly like a description, at the theoretical level, of what is in practice the American “self-made man” (except that freedom from property is hardly a part of the philosophic deal). And the “desire for leveling” (295) describes what seems to be one of the most dangerous of our actual working principles. And I am really making a rather irrational association when I perceive an intellectual attachment between the Americanism suggested by she replies: “Never had none”; and asked where she was born, Topsy says: “Never was born!” Topsy sums up all her answers with the statement that “I spect I grow’d. Don’t think nobody ever made me.” By choosing to address the Homer question of philologists with this reference, Voegelin alludes to an important component in his developing literary theory, viz., that if one interrogates the Homeric texts like her mistress interrogated Topsy, one learns from the texts themselves that the Iliad and the Odyssey indeed do have a progenitor; that a concrete, historical human consciousness created them. This component of an inchoate literary theory prefigures and assumes the specifically articulated principles of literary criticism found in Letters 63 and 65 as well as pointing back to Voegelin’s theory of consciousness (articulated in 1943 but not published until the German edition of Anamnesis in 1966). 58. Voegelin, “Machiavelli’s Prince: Background and Formation,” Review of Politics 13 (1951): 142–68. For an enlarged treatment of Machiavelli from which this essay was drawn, see the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 22, History of Political Ideas: Renaissance and Reformation, vol. 4, ed. David L. Morse and William M. Thompson (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998). 59. Voegelin, “The Formation of the Marxian Revolutionary Idea,” Review of Politics 12 (1950): 275–302.
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such passages and the implications of this passage on p. 287: “Since contemporary evil has its origin in the relation between man and nature, it can be overcome only through bringing nature under control of man so that freedom beyond nature can unfold.” No, I guess it is not irrational to see “freedom by control of nature” as an essential American doctrine. When I said “irrational” I had rather in mind the fact that this sentence of yours seems really to define the basis of naturalistic tragedy, and that naturalistic tragedy seems to be the only conception of tragedy available to American liberal democrats. I am not sure whether this is theoretically necessary. As far as I can see, great complacency is inseparable from the professional liberal habit of mind; it lives in a melodrama in which evil is always elsewhere, and we good people are agin’ it; it is an easy jump, when one localizes evil elsewhere, to find it not only in bad people (reactionaries, priests, etc.) but in nature; man is then “good enough,” as [Albert J.] Guérard said in his book on Hardy; and evil is only a kind of bad luck—and maybe he can even beat the bad luck by controlling nature enough to eliminate chance. I suppose something like this must be implied in democracy: you can’t believe in demos unless you do believe it is “good enough”; and then your only way of dealing with evil is to put it in things—or else in a few naughty individuals (who I suppose for technical consistency must be regarded as non- or subhuman). . . . If this is nonsense, the fault is mine; but it is you who set it off. And I am grateful for the setting. We’re sorry that you’ve undertaken summer school, since we had thought you might repeat the Vienna trip of last year. That was a wonderful account of it that you wrote us last December. I have never had another letter which contained so compact an account of so much seen—persons, places, and things; and I hope the next time to have another such diary. Aside from the remarks about people, 60. Albert J. Guérard, Thomas Hardy (New York: New Directions Books, 1964). This was originally published by Harvard University Press in 1949. Heilman is surely referring to the following passage: “The portrait of Jude nevertheless remains impressive as a fully evoked life. And it is a portrait preeminently suited to illustrate Hardy’s last meaning, as a novelist, which in retrospect appears to have been this central one: that no human being, in his doomed pursuit of happiness, deserves less than is given; that things not men are to blame; that everybody is good enough. This sympathetic message and final consoling optimism, diffused as it is through a dozen novels and through the lives of unpretentious, kindly, and rebuffed people, no doubt provides one clue to Hardy’s lasting popularity. For the most popular novelists are also the most charitable ones, except in the very long run; they are those who see man more sinned against than sinning. The message is, as I am compelled to see it, a false one. One must take his stand with the darker moral pessimism of Conrad. But it is difficult to do so; the message, though false, is very nearly irresistible” (156–57).
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etc., two general comments interested me especially: that all the really good people are 40 or over (a propos of the inroads of Hitlerism) and that the Hitler converts (a propos of the Nazi sociologist) are a generation that one must wait to die out because nothing can be done about it. One wonders what its influence will be before it dies out.<*> [left:] (At this point: one hour lost discussing problems with a department member who tells me confidentially he is about to make off for Europe with a colleague’s wife, and what influence do I think it will have on his career here.) I am glad you have got Macmillan to go ahead on a two-volume basis, and I hope the first volume is now, as predicted in December, about ready to go. But since the first volume is to deal with antiquity, perhaps the chapter on Homer is an addition? If you publish that separately (in one of the classical journals? I laugh to think of their astonishment when they see the MS), may I have an offprint for my collection? Your method of analysis is very exciting. Though I have no reports on the Walgreen lectures, I know how well they must have gone off—excellently. Any nibbles from that direction? One reason I am content to have Bob Harris stay at LSU, as long as one of the other universities does not see what it can get in you, is to act curator of your interests (which I assume, and hope, he continues to do well). The first news of the new administration—and almost the only news of it—that came to us was that it had cast a very benevolent eye on the Department of Government. Well, that’s very much to the good. . . . To get back to Bob: I am sure Lissy is right that Bob does want to stay at LSU, I should imagine indefinitely. I had only a very slight hand in Stoke’s coming here. In the past the deanship of the graduate school has generally meant a role tantamount to what is in some places called “academic vice presidency”; for that role he looked considerably better than the line-up of good chemists, psychologists, economists, etc., that one interest or another was putting forward. If I ever get out of the summer hiring mess, and whether I do or not, Ruth and I are heading off over the mountains into the desert by a lake for a few weeks away from the scene of action. Ruth has taken steps to guarantee this: she sublet the house for the second half of summer school. Pete is now in his first week of a summer camp where he has a job for six weeks—a pleasant kind of occupation to which we hope he will take, since it offers a very nice arrangement for summer times. But there is no way of knowing whether he will; the smart young teen-agers from junior high become unexpectedly complicated creatures, and one is astonished to find how little one knows of the human being that one
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has been living with all its life. Pete is big (just about two inches less tall than I now), strong as a horse, having a good time at school without doing very much there, very much disinclined to any kind of work (before going to camp he did have a paper route for a month, and also a number of yard jobs), often witty in a kid way, often inclined to go off into a murky mood which is quite impenetrable. One only hopes. Did Ruth ever write Lissy that we had met a man name Schmied (a psychiatric social worker) who either knew you or knew of you in Vienna? Last week in Los Angeles, also (where I was briefly helping Mr. Ford distribute largesse—a rather entertaining parenthetical employment), I met a Fred Brier who left Vienna in 1938 and now teaches economics at San Francisco U (SJ), and who knew considerable of you. He was also full of tales of poor Weixelgaertner, who I judge was the center of a European saga of which the details all intimate his subsequent maladjustment here. Some time before the summer is over I hope to get some serious work on Othello. I have a lot of notes on the language, which is very interesting, and which I think does some things with the idea of love that have not yet been pointed out. Beyond that I hope to work at some essays on structure of 19thcentury fiction: an interest[ing] recurrent problem there is the aspiration to, and constant failure of, tragedy. This time I will spare you paranoiac outbursts against my colleagues. I am at the moment in the happy mood of one to whom the existence of God has just been demonstrated by the elevation of our head-man in creative writing to a more splendid Hollywoodish opportunity at UCLA, a local boy yet that one wouldn’t have thought would ever leave. But this bliss is qualified by my first conferences with the remainder of the staff, who, as I might well have predicted, I find totally disposed to replace him by somebody safe and simple and of no threat to their own obscure destinies. In the second paragraph of this letter I was talking about leveling. For a long time almost no news of LSU. Were it not for Lissy, we would not yet know of Vera’s I-take-it-very-happy marriage. All our good wishes to both of you. I hope summer school doesn’t kill you, and that you manage a pleasant change afterwards. We will be back in our house August 18, and if we could tempt you to the madness of a quick plane flight (by “coach”; almost cheap), we would love to have a visit from you. Any chances? Sincerely,
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33. Baton Rouge, August 1, 1951 Dear Robert: I am in a lull between storms, and I hasten to drop you a line in answer to your charming letter. The interruption in the middle, with the gentleman who wants to run off with a colleague’s wife, was delightful. That is real life! Don’t tell me your job is tedious. Your description of the growing Pete and his impenetrable moods I take to be a reference to what commonly is called puberty. It is an awkward age; and there is not much parents can do about it except preventing the running off on undesirable tangents; it’s one of the first things a boy has to go through alone. And if I remember rightly the impenetrable moods are the pockets in which the gold collects that later may be revealed surprisingly. Thanks for your remarks about the “Marx.” You have seen the parallels with certain American phenomena quite correctly. They exist indeed, and they have a common cause. The Walgreen Lectures will bring an ample exposition of the common origin of various modern attitudes in late medieval sectarianism. Concerning these Lectures, by the way, I have just received news. A pompous manager of the Chicago University Press wrote me a letter informing me that the MS had been elected to be published “under the imprint” of the press; and he expressed himself in a manner as if I were supposed to pat myself on the back for having achieved such honor among mortals. Funny people! I wonder whether I shall send some letters from friends who assure me that this will be the first item in the Walgreen series they are going to read. At the same time, they sent huge blanks to fill in. One of the delightful questions is: “When did the idea for the book occur to you?” Well, it occurred to me, like all my better ideas, while sitting in the bath-tub and smoking a cigar. I contemplate telling them the nauseating truth. The previously mentioned lull is due to two causes. First, the Homer is finished (about 60 pages). It will be a chapter in the History; that was one of the remaining two or three gaps that I still have to fill. It was delayed for so long, though it is one of the earlier chapters, because the technical difficulties of dealing with Homeric gods were considerable; but now all problems are “solved.” On that occasion, I hit on a detail that will interest you, that is, Homer’s very elaborate theory about “blindness” and “seeing.” This is probably the fountainhead for all later developments of the problem. And since there is no literature before Homer it is guaranteed to be the real beginning. Especially interesting is his absorption of actions committed in “blindness” into the responsibility of the personality through later “seeing” (the beginnings of something like a “con-
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science”); and very astute observations that blindness is rarely quite blind, but that a little seeing is going on on the side, etc. You will be duly quoted in a footnote as the great authority on the subject with regard to Shakespeare. The second cause of the lull is the regrettable fact that I have developed a dysentery with temperature. For at least a week I have to slow down. Fortunately it is a harmless variety; nothing like poor Bob Harris’ amoebic specimen. As far as news is concerned, my journalistic education is so low that I am not quite sure what is news. Yet there is a regrettable item of possible interest to you. A gentleman of the English department, by the name of [Aldolphus] Bryan, died a few days ago (I did not know him; I only noticed the announcement in the Reveille). Caroline Durieux is on a sabbatical spree in Europe; we just had an ecstatic postcard from her, from Venice. Bob, as you assume, is really taking care of my interests in the most considerate manner. He lets me work without molesting me with committee work. And he just got a salary raise for me that will boost me by September to $7300. That is not the world, but not so very much worse than what other places have to offer. He did himself also quite well thanks to the offer from Connecticut which he declined. I believe we are now the highest paid professors in A&S, short of Deans. We have this summer in the department Frank Grace from Michigan; what he has to tell about that Harvard of the Middle West creates the impression that our modest swamp establishment might be preferable after all. Heberle who is in Michigan this summer also writes that he is glad he is not permanently nailed to that narrow-minded provincialism. What we shall do after summer school we do not know yet. A plane flight is hardly possible because, for various reasons, we are completely bankrupt until October. Tempting as your offer is, I am afraid we cannot follow the suggestion to come out to the west coast. I haven’t seen any of your work for a long while. When you are approximately through with your Othello, do you think you could let me have a carbon copy for a few days, just to delect myself? Just fortunately I remember a piece of news that happened today. I was member of a commission for a master’s exam in Journalism. Present were [Marcus M.] Wilkerson (as chairman), [Marvin G.] Osborn, [Vernon J.] Parenton and myself. Wilkerson let the candidate tell the contents of his thesis. Parenton 61. Caroline Durieux was a member of the fine arts department, Louisiana State University. 62. Marcus M. Wilkerson was professor of journalism and director of the LSU Press; Marvin G. Osborn was professor of journalism, Louisiana State University; Vernon J. Parenton was associate professor of sociology, Louisiana State University.
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asked him quite solidly about propaganda questions with so-so results. Then it was Osborn’s turn. That fine old gentleman declared that he would not ask questions of the candidate, but he wanted to make a few observations. And then he embarked on a speech concerning his idea of how an editorial should be written. Then I did some quizzing, and the boy surprisingly knew a lot. Then he was passed. Result: he was passed in Journalism as a Master, with questions only asked by the two minor professors; whether he knows anything about his major field is a dark question. Well, I enjoyed the performance. <We hope you and Ruth have a good time in the desert. So long! Eric>
34. Baton Rouge, October 28, 1951 Dear Robert: Enclosed, there is another one of my misdeeds. Since it touches an important piece of English Renaissance literature, perhaps you will find some points of interest in it. The late summer was rather unpleasant for us. I have been ill for the last three months—a diverticulitis, with infections in neighboring regions. The thing is under control now, and I am back to work; but the healing process will take at least a year; and I am not permitted any physical exertions, like taking an extended walk, in the meantime. Work inevitably has suffered. Still, I just finished an article on Gnostic Politics, in German, that will be published in the Merkur. And I have done a lot of reading—seven comedies of Shakespeare (some of them unbearably poor), Dostoevsky’s Idiot (a careful re-reading in order to understand the intricacies of D’s Christianity), and a lot of literature on ancient Gnosis. There is not much news in LSU—except that we hope the new President will get the appropriations that were denied to his predecessor. In the department, however, we had quite a divertissement. One of our younger members, Ned Taylor, got married in late August, and appeared duly with his bride. Ten days 63. “More’s Utopia,” Österreichische Zeitschrift für Öffentliches Recht, n.s., 3 (1951); reprinted in the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 10, Published Essays, 1940–1952, ed. Ellis Sandoz (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000), chap. 8. 64. “Gnostische Politik,” Merkur 6, no. 4 (1952); translated and reprinted in the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 10, Published Essays, 1940–1952, ed. Ellis Sandoz (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000), chap. 10. 65. Troy H. Middleton was appointed president of Louisiana State University in February 1951 when Harold Stoke was appointed graduate dean at the University of Washington.
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later said bride had left him in the direction of mother, for good. Legal proceedings have begun. The bride was one of our former graduate students, a sulky, hefty girl, who never opened her mouth when I had her in class. I got acquainted with her more closely on an evening when the graduate students had invited the department for a party, which consisted in the consumption of liquor in a low-class dive. The lady in question loaded up heavily on the free beverage, and was unsteady when we left; later, we learned she collapsed and had to be brought home unconsciously. It’s interesting, in a way, as a study of mores. In February, it seems, I shall deliver a couple of lectures in Johns Hopkins and St. John’s College. And possibilities arise on the horizon for a free trip to Europe next summer. We hope that all is well with you, and that you had a pleasant vacation. Cordially yours, <Eric>
35. Seattle, February 6, 1952 Dear Eric, The More offprint which came from you in November I read on the train going to Detroit in late December, and now in February I write to acknowledge the letter and the offprint. I hope you will keep me on your mailing list, however slow I am in making apparent that I am still at the other end of the line, and happy to receive. Reading you on the Utopia I not only am made to see the work in context, as always, but to see clearly that [sic] implications that, if I know the work, I feel that [sic] I have been fumbling for but not pinned down. It comes as a shock—the kind that makes one say, “Why didn’t I see that before?” (except that, alas, one knows the answer to that one)—and yet with great inevitability that More is a predecessor of the modern habit of substituting the social ideal for the realm of the spirit. And then aside from the main point all those shrewd hard observations which help work up the whole—such as some of the epigrams on superbia (does it, by the way, literally translate hubris?), the wonderful little passage on those of the “Pelagian persuasion” (p. 464) which so well describes the liberals, and the insight of the second paragraph on 456. Always these connections are made. As a slight return I include an Othello essay, one of several which I hope may add up to a study. 66. Probably Heilman, “More Fair Than Black: Light and Dark in Othello,” Essays in Criticism, 1 (1951): 315–35.
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I keep toying with ways of getting around the positivist boys that the world seems largely made up of. I wonder what one could do with a concept which one might label, somewhat grandiosely, the “higher pragmatism” or “transcendental pragmatism,” in which one identifies truth not by what is clinically demonstrable but by what seems to be required by the nature of the human animal, by what “works” for him, so to speak. What appears to work—and what he seems absolutely to need in order to work at any other than a mechanistic level—is what is comprised in the whole realm of belief, of the undemonstrable; ironically, he seems bent on insisting on demonstration, and yet seems quite unable to live on it. The trouble with this, I acknowledge, is that it is so susceptible of vulgarization, so that any idiotic credo (e.g., “I believe that Kansas City is the finest city in the world”) can be comprehended. But I should argue that the problem is not, as it seems today, to distinguish the demonstrable from the un-demonstrable and then kick out the latter, but to distinguish qualities of beliefs, i.e., between those which are constricting and even destructive, and those which are enlarging, civilizing, and spiritualizing (the last word makes one feel a little apologetic, but I hope my use won’t be taken in the wrong sense). In this connection I keep recalling your quotation—with approval, if I remember aright—of someone to the effect that, “There are no gods, but it is essential to believe in them.” That is, that that kind of belief is the kind that is most likely to evoke the capacity for acting as spirit. I toy with an amplification: that man can invent sciences, logics, and other modes of knowledge or being—such as gods, and that the test of him is the quality of the inventing [left:] process, and not the laboratory-testability of the invented. Does this sort of approach make sense? Or is it trite or untenable? In our field there is presently a frightful uproar against the new critics. (I object to the name but use it as a convenience.) All the entrenched scholars, most of whom have never had a serious literary idea in their lives, are defending the probity and essentiality of their works, denouncing the arid intellectuality of formalist criticism, etc. All this is depressing. But then the profession is depressing generally. I am more and more convinced that American faculties generally are more concerned with protecting themselves than with anything else in the world, and since they operate largely by “democratic” procedures, the definitions employed naturally tend as far as possible to make life comfortable for mediocrities. If they had half the passion for professional excellence as they have for righting wrongs or pseudo-wrongs or imagined wrongs, there would be—well, maybe there’d be more excellence.
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the passion for being good takes more genes than the passion for doing good. You are now, I guess, lecturing at Hopkins and St. John’s. The subjects you did not state. Parts of the book? I rather hope the Idiot section will be published separately so that I can hope for a private copy. (Speaking of mediocrity: I found half my colleagues greeting with enthusiasm a recent article, a pretty vulgar one I thought, in College English in which somebody at Illinois was attacking the James vogue, really James that is, because James isn’t vigorous enough and doesn’t deal with real problems and people don’t talk like that, etc. It was the literary view of someone brought up on Cooper and comics. One man who is often rather sharp in his judgments attacked Turn of the Screw as a “dull,” “put-up” job. Godamighty.) Next week I go to San Francisco to take part in a “panel” on how the humanities may utilize television. Everyone has this incredibly naïve expectation that the technical completion of a new medium of “communication” is in some way going to be a great intellectual horizon extender or bender, and all we gotta do is show ’em how. My own contribution is on what might be said about literature; nearly all of my paper is what should not be said about literature. Ruth’s mother is now with us for a while. Pete is taking to Latin pretty well, though idleness is his favorite field. Some weeks ago I pushed over our old Pisatower garage with an impressive whummppff, and a graduate student who is pretty good with a hammer and saw has replaced it with a carport at the suburban beauty of which we wonder daily. We have lapsed into a life almost without a social dimension. Have occasionally seen something of the Stokes and have found them very interesting. Have been reading Conrad pretty completely with an honors student; he has a great range, from a kind of almost one-dimensional adventure—though nearly always with a detached method of narration that alters one from participant to spectator—to a thoroughly good sense of the complexities of motivation. Have you ever looked at Under Western Eyes, one of his rare comments on the political personality? (It goes rather interestingly with James’s Princess Cassamassima, a very interesting book on which I also hope to hear you hold forth.) I hope the trip to Europe materializes. And from both of you we hope to hear 67. Voegelin lectured on “Political Gnosis” and “The Discovery of the Soul—in Ancient and Modern Philosophy” February 13–14, 1952, at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and on “The Wrath of Achilles” and “The Nature of Modernity,” February 15 and 17, 1952, at St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland. 68. Arthur L. Scott, “A Protest against the James Vogue,” College English 13 (1952): 194–201.
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some account, primarily of yourselves, and after that of the world of gossip on which you always comment with such careless incisiveness. Sincerely, <My regards to Bob Harris. Walter [H. C.] Laves was here some days ago, being looked over for the job Charlie Martin was bounced out of.>
36. Baton Rouge, February 25, 1952 Dear Robert: That was a pleasure to have your long letter as well as the fine study on Othello. I very much hope that others will follow soon and that you will let me have them. If I understand your essay correctly, you use the same method as in the Lear study and with the same effectiveness for elucidating the connection between content and poetical form, especially the pattern of metaphors. It was a sheer pleasure to read it and, of course, I checked a bit in Othello; and everything clicked as it might be expected in a study coming from you. There is no criticism I have to offer with regard to the substantive core of the study—here I can only learn ‘-’- [sic]; if I may suggest a point, it concerns the fringes rather of your presentation. I am a little disturbed by a detail which, if I remember rightly, I also mentioned on occasion of the Lear: You are very apologetic about doing the right thing, and you defend yourself for treating a poem as a poem, apparently against people who never hit on that bright idea. This defensive attitude, in my opinion, detracts from the quality of the analysis itself; its brilliance inevitably will be sprayed a bit by the dirt to which you give so much space. To be sure, you have to justify every word you say but: before the throne of Shakespeare, not before the bank on which are mounted the more obtuse of your colleagues. I am taking the liberty of pointing out this detail, because I have suffered from the same desire of polemical justification for years, and I think I can understand the genuine humility (and not perhaps only political caution) behind this attitude. But, with the years, one must get accustomed to one’s own qualities and assume the authority one actually has; remember Goethe’s dictum: “only the rascals are modest.” Your idea of a “transcendental pragmatism” is most intriguing. If I have understood what you are after, it is neither trite nor untenable, but a somewhat 69. Walter H. C. Laves was a member of the Mutual Security Agency.
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Americanized version of the classic tradition. When you speak of “the nature of the human animal” you probably mean simply the Aristotelian “nature of man.” And when you consider what is “required” by this nature, or what will “work” for it, you probably mean the “actualization of the potentialities” contained in this nature. And when you speak of “beliefs which are enlarging, civilizing and spiritualizing” you probably mean the symbols in which is expressed the actual life of the spirit, the bios theoretikos. And by “undemonstrable” you probably mean the transcendental term in the experiences of transcendence; what succinctly is formulated in Hebrews 11:1 as: Faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the proof of things unseen. The “things unseen” is already the Solonic and Heraclitean word for what just now I called the transcendental term of the experience (of faith, hope, love, etc.). And the “indemonstrability” of the propositions with regard to that term is probably the Thomistic analogia entis. In the “capacity for acting as spirit,” finally, I believe to recognize nothing less than the Aristotelian dianoetic virtues (among them: science). All these are strictly problems of ontology, and more especially of philosophical anthropology; to call them a “higher pragmatism” certainly is not inapposite; but I should hate to make even a terminological concession to the enemy. Locally we are making an experiment that you would enjoy. The Dean [Cecil G. Taylor] has organized, with the assistance of two younger men, a Colloquium on Humanities. Every two weeks a group of fifteen students meets with two faculty members and the organizers of the show to discuss some great books, as for instance Machiavelli, Locke, Mill, Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, St. Augustine, etc. It is a small scale imitation of greater experiments that you know well. On our smaller scale, however, there comes more clearly into view the essence of the situation: The A&S College does not give the liberal education which it is supposed to give, for the good reason that the faculty is not too liberally educated itself. Hence, [the] next step, a special enterprise is made to supply this education at least in homeopathic form. And this diluted dose is to be administered by the same faculty which cannot administer it in the ordinary course of their activity. This situation became painfully obvious when the choice of personnel had to be made. The Dean agrees now, in private, that the best result of the enterprise will be that at least some of the faculty members will be compelled to read the books which they are supposed to discuss with the students. Under this aspect, perhaps, the effort is not entirely wasted. The difficulty became rather clear to me recently when I delivered two lectures 70. Cecil G. Taylor was dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Louisiana State University.
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at St. John’s College. They selected from various titles offered the one on “The Wrath of Achilles.” That impressed me deeply, considering that you probably could not find many colleges in the country who would make that selection. I was somewhat less impressed when I found that Dean Jacob Klein, who made the selection, is a Russian Jew who received his philosophical education at Marburg. Still, the College is a miracle; and the students participated in masses in a long discussion showing that they had their Homer at the fingertips. Nevertheless, the earthy touch was not quite missing. I had explained the parallel in the construction between the wrath of Achilles and the eros of Helen. And when we walked out, I heard a bass voice in the background: Why didn’t we talk about love and Helen all the time? Incidentally, the wife of the aforementioned Dean Klein is the former wife of a professor in Kiel and knows the Heberles quite well. We established that soon at dinner; and she said, full of sweet remembrance: “he is so very charming, and so very boring.” I have received an offer of a professorship in Munich, in the Philosophical Faculty. It would be a dream of a position—unless the Russians were [not] so near. That is quite an excitement at the moment. But I doubt that I can accept it, even if [I] were more inclined than I am, considering that Lissy is in open rebellion and insists that an American woman would never demean herself by leaving the wonderful home country and go[ing] among the barbarians. <With love to the whole family from both of us. Cordially yours, Eric>
W I T H A H U M B L E R E QU E S T Letters 37–57, 1952–1955
37. [Baton Rouge,] May 3, 1952 Dear Robert: I am coming with a humble request today. Enclosed you will find the MS of the first chapter of the History of Political Ideas, which [is] supposed to develop the principles of interpretation for the whole subsequent study. The chapter, thus, has a certain importance, both as the first one and as the statement of principles. Hence, I should like to have it written as well as my inevitable shortcomings will allow. I wonder whether you would read it (it has only thirteen pages), and while reading it mark on the margin any awkwardness that still will need ironing out. Of course, I know that you are busy and that my request smacks of impertinence; and I shall not be surprised if you tell me flatly that you just don’t have the time for it. Nevertheless, you will see that this is not the sort of thing that I could give to just anybody for correction; and you are simply my last resort. There is still some unrest with us because the Munich affair is not yet settled. It is a very interesting position they offer me. And in addition I have now received a similar offer from Freiburg. I want to drag these offers out for two years, if I can, in order to see whether the book on the New Science of Politics that comes out in September will have any effect in this country. If not, I shall perhaps better go where people go to the extreme of promising to build a house for me, just to get me there. Meanwhile, I have received at this great university a somewhat quaint honor: I was elected to membership in the famous order of O.D.K. I was flabbergasted when the students came to tell me, because I had assumed that was only for “leaders” like Dean Frey or [Arden O.] French; and since I am neither french nor fried, how did I come by it? The puzzle was solved when I learned that in 1. See note 11 of the introduction to this book. 2. Omicron Delta Kappa. The LSU yearbook, Gumbo, for 1948 identifies Omicron Delta Kappa as a national honorary leadership fraternity that “recognizes men who attain a high degree of efficiency in collegiate activities on both the faculty and student level” (330). 3. Arden O. French was Dean of Men, Louisiana State University.
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the noble fraternity a revolt had occurred, the students of Sigma Chi insisting on my election, while the faculty did not like at all the idea of an outsider like myself joining the charmed circle. Well, now I am an accredited Führer. I just have read T. S. Eliot’s Sacred Wood. Though these brief essays at many points rather touch the problems than penetrate them, I was greatly impressed by the astute observation and characterization in such instances as Blake or Swinburne. Dante seems to have been a bit too much for him. But there are a few remarks about Aristotle which prove that Eliot has a better understanding of his method of philosophizing than almost all professional philosophers who have expatiated on the question. With all good wishes for you and your family, Cordially yours, <Eric>
38. Seattle, May 13, 1952 Dear Eric, That you ask me to read the MS is of course only an honor. I am a little slow because we have a little rush of business of ejecting our own PhD’s and injecting others to keep the shop going, and because I put in a couple of days in bed with flu (the first of the winter; lucky). You know how much I relish getting each piece of the opus that comes along. Once again this time the usual experience, within my own limits, of feeling let in on a complete new world, of having it organized, of seeing some of the time how it can be used, and of having here and there the excitement of finding a correspondence—so it seems—to some little idea of my own. The last page, on the “compromise with the conditions of existence,” as it develops from early Plato to late Plato, seemed to describe exactly the development, which I have been fumbling about for an account of, in Eliot from Family Reunion to Cocktail Party. In the former, if I read him correctly, he appears to allow validity only to spirit (being?) and gives world (existence?) a hearty kick in the pants. In the latter he suddenly feels remorseful about what he has done to the world, dramatized as family, in the Reunion; so he goes back to the family again, rehabilitates it even with all its imperfections, and says in effect it has its own kind of claim and justification. Or in the literary terms which I find useful, he is putting the comic and tragic side by side with equal claims to tolerance. Well, sometime you will tell me whether this is an unseemliness of symbolization. As for reading the MS, that I have done with tireless literalness, putting down—and often at what length!—every measly little question or uncertainty
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or ignorance or stupidity that came to me, on the theory that the business here was to try to be helpful, and that it was better to risk being a bonehead and raise the issues than to look brighter, perhaps, and let them go unraised. You will have to labor through my notes, of course, but it won’t take you very long to decide whether they are idiotic or really have [a] point. I am selfish enough to hope that a few of them do have a point, but realistic enough not to have too many illusions about it. I decided that you know me well enough so that in asking me to read the MS you knew precisely how much risk you took of getting a wellmeaning incomprehension that would have to be taken as the bale of chaff amid the few grains of positive assistance. One thing I realized was that a sense of style is not only a function of personality but a symbol of an intellectual <modus operandi.> So when one says “Do it this way instead of that way” one is, except in the most minor matters, actually trying to impose a different set of intellectual habits upon a verbal system, and that if this is carried far enough it is in effect trying to sneak a conversion in the back door. This is very bad manners. The only possible justification for it is the expedient one—and the correctee would have to accept the expediency—that the intellectual-verbal habits of the corrector are nearer than those of the correctee to the general audience at which the correctee aims, and that by some concessions the correctee might gain auditors and even converts more readily. But even though he may formally think that, the corrector feels that most of his proposals can fail of presumption only thru the good nature of the correctee. It is fine to have the magnets tuned up at both Munich and Freiburg, but I do hope you can stretch it for two years to see what comes up here, if anything. I don’t feel any too hopeful about it, but I’ll at least hope to be wrong. You know the climate better than I. I’m afraid that climate is best represented in the PhD thesis of the man who is by everybody’s consent our best graduate student in years: he proves that James’s novels are in the main modeled on his brother’s pragmatism, that James was a true “liberal,” that his attitude was “scientific,” and that fortunately for him he was always against all those naughty words absolute, idea, ideal, concept, authority (to this kind of mind all these words mean about the same thing), and he realized that truth was in passion and flux, etc., etc. Reading all of this worked me up into a futile lather which led me to write the writer a reasonably long letter, which led him to give me a brief and obviously ironic thank-you in the corridor; for by his directors, who regard this work as one of our most brilliant dissertations, he had been told that I was a harmless “reactionary” who needn’t be taken seriously as long as I would show no disposition not to help him get a job. I will not open my mouth again. It is no use making naughty faces at the climate.
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I would like to have a movie of you attending an ODK meeting, with the french fries as you so beautifully describe them. Do not put too much salt on them. I repeat, stay here as long as you can. But I’m not sure that I can think up any better argument for it than the wonderful anticlimax that while you’re here we hear from you now and then, and then we see a little light. From both of us, best wishes to Lissy and you. Sincerely, 39. May 22, 1952 Dear Robert: Your kindness has caused me considerable pangs of conscience. Such attention to detail must have cost you much more time than I had anticipated it would. I feel deeply in debt to you, and especially because the explanations attached to your corrections are a course in style that will be of value far beyond the crimes I committed in this section of the MS. For an appreciable part of my mistakes are “typical,” that is to say, I make them repeatedly; and your bringing them to my attention will help me to correct other sections. Unless I were already hardened, and resigned to the fate that I never shall write decent English, the survey of the battlefield would be an excellent reason to commit hara kiri. As to the detail, most of your corrections were so thoroughly justified that I could do nothing but transferring [sic] them to my clean copy of the MS while biting my nails that I still do not know which prepositions to use after certain verbs. There were, however, a few emendations which I hesitated to accept, and I should like to explain one [or] two of the hesitations—partly in order to justify my rebellious conduct, partly because the illumination which I received from your correction might also be of interest to you. For, even though I did not accept the emendation, it stirred up extremely interesting problems in a philosophy of language. Let me give you an example: “This horror induced Plato . . . to make the true order of society dependent on the rule of men whose proper attunement to divine being manifests itself in their true theology.”
You suggest to change the end of the sentence to: “. . . in their possessing (or mastering) the true theology.” I did not follow your suggestion, though I am fully
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aware that it would bring a substantial improvement in style, for the following reason: In the history of philosophy, from Plato to Schelling, there rages the great debate on the question: who possesses whom? Does man possess a theology or does a theology possess man? The issue was most strikingly brought into focus when Descartes’ Cogito ergo sum provoked [Franz Xavier von] Baader’s counter-formula Cogitor ergo sum. The immanentist “I think” as the source of self-assertive being is countered by the transcendentalist “I am thought” (by God) as the source of dependent being. If I insert the verb possess into the passage in question I prejudge a theoretical issue that is a major topic in the work— and besides I would prejudge it in the wrong direction. The only permissible solution would be [a] cumbersome dialectical formula (“possess, while being possessed by” or something of the sort) that would divert attention from the main purpose of the sentence. So I left it, though with regrets. One more example, of somewhat different complexion: “In existence we act our role in the greater play of the divine being that enters passing existence in order to redeem precarious being for eternity.”
You remark: [“]accidentally misleading, since ‘divine being’ so often[=]God![”] Again, I left the sentence as it is. In this case, the suggestion of “God” by means of “divine being” is deliberate. The sentence is supposed to express in metaphysical language the mystery of Incarnation. Later, in the sections on Christianity, this sentence will serve in the unraveling of the symbolism of the God who becomes man. One of the philosophical purposes of the whole study is the demonstration of the metaphysical rationality of classic and Christian symbols; and the dependence of the maximum of rationality on mysticism (in the most strict, religious sense) is a thesis that will serve in explaining the social victory of Christianity over rival pagan mysteries in the Roman Empire, as well as in explaining the irrationality of modern, secularist thinking. There are altogether three or four instances of this kind. They cause me considerable sorrow because obviously they originate in a conflict between literary conventions and philosophical language. And in this conflict quite frequently I do not know which side to take. In German, naturally, I know what I can do and what not; but what the traffic will bear in English by way of adapting the linguistic instrument (which is basically created to express relations of the external world) to the intricacies of the dialectics of being, still escapes me. I am afraid I shall never find a way out of this mess. The Munich pot is boiling higher. They want me to come this fall for a visitingprofessorship and to make up my mind on the spot (that is in Munich) whether I want to go on with the job or not. After the visiting year, I could come back
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here for a year in order to wind up my affairs, and then I should take the position for good. Fortunately the good people do not have the money to pay for the expenses for traveling, my obligations for maintaining the house here, etc., which amount to about $4000. The next move will be to get a foundation to pay this amount. We’ll see. Lissy would like the year in Europe—with the understanding that, of course, we won’t take the job permanently. These women. Let me thank you again for this conscientious piece of helping work. I wish I could do something in return—if ever, I hope you will let me know. <With our best wishes to you and your family, Most sincerely yours, Eric>
40. Seattle, October 14, 1952 Dear Eric, Today’s mail brought from Chicago a copy of The New Science of Politics “With the Compliments of the Author.” The author is both very complimentary and very generous, and I am pleased to have a copy of the book. I have read the foreword and the last page, wondering, as soon as my eye caught the words “American and English democracies,” what sort of envoi you had hit upon. Obviously it depends on what has gone before, in terms of which, I take it, the immediate tact is joined to a warning clear enough to all who will read. The complimented-and-subscribed will read what goes in between with his usual care, and as usual with profit to the limit of his abilities. Thank you very much for including him on the list of honorees. And if I may say so, I hope that some of the other honorees are properly moved, so that the politics of the world of political scientists may take a turn for the better. Which reminds me that at a meeting at Mills College, California—a symposium on “Reason and Values” (which sounded to me in many of its details like the annual meeting of the Village Society for the Propagation of Atheism)—I met a Viennese woman who knew something of you and perhaps knew you personally. She is now Else or Ilse Brunswick; she told me her maiden name, but at the moment it has completely slipped my memory. She took her doctorate aged 21, I would judge about 20 years ago; she was in philosophy and was strongly under [the] influence of the then leader of logical positivism at Vienna. As she put it, “I was in his circle.” She is of medium height, plump, not pretty, roundfaced, genial, obviously a person of cultivation, has a very heavy accent but ex-
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cellent vocabulary and on the whole great competence of expression. She regarded you as one of the three Viennese intellectuals of her day who would “achieve great recognition” in America. But it is clear that her respect for your erudition and intellectual quality are tempered with [a] certain suspicion, not very explicitly put, that in the realm of ideas you have unfortunate and dubious predilections. I suppose the American term “fellow traveler of the Catholic church” would somewhat express the sort of thing implied by her shoulder-and-eyebrow hesitancies. To philosophy she eventually added psychology as a field, went into psychoanalysis, and is now engaged in either analysis or a sort of advisory psychiatry among students at the U of California at Berkeley. Her husband is in the Department of Psychology there—Egon Brunswick, I believe. From a luncheon conversation I gathered that she is a somewhat mixed relativist, that although she is inclined to regard value judgments as having only a preferential status, there are certain permanent human truths and choices that have universal validity. A week or two later came to town one Bobek, also from Vienna, and of Vienna now. He is professionally a geographer and personally—in Ruth’s and my unsupported and I fear unevidenced impression—a phony. You may know of him, and if you do, you will know whether this evaluation is unjust. And I think we mentioned earlier meeting the Schmiedls. So much for newsy notes on ex-Viennese. In the interstices between earning a living I work on Othello; I printed another section in the Virginia Quarterly, out this fall. No reprints, I regret. Whether anything good will come of the Othello work I don’t know, but I keep moving ahead on the conviction that I’ve seen some things not yet pointed out. I shudder at venturing again into the fire of the professional Shakespearians (The Committee on Un-Elizabethan Activities, as one of my colleagues has put it). Incidentally, the Lear book has just evoked eight pages of abuse from one Wolfgang Clemen in the Shakespeare Jahrbuch. The presidential campaign seems to us to be even lower than usual, and I feel as though some of your predictions are on the verge of coming true much too soon. I am probably incorrect in this, or in my recollection, but it seems now to be politically adequate simply to scream “Communist” at the opposition, as it was in Germany 20 years ago. I would not be surprised if one of these days we had a fire in the White House, traceable, though never traced, to McCarthy. 4. Heilman, “Dr. Iago and His Potions,” Virginia Quarterly Review 38 (1952): 568–84. 5. Senator Joseph McCarthy (R), Wisconsin. The 1952 presidential election was being contested by Dwight D. Eisenhower for the Republican Party and Adlai E. Stevenson for the Democratic Party.
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Will you say hello to Bob Harris for me? Ruth and I send all best wishes to Lissie and you. Sincerely,
41. Baton Rouge, October 21, 1952 Dear Bob: That was the first profit I had from the book: the rare joy of a letter from you. But with regret I notice that your administrative chores seem to be rather burdensome, and sometimes even distressing. It must be exasperating indeed to haggle with assorted hicks about who is a communist and who not. About [Kenneth] Burke I know nothing—I have only a dim memory of having once run into his name in connection with the Southern Review? Speaking of communists: the last New York Times Book Magazine [sic] brings a letter from Paris with details about the existentialist fight that has broken out 6. President Henry Schmitz, University of Washington, withdrew the appointment of Kenneth Burke as Walker-Ames Professor of English prior to the August 16, 1952, Board of Regents meeting. This action was provoked by communications to the president that Burke had belonged to certain groups alleged to be fronts for the Communist Party and/or had published in certain leftist periodicals. The documents relevant to this case may be found in the Heilman Papers, accession 1000–7–71–16, box 11, folder 7 in the Manuscripts, Special Collections, University Archives of the University of Washington Libraries. The minutes of the University of Washington Board of Regents include no record of Heilman ever appearing before it, even though in this postscript Heilman seems to say that he appeared twice before the Board. Newspaper accounts may be found in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 10, 1952, pp. 1 and 6 (“U. Withdraws Lecture Bid to Noted Critic: Fear of Burke’s ‘Fringe’ Association Is Told” and “Burke Tells of Events Leading to Ban as U.W. Lecturer”), and November 14, 1952, p. 6 (“Burke Letter to Be Private: Schmitz Won’t Disclose Content to Faculty”). See also Heilman, “Burke as Political Threat: A Chronicle of the 1950s” (Horns of Plenty: Malcolm Cowley and His Generation, 2, no. 1 [spring 1989]: 19–26); and Heilman, “Cowley as University Professor: Episodes in a Societal Neurosis” (Horns of Plenty: Malcolm Cowley and His Generation, 1, no. 3 [fall 1988]: 12–25).
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since Sartre confessed himself a communist. First he made his confession, in the course of which he characterized himself as a “slimy rat”; then he answered some disrespectful remarks of Camus concerning his conversion with a vituperative article on the latter; and the Figaro did not hesitate to pick up the affair and had with joy on its front page an article under the giant headline “The slimy rat.” Thus a quip of Camus, several years ago, proved to be an astute diagnosis; Camus said at the time: “When the Communists come to power, Sartre will be one of them, and I shall go to jail.” I myself wondered all the time where that sort of atheistic existentialism would end; for the attitude of “engagement” without being concretely engaged could not be maintained forever. To my pleasure it ended where according to my analysis of Gnosis it should end. The Sartre case is one more illuminating item in the breakdown of intellectualism. Your information about Else Fraenkel-Brunswick was delightful. I cannot say that I knew her well in Vienna; but we were once on a panel together, each delivering a speech—I have forgotten on what. The “circle” to which she refers is the Schlick-Kreis, a group of theorists who admired the [Moritz] Schlick type of positivism and forgathered at Seminars with him. [Rudolf ] Carnap also was a member of the group. When she describes me as a sort of “Catholic fellow traveler” that is about as close to the truth as her, in such matters, somewhat limited intellectual capacities might be expected to come. Schlick, by the way, was murdered by a mentally deranged individual (a real Catholic, not a fellow traveler) because in the opinion of said individual Schlick was a nefarious influence and besides had detracted the affections of his girl to himself (that is, to Schlick). How much of the story was true nobody knows; certain is only that a man must be deranged, if he thinks that the problems presented by the existence of a Schlick can be solved by murder. —The name of Bobek I have never heard. We are still in a state of mild unrest because the Munich affair is not yet quite over. I have declined the directorship at the America Institute in Munich because it is in such a mess that the Rockefeller Foundation has not yet made up its mind whether it will continue support beginning with the next summer. For the present academic year they stopped the subvention. But the mess is indeed so great that the State Department thinks of sending me over there next spring for a few months in order to straighten things out if possible, for they seem to be interested in getting the thing going. Hence, we are now in some insecurity concerning 7. Patricia Blake, “A Literary Letter from Paris,” New York Times Book Review, October 19, 1952, 40. 8. Moritz Schlick and Rudolf Carnap were members of a group of positivists known as the Vienna Circle.
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what will happen by February. At present a man of the Rockefeller Foundation is over there in order to see whether they will resume their support if other conditions are fulfilled. If that report is positive, then I shall perhaps go into action. Don’t take the adverse responses to your Lear too seriously. Consider yourself a martyr for the truth. Just think of what the positivists will do to me in the near future, unless they consider me beneath contempt. With all good wishes, Yours sincerely, <Eric>
42. Seattle, March 12, 1953 Dear Eric, I not only owe you more of a letter than this will be, I want to write it. I will not go into explanations about why I am not writing it now; I will leave that dull tale to powers of inference which need not themselves be very acute. This is an interim greeting, then, and there’s a specific occasion for it, as always. Two–three weeks ago my colleague in comparative literature told me he had just learned one Herbert Steiner was coming to the coast (from Pennsylvania State College, where he teaches regularly) to spend a quarter at Berkeley and would be available for a lecture here. Would I go into action? So I go into action, and after all the usual redtape, mucking around, and administrative obstinacy, we get Steiner, and today he arrives in town, and eventually comes into the office here, and we chat, four of us. Somehow the name of Voegelin comes up, and Steiner promptly bounces in with, “Do you know him?” I claim him with customary avidity. Steiner wants to know where he is. I divulge the address. Steiner says, “I have a MS of his I want to return.” And on he goes into this tale of receiving from you, in Zurich in 1939, a MS of a German translation of a ballet by Valéry, meant for Corona, and that after that you promptly disappear in the wilds of America. [Left:] Only today—as he has it—and in this office are you returned, by my willing hand, into a civilization which Steiner inhabits, and in which he proposes to return a MS held 14 years. He says he never loses a MS, that he has a suitcaseful of same, that he knows just where yours is, and that when he returns to Penn State in June he will mail it to you. The real reason why Jackson Mathews wanted Steiner here is that Steiner apparently knew Valéry well: Mathews seems to have corralled the editorship of the Valéry papers, letters, etc., and is making a life work of it.
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How did the name of Voegelin come into the conversation? Thru a remark by Mathews, who had often heard me mention you, to the effect that your Chicago book has been treated at great length in the last Time. I haven’t seen it yet but will get a copy. The Nation review was virtually friendly, compared with what I had been led, by your anticipatory comment on the liberals, to expect. I do hope that Lissy is not having too much trouble disciplining you into taking care of yourself. The account of your last reconstructive experience in New Orleans is fantastic. May the fantasy, and the follow-up which I suppose will be equally fantastic, be reduced, eventually, to the pleasant fact of good health. Now I go shopping for Ruth, who has a birthday today. She’s been a little “puny” this year, but some minor surgery may have had a pretty good effect on what the imperishable ads call “female troubles.” Our best to both of you, Over for another “small world” note. [Typed on back of page:] At dinner at a physicist’s several weeks ago we met the guest of honor, one [Victor Friedrich] Weisskopf, concerning whom it soon gets around that he is Viennese. So I dash up with my lead, and it pays off. Yes he does know Voegelin and recalls that Voegelin had visited at their home in Vienna. He himself does not claim a personal acquaintance but says that a brother, once a lawyer, now a teacher at Roosevelt College in Chicago, knows you well and admires you. (If he didn’t, I would challenge the brother, of course.)
43. March 30, 1953 Dear Robert, Thanks for the pleasure of your letter. I am just out of the hospital and practically of one piece again. In the last four weeks the obnoxious piece of colon was removed, the hole in the bladder was sewn up, and the colostomy was closed and sewn up. The doctors swear that I am as good as new. Let’s hope that at least the technical line of our civilization is working. But it will take at least a month until the various wounds have healed completely and the corresponding discomforts have disappeared. At present I have the feeling that the skin over the abdomen is too short for my length. 9. “Journalism and Joachim’s Children,” Time Magazine 61 (1953): 57–61; Hans Kohn, review of The New Science of Politics, by Eric Voegelin, The Nation 176 (January 17, 1953): 57.
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That is a lot of coincidence that a whole batch of former Viennese show up in Seattle. I know Steiner quite well; and I knew that he was in America, but not exactly where. The translation of Valéry’s Semiramis I did in the spring of 1938, after I was fired by the Nazis, and had to twiddle my thumbs until the emigration was prepared. It was an unforgettable period. I saw Steiner in Zurich in June 1938; but he did not care about the Semiramis because, after all, it is one of Valéry’s minor works. But Steiner need not worry about the MS; I have saved a copy. —Weisskopf, the physicist[,] I do not remember ever having met; but his brother, the lawyer, was a good friend, and still is. Unfortunately his position in Roosevelt College is precarious and unsatisfactory. He is principally a psychologist and economist now. The article in Time was quite a surprise. The general malaise must be profounder than I thought it is, or nobody would pay attention to the book. I appreciate the splurge because of its nuisance value; all the fakes in the profession who never would read a work of theory get it crammed down their throats by such an article; and if they don’t read the book, at least they have to be aware of its existence. But there is a special reason why I write today. I just received an offer for a short summer-school period, in the first half of July, at the University of Southern California; I think the confirmation will come through in a few days. And I wondered whether at that time you will be somewhere in the vicinity, Los Angeles or San Francisco, as sometimes in the past you were in summer. It would be nice if we could meet again. But I doubt that we could come all the way up to Seattle. We are sorry to hear about Ruth’s troubles and hope they will be relieved soon. Lissy by the way is in a similar predicament; and probably will have an operation in August. All good wishes to you and the family from both of us, Cordially yours, <Eric>
44. [Postcard] [OH] Cortland, New York, June 30, 1953 Dear Lissie and Eric—We had been on Canal Street just one week and four hours when we took off at 5:30 a.m. last Friday, after a most pleasant week. The Gulf man had come & killed the Deerfield [?], & we tried to cut off everything 10. Walter A. Weisskopf.
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else. Bob Harris was to get keys & also to nursemaid a batch of laundry chastely reposing in front room. In the kitchen you will find remnants of undrunk beer & coca cola which you may wish only to contribute to garbage. In lower part of kitchen corner cabinet should be found a more presentable potable. —Heat waves follow us around the country, even when we are now out of the nostalgia belt. —We’ll add later to this note from en route (at my mother’s in Easton, Pa.), but let me charge you now to report any damages, etc., in your house. We used the various cooling machines—how good they are!—very freely. We can think of no more perilous and forbearing business than turning your fine house [over] to three west coasters for a week. We are much in your debt. Robert [Down the left:] We hope to hear about your own transcontinental travels, and we would love to have EV’s Travels in Southern California.
45. Baton Rouge, July 17, 1953 Dear Robert: Thanks for your two post-cards, duly received. It was a pity we could not get together. And it is all the more a pity, because I could not elicit much either from Bob Harris or Rudolph Heberle. According to their accounts you seem to be well satisfied, on the whole, with Seattle, though there are the inevitable troubles that beset an administrator wherever he is situated. Unfortunately, nobody could tell me, what interests me quite a bit, how your Othello studies are progressing—apparently you did not divulge the secret. We also could learn very little about Pete, except that he is tall—which certainly is pleasant to be but not all-important. The trip to California was pleasant in every respect. Above all I got some money that permitted me to reduce my mortgage substantially. The lectures, furthermore, were quite a success; and I received an urgent inquiry whether I could not come there for a year, or at least a semester. The sojourn itself was most agreeable, in one of those very elegant, new girls’ dormitories; and a further pleasantness was the fact that I was refused a bill even for Lissy—so we had free room and board for two weeks. Los Angeles itself is a ghastly place, but the surroundings are beautiful. We saw several of the Missions—Santa Barbara, San Juan Capistrano, San Luis Rey—which I take it, you know quite well from your 11. Voegelin taught a course with Frank H. Knight and Ludwig von Mises, “Theory of the Capitalist Economy,” at the University of Southern California, June–July 1953; see Eric Voegelin Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, box 90, folder 11.
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own summer-schools in the region. Overwhelming was the botanical garden of the Huntington Library. Beverly Hills, on the other hand, was rather an apocalyptic spectacle. There you can really see the end of our world—miles and miles of expensive pig-sties for the swine who destroy our civilization; one can compare the horror only to such places as Buchenwald. On the way back we saw Las Vegas, because everybody admonished us that one must see it. Well, in a sense that was true—it is a shabby place, full of shabby people, engaged in shabby activities—truly on a mass-scale. No shred of elegance or glamour. It is the perfect illustration of the British Laborite’s quip that ours is a civilization where the income of entirely too many people is higher than their moral stature. But at least nature is not yet completely destroyed—the desert was hot but most impressive. And in Arizona, in Williams, at the height of 6700 ft., we found a delightfully cool place to stay for several days. In recent weeks I had two letters from [Marshall] McLuhan. Rather touching—because apparently he too has found out about the all-pervasive Gnosis in literature, and runs into the difficulty that the vast majority of his colleagues does not care in the least about his discovery. He seems to be rather isolated; and has not yet adjusted himself to the consequences of being more intelligent than other people. He wails about the twenty years of his life that he has wasted in the pursuit of wrong ideas. I must write him a comforting letter that he is not the only one to whom it happens; and that a life is not wasted if one sees the light in the end. Thanks for the generous stocking of our “cellar.” Especially the array of cans in the refrigerator was overwhelming. When I find a deplorable end as a beertippler, you know whom to blame. Today we tasted the excellent claret, remembering you and Ruth. With all good wishes for a pleasant summer, Yours cordially, <Eric>
46. Baton Rouge, December 29, 1953 Dear Bob: Thanks for your wonderful X-mas gift. These candies are really excellent. I am not so sure that I should eat them considering my girth, but I eat them anyway. 12. These letters may be found in the Eric Voegelin Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, box 25, folder 3.
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A somewhat handicapped year is drawing to its end. Just before Christmas I had my fourth, and it seems last, operation this year. And I am still in the process of recovering. But in a month or so, this also will, we hope, belong to the past. Meanwhile new disturbances have occurred, as you may know already from a letter of Lissy to Ruth, insofar as Bob Harris is leaving us for Vanderbilt with the end of this academic year. It is a rather unfortunate affair in every respect. The crisis has been broiling for more than a year, when Bob expected a salary raise of $200 as promised (or as he believed it to be promised) and did not get it. Considering the agreement, I have the impression that the administration acted foolishly on the occasion, though they had arguments on their side. But now, I think, Bob is acting foolishly when, in the spirit of a hillbilly vendetta, he is coming back at them, by accepting the first offer that he can obtain. The department in Vanderbilt, as of now, is a sorry establishment. There is a chairman by the name of [Avery] Leiserson, so fanatical a positivist that he will not even discuss a theoretical issue; then there is a man in international relations by the name of [D. F.] Fleming, who reminds me of nothing so much as a wooden Indian; and then they have there a genial creature, by the name of [H. C.] Nixon, who writes folksy political studies about “Old Possum,” a sort of backwoods Tennessee village of his imaginative creation. Bob has great hopes that the Department will greatly improve in the future, when Fleming and Nixon will disappear through retirement in the course of the next four to eight years. But if I estimate Leiserson rightly, Bob will be in for a big surprise; there will be rather a new paradise for rigorous method and similar claptrap. The salary also seems to be unattractive—and from Bob’s reticence on the point I gather that he will get less than he gets here, and has it made up by a research grant of $700 for studies in the summer, which means that he cannot teach summer-school and thereby occasionally increase his income. —And then there is of course a personal point. At the moment Bob pretends he would have [a] wonderful opportunity in Vanderbilt at last to come around to his own work, being free of the chairmanship and having only six hours to teach in the field of constitutional law. Well, I doubt that much will come of it. He could have had the same opportunity here. When he started talking in that vein last year, I offered to take over the headship for two years, so that he would be free for his own work, though that would have been quite a sacrifice to me; and now, when the Vanderbilt affair broke, I offered it again, and the Dean supported it, but he does not want that solution. I rather think that the move now will supply him with an excuse for the next two years that he could not finish the case-book in constitutional law on which he is working. Then, perhaps, he will finish it after
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all in another two years. And then he will be stuck—for these administrative affairs, which now he pretends to detest, are just what he can do best and likes to do; and I shall believe in the grandiose work that he will do in the future as soon as I see it done. In brief: he worked himself up emotionally and got himself into a mess. It is a mess for me, too. For most probably, whatever the final solution will be, I shall have to take over the headship at least for a year. And you know how I like such things. Otherwise, things are perking up a bit. The terrible history shows signs of coming to an end. It will now be entitled Order and Symbols. The first volume[,] Myth, History, and Philosophy[,] is supposed to be finished by March, and will come out about next October. The second and third volumes will be finished at distances of about a year-and-a-half. The first volume goes down to c. 300 B.C. At present I am still working on the section on Israel, that will run into about 300 pages MS. The New Science of Politics sold well. The Chicago Press is preparing a reprint. The oddest things happen. I should never have thought that a strictly theoretical work of this kind would sell at all beyond library copies. I wonder what sort of people buy the book. But unfortunately there is no way of finding out. <With all good wishes for a Happy New Year to you and the family. Sincerely yours, <Eric> <E.>
47. [Seattle,] January 20, 1954 Dear Eric, Ever since Christmas I’ve been intending to write and report to you on my first day’s train-reading on the trip to our annual guild meeting at Chicago, reading which consisted largely of your essay on the origins of scientism, which I realized I had never digested, and your essay on Homer, which had come just recently, with another kind inscription. I wish I were capable of following decently the solid center of the scientism essay—Newton on space, Berkeley’s criticism, and Leibniz’s analyses—but at least I felt at home in and happy with what
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surrounded the center, namely, the introduction with its tripartite definition of the scientistic creed, and the follow-up of the center, the “appraisal of the results of our analysis.” What a compact and rich summary of results that is, and with the sharp remarks constantly pointing out what the results mean. That is a fine stroke to reduce the world of science-and-power to magic; by now you must have received many a complaint, and I anticipate disturbing some people with the discreet circulation of this. “Spiritual eunuch” is a lovely term, and I hope it has caught on and will catch on more—if only the right people, what few of them there are in USA, will get hold of this. I like the neat balance of your “theoretical dilettantism” sentence at the top of 493. The Homer essay was sheer excitement all through—as literary criticism the work of a master, yet deftly managing the literary criticism as subordinate to other matters (I would be wrong not to mention the pleasure of being mentioned in this essay; one does not often get mentioned in such good circles). I was tickled by your identifying of major structural parallels—especially that of the wrath of Achilles to the Trojan War as a whole. Then there is the elaborate analysis of the Achillean character, in reading which I thought constantly of that essay of Edmund Wilson (I suggest no parallels but a rough resemblance in sense of character) on Philoctetes in which he works from the wound of Philoctetes to the general idea of the apparent indissolubility of the great ability and the special disability, a concept which he is however applying mainly to artists. Also I kept getting ideas for use on Othello: for instance, the first four lines on p. 494 very exactly describe the activity of Iago and its impact on the Othello world; it is just what I have been trying to fumble my way toward. I keep thinking, also, of cholos as having some utility as a generic term for major disorders of character that one finds in major English writers, even in such a refined form, for instance, as in George Eliot’s Adam Bede. But most of all, what can be learned from the Homeric picture of civilizational decline? Throughout the various passages in which you speak of the business of making the gods responsible for evil I kept being reminded of the American (so far as I know) invention of “naturalistic tragedy” (well, not so American either; Hardy in part practiced this sort of thing), in which the basic theory is that whatever disasters overcome man, they are all to be blamed on forces beyond his control. As Albert Guérard remarked, approximately, this is not pessimism, this is sentimental optimism, 13. Voegelin, “The World of Homer,” Review of Politics 15 (1953): 491–523. 14. Edmund Wilson, “The Wound and the Bow,” New Republic 104 (1941): 548–51, 554–55. It is reprinted in revised form in Edmund Wilson, The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature, (Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1941).
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for it says that man is “good enough.” I think, as far as the literary evidence goes, we run into two such extreme views of man which are either disruptive of order or symbolic of an existent disruption—namely this view of naturalistic tragedy that man is good enough, or the counter-view which has some popularity nowadays that man is exclusively a son of a bitch. Either view is conveniently easy. Could you possibly let me have three or four additional copies of each of these? Our Homer man is already interested in the Homer essay, and I want also to drop one on the desk of [Frederick M.] Combellack at Oregon, who has somehow got the name of being a leading American Homerist. The scientism essay I wish to use on people who will profit by it and on those who will suffer from it, notably our philosophy department, who are as scientistic as can be. Here I must tell you a wonderful joke. Each year the philosophy dept has a visiting professor; this year, sight unseen and without too much of a look, they engaged as visitor a historian of science who had once been an MD, and who on both grounds they assumed (I know) would be safe company for secular gentlemen. Well, when he got here he turned out to be a Papist, and from the start he has been belaboring them for their philosophical provincialism and juvenility, and they are so displeased they don’t even invite him to cocktail parties. The gentleman happens to be Alistair Crombie, who has just transferred from Cambridge to Oxford. Do you know of his work? For some reason we seem to find something in common and have been lunching together occasionally; in fact, Ruth and I manage to get on with both of them, if only because we seem to be less bothered than most by their British addiction to running down everything American with some zest, completeness, and continuity. Anyway, Alistair has been belaboring me to write you for a reprint of the scientism essay—a task in which I am delighted to be middleman. The other day we were talking about his necessary public lectures here, which he is going to do on the theme of science and the anti-theological tradition and by which I gather he intends to annoy the northwest liberals as deeply as he can. I’ll be most grateful if you can let me have additional offprints. That is fine news that The New Science is going like hotcakes. (Incidentally, I hope you eventually got the letter in which I recorded my novice’s enthusiasm for that work). I have been plugging it to people whom I have occasion to write to and who I thought might profit by it, and I will continue to do so. This is just a little subversive activity of mine. Your year of operations has been unbearable, I should think, but you bear it, work without diminuendo, turn out articles of unperturbed brilliance, and all
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the time work at the big book. I am delighted that October is the scheduled publication date. And in addition to everything else, you are willing to try administration! Yet (as we Pa. Dutch say). I am glad to have the Harris story but sad that it is what it is. The channels of gossip had indicated that he really had a hot offer, the sort of thing he had been looking for, and all that. It is too bad that he is only in a bad temper, hasn’t even got a very good offer, and is going to a dept in which—after he has known you—he cannot be intellectually happy. And as far as I have known, he is a rather good administrator, or at least he gets by at it; and anyway, he enjoys it, so that he will miss it badly. Insofar as I still identify myself with the segment of LSU that will be sorry to see Bob go, I feel as sorry as if I too were being deprived of a good colleague. At the risk of seeming pompous, I will take a paragraph to answer your p.s. inquiry about a Boyd professorship. It is flattering to have the inquiry made, and in ways I wish I could say yes. But I am not ready to say yes, though I should not be surprised if later I did decide I was ready (doubtless too late). This is simply a matter of incomplete self-knowledge, with which I fear you will have no patience. I apparently can do administration all right at this level; there are some satisfactions in it; and at least at present I am not sure that leaving it would also leave a gap which I might find myself not very apt at filling. This doubt reflects some reduction of the confidence which I once had in both my teaching and my writing; I have had some unhappy moments about both. I suppose what I am trying to do is a little of everything so that if any one thing doesn’t go very well, there is always something else to fall back on. Maybe a kind of security neurosis. I hope I will some time get a little more clarity about these matters, for I do not enjoy feeling somewhat blind. Once the purely personal issue was cleared up, there would be some external problems—but relatively easy ones. Though one is not so easy: when will Voegelin leave LSU? If you are not patient with the content of the explanation, I hope you will be patient with the fact of the explanation, in which I felt I owe you as much candor and completeness as I am capable of. But I would rather have this personal comment remain between us. I am enclosing a couple of mild reprints, if only to show I am “keeping a hand in.” Don’t bother to say anything about them. Ruth wrote Lissie a week or so ago, so I will not go further on the gossip side, much fun as it is. I hope that your post-operative life is a comfortable one, and more than that, that it is really post-operative. With my best wishes to both of you,
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<We’ve had a foot of snow during the last week. Very unusual & very delightful, really. We’ve even broken down my resistance and bought chains.>
48. Baton Rouge, February 9, 1954 Dear Bob: Many thanks for your long letter, as well as for the two reprints. It is certainly a matter of great regret to us that you roundly refuse even to consider the possibility of coming back here—though this possibility up to now is no more than an idea thrown in a conversation with the Dean. Your reasons are clear to me, in the sense of clarity of expression, but the professed “confidence” crisis is not clear to me at all with regard to its basis in reality. Look at your “Alcestis and The Cocktail Party”—what else, for heaven’s sake, do you want by way of achievement as a literary critic? Or look at the incidental remark in your letter: “This view of naturalistic tragedy that man is good enough, or the counter-view . . . that man is exclusively a son of a bitch.” There you have formulated the two halves of Calvinism and Pelagianism into which in America the wholeness of man has fallen apart. Don’t mope—sit down and dash off a two-hundred page essay on contemporary American literature under this aspect (without any additional reading, just on the basis of the broad knowledge you already have) and become famous! The “Alcestis” touched me very much—for it seems that we are moving in our respective spheres of interest toward the same problems of tragedy and death. Needless to say that I had never thought of a connection between The Cocktail Party and Alcestis. Your careful analysis of the parallels, and of the subtle transformation of the pagan tragedy into a Christian problem, as you certainly must know, is exactly the same problem on which I have been working for a long while—only in the aesthetically less satisfactory medium of the political myth. And I am glad that, in return, you find assonances to Othello in the cholos of Achilles, as certainly there are. And now I have a sorrow of my own. It is connected with the “Homer” article. I sent it to a friend in England, a woman, for whose literary taste I have greatest respect. In a recent letter she writes among other things: “The only quarrel I have with you is about the tone in which you write. Why are you so contemptuous and derisive about Homer’s heroes? In all their 15. Heilman, “Alcestis and The Cocktail Party,” Comparative Literature 5 (1953): 105–16. 16. Elizabeth de Waal was a friend of Voegelin from the days in Vienna.
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human frailty, shortcomings, and even moral turpitude, they and their surroundings are surely clad in the dignity of great poetry, and do not deserve to be spoken of like a gang of bandits or the inmates of a thieves’ kitchen. You call Achilles ‘a healthy specimen,’ as if he were a dog or a head of cattle; Priam ‘the royal gentleman,’ as if he figured in a musical comedy farce; Penelope’s suitors are constantly referred to as ‘rotters,’ as if they were members of a gang of thugs. By this contemptuous and, if I may say so, inappropriate language,—of which I have given only a few instances that have stuck in my mind but which prevails throughout the essay—, I feel that you do less justice to your theme, and you debase Homer to the level of one of the less reputable popular newspapers. . . . I would wish many readers for your most significant ideas, and I wish these readers to enjoy them, without that feeling of distaste and slight sickness caused by the slangy expressions in which they are presented. But then, perhaps Americans like that sort of language; I’m afraid we don’t over here.”
In order to savor the last sentence of the criticism, you must know that the lady is from Vienna, too. We went to school together—and now we are the original Britishers and Americans. Well, you can imagine that I am somewhat dismayed by this judgment, especially since I recognize its justice in many points. In the revision, in which I am engaged at present, all such expressions will disappear, if I catch them. But the matter of the “tone” in general is more delicate—changes on this count would imply major re-writings in a more refined style to which at the moment I am not inclined, because I am not convinced that a shot of “realism” in handling political topics is out of style. With all respect for the golden veil of his verse which Homer throws around his characters, the suitors are a gang of thugs recruited from the island nobility, and Priam has indeed a touch of a musical comedy king who ruins his city because he does not want to miss the probably hip-swinging Helen as a daughter-in-law. I am afraid there is something contemptible about quite a few of the Homeric characters—that contemptibility which causes the destruction of Mycenaean civilization. And I must take into account that a man like Herodotus assumed that Helen never was in Troy (but got stranded in Egypt) because, if she had been, the government would certainly have returned her and not let the city go to ruin. The Trojan war, in his opinion, was a mistake because the Achaeans did not believe that Helen just was not there. The idea that she was there and not returned would imply a contemptibility of conduct, which must be considered flatly impossible by the standards of Herodotean rationality. As you see, I am in a quandary. If there is a serious objection to the manner of
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my presentation, I must of course repair it—for the section on Homer is too important to be neglected. Hence I should like to have your opinion in the matter, too. When you read the article, did you experience “that feeling of distaste and slight sickness” as did the lady? In your generous praise in your letter, did you perhaps suppress it out of misguided politeness? Or are you too American to feel it? You would oblige me greatly, if you would let me know what you think of the matter; and what you would advise in the question how far I should go in eliminating the slangy tone. You want more copies of the article, for strategic placement. I am afraid, two is all I can spare—the reprints are running out, and I need the few remaining still for a number of classical philologists in Europe. The reprints on “Scientism” are all gone; not a single one is left. Your association with Alistair Crombie must be delightful—unfortunately I do not know him, though from your account he looks very much worth knowing. Could he not be palmed off on [Peter A.] Carmichael in view of his antecedents? On his way back to England he might well deliver a lecture here. The Harris affair is running its inevitable course. We have been canvassing the possibilities of replacement and found three desirable characters. The first is seriously considering to come, if he can expand the research in administration; the second wants to come right away with his wife in order to look things over because he is so eager; and the third does not want even to look [us] over—we just have to ask him and he will come tearing down for the job (incidentally he is the most desirable of the three). Such readiness to take a job which he is quitting in disgust, does not quite please our friend Bob. Besides, the enrollment is picking up this semester, as we expected it to do sooner or later considering the population increase, and such budding prosperity also somewhat dampens the joy of being the center of attention. Postscript on Alcestis before it is too post: The article is lying beside me, and I was just thumbing it through again. Some of your observations are really exciting, especially the pages on mediocrity as the source of excessive love for life. This does not quite fit the case of Achilles—there are perhaps still other states of emotion which may have the same result, but it definitely is applicable as a “mass” motive in the explanation of certain contemporary phenomena. I just was considering that perhaps not only a new love is a new life, but also a new refrigerator, or car, or dress, nothing to say of mink coats, which are so important 17. Peter A. Carmichael was professor and head of the philosophy department, Louisiana State University.
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in politics to have. That passage from The Cocktail Party which you quote on p. 113, I am sure, will some day appear in one of my sections on modern ideologues in politics. <With all good wishes, Yours Cordially, Eric>
49. [Seattle,] February 19, 1954 Dear Eric, I have re-read the Homer entirely, with the primary attention of “listening” for the style, and with the actual result of again getting so engrossed in the sequence of interpretation and of thoughts relied upon for the interpretation, that I had constantly to make a conscious effort to pull myself back into the quest for vulgarities. Surely the preceding unplanned statement of my experience as a reader should in part answer your inquiry, if, that is, my judgment of the style is at all dependable. I must dissent strongly from the lady’s judgment—in the first place on grounds of her own principle. Whatever these Homeric characters are, the fact that they are “clad in the dignity of great poetry,” however it may complicate the experience of them which we have while we are face to face with the verbal presentation of them, does not alter their essential being, which it is the business of the critic to define in the terms most adequate to his conception of them. Secondly, I find her argument undermined by her concluding phrase, which irritates me considerably—“perhaps Americans, etc . . . we don’t over here.” I must consider that as not an adequate differentiation of lower and high genres of expressive modes (and let me insist that I am very much less sensitive than most Americans—in fact, almost insensitive—to European condescension to America, for I find that I can often learn from it, learn both about the subject matter and about the speaker), but a pure piece of inadvertent snobbery, and, I suspect, an inadequate reading of good British taste. But more is at stake than the two formal arguments she makes; worse than her error there, is a basic critical error which she makes without knowing it—namely the error of failing to sense the tone of the whole and therefore of giving undue weight to the tonal impact of isolated passages. Now your general tone is a product of your basic critical positions and of the general vocabulary in which those positions are 18. T. S. Eliot, “The Cocktail Party,” in The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909–1950 (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1952). In act 2, on page 348, Reilly attributes much of the hurt committed in the world to self-absorbed people struggling to feel important about themselves.
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embodied: and that tone is the tone of a very learned man, a man of wisdom and of subtlety of insight; and the basic vocabulary is a learned and technical one somewhat modified by the intention to become accessible to a public of mature powers of comprehension. There is another modifying influence: that of the particular zest of what I may loosely call the devot [sic], here intent not only upon a thorough examination of the literary mound but upon the judgment of it in conformity with standards which are not the prevalent ones of his day. If he were a modernist debunker, the problem would be different (at home, after interruptions) for a systematic and principled belittling might reasonably evoke some protest. But there is no belittling of Homer, and the belittling of Homeric characters is not a belittling of them as such, or vis-à-vis other mythic characters, but an endeavor to get into proper perspective some archetypal human beings whose essence he has been great enough to capture. You cannot “debase” Homer by using the appropriate terms for the characters; you can debase him only by having a fundamental lack of respect for his insight, whereas the final point of the essay is that his insight has been so magnificent in spite of his lack of adequate conceptual apparatus. She has put her finger on the wrong thing; she seems to want an essay on Homer to sound like those 19th century English translations of Homer which in their pseudo–King James Version aloofness did their best to kill Homer off entirely. Her conception of dignity is false. In fact, I should think that a literal following of her advice would have the effect of eliminating a certain kind of stylistic vitality (I do not mean stylistic vitality generally, but only one source of it) which seems to me to enrich the thing as a whole: it seems to me that the effect of the stylistic matters in question is to add the imagination of the metaphorist to the imagination of the philosophic historian, and thus to add to a theoretical account a dimension of concreteness; the analogies universalize; the characters are contemporanized (ugh!) without being unhomericized. As you may guess (with an effort), I had no “distaste and slight sickness”; my only indisposition is a pain in the neck caused by reading the lady’s paragraph. You know, in a way there’s something singularly American about her “reaction”: it is that there are in the world certain things which let us say belong to “culture” or are “sacred” and therefore must always be spoken of solemnly (as distinguished from seriously, for seriousness can accommodate various comic modes), with utmost formality (usually a false formality), high church, Fourth of July oration. In her paragraph she never once defines affirmatively the Homeric reality to which she thinks you do an injustice; she doesn’t know what it is; she only
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knows what it isn’t, which is what to you it is. Anyway, as I re-read the essay I tried to keep my mind on kinds of words that I thought her kind of sensibility might object to; in some 30 pp I could find only 7 words or phrases; each one I looked at doubly, and each one I formally decided was unexceptionable. I will not even tell you what these are, for I don’t want you worrying about them; and I will have nothing to do with fixing these passages up in terms of stylistic preconceptions which, at least as they are set before me, appear untenable. But just to show I am trying to be an honest man I will suggest three minor repairs: p. 510, line 3 from bottom — for should be read are to be 513, line 7 " " — for should be read is to be or may be 492, " 7 " " — “lady of the house” perhaps ambiguous because house, from numerous phrases like “house of ill fame,” etc. can just possibly be misread. How about “hostess” or “host’s wife”? But at best this point is negligible.
Now for one matter of concern of my own. I am most distressed that my letter was so couched that it is possible for you to say that I “so roundly refuse even to consider the possibility of coming back here.” Since this was the last thing I wanted to say, I may perhaps be the most untrustworthy judge of style. What I intended to say was this: 1. I have thought very seriously about the possibility. 2. Though it is entirely possible that I may at some time positively desire to return, I have not yet reached that point; I still remain genuinely uncertain. 3. As long as there is any uncertainty at all in my own feelings, I cannot encourage the making of an offer; conversely, one can sanction an effort to evoke an offer only when one knows without doubt that he will accept it if it is made. 4. This is a matter of technical propriety; as an “administrator” (forgive me) who knows the rules of the game, I would be regarded as dishonest if I permitted a private uncertainty to project itself into a negotiatory uncertainty, since if the uncertainty were eventually to result in a negative decision, the only possible interpretation to an outside observer would be that I had simply encouraged the offer to “use” to my own advantage here. Does this restatement mitigate in any way an original statement which I fear must have sounded ungrateful or even rude? (Incidentally, I will not contend that uncertainty is a virtue; it may be a symptom of serious immaturity; but it is a fact.) I cannot bear the thought that when you, of all people, seemed to hold a door open, I seemed to slam it in your face. Yes, I fear I was “moping.” That sort of thing should not be done in public. It is a kind of neo-pharisaism—bringing out handkerchiefs on street corners.
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The two copies of Homer went respectively to John [B.] McDiarmid, the classics man here, and Frederick Combellack, the Grecianist at Oregon. If they do not respond with delight, the classics situation is worse than I should have supposed. I kept wishing for your presence the other night at a meeting of a discussion club at which a young zoologist took off against religion (the inadequate geology of Genesis, etc.) and thereby called forth a happy argument in which the brethren all slipped back into undergraduate bull session days. As you will gather, the liberators from tyranny had a field day, with only a skeptical psychologist, a refugee geologist, and I attempting to argue that “religion” means something serious which is not dependent for its validity upon the historicity of the Old Testament. I found myself trying to define religion as a symbolic system of ultimate truths which are undemonstrable but which command total loyalty; suggesting that different systems have greater or less depth and inclusiveness, that secular systems seemed to me to exclude too much, that such systems were pretty likely to evaporate outside of institutional organizations but that such organizations might decay. You will detect my customary conceptual poverty. Since the group are predominantly violent liberals, I had a rather good time raising my eyebrows at the dogmatism of the scientific anti-religionists and asserting that as a “true liberal” I felt bound to entertain the possibility that God may exist. But I wished I had a handful of “The Origins of Scientism” to circulate. The other day I was visited by one [Elling] Aannestad doing legwork for Dean Rusk of Rockefeller, who has the interesting idea that perhaps the Foundation has not been doing enough for “spiritual matters.” I expressed doubt as to whether there was very much the Foundation could buy in this respect. But I suggested your name to him, thinking that if you got him in the office, you might be able to nick him for something which would be of more service than anything else they are likely to buy. Ruth’s mother is with us for a while. In March she is going to fly herself and Ruth to Hawaii for a week. I am very glad that Ruth will get the trip. With all best wishes 19. Elling Aannestad worked as a consultant for the Rockefeller Foundation in 1951–1954.
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50. Baton Rouge, February 24, 1954 Dear Bob: I hasten to thank you for your letter—with a pang of conscience in view of the pains which you have taken to go to the bottom of the matter. Not only have you assuaged my worries (and I must confess, I was really worried), but you have also given a brilliant exposition of standards of criticism to be applied to a case of this kind. And for this I am really grateful. Lissy wants me to tell you that, in her less articulate fashion, she has agreed with you all the time. As a matter of fact, she was quite indignant about the lady’s opinion, and not worried at all. And she attributed the criticism to the critic’s “stuffiness” and “pompousness” caused by her being “society” and indeed highchurch as you have guessed (one of her sons has become an Anglican minister). And let me especially thank you for the criticisms with regard to the use of the subjunctive. I make this mistake still quite frequently. And I hope I can eliminate such phrases, as well as the abundance of semicolons. Your debate on the geology of the Bible, as an argument against religion, must have been quite something. I certainly would have enjoyed it, especially since I am now occupied with the Bible for a long time and have to disentangle the structure of the narrative. (I am afraid somebody will take exception to my “vulgar” treatment of such characters as David.) Your mentioning of Aannestad interested me for several reasons. The Rockefeller Foundation is indeed trying to do something for the long neglected “historical and intellectual” studies. They are now giving fellowships and they have asked me to recommend persons whom I considered fit. But as you guessed, there is little competition. I could not find more than one good young man to recommend. I suspect, furthermore, that the sudden zeal has something to do with the Reece Committee and its investigation of tax-exempt foundations. For at the same time (in December) when I received the letter of the Rockefeller Foundation, I also received a letter from the Reece Committee, asking my opinion about the policy of the foundations in granting fellowships predominantly for quantitative studies. A lovely correspondence developed, of which I had made copies. I am sending you a set for your enjoyment. Certainly, when Aannestad should show up here, I shall have to say a few words to him. 20. The Reece Committee was the “Special Committee to Investigate and Study Educational and Philanthropic Foundations and Other Comparable Organizations Which Are Exempt from Federal Taxation.” In the Eighty-third Congress it was chaired by B. Carroll Reece (Rep.) from Tennessee. See Appendix C for this correspondence.
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I’ll see what I can do with Carmichael. Perhaps I can approach the other member of the Department. For C. is not on speaking-terms with me—and I do not want to exasperate him by grinning at his embarrassment when I talk to him. All good luck and wishes to Ruth for the trip to Hawaii. And fervent thanks for your help. Yours cordially, <Eric> [Up left margin:] <E. V.>
51. Baton Rouge, March 1, 1954 Dear Robert: Thanks for your note of February 23, and the letter by Combellack, which I return herewith. There is nothing surprising about C.’s response. That is how most classical philologists would feel. From [Carl Joachim] Friedrich in Harvard I had a note, suggesting that I was at variance with “established scholarship” in the interpretation of Homer. I had suspected that much, but he seems to consider it an argument. But isn’t it nice anyway to have written a “welcome addition”? <Sincerely yours, Eric>
52. [Seattle,] March 10, 1954 Dear Eric, I’m very glad if my comments helped dissipate any anxiety of yours about the effect of your style, and I feel the more sure about what I said now that I know that Lissy and I had the same idea. 21. Frederick M. Combellack, the Grecianist at Oregon, had written to Heilman responding to Voegelin’s article on Homer: “I have read it with much interest and pleasure. Some of his views seem to me, I am afraid, more than a little unlikely. His suggestion, for instance, that ‘the author of the epic is engaged in a subtle polemic against the morality of several of his figures; and this polemic quite probably is also directed against his social environment that would sympathize with the figures of the epic,’ really makes Homer a kind of pre-Classical Euripides, and I feel quite sure he was not. Also, I doubt very much that Homer felt that he was dealing with the problem of the breakdown of Mycenaean civilization. But for all that, Voegelin’s paper is a welcome addition to contemporary Homerica.” This letter was enclosed to Voegelin in Letter 49.
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The correspondence with Ettinger, and especially that part of it which never got to him, the “Draft,” are very interesting, and I am pleased to be able to read them. I am not sending them back now because I would like permission to show them—or only the “Draft,” if that is desirable—to one or two colleagues. Not that I have any great hope of converting anybody, but I’m always for trying, if only by doing a little needling wherever possible. If you feel that everything that you sent me is too much confidential to be shown at all, please don’t hesitate to say so. I will of course not do anything until I hear from you. The only thing in this that puzzles me is Ettinger’s original letter to you. Maybe I’m unjust, but I sense something fishy there. As a presumably “objective” investigator, he has his mind all made up before he starts, and he is none too subtle or delicate about setting forth a point of view (this seems to me to be true regardless of how much one agrees with the point of view). The fact that he is so un-reserved makes me wonder at the least about his tact, a little about his own convictions, and still more about his strategy: is it a letter meant for a particular recipient, and designed to elicit a certain point of view? Maybe this is reading too much into it; I’m not sure; it is possible that the only explanation is that he is really very bright but very young and therefore unaware of how his candor will look. Although it is too bad that he and the committee cannot be subjected to your fine analysis, I find myself thinking that you were very wise in answering him only as, and to the extent that, you did. Two mentions of you here lately. Talking to a book man who was setting forth his interest in getting solid studies of all kinds for his company (Random House), I said that when he got around to LSU again he should see you. He of course knew of you but professed to think you a very difficult writer. It turned out he had got this from Tommy Cook. In fact, Tommy had shown this book man his copy of the New Science, and as the book man put it to me, “The margins are all full of exclamations and question marks.” I think you will enjoy this evidence of the Cook mind. The second mention came at an evening party at Crombie’s, where the guest of honor was Erich Heller of the University of Wales (a Sudeten who was I believe at Cambridge before going to Wales). In some appropriate context I mentioned your name, and it turned out that Heller is reviewing the New Science (for an English journal, I believe; the name escapes me). Heller says, “A very brilliant and learned man, but entirely wrong. Nevertheless you would rather be wrong with him than right with lesser people.” Heller is a professor of literature and was here to lecture on modern poetry (I missed it on account of being loaded with sulfa for an infected throat; the philistine account was that it was a hard lecture; and the press account of it was incomprehensible); but apparently he also doubles in political theory. He seems
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fantastically well acquainted in the literary world, and can also retail stories of his conversations with Greta Garbo. Ruth says he is a very beautiful man. Do you know him or of him? Enough for now. With best wishes to both of you, <Sincerely, Bob>
53. [Baton Rouge,] March 14, 1954 Dear Robert: Thanks for your letter of March 10. I certainly have no objections to anybody reading the “Draft” letter, though it would perhaps be better not to show the rest of the correspondence. Even if people are decent and rational, they sometimes blab; and I do not care to receive an angry letter from Mr. Ettinger that I have suppressed, as he has learned, important evidence that I had been able to furnish. Hence, choose with discretion. —The case of Mr. Ettinger himself certainly is interesting. I know him personally, insofar as one can say that of a man whom one has met twice at a meeting of a professional association (I doubt I would recognize him unless he were brought to my attention). Perhaps he formed the opinion that he could get some fireworks from me; and that would explain the somewhat subjective tone of the letter that takes a good deal for granted. But otherwise, I am afraid, I have not puzzled why I came by the honor at all to be addressed by him. In the meantime he has answered, somewhat miffed by my skepticism with regard to the value of his activities; and that seems to be the end of the correspondence. The Director of the Rockefeller Foundation, on the other hand, thanked me warmly and urged me to let him know the next time I come to New York so that we can have a session on the problem. It was too complicated, he said, to be discussed by correspondence. That also is the end for the moment. I am not sure I know Erich Heller—the reason being that Heller is somewhat of a generic name in Central Europe, and I know entirely too many Hellers. It is quite possible that I know this one, too. But the reactions to my poor book certainly are becoming a nightmare. Tommy Cook wrote a review in the Johns Hopkins Review, which promptly folded up (sometime last summer). He proceeded by giving a definition of political philosophy in the first paragraph, then gave a somewhat dubious account of the contents of the book, and concluded 22. I could not locate a citation for this review. The Johns Hopkins Review does not appear to have been indexed.
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that my New Science of Politics far from being new or old, was none at all. He had no difficulty in showing it, because the definition in his opening paragraph was an instrumentalist definition, plucked from nowhere, and to be sure I did not deliver the instrumentalist goods. If you consider that by the same token neither Plato nor Aristotle, St. Augustine or St. Thomas, and so forth, have ever produced a science of politics, you sometimes wonder just whether these boys have any brains at all,—for Cook was not the only one who used this device in a review. —And now a new evil has befallen me. [Hans] Kelsen wrote me recently and told me he had spent months to study my book and had come up with a long, formidable, and annihilating criticism. Before publishing it, probably in book form, but he is not sure yet, he wants to send it to me for my comments. It will arrive soon. He has once before performed a gala massacre, more than twenty years ago, on Carl Schmitt—who happens to be probably the best political scientist alive today. Hence, I am in best company. Still, I would appreciate it, if people criticized me behind my back and sent me the thing after publication as a surprise. —From such formidable reactions I begin to conclude that I must have hit the positivists at the right spot. —But, on the other hand, there have been some very valuable comments on the book, especially from Dempf in Munich and [Gotthard] Montesi in Vienna. Our departmental crisis is nearing its end, at least I hope. An offer has been made to [Rene de Visme] Williamson in Tennessee, and there is reason to expect that he will accept within a week. But I had to become very energetic and quite angry that the offer was made, because the Department dragged on and on in looking for other people, though nobody else was available—just a feeling of selfimportance in drawing out procedure when the matter was settled by stark necessity that W. was the only one at the same time available and acceptable. Bob Harris, I regret to say, enjoyed the game of crisis and conferences and committees to the last sweet drop, until I put my foot down. Because of the coincidental pressure of other work I have actually lost six weeks working time on my History. <With all good wishes, Sincerely yours, Eric> 23. Hans Kelsen originated the Theory of Pure Law and taught Voegelin at the University of Vienna Law School. Voegelin earned his Ph.D. under the joint tutelage of Hans Kelsen and Othmar Spann.
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54. [Lissy Voegelin to Robert B. Heilman] [OH] Baton Rouge, May 30, 1955 Dear Robert: I am completely taken aback and very much touched by your note. You are asking me to speak for Eric, and in this case, I feel, I can speak with authority and say a big yes and O.K. That you should want to dedicate your Othello to him, is certainly a great honour for Eric. He will be very proud of the dedication and it will please him no end. And, quite besides and on the margin, it would make me very happy; or did you know that? Greetings and love to all of you. Yours, Lissy
55. Buck Hill Falls, Pennsylvania, June 28, 1955 [OH] Dear Bob: I must write you a line: For a week I am now in the company of Stoke. And, of course, the conversation frequently turned to you, and Ruth, and Pete. Stoke is delightful. Among all these political scientists, in a rather departmental sense, he is the only one who has a grip on reality and talks common sense. Without his presence, I should feel just a bit lost. For the rest, Stoke will tell you all about what is going on here. And I am sure you will enjoy it. Day after tomorrow I am back in New York. And on Saturday we fly to London. All good wishes to you and Ruth for the summer. Yours cordially, Eric
56. [Seattle,] December 11, 1955 Dear Eric, I will spare you a rehearsal of all the dull facts of life which keep one from a more regular personal correspondence. You’ll have to believe that we think of you constantly. I was delighted to receive from you the short note which you wrote just after the Poconos Conference in Pennsylvania in the spring; I did not try to answer it then because you were on your way abroad, and I had no way of
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knowing where to reach you. It was gratifying to know that you found Stoke shrewd and clear-sighted about what was going on at the conference; I would guess that his sharpness about such things would be much more apparent when he was a private citizen, freed from the pressures of the presidency. At any rate, here at Washington I have found him of all people the most alert to nonsense official and unofficial, and of all the people I know the one with whom I could be most consistently candid on all matters—that is, with enough imagination and personal largeness to get over the barriers usually created by inevitable differences, the sense of personal safety, and so on. His departure to NYU was a great loss to the University; he was the best of all the Deans, and the Intelligent Faculty’s favorite candidate for any higher office that might become vacant here. In a state university this appeal to the intelligentsia is not without its disadvantages; the rest of the Deans, on the whole a mediocre and self-willed bunch, came to hate Harold, and he had become very unhappy here. I will not say that the situation was entirely the fault of others. Harold is not always tactful, and he did not trouble to cover up his personal superiority, and his own firm convictions about how things ought to be done, with that indirection and air of good fellowship essential to leading the blind and the jealous. Well, aside from the loss to the University, Ruth and I miss them very much personally. I think that Persis [Stoke] was the first woman here with whom Ruth developed that sort of humorous understanding about things that she had so delightfully with Lissy. I think I wrote you fully, year before last, about the fine to-do in the Philosophy Department when that gang of aggressive naturalists hired a historian of science from Cambridge and were horrified to find out that they had brought down upon themselves an aggressive papist. He is gone, now, and they have purged the youngsters in the department who stood by him. But another irony develops: somehow the department feels that it is now fashionable at least to entertain formally other possibilities than those which they know to be true, and this quarter we have had as guest [Walter Terence] Stace of Princeton, of whom doubtless you know. He recently gave three public lectures on mysticism (memories of those long-gone days when poor old Peter Carmichael was going to put mysticism out of business) and must have stretched the hospitality of his hosts to the utmost by declaring that not only did mysticism have epistemological validity but that it alone provided a valid base for ethical systems, which failed utterly if they were grounded naturalistically. (In part, I suppose, he got away with it by avoiding a contentious vehemence and contenting himself with an air of good humored sorrow of one who knows he will be thought mad; and besides,
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[as] an amiable and gauche 7-footer who was once governor general of Ceylon or something like that, he has a kind of theatrical value which distracts attention from the repellency of his doctrines.) Well, this was a new experience at the University of Washington, which is historically above such ancient a-rationalities. He was very well received and did quite a business lecturing at the circle of large churches which by a lovely irony almost surround the University campus. Which leads me to the other matter on which I want to solicit your opinion: the thriving new ecclesiasticism and the cognate flourishing of the “new conservatism” which has led to the founding of two new journals recently—all of this constituting a notable enough phenomenon for one to want to place it. However pleasant it may be in one sense to see the doctrinaire liberals running into some quantitative opposition (and after watching what I call the “Northwest Liberals” for quite a while I enjoy such discomfiture as may accrue to them), I find myself not altogether comfortable about these new developments. Insofar as I can get any sense of it at all, the ecclesiasticism seems like a kind of fashion in joining, not very deeply grounded, and therefore likely to move into a moralistic restrictiveness in one direction, or in another into disillusion and reaction perhaps worse than the scientistic complacency which the ecclesiasticism challenges. To restate, I’m not convinced that there is any move at all toward a more profound symbolic apprehension of reality, but that we go on much the same except for taking on some protective coloring of spiritual pretentiousness. Am I way off base here? And as for the New Conservatism, what a set of bedfellows. Some local Republican realtor who is always trying to reform the Red faculty here sent us a subscription to the American Freeman, which I confess I have never read since the first few issues, which made it clear that it was simply an organ of the propertied, representing the NAM as St. George, the New Deal as the Dragon, and that sort of thing. Maybe by now they have retreated from that kind of melodrama (Pegler was one of their saints) to a more sophisticated position. Then there is Russell Kirk’s Conservative Review, which I haven’t seen yet. Although I have a copy of Kirk’s first book or manifesto, I haven’t been able to read it and so don’t know how respectable he is; judging by the violent reactions of the Liberal journals against him, he may have a little weight. But the other day I got a copy of the National Review (it went to all “subscribers” to the Freeman) and was astonished to find Kirk in it, consorting with the infamous 24. NAM is the National Association of Manufacturers; James Westbrook Pegler (1894–1969) was a controversial syndicated columnist with Scripps-Howard Syndicate and King Features Syndicate (Hearst).
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Buckley and his brother-in-law; they all carry on in a sort of red-baiting Peglerese which seems at best trivial and at worst Bricker-Republican demagoguery. And I suppose that on second thought I was not really surprised to find Willmoore Kendall enshrined in it, apparently as a regular columnist; you know my impression of Willmoore, in terms of which it is natural to find him in company that, on a basis of such information as I have (and it may be inadequate) looks very unsavory. Well, there are interesting little things in the world. At our last national meeting (Modern Language Association) I was talking to an ex-LSU student of mine who did a brilliant Ph.D. at Yale and is now assistant professor there. Under the guidance of [William K.] Wimsatt, the brilliant critic at Yale, my friend turned Catholic, in, as another acquaintance put it, “the quest for certainty.” Now this neo-Catholic, in talking to me, was clearly and unaffectedly thinking of himself as in many senses “liberal”; and he actually complained that his godfather Wimsatt, under the influence of Cleanth Brooks (a newEpiscopalian), “got reactionary.” Well, maybe in all this there is nothing but delightful contrasts flowing out of terminological vagueness: but I’d love to have you comment on such matters. Not that you should take much time to straighten out the characteristically fuzzy Heilman mind, but that mind would be grateful for any treatment it got. My Othello book is about to go from editors to printers, and will be out in May if I can get thru proof stages in time, otherwise in the fall. Is the first volume of your History coming out in 1956? I have a reference to it in the Othello and want to correct it in proof if need be. I’ll take this letter to the office to mail and hope to remember to put in a copy of the review in which I try to blast the Chicago newAristotelians, who have blasted me and all my friends at various times. Ruth is in her second year of teaching, still by no means recovered from her operation (or is it just that we are older than we know?). Pete is a freshman in the University, beginning to make the first gestures toward serious study. This fall I saw an MD for the first time in 5 years (lucky man) and found I had high blood pressure (remedy: snakeroot) and an arthritic back (remedy: heating pads). Our very best to both of you. 25. John W. Bricker (R) was a U.S. senator from Ohio. He proposed in 1953 an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would have limited the executive authority of the president in foreign affairs. The amendment fell short of the necessary two-thirds vote by one vote. 26. Heilman, review of Critics and Criticism, by R. S. Crane et al., Modern Language Notes 69 (1954): 533–37.
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Suddenly I realize that I am so out of touch with LSU that I do not even know whether you are there. You were perhaps going to return to Europe and go to Munich. What comes of this? I can’t say I’d blame you for going, but I’d hate to see you go; and your going would be a disgrace to the academic profession in this country. If you really want to go (or have gone), I can only wish you luck. <Minnesota appears to be on the verge of making eyes at me but I can’t feel very excited about it.>
57. [Baton Rouge,] December 19, 1955 Dear Bob: Your letter of Dec. 11th came just in time this morning, for I wanted to write you today anyway to thank you for the delightful review of Critics and Criticism. It had thrown me into a mood of indecision, because your refined politeness left me in doubt whether I should not read the volume, because literary criticism is after all one of my permanent occupations. But your letter determined me to shelve the ordeal, unless I receive orders from you to the contrary. Especially I was impressed by your quotation from one of the gentlemen—I had thought that sort of circumlocutory heaviness was a German privilege, and now I find to my horror that the Americans (or at least the Chicagonistai [sic]) are even better at it. What are we coming to! And that brings me to the Conservatives who have my loving attention. As far as I can understand the odd animal that goes under the name of the American political intellectual at all, nothing exciting or serious is happening. There is no philosophical understanding of political problems, for the good reason that the persons engaged in the game have never received any technical training in such matters, or acquired their knowledge auto-didactically. Probably not a single one of them has ever worried about the problem of unanalyzed concepts, or about the methods which must be used in the critical construction of a concept. I am even fairly sure that you would meet a blank stare, if you would challenge them with a question of this kind. No, I think this is just another pas in the elephantine ballet of semi-conscious rhetoric that accompanies the movement of the great republic through the vicissitudes of history. This kind of intellectualism differs from the European insofar as it is solid American evangelism and revivalism transposed into the secular key. It is related to European sophistry, from the enlightenment and conservatism of the eighteenth century to the Marxism and theologism of our time, through the use of the same ideological
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symbols, but it does not seriously overstep the conditions on which the American Republic was founded—so that the Marxists become New Dealers and the Karl Barths become Reinhold Niebuhrs. How long this somnolent concern with serious matters can <survive> under the pressures of the age is another question, but for the time being I see the American style characteristics continu[ing], as for instance in the decadic emergence of intellectual pontiffs: [H. L.] Mencken of the 20’s; Max Lerner of the 30’s; Reinhold Niebuhr of the 40’s; and now probably a Russell Kirk of the 50’s. The conservative 50’s are still of the same genus as the gay 90’s. —The personnel of the Conservatives is indeed dubious, as you say; but I wonder whether it is really more dubious than the [Max] Lerners and [Frederick Lewis] Schumans—the extra ounce of disgust is perhaps caused by the inevitable disadvantage under which a conservative ideology labors: that it appears to stifle growth by principle, while the liberals at least in appearance want to go ahead. At bottom, of course, both have broken with the reality of existence in the present; neither of them can face the facts of life. —But don’t take too seriously what I say, for I have no well-founded knowledge of these things. I don’t read this type of literature, because the authors are no partners in a discussion; these things are only an object of investigation, and at the moment I have not much time for them. And now for the matters of real interest—and first of all your Othello. I have not heard of it since the time you sent me the reprint, a long time ago. I am most happy to learn that not only is it finished, but actually in the state of proof-reading. Please, let me know when it comes out—and I hope it will be spring rather than fall. Certainly you must feel more relaxed just now,—unless you have already the next piece of work in progress? My own affairs are going well, but that involves a word about last summer. I pressed into the two-and-a-half months in Europe what I could. First a week in London, then one in Munich. After Munich came the circuit of the southwestern corner of Germany: Heidelberg, Stuttgart, Freiburg, Marburg, Frankfurt. In Frankfurt Lissy joined me again (she had been in Vienna after Munich); and we proceeded to Cologne, and from there to Scandinavia. There was a stopover in Helsingør and Helsingborg (with appropriate visits to Hamlet’s castle), a day in Stockholm (no hotel-rooms available), and then the main purpose of the trip: two weeks in Uppsala. Before retracing our steps south-west-ward, we spent a few days in Gotland, in Visby. And then we went, with short stops in Stockholm and Copenhagen, to Holland. There we took our domicile for a few days in Utrecht, with digressions to Amsterdam and the Hague. And in the end we were a few days in Paris. —For my part, the trip was rather hard work, because I had
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to collect the materials, which I could not get here, for Israelite and Jewish history, for early Christianity and Gnosis, and generally to bring myself up-to-date in the literature. Hence the stops in Munich (Egyptology and Catholicism), Heidelberg (Old Testament), Marburg (Gnosis), Uppsala (the new methods of comparative religion), Utrecht (Gnosis). —Since we are back, I am working energetically at digesting the materials, insofar as they have to be incorporated into the first volume that is now going to print. The plan of publication is now the following: There will be six volumes. The first one, Exodus, containing the Near Eastern Empires and Israel, will go to the printer in January, for publication in September 1956. The other volumes will then follow at intervals of about six months. The trip was of the greatest importance for me. I have done the work on my “History” now substantially and I know what I want. Hence, the trip could be planned carefully. And now I know personally most of the first-rate scholars in my field—the partners of the discussion, as distinguished from the previously mentioned objects of investigation. As a consequence of the extended conversations I feel sure that what I am doing is not only solid, but indeed a considerable advance beyond the present state of science. A good deal of my work since October had to do with the methods of “literary criticism.” That is why your reprint reminded me painfully of my ignorance with regard to the professional literature on such questions. I am enclosing two of the pieces recently done for your reading, whenever you can find the time, for several reasons. In the first place, I thought, you might be interested in seeing what is done with regard to literary criticism in other fields than the English and Classical tradition. Second, I wondered, about the connection between the class of problems I have to deal with and the problems that are your special concern. Is there any relation between the two branches, or are they isolated against each other? And third, it is perhaps the best way to maintain a contact between us that is regrettably getting thinner through distances of space. If I did not send it now, it would be another year before you could see it in print. About a month ago I was in Chicago. They had a Toynbee Symposium, and I gave a lecture on the net result of the ten volumes as a philosophy of history. That also will come out in due course. Your photograph caused great joy. We are happy to see you both so well, positively striding, not ambling; and obviously on a junket in Vancouver. In particular, I admired the coats and gloves—we have not worn such items in a long while. But then we are sorry to hear about blood-pressures and arthritis—nothing serious I hope?
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<With all good wishes for you, Ruth and Pete, Yours most sincerely, Eric>
PHILIA POLITIKE Letters 58–87, 1956–1959
58. Seattle, May 14, 1956 Dear Eric, Though I owe you [a] letter of greater proportions than this, and mean to write it, I hope you will forgive me for a one-paragraph missive which is really an act of sponging: may I use your name as a reference on a Guggenheim application which I mean to put in for 1956–1957? Please do not hesitate to say no if you think I am a dubious customer for such treatment. My project would be an examination of the structure of tragedy from Shakespeare to the 18th century. As you see, I hope I have learned enough from Lear and Othello to see what is missing thereafter: the shrinkage to modernity, etc. I think we will try to take the year off anyway, though it would be harder without the Guggenheim. Ruth means to take me to Europe and see if I can be deprovincialized. A dubious venture? I must admit that after 30 years of teaching I feel a little lost in the prospect of an unacademic year. Congratulations on your own Guggenheim for next year. Though this obviously means a year in Europe, I have some hopes that it implies a year rather than a final move. Last letter I had from you, you were being strongly tempted. Now a lesser thing: do you get away from Baton Rouge about June 1? My Othello book should be out near the end of the month, and I want to send you a copy, but I don’t want to have one either come when you aren’t there, or become a burden in some foreign port. Our very best to both of you,
59. [Baton Rouge,] May 19, 1956 Dear Bob: I was glad to hear from you again, and most delighted to learn of your various plans. Of course, please, give my name to the Guggenheim Foundation. I shall be 146
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happy to write them a glowing letter, if they should request one from me. And generally that is an excellent idea that you want to apply and use the year for a trip to Europe. Not that you need “deprovincialization” (I never would have expected Ruth to be so ruthless). The only thing “provincial” I ever discovered about you was your dislike for good cheese (that, of course, hurt me deeply)— but a habit for Gorgonzola and Camembert can be acquired quite well within the boundaries of the continental United States. But taking off and traveling and seeing a lot of new people is a lot of fun. I always enjoy it greatly; and I am sure you will too. —I was not quite sure about the date of your planned trip: 1956/57—shouldn’t it read 1957/58? My own Guggenheim was last year—when we went to Germany and Sweden. This year regrettably I am tied down with that enormous publication program—it all balls up. Next week come the galleys for Israel and Revelation (about 650 pp. in print). Then, about the 7th of June I go to some conference in Pennsylvania. From June 25th to late September I have to work on my Jurisprudence in Widener and hope to finish the MS in the rough. October and early November I have to be back here to get the volumes on the Greeks to the printer. And beginning November I must start the revision of Volume IV on Empire and Christianity. —For all that I got a most pleasant amount of money from foundations (but not from Guggenheim). And perhaps it is enough to go in November–January to Europe to attend to some interests—I am still looking for a professorship in a European University. And now for the “lesser thing,” you understater—your Othello. I am looking very much forward to it; I am delighted to hear that you want to send me [a] copy fresh from the oven; and it would be splendid if it were here about the 5th or 6th, because I then can take it along to the country of your origins, to Pennsylvania, and read it there during the 10 days in a luxury hotel. It would be best, to avoid delay, to send it to 741 Canal Street. If I should be gone, Lissy can bring it along, when she joins me in New York on the 21st. Many thanks in advance. With all good wishes to both of you, 60. Baton Rouge, June 8, 1956 Dear Bob: Just a line to confirm that a few hours ago Magic in the Web has arrived. 1. The “Widener” is the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library of Harvard College Library.
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That certainly was a surprise to find this book dedicated to me—a complete outsider to the “profession.” Do I have to elaborate how touched I am by this sign of friendship and common understanding? Spare me to say more at the moment. —Lissy, by the way, has confessed that she had been informed about your intention quite some time ago—and she has kept the secret beautifully. I am brief, because it is late in the evening—and tomorrow morning I am flying to New York. The book will accompany me to Buck Hill Falls. And you will hear more from me in the near future. Yours cordially, <Eric>
61. Cortland, New York, July 20, 1956 Dear Eric, I have waited overlong to tell you that we are in the East for part of the summer and hope that we can make at least an overnight stop in Cambridge to see you both. The summer is so carved out between deadlines and visits to relatives that I feel almost caught in a series of compartments. After the first three weeks in the Cornell library we are now off for ten days or two weeks of visits (my relatives in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and [the] Stokes for a day or two in New York), and I have hope that if we still have any life left after that, we may make a turn through New England before getting back to the library. If we don’t, we shall very much regret it, but I wanted you to know at least that we are thinking of it. Your own summer, I suspect, is also under the pressure of time; yet you use it so well that I need not wish that the summer is profitable for you. Will you do some driving around? I hope so, for, as I remember it, Lissy always liked to cut loose in a car. We had really a wonderful time on the way east—doing a rather roundabout trip to the canyons and then Santa Fe and Taos. Now we travel vicariously through the really fine letters that Pete has been writing from Alaska: he is north of the Arctic Circle working among Eskimos under a Presbyterian missionary. I was so rushed in the last weeks in Seattle that I sent you a copy of the book without even a decent message, which should have perhaps been apologetic. It was a very great pleasure to dedicate the book to you, and my only hope is that once you get a chance to look at it, you at least don’t feel like revoking the ded-
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ication. Since I thought that, if you could stand the dedication, you might get a little incidental pleasure out of the surprise (as I once did), I didn’t tell you in advance. But I did check with Lissy, who generously said I might go ahead. So you see, you will really have to charge the betrayal to her. I am rushing for the last mail. I do hope we can get together, at least briefly. Ruth wants me to send her warm greetings to both of you. My own best wishes, <Sincerely, Bob>
62. Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 23, 1956 Dear Bob: I just received your letter of July 20th, and hasten to get our schedules straightened out so that we may get together if possible. In the first place, I have received your Magic in the Web on the evening before I left Baton Rouge, and I have thanked you immediately by a short note. From your letter it is not quite clear, whether it reached you still. In the meanwhile I have been living in a continuous turmoil—meaning daily work until three o’clock in the morning. The cause is Israel and Revelation which is now going to print, and needed page proof reading, construction of interminable and complicated indexes, writing of a preface etc. All under the threat that the book cannot come out in October as planned, if things are not delivered on the printer’s deadlines. Most of it is over—but I still am nailed down here for two weeks, because the proofs of the indexes are not yet in. All this as preface to the following two points: (1) Only two days ago I could really start working your book through, and only when I have finished today or tomorrow, can I write you my impressions— enthusiastic. But I should like this letter to reach you, and that brings me to point 2. (2) I don’t know anything about your schedule. And I can only hope that the present letter will be forwarded to you. And I want to see you at all cost. Hence, when will you be in New York? We could come down for a day or two, provided your date in New York is not earlier than the 10th of August (I cannot get away here for the reasons just stated). I talked with Stoke about the possibility of us all getting together in N.Y.; as a matter of fact he suggested the idea with fervor. If that however does not pan out because of the schedule, please, come here for some time.
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So, let me know as soon as possible your whereabouts and schedule. I hope we can manage the rendezvous—and in any case I want my letters to reach you. With all good wishes for your trip from both of us, <Sincerely, Eric>
63. Cambridge, Massachusetts, July 24, 1956 Dear Bob: Last night I finished reading your Magic in the Web—and at last I can thank you for the dedication in the only way I can thank, by response to the contents. (William Rappard once said, much to the chagrin of those present: Cooperation in science means that one man writes a book and another man reads it). The first assurance of the quality of your book came through the procedure of reading it imposes. Naturally, during recent weeks I had looked at it on and off, nibbling here and there. And I saw that one could not get it by this method, as usually one can in most instances of contemporary literary production. The book is constructed from the first to the last page; and one has to read it from the beginning in order to get its full import. You have indeed written a book, and not just a series of chapters bound between two covers. This formal quality, of course, is intimately bound up with your method and your philosophical position. And now let me take up some of the principles I have discerned, or believe to have discerned, and which I admire both for clarity of conception and force of execution. First of all, the principle of exhaustion of the source. The interpretation of a literary work by a first-rate artist or philosopher must proceed on the assumption that the man “knew” what he was doing—leaving in suspense the question of the level of consciousness at which the “knowing” in the concrete instance occurs. Under that assumption the interpretation will be adequate only, if every “part” of the work makes sense in the comprehensive context. Moreover, the sense must emerge from the texture of the linguistic corpus, and it must not be prejudged by “ideas” of the interpreter. No adequate interpretation of a major work is possible, unless the interpreter assumes the role of the disciple who has everything to learn from the master. —Under all of these aspects your book is a 2. William E. Rappard, 1883–1958, was professor of economics at the University of Geneva, director of the Graduate Institute of International Studies at Geneva, and a member of the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations. He wrote several books, including The Government of Switzerland (1936) and The Crisis of Democracy (1938).
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model of the art of interpretation. No premature generalization from the partial sense that can be secured by pulling out this or that strand of motifs; no preconceived “psychology” of characters, that easily could be bolstered from so rich a work by looking away from what does not fit; but the discipline of proceeding with the analysis, until every piece of text has revealed the part of “magic” which it contributes to the web. That is an achievement of the first order in a time when corruption of method is the order of the day. I do not know how bad the situation is in your field; but in political science and philosophy, we are buried under the flood of literature which interprets, for instance, Plato as the Fascist or socialist, or constitutionalist, without so much as attempting a conscientious analysis of the structure of a dialogue. From your notes I have the impression that the general level in the study of Shakespeare is somewhat higher—but the impression may be erroneous, because you may have followed the same method as I do on such occasions, of simply ignoring the worst kind of rabble. The first principle (the exhaustion of the source, in order to make sure that the meaning ascertained is indeed the meaning intended by the source), has then to be accompanied by the second hermeneutic principle: that the terminology of the interpretation, if not identical with the language symbols of the source (a condition that can frequently be fulfilled in the case of first-rate philosophers, but rarely in the case of a poem or a myth), must not be introduced from the “outside,” but be developed in closest contact with the source itself for the purpose of differentiating the meanings which are apparent in the work, but too compactly symbolized as that the symbols could be used in the discursive form of rational analysis. If that contact is not preserved with the utmost care, the interpretation will rapidly derail into the sort of interpretation that is so easily “put upon” a work of art. —In this respect again you have lived up to principles—and the discipline has paid off well in as much as it forced upon you a richness of vocabulary for expressing nuances of emotions and ethical attitudes that can only arouse admiration. For considerable areas of moral life you have delivered something like a “phenomenology,” especially for such “in-between” phenomena as “insecurity,” “romanticism,” “aspiration,” “intention,” etc., nothing to say of such really complicated phenomena as “toughness.” In the case of a tragedy by Shakespeare, the discipline just mentioned will carry, however, only from a strand of compact motifs to the more immediate differentiations and distinctions in terms of a phenomenology of morals. Beyond this immediacy of analysis lie the meanings, which the poet develops in the action and language of his poem, and which the critic must translate into
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the rational order of his work. This conception of the whole of human nature, that in the poem is carried by the magic in the web, must now be carried by the magic of the system. And here I am now full of admiration for your qualities as a philosopher. For you have arranged the problem of human nature in the technically perfect order of progress from the peripheral to the center of personality—if I may use [Max] Scheler’s terminology. You begin with modes of deception, the problem of appearance and reality; and you end with the categories of existence and spiritual order—with life and death, love and hate, eros and caritas, transfiguration and demonic silence. The form of your book has convincing authority because it is determined by the substance presented. It is difficult, in the form of a letter, to expand on the numerous details that have caused me to put pencil marks on the margin and clips in the page. (I still hope, we shall see you here—Lissy has already selected a tourist home in the neighborhood.) Let me only mention the general class of asides, which link the observations of Shakespeare with your observations of the contemporary scene, so that the reader becomes convinced in the end that Shakespeare really is dealing with the phenomenon of “modern man,” and even with the very unpleasant Everyman who dominates our contemporary scene. A problem of special interest is raised by your first Chapter. And here I would appreciate it greatly, if you could let me know, whether the conception of “parts” of a tragedy, developed in the first pages, is yours personally, or whether it is commonly accepted among literary critics. For what you have done there, in using the category of “part” in this wide sense, is of the greatest general importance in the historical and social sciences, too. You have used, or created, an ontological category that brings to philosophical consciousness that action and language, body and soul, emotion and expression, experience and symbol, etc., though they must be distinguished, are all “parts” of a whole, in this case of “tragedy” as a literary genus. The ultimate consubstantiality of all being is recognized, when everything—from a storm, or a sword, or a part of the body, through actions and speeches, to essences of character and spiritual transfigurations of a soul—is part of the web that mysteriously carries the meaning of being and existence. After so much harmonious agreement I am happy to announce in conclusion that I have found a point, if not of disagreement, at least of hesitation in acceptance. I am speaking of your remark on p. 217, when you refer to the “modern variant of tragedy in which the character intended as tragic (or even a whole community) never knows what has happened to him.” While I can agree with your description of this modern variant of tragedy, I wonder, as matter of prin-
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ciple whether this type of drama is really a variant of tragedy or not rather something differing in essence. I would not admit the term tragedy, when the supposedly tragic character never finds out what hit him. Here we are in the region of the mass man; and the existence of the mass man, may cause pity, but it certainly has nothing tragic (as you say yourself ). The question arises, therefore, whether tragedy, as a literary genus, is not dependent on tragic contents of the culture in which it flowers; and will become unsuitable as a literary form, when the culture has ceased to be tragic. We have to face that problem in the Athens of the fourth century B.C. After the vulgarity of imperial expansion under Pericles and the mass atrocity of the Peloponnesian War, the tragic culture was gone. The spiritual hero could no longer be a member of society, but only the man in opposition to it—Socrates. And the appropriate literary forms become the Platonic dialogue, the philosophical treatise, the character comedy, etc.,— though of course “tragedies” continue to be written as a matter of routine. And that reflection brings me back to your book. We have no tragedies today. The phenomenon of the mass man cannot be brought on the stage authentically. The appropriate methods for describing it are again philosophy, the reflections of the moralist—or the work of the literary critic—all of them addressed not to the general public (which has ceased to exist) but to the enclaves of spiritual and intellectual culture that survive precariously the periods of disorder. [Eric]
64. Cortland, New York, August 19, 1956 Dear Eric, A person could hardly have read the Othello book more thoroughly or interpreted it more generously than you have done. If it manages in any halfway decent fashion to be consistent with and to carry out the principles which you discern in its execution, then at least its existence has some sort of justification. Some of the principles I can consciously claim, others I fear I have just blundered into. Exhaustion of the source—conscious. Not a unique aspiration, of course; there are several other full-length studies of Othello, one (Elliott’s) almost as long as mine. Vis-à-vis others, what one hopes is that one is a little more aware of all 3. This letter may not have been mailed; instead, it might have been handed to Heilman when the Heilmans visited the Voegelins in Cambridge. 4. George Roy Elliott, Flaming Minister: A Study of Othello as Tragedy of Love and Hate (Durham: Duke University Press, 1953).
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the elements that constitute the source, and of their modes of interrelationship. The risk is tediousness, and of that I shall be accused as before, and perhaps justly. Eliciting of an appropriate terminology from the text—a matter of hope that one’s own resources of language and thought are adequate to provide suitable vehicles for all the overwhelming richness of what one feels to be expressed by the play. In a sense one can get out of it only what one brings to it; except perhaps that if one, so to speak, lies open to it fully enough and long enough, it may enable him actually to effect some transcendence of his own limitations (an interesting possibility, that, which just came into my consciousness, as I was writing this, and which needs further thought). But always in writing I wished I had a Voegelin vocabulary for the phenomena of mind and spirit present in the play. Having an adequate order of ideas (“the conception of the whole of human nature”) by means of which to make the critical statement—again, a matter of hope. It’s at that level that, however well one may feel that at any given moment he is rationally tying down what the play is doing, he knows that he ought to be living in the same university as a Voegelin so that, though he may because of his own defects not learn much from the master, however little he learns will always be so great an increment on what he possesses that he will automatically move a little closer to rational competence to deal with the literary work. If I was, as you so kindly say, lucky enough to move from the peripheral to the center of personality, it shows that my sense of things gained something from what I absorbed from you. I doubt whether the conception of parts which I set forth in the beginning would have very much formal standing in contemporary criticism, though it is certainly the implicit assumption of a considerable body of critical practice. The historians who dominate the profession do not think about such things at all. But such things are much thought about by the Chicago neo-Aristotelians, and it was with them in mind that I elaborated the doctrine of parts which I felt I had to do to try to find a theoretical basis for my procedure. The Chicago boys will, I suppose, jump all over me. They want to limit parts to the Aristotelian parts (it seems to me that as the contemporary administrators of the Aristotelian estate they are rigidly doctrinaire), that is, to the parts of the action—peripeteia, anagnorisis, etc. —and in turn to establish a compulsory relation between these and the presumed cathartic results. In my endeavor to get around that position I feared I had got too far out on a limb, and so your judgment of this matter is very reassuring.
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Your next point—that in which you questioned the acceptability of my term “modern variant of tragedy” and argued that tragedy is impossible today—is one that we talked about in Cambridge, as much at least as I am now capable of. You will recall my effort to meet this point by propounding a new term—“the literature of disaster”—to describe what passes for tragedy today. This needs more thinking about; sometime I want to try to write about [it]; but meanwhile I must ponder some more your statements (for permanent keeping your letter goes into my file on tragedy). Two theoretical points of mine you did not mention, probably because they seemed either obvious one[s] on the one hand, or on the other too perverse to talk about. I mention these only because I do not feel completely sure of myself and wondered how the propositions looked to you. The first was the effort to distinguish two aspects of a work—the “was” and the “is.” To this formulation I was driven by the dominance of historical studies, in which it is assumed that the work has a single reality which is derivable only from the historical context. This seems dangerous nonsense to me (and I need not explain to you that I do not contemn historical studies), for it appears to deny the existence of a nonhistorical permanence which I find inseparable from myth, fable, the artistic formulations of the imagination, etc. Maybe “is” is too tricky a metaphor for this; I’m not sure. The second point followed from this: my assumption of the power of the critic to view the work, at least in part, non-historically, i.e., to transcend the intellectual and cultural climate of his own time and thus to be able to identify in the work those elements that conform to the eternal truth of things. The historical relativists argue, of course, not only that the work is relative only to its times, but that the mind of the critic is relative only to his own times, in which he is hopelessly enclosed. Therefore the practice of literary history is the only true humility in the literary student; the critic who pretends to be doing anything but historicizing is an egomaniac. So I postulate his share in the divine power to see all times [in] simultaneity. Frivolous? Reckless? I contemplate a searing piece entitled “The Necessity of Anachronism.” Well, excuse me please for talking so long about my book. I wanted you at least to know that I had read your letter seriously and had profited somewhat from it— and expect to profit more as I think more about, and hopefully understand more thoroughly, the issues on which it discourses. I am most grateful for it. 5. In Tragedy and Melodrama: Versions of Experience (see note 17 in the introduction), Heilman writes about tragedy, the drama of disaster, and melodrama, and how these versions of experience are symbolized in various literary works—both plays and novels.
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And we are most grateful for our Cambridge visit with you—your generous hospitality with time and in arrangements and in material things (what a chump I was to let you carry off that oversized dinner check: just unconscious, that’s all). I’m very happy we drove up there, and Ruth and I both hope it isn’t another eight years until we see Lissie and you again. May you have a fine offer from Munich—yet not too fine, if such distinctions may be made. Tomorrow morning we take off for the coast, via Madison and a visit there with Ruth’s sister. Our very best to both of you,
65. Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 22, 1956 Dear Bob: Your letter of August 19th fascinated me, because it clears up several questions which bothered me while reading your book, though I could not quite lay my finger on what they were. The difficulty was caused by my ignorance of the ambiance of science in which you move. A scholar’s work is necessarily done with an eye to what other men in his field do. His formulations, the points he stresses and omits, are conditioned by potential readers of the “professional” type. And since the nonprofessional reader is not familiar with the environment, into which the author places himself without being explicit on it, the author’s formulations carry overtones and undertones which the reader feels to be present but cannot diagnose. Your letter supplies at least some of the items that were beyond my diagnostic abilities—and I can summarize them now as the historism apparently rampant in literary criticism. That phenomenon is not strange to me, though I am not familiar with its manifestations in your field. We all are plagued by this hangover of the Victorian Age and have somehow to get rid of it. The various questions which you indicate in your letter seem to me to be all connected with the effort to find the critical basis beyond historical relativism, and by that token they are connected with each other. The question of the “was” and the “is” that you raise is, for instance, in my opinion only another facet of the question raised earlier in your letter that, on the one hand, one can only get out of the play what one brings to it while, on the other hand, if one lays oneself open to the play, one can get considerably more out of it than one thought one had brought to it. Let me dwell a bit on this issue, because it is after all the central issue of my life as a scholar and apparently yours, too.
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The occupation with works of art, poetry, philosophy, mythical imagination, and so forth, makes sense only if it is conducted as an inquiry into the nature of man. That sentence, while it excludes historicism, does not exclude history, for it is peculiar to the nature of man that it unfolds its potentialities historically. Not that historically anything “new” comes up—human nature is always wholly present—but there are modes of clarity and degrees of comprehensiveness in man’s understanding of his self and his position in the world. Obviously Plato and Shakespeare are clearer and more comprehensive in the understanding of man than is Dr. Jones of Cow College. Hence, the study of the classics is the principal instrument of self-education; and if one studies them with loving care, as you most truly observe, one all of a sudden discovers that one’s understanding of a great work increases (and also one’s ability to communicate such understanding) for the good reason that the student has increased through the process of study—and that after all is the purpose of the enterprise. (At least it is my purpose in spending the time of my life in the study of prophets, philosophers, and saints.) What I just have adumbrated (most inadequately, to be sure) is the basis of historical interpretation since [Johann Gottfried von] Herder and Baader and Schelling. History is the unfolding of the human Psyche; historiography is the reconstruction of the unfolding through the psyche of the historian. The basis of historical interpretation is the identity of substance (the psyche) in the object and the subject of interpretation; and its purpose is participation in the great dialogue that goes through the centuries among men about their nature and destiny. And participation is impossible without growth in stature (within the personal limitations) toward the rank of the best; and that growth is impossible unless one recognizes authority and surrenders to it. I have formulated the last sentence in such a manner that it will connect with the paragraph in your letter about the justification of historicism. The historical relativist argues, as you describe correctly, that literary history is the only true humility; and that the critic who wants to penetrate to “the eternal truth of things” (as you put it) is an egomaniac. As a matter of fact, it is the other way round. And the motives of historical relativism are distinctly shady and shabby; in my field of political science I speak of these arguments as the humility racket. In the first place, the argument is methodologically ludicrous. For one cannot discern historical determinants in a mind or its work, unless one can distinguish between the mind and the determinants. If one really could not distinguish, there would be no historical works but only oddities, not recognisable as human in our own terms, beyond comprehension. But we all can distinguish quite well. We can follow Aristotle’s
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argument against Plato’s ideas; and we can support our respective positions in the question with rational argument; and in doing so we are not worried for a moment by the thought that Greek philosophy is “historically determined” and only accessible to factual description, but not to an examination of the truth or falseness of propositions. The argument is so ludicrous indeed that it would not be worth any attention, unless historical relativism were a social force for quite different reasons. In determining these other reasons, one may well follow the Roman question: cui bono? Who profits by the assumption that works of the mind are so thoroughly determined by historical circumstance that the pursuit of truth about the nature of man is not recognizable in them? The answer is obvious: the spiteful mediocrity which hates excellence. The argument of historical relativism is the defense of the little man against recognition of greatness. If Plato is encased in the circumstances of the 4th c. B.C. and Mr. Jones in the circumstances of the 20th c. A.D. the community of the psyche is interrupted; no confrontation from man to man is possible; the discomfort of discovering and admitting one’s own smallness before the great is averted; and above all, the obligations arising through confrontation with greatness have disappeared. All men are on the same level of circumstanced equality. Behind the personal viciousness that puts social strength into historical relativism, there lies the much larger issue of the revolt against God and the escape into gnosticism. For “the measure of man is God,” and the life of the psyche is the life in truth. By interrupting communication with those who live in truth, the life in truth itself is avoided. Historical relativism is the radical attack on the communication of truth through the dialogue in history. Let me just mention, in conclusion, once more your theory of the “parts.” That also has now become clearer to me. I had not known that the Poetics of Aristotle was still the mainstay of an important group in our academic life. With all due respect to Aristotle, his theory of tragedy leaves much to be desired. Here we have indeed to note “historical circumstances,” that is, the decline of Athenian culture from the time of Aeschylus to the end of the Peloponnesian War. This transposition of the cult of Jovian Dike into a sort of peace of mind psychology in Aristotle is highly dubious. But this [is] a little-explored, though very important, aspect of Hellenic cultural history. I find this deadly flattening even in Herodotus’ conception of the Homeric epics. And when I read the clichés about Homer as the educator of Hellas, I wonder at what time he ever exerted this function. I can find the understanding of Homer still in Aeschylus, but by the time of Pericles it seems to have disappeared. The position of Plato is unclear,
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because one can always plead that what he had to say about Homer for public consumption was not his innermost thought. But in Aristotle certainly the comprehension of cultic art is gone. —If there is a “Chicago school” which has not heard of these things yet, they better bone up on the literature of the last thirty or forty years. I hope you will let me have the MS on “The Necessity of Anachronism” when you come around to writing about this juicy topic. The summer advances. Your visit was a high-point. To see you and Ruth and after so many years, and in so excellent shape, was truly refreshing. I am getting now in the years, where one has known people for a sufficient period of time to see what has become of them. And the cases are rare where the “promising young men” of their thirties have not become the disappointing blighters of their fifties. But when the psyche is healthy, aging is not a blight but a growth. Liss left this morning for Baton Rouge. I am still in chains writing the Jurisprudence—but it [is] progressing at least satisfactorily. With all good wishes to you and your family, Yours sincerely grateful, <Eric>
66. Seattle, October 13, 1956 Dear Eric, Yesterday afternoon I received, “With the Compliments of the Author,” a copy of Volume I of Order and History. My pleasure in having the gift was a little modified by my feeling you are too generous, that such costly books should not be given away. You see, of course, that the pressure of this feeling did not reach the point at which the only safety-valve would have been to return the book. No, conscience yields to the delight in having a copy from the author— rather, a copy of this book from this author. I shall place with the LSU Press an order for the other volumes of the series as they appear. And my very great thanks for Volume I. I had owned the book for an hour or two before, in that preliminary leafing through the “back matter” and the “front matter” by which one explores the periphery, I came across the “Acknowledgments” and the last paragraph on the page. I am very much touched, as I am overwhelmed by your excessive generosity. Never has so little been so unstintingly rewarded (it is clear there is a kind of secular grace, and one may be saved in the world). I should be in danger of a bad case of pride did not Ruth come to my spiritual rescue by remarking firmly,
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“What a paradox! You as master and Eric as disciple!” (I will omit her punctuation of this by exclamatory breathing.) But I am disposed to go beyond a literal reading of the paragraph and to take it rather as evidence of a kindly personal feeling—a very fine thing to have. There is nothing more gratifying than “my friend and colleague.” No stylistic adjutant could do more than the most minor adjustments at the edge of the outworks. All these I would give up for what is essential in your style—at the most obvious level, the incredibly easy mastery of a technical vocabulary; at the next level, that combination of knowledge and feeling which is always present but which at times is more intense and infuses a passage with especial power, as of the scholar and prophet in one—as in the last paragraph on p. xiv, and in a good deal of the Introduction, perhaps more markedly on pp. 1 and 2; and then on occasion a kind of poetic effect, when the more technical vocabulary is less conspicuous and the language of evocation is aided by a grace of rhythm which I believe would be remarkable even in a native user of the language (e.g., the sentence beginning “We move in a charmed community . . .” p. 3). All these gifts make an instrument of expression strong enough so that petty irregularities, if there are any left, are easily tolerated. It’s hardly becoming of me to go beyond the verbal medium, but I have to say that in reading just a few pages I experience again that very rare feeling of being in the presence not only of great learning, which is clear to all, and not only of great learning conjoined with the seer’s passion, which is much less frequent than scholarship alone, but of this combination held with a sort of serenity in which are both power and wisdom. And here, lest I become embarrassing, I stop. I will read, as you know, with limited competence, but with a lot of application and enthusiasm, and with enough gifts to learn I hope, and with the kind of perspicacity that will enable me to steal for the embellishment of anything I may do hereafter. Lest the unlimited admiration of even a grammarian become corrupting, I will for your welfare include the modifying influence of Ruth’s comment on the book, “But it has no illustrations!” Your last letter to me was a fine essay on historical relativism—an expansion in some detail of an epigram of yours which I have now for at least ten years if not more been quoting whenever opportunity offered (altho the Far West seems to offer fewer favorable opportunities than some other places), namely, “Historical relativism is the defense mechanism of inferior civilizations.” The sentence of yours that goes farthest in the interpretation of this and that seems to provide the strongest instrument for argument is this: “. . . the community of
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the psyche is interrupted; no confrontation from man to man is possible; the discomfort of discovering and admitting one’s own smallness before the great is averted; and above all, the obligations arising through confrontation with greatness have disappeared.” For there you have set down what our education ought to be concerned with. In literary study, it seems to me, the historical method even tends to eliminate the concept of greatness, or rather to deprive it of valid supports. If Shakespeare is simply a product of Elizabethan habits of mind and stagecraft, how can we say that he is great? Of course the historical professor always asserts to the class that Shakespeare is great, and he may read aloud the lines with great effect or even play recordings (our dept is strongly addicted to this) in order that the students may be hypnotized by the auditory greatness; but since he cannot believe in a permanent human truth which it is Shakespeare’s greatness to record with incredible depth and variety, well . . . How welcome to me are your words that the study of art, etc., “makes sense only if it is conducted as an inquiry into the nature of man.” This statement from your letter ties in with a sentence on p. ix of Israel and Revelation: “Amnesia with regard to past achievement is one of the most important social phenomena.” This is the best answer to the basic ideas of the progress people. In teaching the literature of the past I keep feeling that the best thing one can do with it is to try to combat the characteristic amnesia of the 20th century—not basically an amnesia of events and phenomena (though that is always conspicuous) but an amnesia with regard to the full human potential. Even in the Victorian novel (which is likely to be revered now on what seem to me to be very insubstantial grounds, that is, that it was “really revolutionary” and saw through the foibles of its age) I find a spiritual breadth that one hardly gets today, for instance, a presentation of the human capacity to move toward a discipline of the ego, toward caritas. In that sense, at least, it has a view of human nature, of human possibility, that is needed in the interest of truth. Our own discoveries about ourselves are almost exclusively in the direction of our Iagoism. “Human nature”: one of these days I want to write you a new idea I have about “humanism.” You are always very tolerant when I come along with these theories, and from the reply I always learn much. But I will postpone that, for this letter is already dragging on too long. In fact, I have waited until much too late in the letter to mention the big state secret that “a highly placed source” was good enough to leak to us—the news of the new chair at Munich. We have, to coin a phrase, mixed emotions: pleasure in the pleasure we are sure you must be taking in this offer (and in view of the strength of the evidence I am not sure that Munich is to be credited with supernatural
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insight), continuing mortification that none of the U.S. universities has had the common sense to install you in an unbeatable chair long before this, and then that last irrelevant but unsubduable feeling—the personal sense of loss that precedes the actual loss. At a distance of 2500 miles in space and 8 years in time we would hardly seem to have ground for this, but it is nevertheless true; as long as you are within the borders of the country, there is something here that is personally very valuable. So we will hope for the decision that I don’t see how you can make; the miracle, that is. And this, I know, is no way to be talking when there is that real excitement of EV’s getting the kind of institutional recognition that he should have. A day or two ago, just before the deadline, I got in my Guggenheim application. I dislike to announce “plans” for work publicly in advance, so that the document, I fear, sounds vaporous and pompous. I hope reading it doesn’t give you a bellyache. Since I am not sure how long you will be in the country or how soon the Gugg. office will get the statements out to the referees, perhaps I should ask you for a forwarding address after a certain date, so that they will be sure to reach you. I am most pleased that you are willing to go bail for me. Just before we left the East for Seattle, we had a letter from George Jaffé saying that he was going to make a trip to the Canadian Northwest, would pass through Seattle, and would make us a visit. Unfortunately our time of arrival in Seattle was after his date of passage. We were delighted that he wanted to stop and see us, and hope he may make it another time. We are all in school again. We had a fine time seeing Pete again and getting The Alaska Story, of which an aftermath is that he seems, if anything, a little more strongly inclined toward the ministry. He is taking his sophomore year about as casually as his freshman year. Ruth is back at school, pretty tired most of the time (this weekend we are doing nothing but sort of pulling ourselves together), but I think having pleasure enough in what is very successful teaching to justify the wear and tear. Persis Stoke is scheduled to fly in next Friday night on a 3-or-4 day visit. She has written that Marcia’s recurrence of mononucleosis, the saddening event of our little visit with them in New York, diagnosed by Marcia’s medical husband and his classmates, has turned out to be “acute pregnancy.” Ruth owes Lissy a letter and will write. Our affectionate greetings to both of you,
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67. Baton Rouge, October 17, 1956 Dear Bob: Thanks for your long and generous letter of October 13th. I am really relieved that you find the general complexion not too terrible—though I know, of course, that a good number of grammatical detail[s] must make you squirm. Ruth is most refreshing with her complaint about the lack of illustrations—incidentally, I agree with her. One could do really quite something through the addition of two dozen photographs to a work of this nature. The changing styles of the royal portraits in Mesopotamia and Egypt are an eye-opener for the spiritual development; they reveal subtleties that cannot be caught by the literary texts and their interpretation. But that would be quite a chore—to dig up the photographs—nothing to say of the cost. I am very much touched by your collection of my obiter dicta. Some of them I like, when they come back to me from you; for instance the one about historicism as the defense mechanism of inferior civilizations. I must use that one some time. There will be no difficulty with the Guggenheim Foundation. Our mail service, thanks to a conscientious secretary, works reliably. As soon as I am in Frankfurt, November 15th, mail will be forwarded with a delay of not more than a week. Pardon the briefness of these lines. I am over my head in work on the Greek volumes, which supposedly will be finished before we leave. With all good wishes to you, and Ruth and Pete, from us both, Yours always, <Eric>
68. Frankfurt/Main, December 29, 1956 Dear Bob: The pressure of affairs has prevented me from writing you earlier. So, with some delay, I am enclosing a copy of the “appraisal” I wrote for the Guggenheim people. And I hope fervently you will get it—in fact I have no doubt. A year away from your administrative duties, and a year in Europe at that, would be splendid for you—especially with your flair for the relevant. About two weeks ago I was in Munich. They have made an excellent offer: Salary $9000 (in fact, with the marginal benefits, about $10,000); an Institute with two assistants (Ph.D.s), one secretary, and one librarian; an emeritus salary, to which I am entitled at age 65, of $7000 (LSU only $4000); a widow’s pension
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of 60% (LSU nothing). If the thing goes through the bottleneck of the Ministry of Finance, and if the Faculties concerned will make the necessary arrangements to integrate the new field in the curriculum, I am very much inclined to take it. What do you think of these conditions? Considering the differences in purchasing power, my real income would probably be quite a bit higher than in Louisiana. Just today, we came back from Vienna where we spent the Christmas days with Lissy’s family—and I took the occasion to talk with a lot of people. Quite interesting at the moment, because the impact of the Hungarian affairs makes itself strongly felt (even in the streets and hotels: Vienna is full of Hungarian emigrants). What strikes one in talking with these people (historians, journalists, etc.) is the long-range view which they take: the manifold of the Byzantine and Asiatic cultures, as living in the manifold of Eastern peoples, is a living reality. Marxism is one, but not a very important, representative expression for these people—now on the wane. What interests is what will come afterwards. And there they regret that so little is really known in the West about the undercurrents of experiences and ideas in the East. They consider it the most important task for science, to find out a good deal more about Eastern living culture than is known in the West today. The Western literature, including the American, about Communism—based as it is on the reading of a few books and articles of persons who hold the limelight—they consider ludicrous. The American, Indian, and Chinese pressure on Russia is considered the most hopeful course, because it will push the Communist rulers of the moment toward giving freer reign to the indigenous evolution of Russia—whatever that will bring in the future. In January, I shall go for a second installment of “negotiations” to Munich— then I shall know more about this all-absorbing business. On the 19th we shall leave for Paris; and by February 1st, we shall be back in Baton Rouge. All good wishes for the New Year to you and Ruth from both of us, Yours sincerely, <Eric>
69. January [8,] 1957 Dear Eric, That is very remarkable praise that you have written to the Guggenheim people. I am grateful for what you say, and I cherish the personal remark that you regard me as a friend. This alone would make the Guggenheim application
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worthwhile, and this would certainly assure me of a fellowship if it were in the cards. I doubt that it is. Historical positivists (personally symbolized by Louis B. Wright, who strongly dislikes “critics”) control the awards in the field of literature, and they go usually to pretty safe people. As if this were not enough, I had to run afoul of [Henry Allen] Moe himself three or four years ago by taxing the Foundation with turning down a strong candidate because of some pinkish elements in his background. He was not pleased. I may have been in error, but I thought I had a good case and that it was my duty to speak. We shall see. Maybe you will be strong enough to remove from Moe’s mouth the bad taste that I left there. The Munich offer looks unbeatably good to me, and one half of me hates to acknowledge this (the pro-American side, which would keep all good things, i.e., good people, for us if it could). At first it looked to me as though you were taking a pretty good cut in the main salary, but a sentence or two later you silence this potential objection by observing that in view of the differences in purchasing power, your real income would be quite a bit higher than in Louisiana. The immediate side-benefits (assistants, secretary, librarian) appear excellent— the sort of thing that only a sociologist could get in America. And the emeritus salary, plus the widow’s benefits, take care of the insurance problem excellently. These are better than any American counterpart that I know of: here we are on TIAA (the University contributes an additional 71⁄ 2% of salary each year to this), which if we have been paying for enough years is supposed to pay a retirement income of one-half of the average salary during the last ten years of active service. I mention this fact for comparative purposes. And last year a Yale man who was here lecturing said that Yale retirement arrangements are much poorer than this. (Leo Spitzer was here a year or two ago and said that his German University retirement income, plus what he got from Hopkins after retirement, gave him more money than he had ever had.) So I can, alas, see nothing to warn you against. In fact, when one gets into less tangible matters, I suppose that the two assistants would be highly trained people who would become disciples—and I mean that in the good sense of the word of course—and [in] that way make it possible to see one’s own views of history carried on. So I gloomily entertain a picture of your moving a little closer to the East. Well, Ruth and I will be full of interest to know what arrangements and plans you finally make. But behind these irrelevancies of personal feelings—and even “country” feelings of a sort—lies the great fundamental fact: 6. Henry Allen Moe was an official with the Simon Guggenheim Foundation.
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that an ancient university has seen what it should do about Voegelin and has set about doing it. That is very fine. As always, I am delighted by the journalistic elements in your letters—in this case, the reports on the attitudes of Eastern peoples, the relevance of Marxism as a partial mode of symbolic expression for them, and the feelings in Vienna about the superficiality of Western writings about Communism. If I say no more than this it is simply that I have nothing to contribute; but all such communiqués I read with utmost interest. One personal matter. Minnesota now demands that I make up my mind about going there; what it would mean would be taking a slight cut in income— and in retirement benefits—to get out of administration and into a different kind of department, perhaps intellectually more congenial (not sure of this). But I think we like the coast and its climate better than that of the Midwest, and prefer Seattle to Minneapolis. But I suppose the big block is the psychic strain of the change; teaching becomes increasingly harder for me, and I do it less well— all this the product, obviously, of some neurosis which I haven’t learnt to handle, and fear I may not. So short of some unforeseen events I am likely to go grinding on in administration. A propos of that, the Univ of New Mexico just offered me the chairmanship—an odd sort of thing, since one doesn’t usually get invited downhill. And yet I have felt tempted, by a probably false picture of a less complicated institutional situation and a slower tempo, where the daily sense of strain might be less and the opportunity for study greater. The Baton Rouge picture of Lissy and you is hung in my study, and I think I shall add to it the Vienna snapshot, which is very nice. Our best wishes to you both,
70. Seattle, February 16, 1957 Dear Eric, Fearing lest you may not have received a letter which I wrote some time ago and sent to your address in Germany, I write this note only to say that I did write, that I commented on the terms of the Munich offer and also on your most generous Guggenheim letter about me, and that if you did not receive this
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letter, I will reconstruct it. Not that its contents are of weighty importance, but that I want to be sure that you did not think I was failing to acknowledge a fine letter from you. We are all agog with curiosity in l’affaire Munich. I read steadily in I & R, and with profit. I go slowly, because I haven’t got enough pegs to hang things on, and hence, so to speak, I rest on the inner supports of the work itself. What a masterful work. By “with profit” I mean, on the surface, all the history and interpretation one is exposed to; but more important, for me, the sense of new horizons, newer and deeper ways of looking at things, which, as they become firmer, I hope to use. I hope to get much deeper into a sense of how symbolic systems themselves are expanding or constricting to their users. Some important consequences for literary understanding should follow. Our best to both of you,
71. February 23, 1957 Dear Bob: Your note of February 16th arrived today. And I hasten to confirm your letter of January 8th which reached me still in Frankfurt. Instead of all apologies for delaying an answer for so long, let me give a sketch of happenings since midJanuary when your letter came into my hands in Frankfurt: From January 10th to 12th I was in Munich, for a second batch of negotiations. In addition to the previous understanding, I got a promise of DM 40,000 (ca. $10,000) for purchasing a first stock of books; plus a few minor improvements. All we are waiting for now, is the consent of the Minister of Finance to the stipulations. That may come any day, but may take six weeks more, since there is some cabinet crisis in the great state of Bavaria, and the officials are holding their breath. On Monday, the 14th, I had to give a lecture in Frankfurt on “The Results of the Classic Theory of Politics,” which I prepared on the 13th. On Wednesday, the 16th, I had to give my last two hours on the Prophets— with a lot of passages to be translated into German on the 15th. Thursday, the 17th, went with preparations for travel, and social obligations. On Friday, the 18th, I traveled to Bonn, there to deliver another public lecture at the University in the evening. On Saturday, the 19th, I returned. On the 20th, we were on the train to Paris, and the following two days were rather full with calls to friends
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and bookstores. On the 23rd, we were on the train to Cherbourg. And then we had a miserable crossing (heavy seas, Lissy was two days sick), and arrived a day late in New York, on the 29th. The following two days were full again with calls etc. And one of them, a visit with Moe, will interest you. I managed to direct the conversation to your problem. And when I expanded enthusiastically on the subject of your merits, Moe asked: “So you are a 1000% for it?” I solemnly confirmed, and if I gauged the melody of his remark correctly, it was one of mild resignation as if he conceded that nothing could prevent you from getting the Fellowship. He then embarked on the case of Edmund Wilson, who many years ago also got it against resistance of various positivists—I leave it to your gifts of interpretation to judge what the bringing in of this parallel meant. On the 31st, we started our trip southward on the Southerner, and arrived here on Friday by midnight. On Saturday, the 2nd, I gave my first class at 9 am. Since our return, I am struggling with a mountain of mail and unfinished business. And on top I got a serious flu, some virus infection which proved stubborn. At the beginning of this week I thought I had recovered. But yesterday temperature was up to 101 again. And now I am adamantly at home for five days, in the hope that will kill the germs with the aid of penicillin tablets. That is how I have gained today a little breathing space, and immediately use it to respond to your last note. The flu, with its temperature, was quite debilitating. I found myself without energy for really concentrated work—which is bad, because the LSU Press is breathing down my neck to deliver the MS of the two volumes which are supposed [to] come out in fall. And there is a good deal of work to be done by way of minor revisions. Hence, besides writing letters, I did a good deal of reading these days. Above all two new novels by Austrians: Doderer’s The Daemons, and Musil’s The Man without Qualities. You remember Broch’s Death of Vergil ? Now there are two more men of a similar stature. That is: Musil died in 1942, and the present edition of the novel is the earlier volume of the 1930’s, doubled in size by the posthumous MS. Doderer’s volume came out last year. Both authors deal with the problem of the “second reality,” as they call it, which in its variegated forms of sexual perversions, dream worlds, political ideologies, etc. superimposes itself on the “first reality” which furnishes the frame of human existence. 7. Almost certainly this is the Southern Railroad’s route referred to by Heilman in The Professor and the Profession (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999). There he writes: “The Southern’s new train from New Orleans to New York became so prestigious that people who got their names in the social columns were reported to have traveled via the ‘Southern Belle’” (70).
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The conflicts and catastrophes, arising from the clash between the two realities, are studied, by Musil, in the Austrian society immediately preceding the first World War, and, by Doderer, in the events of 1926/27 which led to the minor revolution in Vienna in July 1927. Both men are incredibly careful observers of reality, as well as masters of the intellectual problems involved. To give you an idea: Lissy said of Doderer, that he is what Faulkner would like to be: The spiritual Chronicler of a dying society. And then I re-read [Romano] Guardini’s Der Herr, with a purpose, in order to clarify for myself how to treat the problems of Christianity in the Volume IV. (If you are interested in Christianity, you should read the book. It is translated into English, under the title The Lord. It is the most comprehensive presentation of the figure of Christ on the basis of the New Testament sources.) I think I have found now the lines which I must draw from the Israel volume into the sections on Christianity: The decision in the conflict between the older idea of the Messiah as the King of an historical regeneration of Israel, and the Suffering Servant of Deutero-Isaiah; and the second decision in the conflict between the metastasis of Isaiah and the true role of the Spirit in the world. (I just recall a splendid formula of Doderer’s: A Weltanschauung is a lack of perception elevated to the rank of a system.) We are very much interested in the Minnesota affair. Has anything further happened? After all, Minnesota is a bit closer to the East than Seattle. And what are you doing in Notre Dame? Don’t be so reticent! With all good wishes from both of us to you and the family, Cordially yours, <Eric>
72. June 5, 1957 Dear Bob: I have not heard from you directly for a long time. But through Ruth we have learned that something went wrong with the Guggenheim Foundation. I hope you take that no more seriously than it deserves to be taken—though, of course, the money would have come in handy. These Foundations make the most incredible bloomers. Think of all the second- and third-raters who got the Nobel Prize, while men like Proust, Valéry, or Joyce never came near it. The only thing I regret is that we never shall find out what went on behind the scenes. You will soon be on your way to Europe; and if I have understood the general program correctly, you will be in England during the winter and take a trip to
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the Continent in spring or summer. And that brings on the agreeable vision of a meeting somewhere. Our plans are at present the following: The job in Munich is fixed. We shall move in early February 1958. By the middle of February at least I shall be in Munich. And by March we should be settled. How does this dovetail with your calendar? Shall we see you and Ruth in Munich in spring? There is a lull of activity at the moment. The semester is over, and above all the Jurisprudence course in the Law School with its eight 4-hour papers. Volumes II and III of Order and History (the Greeks) are delivered for printing; they are supposed to come out before the end of the year. As soon as I have cleaned up my correspondence and sundries, I shall start on Volume IV (Empire and Christianity). Sometime in July I shall go to Cambridge; and Lissy will join me in August. The second Volume, from the Greek beginnings to Socrates, gave me a lot of trouble. The newly deciphered tablets in Mycenaean Greek had to be integrated (the treatise by [Michael] Ventris and [John] Chadwick came out only last December); the meaning of poetry as a source of truth, superseding the myth, had to be clarified on the basis of scattered sources difficult to assemble (I hope I got them all); and the great problem of how to delimit “Greek” history had to be worked out. Altogether about 150 pages had to be newly written. But now it’s all over. Let me know what you are doing. With all good wishes, Yours cordially, <Eric>
73. [Seattle,] June 26, 1957 Dear Eric, You pass so quickly over the big news in your recent letter that your reader would scarcely know that this is a choice-of-a-lifetime moment: to Munich, and away from America, I suppose, for good. That the Munich job finally went through all official channels and became fact we must rejoice, on your account; and on our own, and even a little on purely nationalistic grounds I guess, we are sad. The post must be of the kind that will be most conducive in every way to the going-forward of your work, and that is the big thing. I hope you are most happy about it, and I congratulate Munich. And you know how I feel about a lot of institutions in this country. 8. Michael Ventris and John Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek, with a foreword by Alan J. B. Wace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956).
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As always I read with relish your notes on how you are progressing with the next volumes. It is hard for me to think that that first volume, with its immense mastery of fields, its to-me-incredible learning, is only a relatively small part of the whole job. I keep soaking it up to the extent that I am able, trying to keep with me not the vast technical body of material which is alien to me, but that central flow of concepts to which everything returns: the refinement in the definition or symbolization of transcendental reality. If I absorb it properly, I feel that I shall have always an invaluable instrument of thought for my own field. Incidentally, I have just placed with the LSU Press an order for all other volumes as they come out. For a while I rankled quite a bit on the Guggenheim business: and I was a little bothered to see how strongly my emotional reaction was in a matter where I had had pretty much intellectual clarity from the start. I think that what happened was that such magnificently generous support as that of yours interfered seriously with my rational sense of the probabilities, and I began to entertain serious hopes despite my better judgment. So I was a bit sour for a while, especially as an asst prof in our dept, an only moderately talented person, got one. Two days from now we take off by train for the East (the car stays with Pete, whose year is dedicated to the breaking of apron strings), and we sail on the Ryndam on July 18. At this point I am overwhelmed by the sheer physical problems of travel, and by the jitters of a 50-year-old virgin in the field of foreign travel; I feel like a well brought up country girl who is in danger of being snatched by a sinister operative of the white slave trade. Whether such a character is capable of being improved by contact with alien worlds remains to be seen. We dread being a nuisance, but maybe we could sponge on you for a day and see Munich and the university through your eyes and Lissie’s if you could stand that much of us some time in the spring. We will always be able to reach you by mail at LSU or Munich, and my office here at UW will always forward mail. After we get to England (presumably in October; we are virtually unscheduled), I would think that I could be reached at the Authors’ Club, 2, Whitehall Court, London, 8. W. 1. This outfit is so hard up for money they encourage cheap American memberships, and a friend of mine has nominated me; I am probably thought to be a detective story writer, but still the horrid reality may remain undetected and I may get in. Ha. Our very best to you, for the last months in America, and then the new job. Sincerely, <(Over)>
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Recently I heard from Bob Harris for the first time in years. He says things are wonderful at Vanderbilt and reports that LSU is meeting the rush of students by increasing the teaching load by 3 hours per man. Is this correct? Bob wrote to tell me of the death, from intestinal cancer, of Bob Clark, whom perhaps you knew—was chairman of German at LSU, then at Texas, and in the last several years at Berkeley. He was 51.
74. Munich, March 7, 1958 Dear Bob: I am not sure I have got your address straight, but I shall try to reach you and tell you a few things about our present situation. We hope, of course, that you and Ruth will make your appearance here in a not too distant future. We are here now for almost four weeks. And this first period was a bit difficult, because we were engaged in establishing our legal existence with all sorts of officials. Then I had to get my appointment and, last not least, start the salary moving. And now I have to organize the Institute from scratch. There is nothing but three empty rooms, in a very elegant office building. They have to be furnished, by the University architect; and that is a finicky personality who wants only the best for me. He refuses to put in a mass production desk, and chair, and other furniture, because that is not suitable to such a worthy as a professor is. He has designed a lovely desk with a teakwood top, and grey oak lower parts; a chair with a Chinese red upholstery; and curtains in a sun yellow to complete the color scheme. All that is handmade and takes time. My protests and prayers for less elegant appointments were refused with the remark: Look what they spend for the military; we are not going to start saving with you. So all I can do is to hope that by the end of March these beauteous things are ready; and that at the same time my library will have arrived, so that I can place the most necessary parts in the new surroundings. —Furthermore I have to find a secretary, an assistant, and an undergraduate assistant. That has developed to be quite a bit of trouble, too, as I am completely on my own. To be sure, there are interested persons, as the pay scale by German standards is quite satisfactory; but nobody as yet has proved acceptable. At present we are in the Easter vacation, thank God. The semester starts after Easter, and the course work only in May. That gives me time to attend to all this administrative business. But then I lose much time, because we are not permanently housed. At present, we are in that Pension mentioned at the head of this
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letter. And beginning March 17th, we shall have a two-room furnished apartment. Our address will then be: c.o. Erna Schneidt Maximilianstrasse 18 Munich Please, take note of this change of address. Our permanent abode will not be available before May. It is a large apartment, 41⁄ 2 rooms, in a house that belongs to the government and is supposed to accommodate professors. The Ministry does what it can to secure this place for us; and the matter looks quite hopeful. Our furniture should arrive in the second half of March. It will have to be stored until we can move to the apartment—with the exception of the books which I can put in my office. The moving operation started, of course, already in America. Since the middle of December we are on the move in furnished rooms. And with all that the work on Order and History has suffered, too. The two Greek volumes, it is true, have come out. I only hope you have received them; after your urgent admonition I did not send you the copies; but if you have not got them otherwise, permit me to do so after all. Seeing the two volumes through the press, with indexes and all that, was quite an ordeal, especially as the editor this time was an almost illiteral [sic] girl who did a lot of damage. Now I am working on the fourth one, but it is difficult to concentrate with all the disturbances—and concentration on the problems is what this volume needs—the materials I have more or less at hand. Still, some of the advantages of Munich make themselves felt already. I have seen Dempf several times; and he has given me his new book on the Critique of Historical Reason—which is just what I need for my work. And inevitably I have run into all sorts of other literature by men who are in Munich or the general vicinity of five-hundred miles; and that is a great help and saves the time I would have to spend to dig up all these things at so remote a point as Baton Rouge. So, in the end I may come out even, and get the volume ready for the press early next year. Setting aside these various pressures of transition, we are quite happy. Especially Lissy, ever since she got her Volkswagen. Now that we are motorized, a lot of things have become easier. In the week of the 23rd of March we shall have to go to Zurich. Partly because we have to satisfy some immigration requirements (Visa from a consulate, just
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as in the good USA); partly because I have to talk with the Benziger people in Einsiedeln. Benziger has signed the contract to make a German edition of Order and History. Now, let us know what your plans are, and your time-schedule. We are looking forward very much to have you here. Yours cordially, <Eric> <E.>
75. London, Aerogramme mailed March 1958 [The date is obscured.] [Heilman’s address] To April: 23 Thurlos Square London, SW 7 April 17–21: Millards Hotel 150 Sussex Gardens London, W. 2. Dear Eric, Your letter of March 7 and its reference to the earlier letter from Lissy to Ruth were a double reminder that we have been very poor correspondents, though not from not thinking of you, or from not hoping to see you before we return to our own private order and history. Both your letters we have been very happy to have, and we enjoyed a good deal, first Lissy’s advance account of all the complicated movements ahead of you, and now your post-mortem or postmotionem, especially the description of your official digs (the British in us) and of the architect’s temperate pace that results from his determination to equip you no less handsomely than he would a general. This I take it is a good omen: even the architect knows what the university has snatched from America, that dreadfully heedless foster-parent. But I hope the initial distractions are of short duration, and that there will be no further encroachments on the profits that the new environment in the old world is offering . . . I do not see how, amidst all the labors of moving, you managed to finish up everything required by the two Greek volumes; these I learned about when I was informed that they are now in my office at UW. I placed an order for the entire series with the LSU Press. I am
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grateful for your thinking so generously—recklessly, I must say—of sending the last two volumes on to me. . . . We plan to come to the continent about April 21, stop a day or two at Brussels, and then drive directly to Munich, en route to Italy for our final sampling of the new before sailing from Havre May 31. In my ignorance of relative claims on time, I do not know what would be an ideal distribution of the dwindling days left to us; but I suppose that two or at most three days is what we should plan for Munich. But above all things it is important that we do not be a pest to you. We hope to see a little of you, to be fortunate enough to get Lissy as cicerone for a little more than that, and, taxing you for counsel; to be otherwise as little dependent as possible. And we have to start right out by depending: someone tells us that in Munich is a new hotel, the Wien, with rooms at 2 dollars a day. This hardly seems credible. Could Lissy check on this rumor, and advise us to stay there, or perhaps at such a place as the Pension Biederstein? I do not know whether in Germany the word pension implies all meals, but we would of course prefer to be free to do some “eating around.” In Coblenz and Wiesbaden we stayed in 4-dollar rooms (16 marks as I remember it), and that range would be about our aim if we could manage it without being too compressed and unwatered. . . . We are glad Lissy has her new VW. And we just got ours two days ago! But with the new gear shift, the horrors of London traffic, and the left-side-of-the-road system, we are virtually afraid to do anything with it but look at it admiringly. But April 1 we give up the apartment and head out for Wales, the Lake Country, and southern Scotland; we will then be back in a hotel here for several days before going to “Europe.” By then we should know what kind of time we can make on the road, and predict a timetable for Munich. . . . One bit of personal news: Magic in the Web won the Explicator Prize for 1956 as the best analysis of a literary text. . . . When, in speaking of the projected visit to Italy, I used the phrase “sampling the new,” I was not speaking loosely: the whole year has been one of sampling, i.e., picking up the little pieces of the surface here and there, and of the new: all the time a dominant sense of novelty. I should have realized that in first visiting Europe at age 51 I would be pretty much overwhelmed by the unfamiliar, enough so that aside from a 50-page essay on the picaresque (the product of reading Felix Krull) I have no work to show for the year. I feel guilty about it, but the fact is that I have not been able to work much: too much to do in the fear that I might never get here again. And the irony of it, at that, is that one seems to have looked only at [a] few fragments here and there, to have followed in tourist ruts, and to have had banal thoughts. I now have a hope that when I get back I shall sense some things differently enough to feel that in traipsing
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around Europe I have acquired something by way of modifications, but while in the midst of novelty one doesn’t know whether anything stays that transcends the sense of novelty. One may find that all that stays with him of Paris is a sense of arranged spaces (Hollywood, as a Francophobe colleague insists, or classic glory, as the Francophile colleague has it?), of that characteristic odd coppery make-up of French girls, or of picking out picnic morsels for lunch at the numerous little stores in the St. Sulpice area where we spent a couple of months. It has all been wonderful fun in a sensational way, notably in all the first contacts with all the signs and tokens that take one into a long range of pasts. We are just back from almost 4 weeks on a jaunt to the Hague, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Helsinki (I missed Leningrad because of visa failure). You positively cut ice for 18 hours crossing the Baltic from Stockholm to Turku; all this is as polar as can be and then you come up in Helsinki and find the Lutheran “cathedral” modeled, apparently, on the Pantheon, and half the city having a French classical look. Maybe sometime one gets a few pieces put together. Our very best to both of you,
76. München, March 18, 1958 Dear Bob: We were delighted with your letter, as we had already serious sorrows that we might miss you because of difficulties of the address. Yesterday we moved; and now we are settled in the new, still temporary quarters—they look tolerable; and I think we can stick it out until May. First of all your question. I just called up the Hotel Wien. Your informant must have reveled too much in Munich Bier. Nothing doing at $2. A double room with bath costs DM 22, plus the regular 15% service charge; and that means altogether DM 25.30 a day—about $6. As far as I know, that is about the cheapest you can get in a regular Hotel in Munich. —The Pension Biederstein is not much less expensive. A double room, without bath, costs DM 16, plus 15%, that is DM 18.40. Bath can be had extra at the rate of DM 1 per bath. The hitch is that you must take breakfast in the house—DM 2.50 per person, plus 10% service charge; that is DM 5.50 a day for two. Breakfast consists of tea or coffee with a lot of rolls, butter, marmalade, jam—what British visitors to the continent call “A roll in bed with honey” (I hope you know that by now). I think you get away with a dollar less at the Biederstein. —If you want us to do anything by way of reservations, please let us know. No trouble at all, as we have a telephone now.
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As for your stay in Munich—I can understand well that you want to see as little of me as possible, and instead gallivant around with Lissy, but I want to see as much of you as possible—and somehow this seeing business is correlative— so I am afraid you will have to put up with me at least some of the time. As for the length of your stay, counsel is difficult; it all depends on what you and Ruth want to see. The great item in Munich is the Alte Pinakothek, just reopened, one of the most magnificent Museums in the world: especially the German 16th century—[Albrecht] Dürer, [Albrecht] Altdorfer, [Michael or Friedrich] Pacher, etc.—is more representative here than anywhere else; and the [Peter Paul] Rubens and Rembrandt [van Rijn] collections are nothing to sneeze at either. But I think I can pilot you through the high-points in half a day. Then there is the city itself: the Gothic cathedral and churches; the Barock [sic] churches; and above all Nymphenburg, one of the best Barock castles north of the Alps; and finally one should see Chiemsee. But I think you can make it in three days. This I say in consideration of your Italian program. I take it you want to see Florence and Rome—and there you will find that any amount of time is too little. And now let me congratulate you to [sic] the Explicator Prize. I do not know exactly what it is, but I hope sincerely that the honor was accompanied by a modicum of cash. And anyway: do you begin to believe now that you are quite good? I hope Ruth is hammering it into you. Things are shaping up with us. There is reasonable hope that I get that Institute moving by the beginning of April. But I have to solve the most extraordinary problems such as sealing the parquetry floors of the rooms so that they will stay clean and undamaged with a hard polish. Next week we shall spend in Zurich for a number of reasons. In the first place, we have to get the Visa from the German consul there in order to immigrate to Germany in legal style. Then I have to see the Benziger people, that is, the benighted Swiss publisher who thinks he can make money out of a German edition of Order and History; and third to see some people who want to introduce political science to Switzerland and who for that reason want to see me. I am glad to learn from your letter that you have not wasted your time in writing a book or collecting materials in libraries. That is wonderful that you travel so much—especially I envy your trip to Helsinki—we never got farther than Gotland. It all will sink in—and it will surge up again on the most uncalculated occasions. But we’ll talk about that when you are here. Have a good time in Wales and the Lake District. And let us know when you come. With all good wishes, from both of us, to you and Ruth, Ever yours, <Eric>
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77. London, March 26, 1958 Dear Eric, Thank you very much for taking the trouble to write an extra letter to us via the Seattle address; for a long time I have been trying to make Ruth feel regretful about her undecipherable handwriting—regretful enough, that is, to undertake a minimal reform—but I have had no luck. In fact, she feels a little complacent because her sister’s is still more undecipherable: you can see the sort of spiritual damage done by that situation. Your picture-postcard of Munich (I recall all those umlauts I so painfully typed into the English form of the name last time) makes the city and surroundings seem wonderfully beautiful; I simply did not know that nature and history combine so effectively there. What an especial impact the mountains must have after the flat Louisiana country; I recall what the Northwest mountains did to us when we first went to Washington. But there comparisons end, for Seattle has no history. The general itinerary which you propose is admirable—the Pinakothek, the Cathedral, the Baroque churches, Nymphenburg, Chiemsee. To me it seems awful that you should waste productive hours on being a guide, but if you are resolved on folly, I will be the wiser. We’ll be happy for any of your time that we can have, and will try not to feel too guilty until we get out of town. But I must also confess that our hearts will be broken if your assumption of responsibilities means that Lissie is going to have nothing to do with us. We will relentlessly seek her out in her den, or on the high peaks to which she may have sped off in the solitary Volkswagen, the fan belt roaring insolently behind her. Aside from guaranteeing the future, you have done a noble job in the present, namely, at the mean task of casing the joints for the night. Our impulse is to save the $1 per day and settle for Pension Biederstein; we are used to the roll in bed with honey, now (although we didn’t know that fine phrase for it before), and we assume that the bath-less room (of which we have had many) is not also eau-courant-less (as we French say), so that in a pinch the heron-bath (one leg up) becomes a possible rite of purification. You are kind to offer to make reservations, and we may want to call upon you for assistance. At the moment our schedule is not quite shaped up enough, but we are getting very close to final form. We now have reservations for Brussels for the nights of April 21 and 22, and from there we shall proceed southward. Munich looks like at least a 2-day drive, and since everything will be new, we may take it at a still slower pace. The German consul in Seattle, a very agreeable former judge named Oppel, will be in Stuttgart then, and something has been said about a hello-and-goodbye in
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passing; I do not know whether anything will come of it. At any rate, I would guess that we’d use about 3 or 4 days from Brussels to Munich and would therefore reach Munich April 25 or 26. In speaking of sight-seeing in Munich you did not mention either the University or the Institute: it is there that we must have a point of departure. I want especially to see how you have done the parquetry floors. Such matters must be painfully burdensome, but I hope you also get a little amusement out of them. I also hope that the foundation work may all be done by April 1, so that you can move into the superstructure, though actually I think of that as magically pre-existing even though the material foundations may be incomplete. In a lesser way I am curious about the details of immigration to which you have referred; and of course we wonder whether you will retain your American citizenship. It occurs to me that perhaps your ministry would want that revoked as a part of the deal. Good for Benziger. I suspect he is a shrewd fellow who looked up the U. of Chicago sales sheets on recent Walgreen lectures. And though I have no idea how fast the big book moves at LSU Press, I know that it will move steadily for a very long time. And I will add that since I suspect you will write in German from now on, I hope that some American printeries are already thinking of lining up good translators. Among other things[,] I must as[k] you about the present strenuous debates at Bonn, which are reported with great fullness in the Times. We are very grateful for all your help. With warm good wishes to both of you, April 17–19: Millards Hotel 150 Sussex Gardens London W 2
78. The Homeric, June 4, [1958]—nearing Newfoundland [OH] Dear Eric, I have wanted to write something a little more substantial than a postcard to tell you what a good time Ruth and I had with you and Lissie in Munich. You were excellent guides and generous hosts—and most generous with what is most valuable, namely, time. But above all, you were wonderful companions; we always knew that it was pleasurable to be with you, but since we had never spent so much time with you in consecutive days and hours, we had never perhaps
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had so much fun with you. Well, this gets into comparisons and measurements, which are irrelevant. Once again, and more strongly than ever, we felt how lucky it had been for us to be at the American university that you came to. And I will no longer mourn your departure, for I find that I have got into the habit of thinking that it will be a temporary one. We were delighted by Lissy’s letter & happy to know that the new apartment is being whipped into shape, and sorry that you had to deal with the colleague who felt that hammering was interfering with the nap guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. I know that Lissy’s reply helped alert him to the other realities in the situation, and I suspect that there have been no more communiqués from the Lower Depths. The Vienna hotel was very good, the rates were properly reduced, and we were both grateful to Walter [Weisskopf ] for his offices and glad to make his acquaintance. By now you have had the visit in Munich, during which Walter perhaps told you that he had somewhat reconciled me to not driving thru Yugoslavia, which he reported to be very drab and dull, and perhaps really troublesome in the Trieste area. I had wanted to go to Italy via Yugoslavia, but thought of it too late and didn’t get a visa. The Yugoslavs apparently run a very sloppy operation in Vienna. If so, that is surely the only sloppy thing in Vienna. Only after being in that city for several days—and after having been to two different opera houses—was I able to appreciate the loss you must have felt in coming to America and to the rural South. What a wonderful job you did of adjusting to America, and of keeping your homesickness and dismay to yourselves. As you see, we thought Vienna wonderful—from the fine spacious boulevards to the real amiability of the people, from the light opera (Orpheus wonderfully done) to Schönbrun, from the Prater to the Vienna Woods to an air of ease and unconstraint. In a way it did not make the best start for Italy; or maybe by the time we got to Italy we were tired enough from travel to be unable to tune in properly. Much of the countryside was lovely, especially that of Tuscany; it was fascinating to find that all these little hilltop communities that in Renaissance painting, I had taken for allegorical New Jerusalems were actualities faithfully reproduced; the Pitti and the Uffizi had incredible collections of art, and we should have spent more time in Florence; in Venice the big square at St. Mark’s and the Palace were extraordinarily exciting things; and the Old Rome in the midst of New Rome—my first large-scale tasting of antiquity was very moving. The Renaissance churches I still don’t have much feeling for, but I was charmed by the polychrome effects at Orvieto and Siena & Pisa. And the interior at Pisa I thought the finest in Italy.
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Wrong? After all of this, and much more, I suppose it is positively small-minded & wrongheaded to be bothered by the Italians, especially since I know that I saw only those in the tourist-professions, which always bring out the worst of humanity, but the constant guarding against burglary (the car was gone thru in Florence), fending off beggars, fighting savagely aggressive drivers, enduring the “lira amiability” and the underlying cold insolence of waiters—all this got me down. Nearly all the Italians I saw seemed to me to be American gangsters or confidence men manqués, a fusion of the crafty and the primitive, conducting a life of competitive enterprise in its purest form. The worst of it is that I fear that all that happened to me is that an otherwise controlled provincialism of mind burst free at last. Getting back to France seemed almost like returning home. Provence was very lovely physically, and Aix, Nîmes, Arles, & Avignon all exciting in their own ways (though in Nîmes we could not get into the Circus because they were having a bullfight there). But I must stop this: there is no need to burden you with a travelogue of experiences as yet undigested that I hope will separate themselves properly and will, as you predicted, start coming up in meaningful ways. Later we were in Paris for 3 days of what I suppose is a kind of revolution, but all was quiet on the surface, cafés flourishing, etc. At Le Havre we finally got ourselves and all our junk and the V-W aboard a crowded Homeric, despite the absence of some papers I had sent to Seattle in the long struggle to get an American license for this car (not until we land in Montreal will [I] know whether this tedious and complex long-distance operation has succeeded). Just before we left I got a letter from an editor accepting the Mann-picaresque article & suggesting that it justified the year abroad. Kind fellow! He helps mitigate the tourist Guilt neurosis. Did I send you a postcard saying that Harold Stoke had got the presidency of Queens on Long Island? I’m not sure that it’s a job to be desired, but I’m glad that Harold is getting one final shot at a presidency. After the crushing defeat at LSU he had thought he never wanted to try again, but he soon began to be impatient with lesser roles. So it became necessary for him to try again. I await the outcome, all of which hinges on whether Harold has at last learned what he has to take to make a presidency go. He really sees his colleagues too clearly to make a good practical politician, and I do pray that his impatience will not betray him again. Quite aside from the pleasure of seeing you, and of seeing Munich through your eyes, we are glad to have a concrete picture of the physical world in which you live. It has so much to recommend it, that world, that it is probably not
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generous of us to hope that it is only temporary. But one does not always discipline his own selfishness. Our affectionate best wishes to you both, Bob In Florence we saw 3 operas, two of them (Lady of the Lake & Marriage of Figaro) by a wonderful Vienna company. And an usher sold me a phony program. In Florence we met a Socialist editor—a sweet fellow who had indirectly been a Resistance hero. But his ideas sounded exactly like Pacific Northwest liberal anti-ecclesiasticism & humanitarianism.
79. München, August 31, 1958 Dear Bob: I am rather ashamed that I have not answered yet your long letter of June 4th, written from the Homeric—or rather, I suspect, this is just a cliché opening, and I am not ashamed at all, but only full of regret that so long a time had to lapse with all sorts of diversionary activities before I come around to do what I really want to do, and to tell you how happy we were to have you here, and how delighted I was by your letter with its tone of relaxation. You really seemed to have liked not only Munich, but also Vienna, and even Italy—in spite of your encounters with the exploiting class in the tourist trade—I share your feelings, and always make a point of being the hard-working, honest proletarian in revolt against the expropriators on such occasions. Still, there are a few quite nice people in Italy, as everywhere. A propos, I like the great axiom of Bavarian anthropology: “Man is good, but the people are just rabble.” When re-reading your letter just now, I was shocked by the things that have happened since you were here. The apartment has been occupied and furnished (at a horrendous cost), and we have progressed so far that only our bed-rooms still need some attention. It was hard work, especially for Lissy, but now we hope that in fall we shall have some quiet from these tasks. And the Institute, which you saw still at a rather inchoate stage, has progressed too: book-shelves have arrived, and now they are filling up with books—so rapidly that I foresee a crisis by Christmas. The bursting-point will be reached; and in October I intend to start the campaign for getting the neighboring rooms, at present occupied by the ethnologists whose come-on pictures you admired. That means, we have to find lodgings for them which to them will appear preferable to the present ones; and that means a good deal of dickering with the Administration.
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The sinological assistant has started to work on July 1st. And under my direction he is now making translations of certain Confucian and Neo-Confucian texts, in order to furnish a basis for analysis. I was hampered in my dealings with Chinese problems by the fact that the translations in existence are good for nothing—lack of philological exactness, and lack of knowledge with regard to subject matter on the part of otherwise good philologists are the reasons. The boy is doing quite well; and I foresee that a critical edition of these texts will be the first publication of the Institute. I need this work as a basis, in order to show that there is no such thing as Chinese philosophy; and beyond that negative demonstration lies then, of course, the problem to show what that thing is which conventionally is called “philosophy.” It is a part of my classification of symbolic forms. At present, I am working on getting a Fulbright professor for International Relations and Far Eastern Politics, for the academic year 1959/1960; and it looks as if I could get one—at least I have found a suitable candidate who is willing to come. That would help a great deal for the purpose of expansion. There were quite a few visitors here since you left. One of them you know: Conrad Albrizio—he was here for a week, taking a vacation from his work in Venice. He is supervising a mosaic there that will adorn some building in Mobile when it is finished. Or rather, I should say, he was supervising it; for in the meanwhile he has left for home as Gene seems to have acquired some jaundice with prospects of surgery. We have not heard from him since he flew home two weeks ago. —And then there were several people from New York here, coming through on occasion of summer trips. And as a surprise, there appeared the Wogans from New Orleans—he did some work here, not clearly to be defined, in Spanish. My own work, which should be my main concern, inevitably has suffered in these months. Only since the end of July, when the semester ended, has it again really come under way. At present I am struggling with the literary form of the Gospels which, as always, is inseparable from its content—but at least some notable results are in sight now. When I have finished that section, I shall be greatly relieved, for the Gospels are, after all, a cornerstone in the spiritual history of the West. I remember that on occasion, in conversation, you told me about a new project of some sort that is boiling in Washington. But either I have forgotten the details, or we never came around to them. It had something to do with a new 9. Conrad Albrizio was a member of the fine arts department, Louisiana State University until 1955. His portrait of Eric Voegelin may be found on the book cover of Eric Voegelin, Autobiographical Reflections, ed. Ellis Sandoz (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989).
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research institute for social sciences or the humanities in general. And I remember that the matter interested me at the time. Could you tell me more about it? On Friday of this week, I still have a session that will last the whole day, in which the new Academy of Political Science will be finally founded. But on Saturday we go away—to Italy. First station will be Innsbruck, just overnight. The next day we want to penetrate to Ravenna. And then we shall stay for five or six days at a beach near Ravenna, before we go to Rome where I have to participate in the meeting of the International Political Science Association—a vastly superfluous enterprise. And then we shall wind our way back home, passing through Florence. By October 1st I have to be back. If you can spare the time, let us know how you and Ruth got home, what happened to the Volkswagen in the end, and last not least how Pete is. And when do you come again to Munich? With all good wishes to Ruth and you, from both of us, Yours always, <Eric>
80. Seattle, December 21, 1958 Dear Eric, Ruth has already sent off Christmas greetings to Munich, but I also want to add my own: my very best to both of you. As you probably know by now, my not writing does not mean that you are not often in my mind, and not only that, but often referred to and often quoted (at least when I am fortunate enough to be with someone that I think is imaginative enough to appreciate the point of view, not to mention be impressed by the fact that I can boast of knowing you personally. You see what vulgar use you are put to!). Your letter came in September: in that month I was working desperately trying to get a good start on the Notre Dame lectures before school started, and then school started, and since then I’ve been mired in the usual muddle of day-to-day activities. In addition to everything else I was chairman of a college committee to find a new head for the Department of Philosophy—a task somewhat less than delightful because the philosophic members of the committee threw all the written evidence out of the window to insist on their own private insights into excellence. In some cases this would be all right, but since of the two phils, one is a smart-aleck and a rascal, and the other wants to be chairman, I was something less than enthusiastic about a well-nigh universal denigration of the profession that in other circumstances might have seemed pretty charming. Incidentally, the rascal is a specialist in ethics.
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I also want to acknowledge the invitation to your recent institutional lecture, which we wish we could have attended if only for the show; if the language remained a little opaque, some things would have come through. We have been very much interested in your and Lissie’s accounts of the developments at the Institute and at the apartment. We have the feeling that everything is shaping up very nicely and that the whole situation is becoming a very satisfying one. Good! I cannot bear to wish it less than perfect in order that you might remain open-minded to any possibilities from the more western part of the western world. In that connection: the prospective humanities studies center which I spoke to you about was being talked about last year in the Bollingen Foundation (Mellon money, I believe)—which you may have come across through one or another of their large publications projects, including a complete Jung and a complete Paul Valéry. It is my friend Jackson Mathews who is at the head of the Valéry project, and it is he who, having heard me talk about you, once asked me spontaneously if I thought you would be a good prospect for a permanent seat in the Institute. You will know that I leaped in with an enthusiastic affirmative. I will be sorry if I talked too soon to you about something that may not materialize; I haven’t heard anything about it for a long time, and I don’t know whether it is still on their agenda. In New York next week (where I go for our annual meeting) I expect to see Jack Mathews, and I will try to find out whether their institute is still on the drawing boards. I now have the first three volumes of Order and History. Originally I was going to do only some selective reading, picking parts that seemed on the face of it to have some special relevance to my own work; this seemed especially sensible after I found how inadequately equipped I was to take in the early parts of Vol. I. But now I have changed that. I have gone back to the first volume and am reading straight thru, and this I plan to do for the whole work, however long I am at it (sometimes two weeks go by without my getting a page done). I am in the Israel part now, and I find that, within and yet despite the limitations imposed by my own defective competence, I find a genuine excitement carrying me along from section to section. I think I have the hang of the basic ideas and terms, and, whether it is an illusion or not, I have the sense of being “with you,” as the kids say. Aside from the immediate pleasure in the reading, I feel that what accrues for me is the constant discipline in the modes of thought and analysis, and from this I feel always that I am carrying something valuable over into trying to think about literary problems. You might never recognize this, and you might well wish to disown anything that claimed even distant kinship with you; so it may be better to leave this at the subjective level. Your writing is always articulate and fluent, but every now and then it breaks out into
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something extraordinarily good, as on pp. 182 and 183. Along with the enormous technicality of the style there are the fine epigrams, like the next to the last sentence in the first paragraph on p. 114; and I am always delighted by the occasional colloquial touches that have a sort of American cast about them— “unemployed intellectuals,” people capable of religious experience “do not grow on trees,” “request the opinion of some prophet,” etc. And how much humor interlards the learning, and how delightfully so. I have long wanted to ask you about an idea of mine that hangs on something you once said—in about these words, I’d guess, “There are no gods, but we must believe in them.” If these were your approximate words, you may have been speaking them in a special tone that I missed: as you see, I’m trying to leave this as tentative as possible. Anyway, I have long toyed with the idea of a strategy for taking the term humanism away from the professional humanists. What strikes me is that the creation of gods (which I take to be another term for Voegelin’s awareness of or openness to transcendent being) might be defined as the ultimate achievement of humanity, and that humanity is incomplete unless it has taken this step. Hence for the humanists to take their stand on the opposition to and the denial of a superhuman order of existence is a contradiction in terms: that is, no superhuman, no human. Is there anything in this approach? Do you get Sewanee Review? The summer 1958 issue had a review of your last two volumes by Russell Kirk, and it sounded to me like a very intelligent summary. The same issue had an article on ideological thought by a man named [Edward Albert] Shils, a “professor on the Committee of Social Thought in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago,” which I found an interesting historical sketch of a mode of thought, but which I would have liked to have your opinion on. I mailed you recently a copy of the fall Sewanee which has my article on picaresque that grew out of my reading of Felix Krull. It’s the one thing I have to show for what time I spent on study in the year abroad. Now, whenever I get a moment, I’m trying to develop an idea for the Notre Dame series, but it hasn’t got much bounce in it yet. I will probably call it “Tragedy and Melodrama” or something like that, and the idea is to canvass two antithetical attitudes to experience that occur both in daily life and in literature; roughly, the sense of guilt and the posture of blame. We’ll see. Right now the damned university is getting so much of my energy that what is left for MS work is mostly low spirits. We like the Volks[wagen] so much that we are going to keep it. We’ve had [a] 10. Heilman, “Variations on Picaresque: Mann’s Felix Krull,” Sewanee Review 66 (1958): 547–77.
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hectic time since we’ve been home—the whole place re-done, and an endless series of guests. Heberles came and stayed for a month, which was a little more than we expected when we said “Stay with us during the sociology meetings in Seattle (3 days).” My mother was here for 5 weeks, and now Ruth’s for an indefinite period. All the usual entertaining. Pete lives at school, but is often at home; majoring in history, doing some English on the side, future uncertain, except for the army, which will take care of the next year or two. How idyllic last year seems. Fond greetings to you both. [left margin]:
81. Seattle, Christmas noon [1958] Dear Eric, Christmas is as good a time as any, and perhaps better than most, to note an astonishing coincidence. Exactly 48 hours after writing you a question about an approach to humanism, I came across this sentence: “The leap in being, the experience of divine being as world-transcendent, is inseparable from the understanding of man as human.” (Is. & Rev., p. 235). If this and the following sentences are not altogether an answer to my question, they come mighty close to it, and they make me feel at least that my idea was not entirely foolish. Notes on Pete, about whom you asked: (1) He just achieved a certain notoriety in a history course by writing a paper on Decline and Fall and referring throughout to the author as “George Gibben”; (2) his favorite Christmas present was a curved meerschaum pipe which he has been smoking steadily since morning. Ruth says that very soon she will answer Lissie’s excellent [letter]. She alone 11. Harold W. Stoke, The American College President (New York: Harper, 1959). 12. Alex Daspit was a member of the Government faculty at LSU, an LSU alumnus, a Rhodes Scholar, and later with the U.S. Department of State (see Heilman, The Southern Connection: Essays by Robert Bechtold Heilman [Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991]).
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will be able to pay tribute to the sweet Gruss aus Nürnberg (and aus Munich) which we opened with pleasure. When the cookies are gone, the pretty box will still be here. All seasonal greetings to both of you,
82. München, December 30, 1958 Dear Bob: Your letter of December 21 just arrived during my year-end bout of clearing out correspondence. I would have written you anyway; so don’t get frightened by my early answer and stick to your own rhythm in reply. Still, I am delighted to have your account of your activities and sorrows. I can about imagine what goes on, when a philosopher has to be chosen—you should sit in on some of the sessions of the Munich faculty. I hear about them through Dempf, who is a real philosopher and at the same time the descendant of Bavarian village notables— sometimes his Bajuvarian background breaks through and the philosophical colleagues become a rare collection of “arse-holes.” The Sewanee Review has not yet arrived—I am looking forward to your study of the picaresque, especially since Krull is one of my favorites. And I very much hope that your lectures on Tragedy and Melodrama also will soon be available in print. When, by the way, will you deliver these lectures? The great event of this season, so far, was the notorious Antrittsvorlesung. The reception was exactly as it would have been in America. One of its topics was the modern “prohibition to ask questions” (Frageverbot) which characterizes the ideologists. And I had to say a few words about the “intellectual swindle” perpetrated by the refusal to admit questions concerning the premises of an opinion. The Leftists were up in arms; and the Rightists were delighted. Fortunately, there were also a few intelligent persons present, one of them the owner of the Kösel Verlag (a big publishing house here in Munich). The next morning he called me up and was ecstatic—best lecture he ever had heard at this University, etc.—and wanted to print it. That was not bad, and I accepted the offer. But as a lecture has only about 25 pages, I had to write a supplementary article on a related subject, on the “murder of God.” And in addition he wanted a Preface on the meaning of Gnosis, as the general public here knows just as much about it as in America, that is, nothing. So I did all that; and it kept me busy 13. Inaugural lecture.
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until the day before Christmas. Now the MS is delivered; and the brochure (about 80 pages) will come out in March. What you say about “humanism” is most suggestive. You are quite right, when you say that the creations [sic] of gods has something to do with true humanity. As a matter of fact, the meaning of humanity was fixed in the process of separating the human from the divine; and as soon as the meaning of the divine becomes unclear again, the meaning of humanity becomes correspondingly confused. (In my second Volume you will find quite a bit on this subject, in Homer and Xenophanes.) For modern humanism this question has been worked through by Henri de Lubac in his Drame de l’Humanisme Athée (it is translated, under some title, into English). Whether one should recapture the term from the humanists, is a question of intellectual politics. One would have to coin a new formula like “true humanism,” in order to distinguish it from the “atheistic humanism.” I have tried to get along with the terms “philosophy” and “Christianity,” in order to avoid this dilemma. But I could well imagine, that in the context of literary criticism, the term “humanism” is so useful that one should make an effort to keep it. —I admit the dictum “There are no gods, but we must believe in them.” You are right, the gods are the symbols by which transcendence is articulated. A good deal of the fundamentalism of enlightenment is due to the fact that the symbolic meaning, the analogia entis, of the gods (which was quite clear to the Greeks, and the medieval Scholastics) was lost. When the faithful become fundamentalist, one cannot blame the intellectuals if they take them by their word and make nonsense of God or the gods. One of the great tasks ahead of us is a renewal of the analogical meaning of symbols, a new philosophy of myth and revelation. Thanks for telling me about the review by Russell Kirk. I had not known about it, and shall try to get a copy. There is another review in the last issue of the Journal of the History of Ideas, by Moses Hadas. I have not seen it either, but I have been told that it is a particularly nasty attack. —There is a balance kept in matters of this world. The Bollingen plan interests me tremendously—if it should ever materialize. After all, I did not “go to Europe” for the fun of it, but because I wanted to work under more favorable conditions; and the American east coast would be even more favorable. The Bollingen Foundation I know quite well. It is indeed the money of Paul Mellon, who happens to be a great friend and admirer of 14. Moses Hadas, review of Order and History, by Eric Voegelin, Journal of the History of Ideas 19 (1958): 442–44.
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Jung’s—that’s why they bring [out] the collected works of Jung in English. I happen to know about these things, because at one stage of looking for a publisher for Order and History, I also approached the Bollingen Foundation. But they did not want to go into another six-volume work, precisely because they were at the time in the beginning of the Valéry, Jung and Coleridge enterprises. Well, let me know, if you hear anything further about their project. And give my regards to Harold Stoke, when you see him. I certainly shall order his book on the college presidency, as soon as it comes out. I am glad you find time for Order and History, and discover some usefulness in it. I really believe that some of the literary criticism contained in it, such as the sections on Deutero-Isaiah, on tragedy, or on the Platonic dialogue should be of interest to you. —Just now I am working on the Gospels—they are fascinating, if you forget all the drivel the theologians write about them. With all good wishes for the New Year, to you and the family, from both of us, Sincerely yours, <Eric>
83. Pasadena, California, August 16, 1959 Dear Eric, Pete wrote the other day that he had visited the Voegelins in Munich, had been graciously received, and had signed you on as booking agents for a later period of his projected touring. We were very glad to have him call on you, hoping that some of your virtues and charms may run over onto him; and I am glad that in the future he will be able to remember that he saw and talked with you after he was beyond childhood; but I ought to warn you not to let him adopt you both as foster-parents and then rely on you for so much that he becomes a nuisance. He is so aware of his own inexperience in traveling that he might fall into a hanger-on-ship that was not a part of his formal plans and that at his best he would not be inclined to. Our thoughts of you, which are never very distant, were stirred in another way the other day when a fellow-Huntingtonian, a man named [Winton Udell] Solberg, a Harvard Ph.D. in Pol Sci who taught at Yale for a number of years, mentioned you as an object of admiration of his erstwhile colleague Kendall. Solberg, I gather, is a patient man who was one of Willmoore’s few friends at Yale, and he gave a not unfriendly, but detached, picture of Willmoore suffering 15. Winton Udell Solberg taught in the history department at Yale.
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because his present padre will not let him marry again, loudly proclaiming himself as an anti-Commie martyr who will be the first to be led to the stake when the Commies take over here (as WK says they will), arguing violently with whoever will argue, drinking heavily, keeping such friends as Solberg up until 3 or 4 a.m. only to ask at last, “Why am I not liked? Why am I not promoted?” Odd case. As you know, I never loved him, but I will always hold it in his favor that he tried to promote you at Yale. As you will know, I wish I had the German to do justice to your inaugural address of which the publisher, at your request obviously, was kind enough to send me a copy. That was fine news that when he heard it delivered the publisher wanted to have it and, more than that, that he recognized its quality (as distinct from its publishability). It looks as though a Munich printer has the sort of intellectual equipment that one hardly associates with any aspect of the publishing business. Well, this is another of those things that, alas, will continue to justify your move. You see, our national selfishness is such that we have to begrudge a little the mounting accumulation of rewards for your move! When I finished the first volume of the big work I was in such a rush that I do [sic] not sit down and make a list of all the things that had particularly delighted me, or on the other hand—just to be impudent—a few cases of idiom that the schoolteacher in me always wants to rush into type with, and that you were always so gracious about receiving. Considering the immensity of the work, these are magnificently few, and since I’m afraid we have to anticipate your not continuing to write in English, not worth transmitting. I also marked a very few typos: the sensible thing to do, I guess, when I get back to Seattle, would be to send these to the LSU Press for use when they get to reprinting . . . I will not bore you with a detailed repetition of my conviction that in reading you I am constantly being helped, often in a rather intangible way, by the improvement of my own ideas in the thinking thru of yours as well as the state of my learning makes possible. Here at the Huntington, as you might guess, I am rather a maverick. Somebody tipped me off that they were short of applicants, and I cashed in on that for a $900 summer grant that pays the expenses of getting here and living here. But this is strictly a research factory where their idea is that one spend his time copying out rare Anglicana and Americana, whereas I am using it for studying and writing time (really, just getting away from Seattle and UW pressures; though I have to do a lot of long-distance department administering [two or three long letters a week], it is much better than being available in town). For a lot of what I do, paperbacks will do just as well for texts; I might add that this would also be true for various Shakespearians operating around here, but the
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“spirit of scholarship” demands that they spend their time in old folios, though these have been perfectly adequately reproduced in modern form. You can see that I suffer from being an outsider as much as if I were an Angry Young Man in London or a beatnik on the USA west coast. What I am working on is something that will have to do in the first instance for the Notre Dame lectures and that I hope will eventually be publishable as a book. My general line is that we have to distinguish tragedy and disaster, both in life and in literature; tragedy is what we do to ourselves, and disaster is what happens to us or what others do to us (there are nice problems of perspective and I believe epistemology here, but I will have to take care of the depths, if at all, only with some hasty and I fear rash skin-diving). Disaster is one end of the spectrum of experience at the other end of which are ideas of victory and conquest; these two extremes have more in common than either has with tragedy, and for that joint realm I shall use the popular term “melodrama”—not the best in the world, but better than any other I can think of or invent. The heart of that realm is that man is “whole”: no inner problems, conflicting motives, divided loyalties, etc.; it is of course a spurious wholeness—the monarchizing of some part by which one prepares for action in the world, to be conquistador or conquistades. I want to get it all down before I go back and re-read Voegelin on tragedy. I expect to be very close to you, for I recall that you define the function of tragedy as reconciling man to his destiny, not giving him a catharsis of tears and fears. Southern Cal we think of as for the birds—with its heat and smog and crowds and vast inhabited spaces that make getting anywhere a journey and make even a short trip a nightmare. You know it of course. Yet we saw some good local ballet (as well as New York ballet) at the Greek Theatre and some good theatre. A pretty good production of [Bertolt] Brecht’s Mother Courage at UCLA yesterday left me beginning to feel that that hero of our times is rather longwinded and boring, a general platitudinousness somewhat obscured by ingenious detail . . . [the] Stokes were here for an overnight stay: reasonably happy at Queens, I think. A little upset that their little girl is about to make them grandparents for the third time. . . . Our very best to both of you. Sincerely,
84. München, August 20, 1959 Dear Robert: Last night we returned from a trip to Spain, where I had to give a lecture at Santander; and this morning arrived your letter of August 16th; and at the same
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time a letter from Pete, detailing his traveling schedule and announcing his return to Munich for September 23rd. I feel terrible for not having written earlier. The reason was the crowded schedule. The term ended with the month of July; and just at that time we had an endless succession of visitors; George Jaffé, Walter Berns from Yale (who confirmed the picture of Willmoore Kendall drawn by Solberg), [Emanuel] Winternitz from the Metropolitan Museum, [Walter A.] Weisskopf from Chicago—and last not least Pete. On August 5th we set out for the trip to Spain, and now at last I can take a breath and more pleasant occupations, such as writing this letter. First of all: Pete. He is perfectly charming, and a goodlooking fellow. I happened to stand on the balcony (fourth flow [sic]) when he came down the street, and recognized him immediately by his gait and general appearance, so closely it resembled yours. And that resemblance was even more striking at closer inspection—not only his features, but his gestures, his way of throwing back his head, of being deliberate and thoughtful, his careful speech, his choice vocabulary, his wellbred gentleness, and above all his way of being articulate. It was a curious experience to talk with the younger edition of an old friend. He seemed to be happy and in excellent condition in spite of his exacting schedule; he told us about you and Ruth and your trip to California; and he approved greatly of your recent paper in defense of the younger generation. I hope that his stay in Munich in September will be long enough so that I can see more of him. Unfortunately I have to be in the week of the 21st of September at some Seminar in Basel with Raymond Aron, [Karl] Jaspers, Bertrand de Jouvenel, and some others; but I shall be back by the 27th, and hope to find him still here. You and Ruth should be very happy about Pete and the way you brought him up. Your “Fashions in Melodrama,” as well as the additional hints concerning the subject in your letter, have interested me greatly—both the idea in itself and the fact that it meets with some problems I am dabbling with just now—it is most gratifying to see that we are both on the same track. Whether the term “melodrama” will do in the end, I am not sure; a psychologist here in Munich, whose acquaintance I made recently, speaks of this problem as the “Dramaturgie des Lebens,” which may [be] rendered as a tendency to dramatize life or existence. That term is not so good either, because the problem is precisely the erection of the non-dramatic into a pseudo-drama; and that insight requires an elucidation of the non-dramatic element that is elaborated into a drama. A key seems to me your sentence: “War is all melodrama; so is politics.” To that 16. Heilman, “Fashions in Melodrama,” Western Humanities Review 13 (1959): 3–15. 17. The psychologist was probably Fritz Leist.
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sentence, especially as far as it concerns politics, I would say: Yes and no. Politics is indeed melodrama, if politics is understood as a relation between friend and foe; as a compulsion to take sides in a struggle for power. This conception of politics has been developed by Carl Schmitt; he defines the essence of politics as the “Freund-Feind-Relation,” the relation between friend and foe. Insofar as politics actually assumes this form, and unfortunately it does all too often, the description is empirically adequate, and your thesis is correct. This conception of politics, however, is in radical opposition to the classic conception of Aristotle: that the essence of politics is the philia politike, the friendship which institutes a cooperative community among men, and that this friendship is possible among men insofar as they participate in the common nous, in the spirit or mind. The genuine drama of the polis arises from the participation in the nous and the possibilities of defection from it; the melodrama, in your language would take the place of the drama, if the nous is regarded as irrelevant or non-existent and the question of politics is reduced to the living-out of aggressiveness and the desire to dominate. This second conception of politics has been elaborated for the first time consistently by Hobbes, from [which] all the later ones, including Carl Schmitt, derive. The psychology of melodrama, then, would be the Hobbesian psychology of life as a “race,” and of the aim of life as being foremost in the “race.” As you say in your letter, there is a spectrum from disaster (what happens to us) to victory and conquest (what we do to others). This apparently simple psychology, however, is complicated by the further factor, which you mention, that man does not cease to be concerned with problems of the spirit, even if he experiences life as the melodrama of struggle; the problem of the spirit intrudes itself in the form that man has to <see> himself as “whole” (as you put it in your letter): that he has to be wholly good and the enemy to be wholly evil. (That is the point where the ideologies, etc., come in and have their function as the apology of the melodramatic view of life.) I should say, therefore, one must distinguish in the analysis of the problem at least the following strata: (1) The psychology of passion, which is a solid piece of science, based on the empirical observation of anxiety, fear, aggressiveness, lust of power, and so forth. It touches an important part of the “drama” of politics, of the “stuff ” of which history is made. I am inclined to consider this part of human life a relatively autonomous factor, which forces even the life of the spirit under its law. Even Christianity is a “living,” “historical” force, insofar as it becomes “dramatized” into a passionate issue for which people are willing to live and die. (2) The Hobbesian fallacy that the life of passion is the essence of man. This fallacy, when consistently carried out as it is by Hobbes, has a certain grandeur,
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because it implacably debunks the “melodrama” and reduces it brutally to the power-drive at its core. This consequence inevitably makes it unpopular; and Hobbes has remained, in his consistency, an isolated figure. (3) In order to correct the fallacy, one has to take into account the life of the spirit, which goes on even if existence has degenerated to the level of “melodrama.” (4) If this further factor is taken into account, one arrives at the theory of the “melodrama” which seems to be what you have in mind. The difficulty of making tenable distinctions, as far as I can discern the matter at the moment, seems to lie in the subtle interplay of passion and spirit. One cannot make passion the criterion of “melodrama,” because “drama” is not possible without passion either. One cannot make “spirit” the criterion, because there is no “melodrama” that is not vested with a spiritual issue. The question seems to boil down to “excellence,” as you say, and that means the investment of passion in true spirit. Moreover, neither the life of passion nor of spirit is individual, but inevitably involved in social action. Hence, I wonder whether one can restrict the problem of tragedy to “what we do to ourselves,” as you seem to be inclined. Is it really no more than a disaster, when the excellent is blotted out or suppressed by the vulgar in society? And is it “melodrama,” when rarely enough it remains victorious? These questions seem to indicate the necessity of an elaborate casuistry. If an inefficient man cannot cope with a situation and comes to grief, that may be personal disaster but it is no tragedy—but it is no melodrama either—it becomes a melodrama, when e.g. a poor novelist blows the miserable affair up and believes mistakenly that it is a tragedy. If a vulgarly ambitious person achieves social success, a poor novelist would have the material for a melodramatic success story; a better one, might find the material for a social satire; and a really good one might even discern the tragic fall of a society in which such success has become possible. You see, the farther one goes, the richer the implications unfold. I am looking forward with the greatest interest to your treatment of the problem. The trip to Spain, from which we have just returned, was a bit exhausting but quite fascinating. We went by car, because railroads in Spain are practically unusable when you have to be at a certain place at a definite time; one has to wait for reservations for an indeterminate number of days. Hence, we went by way of Switzerland and France and saw Provence for the first time. There were several unexpected highpoints. In Cette we visited the Cimétière Marin of Paul Valéry; in Toulouse we discovered that Thomas Aquinas is buried there; in Albi we saw the incredibly beautiful cathedral and visited the Toulouse-Lautrec museum,
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and even saw the Chateau de Bosc where he was born. Besides we made stops in Avignon, Orange, Nîmes, Montpellier, Narbonne, Carcassone, and Lourdes. The Atlantic coast from Biarritz to Santander was a nightmare of tourists and we had great difficulties in finding a place for the night. In Santander at last we had a few wonderful days, lodged in the royal castle on a peninsula surrounded by the ocean. A revelation was the Spanish landscape and the peculiar problem of Castille. We drove over to Santillana del Mar, a town which consists of the town palaces of the Castilian nobility. My inquiries from colleagues in Santander as to the economic background of the incredible town (today practically a ghost-town, the palaces inhabited by peasants) brought the information that the builders had been the noblemen who had enriched themselves by the conquest of southern Spain; they built their houses in their native country, living on revenue from the south. We then drove southward till Burgos, that is practically through the whole of old Castille, and found nothing but a desert highland spotted by miserable villages. Under the climatic conditions, there never could have been a substantially larger population. There it dawned on me, by what comparatively insignificant means the historical drama (or is it “melodrama”?) of Spain had been enacted, and why Spain had to slide back into insignificance when other regions of Europe (and America) increased in population and developed the industrial society. Spain could be a great-power apparently only as long as the conditions of an agricultural society kept the power potential of the other nations to a comparatively small scale. This letter has become inordinately long. I better stop here. There will be more, when Pete has been here again. With all good wishes for the rest of your stay in Pasadena, to you and Ruth from both of us, Cordially yours, <Eric>
85. Pasadena, August 30, 1959 [Aerogram] [Heilman’s address] after September 1: 4554 45th Ave NE Seattle 5, Wash. Dear Eric, Your fine letter got here several days ago, and today I postpone the packing into which Ruth is trying to goad me in order to make at least a brief answer. For I know that as soon as I get back into the nightmare of university routine (to
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paraphrase Joyce) I will again never have the moments in which I feel free enough to write comfortably about the issues you raise. You are of course entirely right in catching me up on that “Politics is all melodrama” in the “Fashions” essay. Actually, I knew when I wrote it that it was too easy; at the time I was rushed for a new introduction (the one for speaking had been different) for printing, and so I went into no qualifications. What I should have said is “Politics as popularly understood in this country, as a competition for power, is a rough example of the melodramatic sentiment.” All I wanted there was a quick defining example, to make clear that I was giving a larger meaning to “melodrama,” which normally means little more than a popular villain-victim theatricalism. In the longer work I shall have to take steps to protect myself against the kind of objection that you raise. I say “protect” as the only step which I may be capable of taking—as a substitute, I mean, for an attempt to think through, for the purposes of my own essay, a metapolitic (to use [Peter Robert Edwin] Viereck’s term) on say Aristotelian grounds. But at least implicitly I think [I] got into this, in the sense that the more I try to think through my general thesis, the more I realize the existential interwovenness of the tragic and melodramatic in the actualities of literature and in those of “real life” (the two keep seeming to me to have many analogies—and heavens, the theoretical issues there!). At times this makes the discrimination seem almost hopeless; yet at others I feel convinced that there is something to be gained from the attempt. What I know is that I shall never be capable of a complete systematic job, so I shall aspire to nothing more than the “essay”—the basically incomplete definition of attitudes which, to the extent that they can be discriminated, become useful tools for the consideration of certain problems of literary structure, and I believe, of non-literary experience. I think the other major problem that arises for you is one that will arise very generally: that tragedy is inevitably a term of dignity, and melodrama is not, so that to call the public defeat of “excellence” a melodrama seems like triviality, or priggishness, or even stupidity. This is a great problem. I have toyed with using some other term in place of melodrama, but unless one is very great, one does not get by with inventing terms; I thought there was less risk involved in trying to rehabilitate a well known term—by the general method of contending that the popular meaning of the term is really a debased and simplified version of a fundamental attitude to reality that is inevitable, that may be self-deceptive and dangerous in other ways, but that yet has its own kind of place and validity. What I have to do, then, is to make sure (or try to) that “melodrama” and “disaster” are terms that can be used to describe terrible things, but terrible things
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that have one kind of structure rather than another. If I can do this—perhaps not, alas—then I would not make it necessary for you to inquire protestingly, “Is it really no more than a disaster, when the excellent is blotted out or suppressed by the vulgar in society,” for “disaster” would seem an adequate term. I find myself thinking of ultimate disaster as “post-tragic,” thinking of the tragic as implying, really, spiritual continuity: the double possibility of victory-anddefeat, salvation-and-damnation. As long as you have tragedy, excellence is alive; a norm of excellence is what makes tragedy comprehensible; but with disaster, all goes. If artists are no longer able to think in tragic terms, we are in a hell of [a] fix: we are either living in a silly melodrama of victory (the day is ours, nature is conquered, etc.) or without knowing it in a melodrama of disaster in which we can no longer think and feel in terms of spiritual survival. Well, you see that if I do not see very clearly into my problem, I at least see what it is. Your letter I will place, in the fashion of an affectionate dependent, in my active file of notes—as I did with some comparable criticisms of the first Lear MS years ago—and rely on your voice as much as my talents make possible. Not enough, alas. The “Fashions” essay you will recognize as an after-dinner address which I used largely to work off certain annoyances, and rather with the sense of some polemic twitting than with the sense of much constructive thought. I hoped only that you might get a laugh or two out of it. I was aiming at a more inclusive kind of literary criticism in the Felix Krull essay. Did you ever get the copy I sent you? Perhaps you did not like it and thought it better to say nothing. One or two people here whose criticism I value thought it my best piece of work, and I would be interested to know if you disagree. How we would have liked to have the Spain trip under your tutelage. [Bob]
86. October 4, 1959 Dear Robert: Just an interim report today about Pete. When I came back home from my adventure in Basel, I found him still here and enjoyed his company for about four days. He had been here already for a few days and I had the impression that he needed that week in Munich for repairs in every respect. Somewhere along his trip he had acquired an intestinal affair and it had been running in the most literal sense for about ten days before he arrived. We took him to our doctor, and he was put on a dreary diet of por-
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ridge and similar stuff for a week, and properly medicated. Last Monday he was declared in good order and began stuffing himself again in a satisfactory manner. Thursday morning he left in perfect health for Vienna, and we expect him back by Wednesday. Apparently he also needed a little rest from sight-seeing, and some home life— at least he was not chasing about town in Museums too much. He did a lot of typewriting, accumulated correspondence, and had some mixed fare of reading—Boswell, Joyce, Henry Miller, Santayana, Shaw, etc. The only cloud on the horizon was the failure of a suitcase, which he had left in Soest, to arrive, containing his warmer clothes which he needs for England—it still hasn’t arrived. For the rest he was cheerful in spite of his condition; and it was a real pleasure to have him around. Lissy especially wants me to tell you that he is still her favorite example of a well-bred young American. She told me also that he looked like Marlon Brando, only much nicer—which I take to be a compliment, but unfortunately I cannot appreciate it, because I don’t know what Marlon Brando looks like. All I can say is that I like him too (that is: Pete). During the weeks I was absent, the Wogans were here. They, and Lissy, and Pete went out together. And it seems that the Wogan girl—who is a delightfully mischievous and impish creature—will be in London when Pete will be there. We are very proud that we can provide him even with dates in distant places. I regret very much that I cannot see as much of Pete as I would like to, because this month of October I have a lot of traveling to do. Three weeks ago I was in Vienna, delivering some lecture in the International University Week. The Wogans happened to be there at the time, and found out about the lecture—she even came there and I could see her for a few minutes before we were taken away for some formal dinner. Then came the week in Basel—a somewhat puzzling affair. It was a “Seminar” of the Congress for Freedom of Culture, a mighty organization about whose organizers and financial background I know very little. The subject was “Industrial Society and the Life of Reason” or something of the sort. There were about twenty-five people from various countries. America contributed such public monuments as [J. Robert] Oppenheimer and [George] Kennan. Not much came of it, as most of those present were intellectuals whose relation to the life of reason was more than doubtful. Still, one could meet a few interesting people. And next week, I have to go to West-Berlin for a Seminar of the Cusanuswerk, which is a Catholic enterprise for the education of bright young Catholics. I have accepted this chore mostly, because I still have to get acquainted with this strange environment in which I find myself thrown. There is some hope that the time will not be quite lost, because the
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supervisor is a man who is supposed to be a first-rate authority on the theory of the Church—a subject on which I know entirely too little. That’s all for today. Further installments will follow. All good wishes to you and Ruth from both of us. Yours cordially, <Eric>
87. Notre Dame, Indiana, October 29, 1959 Dear Eric, Ruth and I have been pretty much concerned about the amount of time that Pete spent being a roomer, boarder, and general pensioner of you and Lissy when he was in Munich. We were content to have him stay with you, after your generous invitation, when the understanding was, as he originally put it, that Munich was to be a base of operations. But as far as we can make out, from your quite uncomplaining accounts (from him, we learn only what his schedule is and where to send the next check), he simply moved in and stayed, and for much more time, we fear, than you contemplated. We are most grateful for Lissy’s being doctor: without that special care, he might have dragged on indefinitely with the ailment. But I am afraid she also got stuck with being cook, tourguide, entertainer, and everything else for an indefinite time. It was terribly kind of you both, and we only hope you weren’t both exhausted and nerve-frazzled from a visit that at times you must have thought would be endless. One simply does not know what one’s own child does when he is away from home. We would expect him to practice the ordinary courtesies, but we don’t know whether he would be unknowingly inconsiderate by imposing on hosts too gracious to make it apparent that the guest has overstayed. It may be that, despite energy and some social competence, he may lack confidence for dealing with the touristic situations and hence unknowingly clung firmly to familiar skirts instead of getting moving on his own. Well: you were both most sweet and generous; we are most grateful; and we only hope that your tolerance of all Heilmans has not been permanently exhausted. Lissy said in her last letter to Ruth that you had been going [at] it too hard and were beginning to show signs of wear and tear. I won’t say, Take it easy; but I will say, Don’t take it quite as hard as possible. Even that, I suppose, sounds a little silly, when there is so much you want to do; but I hope you’ll stretch your energy over quite a few more years. Quite aside from the book work and the administrative work, you must, I suppose, really take pleasure in the visits to the
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various meetings and in the direct relations with the whole family of European intellectuals that I think of you as at the center of (quel syntax!). This, I am slowly recognizing, is one thing America can’t offer. But I still hope. By now, I suppose, you’ve seen the Ed Hardys and got their views of Notre Dame. I’m sorry they aren’t here this year, for I would have liked to see the place with their eyes, quite aside from seeing them personally. The campus is very attractive physically, especially now when the maples are turning; I was brought up on these flashing yellows and reds, and this is the first time I’ve seen fall maples in 25 years, so I’m enjoying just gawking at the trees. One is put up in a fine hotel on the campus, the NDU is very generous about picking up expense checks, even for drinks; Catholic Puritanism has not reared its ugly head here. The U. even picked up the tab for the drinks for a dept. party they had for me the other night. The dept. people are very agreeable; how much talent there is, I’m not sure. The students are amazingly well disciplined and make most courteous audiences. How well the lectures are going—i.e., in the sense of seeming intellectually respectable—I have no idea. I’ve never done a series before, and I have some sense of dragging my feet too much, but at any rate three of them have gone without open snoring or other untoward incident, and the audiences have held up pretty close to the first day’s 200. Some students come up to talk and seem really to be trying to work with my ideas of tragedy and melodrama, which pleases me. The faculty are polite, but I have no idea whether to them my ideas seem sharp or pointless. Well, No. 4 this afternoon, and then to Bloomington for my one-shot performance there. I just heard from Wisconsin (via Ruth) that if they had known about the trip in time, they would have booked me there too. One gets spoiled. My back feels better, and I have slept better this week than for a month: doubtless living thru the complete reorganization of a university under a new president (he has just fired the A & S Dean, the guy who caused all the trouble for Harold Stoke when Harold was at UW) is always troubling. Forgive me if I again urge you to husband a little bit of your strength. We’ll promise, in return, not to make additional demands on it by sending other ambassadors to Munich. My best to both of you,
H U R R I E D O V E R T H E FA C E O F T H E E A RT H Letters 88–113, 1960–1968
88. [Notre Dame, Indiana,] November 2, 1960 Dear Bob: I owe you a letter for a long time. The reason that I write you now at least a short one is that Bone of your Political Science Department has invited me to give a lecture in Seattle, and referred to you, I presume that you have exerted quite a little pressure on the poor guy. I wonder: Is he the Bone whom I know as having been at one time at the University of Maryland? As the invitation was coupled with the information that they could not pay the traveling expenses and that I had to find them elsewhere, regrettably I had to decline. I should have enjoyed it greatly, as you can imagine, to spend a couple of days with you and Ruth. Notre Dame is a peculiar place. I have never before lived in a concentrated Catholic environment like this. An advantage is the very high degree of philosophical education that one finds with practically everybody. A disadvantage is the peculiar provincialism of seeing nothing but the Catholic party line. That expresses itself especially in the composition of the library; magnificent stocks in Thomism, scholastic sources, and medieval history. Next to nothing on such infidel subjects as China, India, or archaeology; also the Protestant literature is completely neglected. Still, there is considerable life in the place. They have emerged about ten years ago from the status of a hick college and are struggling valiantly to become a university. The place is humming with projects and actual expansion. Political Science is in fairly good shape. The chairman is a Father who in spite of his clerical garb is a merry soul and has his Ph.D. from Yale. And there is [Gerhart] Niemeyer, who is the head of a research institute for Communism, a first-rate specialist in his field. They are very kind to me and do not ask more than a three-hour course and a seminar. Nevertheless, I am very much pressed for time, as I have various invitations to lecture. Tonight in Chicago; next week at the University of Illinois. In December in Duke. That disrupts badly my work on Volume IV, setting aside the major interruption through an article on [Rudolf Karl] Bultmann’s theology that was 202
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due yesterday and will take at least a week more work. At least that affair is not labor lost, because I had to work through on that occasion the problems of existentialism and their application to Protestant theology; I need that knowledge anyway for my chapter on Christianity. Lissy is leaving next week—first to visit some friends in Newton, Mississippi, of all places, then to see Conrad Albrizio for an evening in New Orleans, and then to stay a week in Baton Rouge. By November 21st she hopes to be back in Munich. A permanent disturbance is the Institute in Munich which I have to direct by long distance. Inevitably all sorts of things go awry, because these young assistants just do not have the experience to deal with business as it comes up. I hope it will not be too much of a mess by the time I come back. With all good wishes to you and Ruth, and Pete, Yours cordially, <Eric>
89. [Seattle,] November 5, 1960 Dear Eric, [Hugh] Bone is short for bonehead. I confess with mortification, both personal and institutional, that I have failed to get either decent manners or decent action out of him. I presumed on my local seniority and went over his head to the university lectures and concerts committee to recommend a visiting lecturer in political science; thus I pressured him into feeble acquiescence. Not that he is malicious or opposed or anything; he’s a nice guy who just isn’t very bright. His idea of serious work in political science is to go over to some junior high school in Tacoma and take a poll on who the kids think will be elected president, and then write a piece on “The Dynamics of Democracy” or something like that. You know the type. Yes, I think he was at Maryland once. It even has to be said for him that he is, if anything, superior to various of his colleagues, for the department is a sad one. (He never even acknowledged another letter I wrote him informing him of the availability of Alex Daspit for a job in Pol Sci. After many years in the State Dept, Alex can now retire with a part-salary pension, and he wants to try to pick up teaching again.) Well, we had very much hoped to entertain you here, to talk with you, and to have you see the Northwest sights, which we like very much and thought you might. If we do not get those personal pleasures, I feel nevertheless personally pleased that you are in the country again for a visit, even if a long way from here.
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Am I right in thinking that this will take care of the citizenship rules, so that you will now have a still longer time to reach a decision? I am hoping that this is true. We are delighted, also, that Lissie is having the fun of a visit to the South and to people there. I gather that Conrad is married again, and I hope she’ll give us a report on him, and her, and on others. I enjoyed your comments on Notre Dame. Are you staying in that rather posh hotel where I spent a pleasant week in October of ’59? I had a good time there. The students delighted me in that they were well bred and rather well read; in English they had a thorough and conservative training that is a real improvement on the hit-or-miss program of the state university, where the emphasis is all too much on the contemporary; in discussion they had a courteous style quite in contrast with the often rude assertiveness of the semi-beatnik characters that we often have to put up with. Between lecturing and long-distance administrating you sound both hurried over the face of the earth and driven into the ground: in all of this I hope there is some modicum of compensating pleasure. In administration, at least, one gets some amusing views of humankind, and I find myself hoping that here and there you may steal a little something from purely administrative knowledge to add to what you say from history and logic and intuition. Oddly, I keep feeling as though watching the varied rascalities and multifold self-interests of my colleagues (even the good ones) has really added something to my literary insights, such as they are. Maybe it’s only that I grow older, so I shan’t push the other theory. One of these days I shall send you a copy of the last Sewanee in which I have a long review of a book on D. H. Lawrence by Eliseo Vivas; for something that seems not to be directly contributing to any longer thing I hope to do, I spent too much time on it, but I was teased into it by the desire to get something said on Lawrence. It gets into aesthetic matters, a little too heavy for my equipment, but I enjoyed thinking these matters thru to the extent that I was able. Recently I have been discovering [Friedrich] Dürrenmatt, and his novelette The Pledge struck me so sharply with certain resemblances to The Turn of the Screw that I dashed off a little essay on this. It’s at Kenyon, which probably won’t take it, so that I’ll have to peddle it to some lesser (and non-paying) mag. Meanwhile Yale Review has taken a semi-popular essay on Bardolatry, and I am pleased to get into those august pages for the first (and doubtless the last) time. The big back1. Heilman, review of D. H. Lawrence: The Failure and the Triumph of Art, by Eliseo Vivas, Sewanee Review 68 (1960): 635–59. 2. Heilman, “Bardolatry,” Yale Review 50 (1961): 257–70.
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ground job continues to be the tragedy-melodrama monograph, which moves too slowly because I lack consecutive working time. In odd moments I toy with an idea that has kept popping up in my mind for some time—literature, not as an imitation or interpretation of reality, but as a constituter of reality. I suppose this idealist epistemology is full of pitfalls, and it’s the fear of the unseen ones that makes me chary of commitments. But if one uses the idea simply as a hypothesis, it becomes a very useful instrument for prying into other matters—e.g., the moral status of literature. I will never try to deal with such matters formally, but some time this sort of concept may break out incidentally as an aid in the discussion of something else. I talk on too long, and trespass on your time, but you are always patient with me. Did we tell you that Pete is now stationed in Baltimore for the duration, a matter about which we are all as happy as one can be about anything connected with the army? He was ticketed originally for Bragg, which is in some Carolina swamp. But he is fond of Baltimore, has symphony tickets, does the Baltimore and Washington museums, and is taking a single graduate course at Hopkins, thank heavens. Thru friends he met [the] Singletons ([Charles S.] Singleton is the Italianist who left Harvard in a huff and went back to Hopkins, a great, and maybe even salutary, blow to Harvard’s pride), very fine people, and I am in hopes that some other civilizing influences may emerge. Good teaching, lecturing, and writing. We hope that one of these days some bright soul in the Bay Area will wire you a fat fee for visiting them, and that you will remember that you can fly to California via Seattle without extra cost. Our best to both of you, Parody of safe-driving rules presently circulating here, with much delight: If you have been drinking, don’t park! Accidents cause babies!
90. [Seattle,] January 9, 1961 Dear Eric: I was shocked to learn from one of the Notre Dame men whom I ran into at our meeting in Philadelphia that you had been, as he put it, “mugged,” which seemed to mean beaten and robbed. Somehow this is the sort of thing that one does not expect to happen either in a university town or to someone not “in the
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rackets”; then when it does happen, not only to someone whom one knows, but also to someone whom one admires and is fond of, it seems both more incredible and more criminal. All I can do is hope that you didn’t lose much and the physical injury was minimal. The Notre Dame man did not give concrete details; he said you had been in a hospital for some days, and Ruth and I have been hoping that this was less because you were in bad shape than because Lissie had gone home and therefore the hospital was the easiest place to get taken care of. But even at the best that could be hoped for, this is a dreadful thing, and terribly disturbing. I can imagine you suffering, among other things, from the loss of working time, though I can also imagine you, if you were at all able to, demanding books and papers on the hospital bed. But I hope you didn’t deprive yourself of whatever rest was need[ed] for recovery. If I understood my informant correctly, he implied that this experience had cut you off from any lingering fondness you might have for America. Though I can well understand that this is exactly how one might feel, I am still hoping it isn’t altogether accurate. For I have always nourished the hope that a remarriage would some time be worked out, and even the visit to Notre Dame seemed like a hopeful sign. But for a long time I seem to have been apologizing for a country that has never done well enough by you, and now this is a bitter enough climax. Our meeting was the usual flesh-market. I spent three days in my room and interviewed 40 people, and somehow they all seemed much alike. There were more PhD’s around marketing themselves than ever before, and they were watching the market conditions like characters at the Stock Exchange. Boys who won’t even have finished their PhD’s are getting assistant professorships at $6500; they were writing rival offers down in notebooks and going home to ponder the closing quotations. This was a good way to finish off a fall quarter that has been depressing. The department voted me down on one major appointment I was trying to make, and seems about to do it again. If I give up and leave, I have a metaphor for it: the sinking ship deserting the rat race. After the meeting I went to Baltimore and spent two days with Pete, who is assigned—probably for the duration—to Fort Holabird; he has a clerical job in the Intelligence. He is managing to take a course at Hopkins at night, has a season symphony ticket, and seems to like to pick up carloads of soldiers and take them to Baltimore and Washington museums, for which he has some affection. All this is a big improvement on the North Carolina rural countryside, which threatened him in his earlier orders for Fort Bragg. We spent New Year’s Eve with the Singletons: Charles Singleton is the Italianist who made academic his-
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tory here by leaving Harvard for Hopkins, a decision doubtless aided by his having, some 40 or 50 miles from Baltimore, a farm which he leaves only twice a week for Eisenhower U. and where he raises enough grapes to make 1000 gallons of wine per annum (which he is just about to begin marketing). They are civilized people and I am very glad that Pete has got to know them. Ruth sends her best wishes and affectionate greetings; we both are still sad that Bone & Co. did not do a better job of getting you out here. That was a lovely tray that Lissy sent Ruth for a present: how very thoughtful. I do hope that you are well again, and are feeling in decent shape for work and travel and the return to directing the Institute. With all our very best wishes,
91. Notre Dame, Indiana, January 14, 1961 Dear Bob: On my return from Chicago I find your letter of January 9th; that makes me feel like a pig, because I have not answered yet your earlier one of November. Part of the reasons for the delay you have learned from the Notre Dame man. So let me set your mind at rest about the incident by reducing it to its proportions: The affair took place at the end of November. In the evening I returned home from town and was mugged by two negroes, just half a block before home. As I am not a good natured creature I fought back and that probably was the reason why they had to throw me around to get the wallet. Of course, they got it, $82; the glasses were broken and I was bleeding dramatically from an insignificant cut on the forehead. I called the police; and I was patched up in the hospital. But then began the real ordeal: from the hands of the robbers I fell into the hands of the doctors. I had to be checked; and they were conscientious and tried everything. No ribs were broken; but the X-ray showed a spot in the lung which might have been a calcinated tubercle housing there for the last forty years, but it might have been the beginning of a tumor. Tests were made etc. and just last week I was informed, that it was some old tubercle (or how you spell it) after all. Then they found a wartlike development on the left forefinger: it might be just a wart, but it might be cancerous. After several weeks it was a wart after all. Then they came to a more intimate fluid and found bacteria that should not be there. New X-rays etc. It is no kidney trouble; but there seems to be a prostate development that will need operation, but not right away. I can do that some time in Munich. In sum: Nothing much happened except unpleasant pain from
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contusions for four weeks. And a considerable loss of time through the frequent visits to the clinic. —I am only glad that Lissy had left already. She would have been very excited. So I just wrote to her some time later, when I was sure that nothing was seriously damaged. Nevertheless, I was furious because—as it then turned out with information coming in from all sides—that South Bend is one of the worst crime districts in the United States, with the highest number of alcoholics, etc., and that robberies and burglaries occur by the dozen every day. And nobody had told me. In New York I know that I shouldn’t go through Central Park by night; here the situation is the same for practically the whole town. There is no apartment for rent anywhere in a neighborhood that is not equally dangerous. So I raised hell with the administrators for not telling me. And then they became contrite and put me up in the Morris Inn—in the posh hotel you mentioned. I pay what I paid for the apartment ($125.) and what’s beyond is paid by the university. I also told them a few things about the necessity of having a compound on campus for visitors, as it is usually done in underdeveloped countries. My feelings about America have not been affected by the affair. That such things happen I know; and the situation is not different when they happen to me. But one should take reasonable precautions. —My feelings are, however, affected by other things. For instance, that I am wasting here a lot of time, because the library is useless for scientific work (nobody told me that either beforehand). Then I got to know a bit more about “conservatives,” with the resulting insight that if anything is more of a drip than a liberal it’s a conservative. The matter was clinched in the last days when I got a good look at the crowd in Modern Age, the conservative periodical. One thing they have in common with liberals: a profound respect for the sacred right not to know too much and not to work too much. I have a feeling, perhaps wrongly induced by environmental accidents, of an intellectual flabbiness that cannot end well. The feeling is especially strong here, because people are strongly anti-Communist without being able to meet the intellectual challenge of Communism with anything better. But I did something about that feeling. At the beginning of this month they had a Symposium on “Scientific Alternatives to Communism.” There were lectures by [Gerhart B.] Ladner, [Joseph M.] Bochenski, [Karl August] Wittfogel and [Friedrich A. von] Hayek; I was number five. So I did a lovely lecture on debate and existence showing why Aristotelian and Thomist metaphysics are antiquated and useless as far as the doctrinal formulations are concerned, and that one has to recover their truth by going back to the underlying philosophy of existence. That created some consternation among the Thomists present; besides I
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needed the analysis anyway for my Volume IV. (The thing will be mimeographed, and I shall send you a copy when I get them.) Now about more pleasant things. When your copy of the Sewanee Review arrived, we were just reading Lady Chatterley—submitting to the social necessity of having [to] read a book everybody talks about. Previously I had read only Sons and Lovers; all other novels by Lawrence which I tried bored me so much that [I] did not finish them (I remember distinctly the Plumed Serpent among the unfinished because of boredom). And then, last night, when I gave that talk with the Regnery people, there was Eliseo Vivas—but unfortunately I could exchange with him only a few words—there were too many millionaire conservatives around whom I could not ignore without incurring the wrath of the people who had invited me. —Well, your article on Vivas is practically an additional study on Lawrence, from which I learned a good deal about aesthetics. With the recent reading of Lady Chatterley still in memory, I fervently agree with your remarks on L’s style, especially his femininity of expression, the tedious use of repetitive adjectives and nouns, and so forth. Especially I remember with disgust the conversation among the four gentlemen in Chapter 4—either the conversation is realistic in the sense that people with whom Lawrence was acquainted slung words like that, then certainly the raw material has not been informed by the artist and should be scrapped as not worth being preserved; or [if ] it is not realist[ic] (at least, I have never heard people talk as insipidly as that), then it would be Lawrence’s “creation”—and if that is his creative insight into the workings of an intellectual’s mind, then L. is just no good. You see, I am still not quite convinced of L’s stature either as an artist or as a diagnostician of the times. In this vein I also should like to take exception to the remark (I do not recollect at the moment whether it was yours or Vivas’) that Lawrence was one of the first to have sensed the destructive character of mechanization on human and social life. There are [Friedrich] Hölderlin’s Odes on the subject (in the 1790’s I believe), as yet unsurpassed in powerful expression of this problem. And Hölderlin is among the most important inspirations in Marx’s romantic hatred of capitalism. Lawrence seems in this respect to belong to the second wave of outcries against mechanization which has produced, among other things, the literature on the masses and on technology, as well as [Oswald] Spengler’s Decline of the West (conceived before the First World War). Nor does his erotology and sacramentalization of sex seem to be very profound—he certainly has never reached in these matters the clarity of understanding or strength of drama as [Frank] Wedekind in Frühlingserwachen, Lulu, or Minnehaha. (For the rest, I am holding no brief for Wedekind.) Sociologically interesting, however, is the public
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reaction to L’s so-called obscenities. It seems to me a similar case as [Alfred Charles] Kinsey and the reaction to his report: a Victorian environment discovers sex. I have always felt tempted to give two lectures on the subject: (1) What Kinsey didn’t know about sex and (2) What Kinsey still doesn’t know about sex. —But let’s get away from Lawrence and rather consider your highly important worries about creativeness in art. You mention the subject in your letter from November; and you say a few words about it in the review of Vivas. Unfortunately you say so little that I cannot be quite sure to have understood the direction in which your thought is moving; and I apologize in advance for gross misapprehension of your intentions. I quite agree with you that literature constitutes reality, if it is any good, and does not merely imitate or interpret it. The starting point for theoretical consideration would be for me the Aristotelian observation (in the Poetics) that the poets give better insights into human nature than the historians, because they do not report reality but imaginatively create the “nature” of things. “Reality” as observed is always nature in the state of potentiality; the “true” reality of actualized nature is rarely a given, but must be constructed from the resources of the artist. In this Aristotelian conception the artist is forced to create, because the difference between the potentiality empirically given and actualization is absent from empirical reality. Unless the artist supplies the fullness of human nature as the background, the empirical reality will be as flat as it usually is. As an example, take our pet grievance, the ideologist. If you simply describe him, he will be an unintelligible caricature; if you interpret him by a psychology of motivations, you will at best get the rationale of his actions. In order to bring him to life you will have to reflect on the problem of a man who wants to transform the world in his image. If you try that, you may find that there are men who cannot grow with themselves and cannot make their own life transparent for death. When they stop to grow, an event that frequently occurs around twenty, the tension between the status at which they have arrived spiritually and intellectually and the relentless process of time in themselves and the world surrounding them will cause anxiety, and from anxiety is born hatred. From such hatred then may arise an infinite variety of attempts at stopping the flux of time—childish things like the professor for whom science must stop at the point that he has reached with so much labor at the time of his Ph.D.; terrible things like the political leader who wants to freeze history at some ridiculous point of order that he has picked up somewhere in his youth 3. See Alfred C. Kinsey et al., Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1948) and Alfred C. Kinsey et al., Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, by the staff of the Institute for Sex Research, Indiana University (Philadelphia: Saunders, 1953).
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(Hitler for instance in the Ostara phantasies, as has come out now). A reconstruction of complete reality in this sense, adding to empirical reality its tension with true reality, requires a considerable creative effort, because the imperfections are infinitely various; it requires a genius of perceptiveness to see in a recalcitrant raw material its relation to the “nature” of things. Above all, it requires genuine love of true reality—and that brings me to a theme upon which you touch on and off in your essay: the lack of love in Lawrence. There is a deeprooted impotence in his work (I hope you will pardon my impertinence of a straight judgment of this kind; it is for brevity’s sake) that lets the description of reality disliked degenerate into caricature and cliché and the opposed, preferred reality into romantic nonsense. There is lacking the strength of love that would unite the dilemmatic extremes in a convincing creation. —I apologize for my crude and sketchy remarks on so vast a topic (unless the “so” is a symptom of effeminacy), but you have a knack of hitting the problems on which I am worrying too; though in philosophy rather than in literature.
92. München, April 11, 1964 Dear Bob: There is much talk about your and Ruth’s coming to Europe this summer. May I venture a question both humble and impertinent? Could you come to Munich, not only to visit with us, but also to give a talk to our students? They have heard about you, as you can imagine, and would appreciate it greatly to see you in the flesh and to have you for a discussion. Fortunately, the Institute is affluent at the moment, so that we can offer you 4. “Ostara” seems to mean several things: “Ostara” is a publisher in Vienna, a pagan name for Easter, the vernal equinox in pagan rituals and myths, and the title of an anti-Semitic magazine edited and published by Adolf Josef Lanz beginning in 1905. Several sources argue that Hitler was influenced by Lanz’s Ostara and its occult, erotic, racist content, and that Hitler even once met Lanz. The last assertion has not been validated. Robert Payne writes that “Hitler’s penchant for the occult led him to the strange works of Adolf Josef Lanz . . . [who] published a magazine called Ostara . . . a typical Viennese product of the period, being erotic, mystical, and sentimental without any clear-cut social or political program” (Robert Payne, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler [New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973], 90). See also Werner Maser, Hitler: Myth and Reality, trans. Peter and Betty Moss (New York: Harper and Row, 1973), 167–68.
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an honorarium, say $100, and make up a bit more under the title of traveling expenses, to the extent of an airplane return ticket London–Munich–London. The term is running to the end of July, though after July 20th things would become difficult. Lissy and I would love to have you both here for a few days, if your time permits at all. At the moment I am hard pressed. There is the famous Volume IV of Order and History that is supposed to be the final one—it presents infinite problems of organization. And then, I have to give an Introduction to Politics in the summer term; and I have chosen “Hitler and the Germans” as the materials to work on. You can imagine what that means by way both of historical materials and theoretical analysis. But that fortunately is done for the greater part, and I am looking forward to the beginning of the term in May with some equanimity. Let me hear, as soon as you can, about your plans. <With all good wishes, Eric>
93. Seattle, April 27, 1964 Dear Eric, Please do not think that your flattering letter of April 11 has been lying around here unattended to while I have just been answering the usual round of business letters. For five days I was in St. Louis at the national AAUP meeting—a lesson in academic politics which I will never forget—and all last week I was away spieling in behalf of what is generally known here as “Shakespeare 400,” four lectures (Ruth calls them letchers) in five days. Now I am picking up, and Munich is first. I am flattered and as much scared as flattered; I hate to think what orderly and logical German minds will do to the non-rational hunches that constitute most of what I have to say, if they are allowed to discuss; but then maybe we can spirit me away as being rather deaf and unable to hear questions. But if you will gamble on being disgraced by my performance, you who have to stay there, I guess I should be able to stand it for a brief visit. You can see that the foolish gambler in me, the thoughtless hoper that by some good luck all will be well, is overcoming the hardheaded and sensibly fearful Pa. Dutchman. Would you care to set a date as late as possible in July, possibly the 20th, which you name as a sort of cut-off date? We reach London late in June, and had planned to spend the summer touring in England, where I have never been in decent weather, but we will do some re-scheduling. Could I apply the price of
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the proposed London–Munich return air ticket (generous terms) to the expenses of driving the distance in the V-W we plan to get in London? Then we could both come, and I fear Ruth might not let me come alone. Possible subjects: (1) Hamlet. I have been doing, for “Shakespeare 400” lectures and “contributions,” a series of essays on the treatment of self-knowledge in the Shak. tragedies. The best one, I think, is the one on Hamlet, the chief argument of which is that H. so dreads having to know anything bad about himself that he spends his career in a remarkably successful pursuit of innocence while also getting his man. The trouble is that this is just now appearing in the Review of Literature, an English journal; if it could be proved that it does not circulate in Munich, we would be in the clear. (2) “The Role We Give Shakespeare”—a semi-popular piece on attitudes to Shak.; the conclusion is that the Shak. myth becomes religious, with sacred texts, priesthoods, protestants, cathedral towns, tithes, and what not; and then, more seriously, that what is offered is not truth or law or comfort, but “totality,” “mystery,” and “community.” This is the kind of thing that to be done soundly ought to be done by a very learned man, who doubtless wouldn’t do it; but I am not learned, and so it has to get by as a sort of prose poem. (3) Likewise for the other possibility: “Historian and Critic: Notes on Attitudes,” which starts as a retrospective summary of the war in America between the “new criticism” and the “old historicism” in literary studies, and then theorizes about the nature of the intellectual activities involved, which I summarily assert are the “differentiating” (historical) and the “integrative” (the critical) and these I magisterially declare to be in the basic constitution of the mind. Not a shred of evidence. This thing was originally done for an invitational seminar at UCLA where A. L. Rowse and I were supposed to pull each other by the hair; but all he did was plug his books, while I plugged my theory. I think Sewanee will print this, but the editor is sick and can’t make up his mind; maybe I made him sick. Anyway, it won’t be in print for a year. Number (2) above will be the lead-off piece in a volume of lectures by high-class gents from Yale, Harvard, Brandeis, etc. celebrating jointly “Shakespeare 400” and “U of Denver 100,” and so it won’t come out for a year. I feel safest with the Hamlet, which sticks to a text; the other two are what the 5. Heilman, “To Know Himself: An Aspect of Tragic Structure,” A Review of Literature 5 (1964): 36–57. 6. Heilman, “The Role We Give Shakespeare,” in Essays on Shakespeare, ed. Gerald W. Chapman (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965). 7. “Historian and Critic: Notes on Attitudes,” Sewanee Review 73 (1965): 426–44.
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journalists call “think pieces” and don’t stick to anything. If being in print is fatal, it is of course out. Anyway, which of these do you think will most nearly allow me to get away undamaged, and leave your reputation least damaged, and the auditors most confused, for when they are confused (at least if they are Americans, which may not hold in Bavaria) they are likely to think they have been improved but that it is their fault for not quite catching on? On the other hand, if this bill of fare is as depressing to you as I think it is likely to be, you should suddenly discover that your budget is kaput, and I would understand. The same goes if the sermon cannot be delivered in English. And I suddenly have [a] horrid memory of Fritz Machlup’s saying that in Vienna (and likewise I suppose to the west and north) it is considered very vulgar to read from a manuscript rather than lecture from the head (as I have heard you do brilliantly); with me it is aut vulgaris aut nihil. I was going to write you anyway to report that Fritz Machlup said he had been several times a guest in your Munich apartment, and so we talked about you at length. At the AAUP meeting Fritz did an extraordinary job of presiding for several days under very trying circumstances. Three cheers for Volume IV. To me the problems sound insuperable, but you are the one man whom I always find making the insuperable look easy. Ruth is desolate, having just had to take Lena Horne to the Katzdachau to have her put out of mortal misery. But I send on her affectionate greetings, along with my own, to both of you. Sincerely,
94. [Munich,] May 5, 1964 Dear Bob: We are most happy with your letter. It really would have been too sad if we could not have enticed you to come to Munich. Since you are a great man in Shakespeareology, I called up Clemen, so that his and our Institute will sponsor you together. We have agreed, providing your agreement, that you will give a public lecture on The Role We Give Shakespeare, in the University on July 22, at 6 p.m. If you could be here a day or two earlier—I personally would appreciate it greatly—you could favor us with your appearance in my seminar on Tuesday 21, at 7:30. You might give there an introductory talk on the subject Historian and Critic, as this would splendidly fit in, for the semi8. “Either vulgarity or nothing.”
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nar is on Philosophy of History. You see, I want the students to have as much of you as possible. Of course, your lectures will be in English, as most of the students know English well enough to understand it. As far as the honorarium and the travel expenses are concerned, you are entirely free to choose, whichever way of traveling you desire. To fix the expense at an airplane ticket London–Munich and return is merely a bookkeeping device. It is the most expensive way of traveling I can justify. I hope that these arrangements will meet with your approval. Lissy also is most happy that in this way she can have Ruth here, too. With all good wishes to you and the family, from both of us, Yours cordially, <Eric> Eric Voegelin
95. Seattle, May 14, 1964 Dear Eric: You are kind and trusting, and I will only hope that you escape without excessive mortification. As long as I am being so reckless as to come, I may as well do two lectures instead of one. July 21 and 22 will do very well for me. We will probably plan to reach Munich some time on the 20, or perhaps, since the lecture is in the evening, some time on the 21. If you will be kind enough to do what you did seven years ago—heavens, can it really be that? —and reserve us a room, in some hotel or pension that is, we will be grateful to you. We will head south for some sight-seeing on July 23. The lectures have the advantage of letting us see you both without our seeming simply to come in and plump ourselves on you, one additional heavy link in the long chain of tourists. But I guess you and Lissy always do so splendid a job of making people feel welcome that the chain will never come to an end. Clemen wrote a very pleasant letter. I felt a little embarrassed in that I had reviewed his Shakespeare book (ten years ago) and made some negative comments. Not that the review was unfavorable or disagreeable, really, but an author’s sensitivity might have made it seem so. But if he even remembered this, he quite rose above it, and I am grateful. He said the lecture in his department should be 45 minutes, in view of the fact that all lecture rooms are used every hour. Should the “Historian and Critic” affair also be of that length? I ask because both papers are about 60 minutes now, and I need to work at it a bit to get the cutting down without messing up the form too much. Incidentally, I am not objecting, believe me; I can do the cutting without trouble.
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All arrangements are fine, and I appreciate your generosity in basing expenses on air travel. Now I go back to trying to cope with a half dozen different kinds of revolt. I used to think of the 50’s<*> as a time of stability and security. Alas, it is only the time when one is an entrenched interest that everyone up to 45 is happy to discomfit as much as possible. Europe will be a pleasant escape, to put it negatively. And Munich will be one of the truly pleasant spots in it. Sincerely, Robert Heilman <*one’s own 50’s; not the 1950’s>
96. London, June 23, 1964 [OH] Dear Eric, After weeks of furious getting ready to leave, and then the 10-hour flight from Seattle, and the 8-hour change in time, which our minds easily accept but our bodies reject, we are slowly adjusting to a new life (through the medium of a tiny room in an inelegant hotel). Today I got my card for the Reading Room in the British Museum. I want to spend some time there going over my critic-andhistorian paper. Can you tell me whether this paper, like the one for Clemen, should be limited to 45 minutes? You may have written to Seattle about this, but I did not receive a letter before we left; I hope it is not necessary for you to write twice about it? At any rate, I will be grateful for any instructions that may contribute to my doing what I should do and not doing what I should not do. I would like to sound no more foolish than nature and history compel me to. Since my handwriting is not good, and since we shall be seeing you, I will spare you pains by not writing at any more length. We very much look forward to our visit. With best wishes to both of you, Sincerely, Bob
97. [Munich,] June 25, 1964 Dear Bob: Thanks for your letter of June 23. We are delighted to learn that you and Ruth are so much nearer to us.
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As far as lectures are concerned, neither of them should be longer than 45 minutes. However, in the seminar it would not matter if it is a bit longer, as we have altogether 11⁄ 2 hours at our disposition and whatever overtime you will use, will simply go at the expense of discussion. The public lecture, on the other hand, should definitely not exceed one hour, as experience has shown that people hardly can stand more than that. We are just now in the middle of our celebration of Max Weber’s hundredth anniversary and that puts a severe strain on Lissy’s and my time, as we have to participate and entertain foreign lecturers. We are looking forward very much to your coming. Rooms in the Hotel Ross are already reserved. We should be very grateful, if you would let us know, when approximately you will arrive. With all good wishes for your work in the British Museum, and more amusing activities for us, I am, Sincerely yours, Eric Voegelin
98. London, June 29, 1964 [OH] Dear Eric, Thank you very much for your letter of the 23rd, which came this morning before breakfast and made a fine garnish for that otherwise very routine occasion. Thank you both for the additional information and for making reservations at the Hotel Ross. We plan to arrive in Munich some time on July 20 and to leave the morning of the 23rd. We know how frightfully busy you and Lissy are, and we know that you cannot afford the time and energy that would be required if you felt responsible for us. So we hope that we will not seem to be leaning on you and waiting for attention. But we would be pleased if you would go to dinner with us on one of the days. Here is my picture of the official schedule: Evening of July 22: EV’s seminar. RBH’s “Historian and Critic: Some Observations.” Time of paper, 45 minutes (or a little more). Time of discussion: rest of 90-minute period. Evening of July 23: Public lecture. “The Role We Give Shakespeare.” 45 minutes. No discussion. [From Clemen’s letter I got the impression that this affair was to be in his seminar, but I judge that your statement of it is more accurate.] How right you are that audiences can take 45–60 minutes and no more. Once the late Morton Zabel of Chicago went on at LSU for almost 2 hours, and once
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[Bertrand Harris] Bronson of Berkeley did a solid 85 minutes at UW—both impervious to the distress and resignation of the audience. Ruth and I both hope that recent court decisions about citizenship are going to make such matters easier for you. With fond greetings to you both, Bob [Left:] When we reach Munich we will go right to the hotel and will phone you to let you know we are on hand with the goods.
99. [Munich,] July 2, 1964 Dear Bob: Thank you for your letter of June 29. Just to get the dates straight, which, I am afraid, got somehow confused in your letter. We expect you and Ruth on July 20, and the room in the Hotel Ross, Georgenstrasse 104, is reserved. The hotel is around the corner from our apartment. The evening in the seminar is projected for Tuesday, July 21, the public lecture for Wednesday, July 22. We are having the invitations printed. With all good wishes to you and Ruth, from both of us, Sincerely yours, Eric Voegelin
100. London, July 7, 1964 Dear Eric, I am sorry that you had to write again because I seemed to have the dates confused: the schedule which you have kindly reaffirmed is precisely the one I had in mind, but I must have written something quite different. Well, I guess we will have to attribute it to the natural confusion of the Innocent Abroad, but I regret having burdened you with an additional explanation. Thank you for the address of the hotel: we hope to get ourselves there without unnecessary confusion. Thursday a.m. we start off on the road to do some exploring of the northeast, where we have never been—especially Norwich, which is reputed to be very attractive. Our Dover-Calais ferry reservation is for the 16th. Ruth wants to do Bruges and Ghent, which we did not get to before. I would especially like to go
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to Berlin, where I have never been, but the Embassy mimeographed handout on the problems of Berlin travel will probably scare us off. Our best wishes to both Lissy and you, Sincerely, Robert Heilman I have re-done the Clemen-Shakespeare affair, and think I have it down to about 44 minutes. Now for some paring of the historian-and-critic apocalyptic writing.
101. Paris, July 30, 1964 Dear Eric, Please forgive the handsome stationery provided by the expensive place in which we had to spend two nights while waiting for the Daspits to evacuate and embark for Mallorca. In a day or two it will get replaced by something more fitting. You were so generous with your time, and so generous in your many activities as hosts, that you made our stay in Munich a wonderfully pleasant one; we feel as though we were pretty much of a burden, and only hope we weren’t unbearable. The dinner on Monday night was a fine one, the institute party was a very happy occasion, and the Wednesday affair, when you had a late supper and we drank Scotch and then found ourselves unable to resist sampling your sandwiches—that was delightful in a different way. The lunches were very pleasant occasions, and for me in a double sense, since I was not only getting ideas from you but sharpening up thoughts by observing your own much more full and precise formulations. If anything from my typewriter ever sounds good, it will be because it sounds like at least a dim echo of Voegelin. Incidentally, the hotel was a very pleasant one, and we are indebted to you for having got us a reservation there. The one thing about Wednesday night that bothers me is that you probably wouldn’t have had to go through it if it were not that Ruth and I were so anxious to have you there. Lissie, I know, was really suffering; you were at least looking as though you were amused. Without any responsibility, I was able to think of it as amusing even at the time being, and now in retrospect it seems as delightful as though one had been in a farce without sadistic overtones. And then there is always the interesting intellectual problem of what makes Wolfgang run, to paraphrase that well-known American phrase. Odd man.
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With regard to my own participation in the two evenings, I will only say that all I hoped for was to seem to you to be making some sort of sense, and if I did that in part, I am content. Now that we are settled down, I will—after catching up on correspondence for a day or two—get to work on sending you a decent MS of the historian-and-critic thing. The day on which we left Munich was pretty consistently cool, but at the expense of a fogginess which pursued us all the way to Innsbruck and kept us from seeing anything at all of the mountains that I very much wanted to see. Then it got hot again, and remained partly misty, but we got a good look at the Tyrol and then some of the Swiss Alps and lakes. Aside from Innsbruck (whence I could not resist driving down to the Brenner Pass, simply to have one glimpse of that historic spot, even at the price of the additional tiring mileage for Ruth), we stayed in small places; at Thun, Switzerland, we landed in a very old hotel in the old town, just under a castle and old church, and amid ancient and attractive shopping arcades. Well, with one thing and another, we landed here feeling pretty worn, and it will be a day or two before we start renewing Paris sights that we know and knowing, we hope, some new ones. We owe you a great deal for encouraging a visit to Munich, and we hope we can encourage one to London. Our very best to you both,
102. Paris, August 4, 1964 Dear Eric, On looking at the new and enclosed copy of my seminar talk I am abashed to see what a lousy job of typing it is. The only thing that can be said for it is that it is at least a little more readable than the original from which I made it. But I do not know whether I have caught all the typographical errors; I have tried, and I can only hope that there is not something there that will be a major embarrassment to the translator. I think I have improved the English a little at several places. In the title I changed the final word from “Attitudes” to “Postures,” which, though not ideal, is still, I believe, a little less superficial. If at any time the translator wants to write to me about any problems, I will indeed be glad to answer questions. We will be here until August 20, and for the six weeks after that, I can provide such firm addresses as we presently have. It took us about a week to recover from heat and travel (which, as I am sure you know, comes from travail); I have been catching up on a lot of correspondence with the office, where there have been problems; we are trying to recover some of our small knowledge about how to live in Paris, especially during the
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fermeture. But we have now achieved the first of the banlieue-et-environ [suburbs-and-surroundings] sightseeing tours which the car makes possible: to the old church and court at Senlis, and the remarkable chateau at Chatillon, which seemed to us almost to outshine Versailles; and that incredible Beauvais church, without spire or nave, and yet incredible height. Last night after dark we went and walked up and down Champs Elysées: doing that kind of thing, I feel as though I am not in a real place but am in a popular novel (in a mob scene, of course). The way they keep all the trees in this city: truly wonderful. I’ve been reading [Denis] Diderot’s Rameau’s Nephew, and am not yet sure why it is a “world classic”; I do not find the sense of reality as extraordinary as it is said to be. What is technically interesting is the way in which Diderot gives all his shrewdest perceptions to a rascal whom, throughout, he is formally reprobating. I don’t know whether he is being heavily ironic or is using a persona which would permit disavowals if the points of view expressed aroused too much excitement. Just came across, in a London paper, an article on American Conservatives: after describing the Buckleys as numerous, rich, and Catholic, it goes on to say of them “a kind of sick Kennedys.” Amusing. But the piece is not glib; it is looking with detachment at the success of a conservative movement which it says would be impossible in England. Seeing you and being with you both was a delightful experience. We are sorry to learn from Lissy that you have had more guests that interfered with your weekend plans. We hope that the Salzburg trip is a good one. Sincerely, [Top:] <Eric: Identifying notes are included. If these seem superfluous, or are contrary to the style selected for the volume, they can be omitted, or reduced— say by omission of place (and/or date) of publication—and included parenthetically in the text.>
103. Munich, August 13, 1964 Dear Bob: You must think me quite a chump by now because I have not yet written to thank you for your lectures, nor to answer your letters of July 30 and August 4th. The week after you left was the last of the term and quite demanding, and 9. “Closing” refers to the closures of many establishments that result from the custom of Parisians of abandoning their city to tourists in July and August.
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then we were in Salzburg for the Gespräche about philosophy of history—but about that event later. First of all, both Lissy and I are greatly relieved because apparently the drenching in the Englische Garten left no after-effects. We were especially worried about Ruth—and that explains in part Lissy’s furiousness about the events. Otherwise, as you may have guessed, we consider the memorable evening, just like you, the raw material for an excellent story. Our identification with German affairs is woefully imperfect and, setting aside the physical discomforts it caused to you both, we enjoyed to offer you an example of social efficiency at this great university—I have [had] to suffer from this organizational ineptness now for six years. And now, most important, your lectures. They were greatly appreciated by the students and the staff of the Institute. Not only because of their content, but above all because of their linguistic quality and delivery. With regard to the public lecture I heard from students that they were not able to follow you in every detail, but that it did not matter as they were entranced by the music of your language—what higher compliment could be paid to a Shakespearean scholar? As to the content—the role given to Shakespeare—your analysis moves along the same line as our studies do in the Institute; and as far as art is concerned, they run parallel to [Hans] Sedlmayr’s studies on modern art as a cult. The books you have suggested in your Seminar lecture are already ordered. May I add, together with my admiration for these splendid lectures, my thanks for the impression you have made on the students. What these German boys need most, is to be confronted with solid examples of humanistic culture—and you certainly have confronted them. The week in Salzburg was one of mixed impressions. The famous Ernst Bloch (formerly East Germany, now Tübingen) turned out to be a gentleman who stopped thinking about forty years ago, that is aetatis suae 35. Karl Löwith, from Heidelberg, about as old as I am, is disenchanted by Hegel, Nietzsche, and Marx, but displays no intention whatever to do a little thinking of his own. The best man was [Gilles] Quispel, from Utrecht, who talked on the historical symbolism of ancient gnosis—he is the editor of the Nag Hammadi finds. The four days of six hours a day lecture and discussion, with social events in the evening, finished me for good. Both Lissy and I have done nothing but sleeping [sic] for three days afterwards. Today I have received [your letter?] and thought I 10. His age. 11. The Nag Hammadi Papyri were discovered near Chenoboskion, Egypt, in 1945. These documents have been an important source for understanding gnosticism.
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better write this letter, as tomorrow we want to go to Weilheim, to our little house for ten days. On Monday I negotiated contracts with a Munich publisher for two books. One is to be a collection of my studies on [the] philosophy of history, to be published under the title Anamnesis. I hope to get most of it in shape during the ten days of “rest.” The other one is the lectures on Hitler and the Germans, that I gave this summer. But they are supposed to come out only next fall (1965); so there is a little respite. There was a point in my Salzburg lecture that might interest you as an historian of literature: The basic form of myth, the “tale” in the widest sense, including the epic as well as the dramatic account of happenings, has a specific time, immanent to the tale, whose specific character consists in the ability to combine human, cosmic and divine elements into one story. I have called it, already in Order and History, the Time of the Tale. It expresses the experience of being (that embraces all sorts of reality, the cosmos) in flux. This Tale with its Time seems to me the primary literary form, peculiar to cosmological civilizations. Primary in the sense that it precedes all literary form developed under conditions of differentiating experiences: If man becomes differentiated with any degree of autonomy from the cosmic context, then, and only then, will develop specifically human forms of literature: The story of human events, lyric, empirical history, the drama and tragedy of human action, the meditative dialogue in the Platonic sense, etc. Underlying all later, differentiated forms, however, there remains the basic Tale which expresses Being in flux. Time, then, would not be an empty container into which you can fill any content, but there would be as many times as there are types of differentiated content. Think for instance of Proust’s temps perdu and temps retrouvé as times which correspond to the loss and rediscovery of self, the action of rediscovery through a monumental literary work of remembrance being the atonement for the loss of time through personal guilt—very similar to cosmological rituals of restoring order that has been lost through lapse of time. I believe the regrets of Richard II (I wasted time and now does time waste me) touch the same problem. This reflexion would lead into a philosophy of language, in which the basic Tale would appear as the instrument of man’s dealing with reality through language—and adequately at that. Form and content, thus, would be inseparable: The Tale, if it is any good, has to deal with Being in flux, however much differentiated the insights into the complex structures of reality may be. We hope you and Ruth will have a good time in Paris and let us know your more permanent address in England.
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With many thanks again for giving us the pleasure, and the University of Munich the honor, of your coming, Always yours, <Eric>
104. Paris, August 19, 1964 Dear Eric, We are already packing up so as to be able to make an early start for Calais tomorrow morning. One ought, I suppose, to be in low spirits at leaving Paris, but truth to tell, I have had enough of it. Though we did manage to do a considerable number of new things, the routine tended too much to be that of renewals, and I will be glad to head off for the novelties of Wales and the Hebrides. Besides, I have spent too much time doing nothing; I am beginning to come to again, and think I may be ready for work. I dare not think of the embarrassing comparison with you, who never stop working. I was much interested in the section (from your Salzburg lecture) on “the tale” in the widest sense; I would like to think that in a small way I have been working in a fashion parallel to yours, i.e., thinking of the tale (whether novel, drama, etc.) as having two aspects—those which are characteristic of the differentiated age or culture (when “man becomes differentiated with any degree of autonomy from the cosmic context”) and those which I have called the “constants” (“Underlying all later, differentiated forms, however, there remains the basic Tale which expresses Being in flux” and “The Tale, if it is any good, has to deal with Being in flux . . .”). But I have some fear that instead of gaining fresh enlightenment from you, I am twisting you to my own ends. The possibility of fresh enlightenment, I see, lies in your placing of time at the center of, or making it the essence of, the tale; I am wrestling with this for-me-new translation of the “constant” into temporal terms; I suppose it is that, in narrative terms, being has to be conceived of as movement or succession (unless “being in flux” has some other connotation that I am failing to get). Yet I don’t think I am quite accurate here, for Time seems to become a different thing in your admirable treatment of Proust: what you say there is to me more enlightening than anything else I have read about Proust (“atonement for the loss of time through personal guilt”—i.e., the loss of time is the loss of contact with or knowledge of the es-
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sential movements of Being?). Well, I should spare you these notes on my reflections, which may be even less competent than I think they are; but they show you I am wrestling with the new concept. I hope the two books—Anamnesis and Hitler and the Germans—will be translated into English, not only because I would like to be able to read them, but because they ought to be available to a good many other people. Think of being able to organize one of these in your ten days at Weilheim! Well, I hope you do get a little rest in the country, though you seem able to do with less of it than anybody I have ever known. From Diderot I got to Pascal’s Provincial Letters and Pensées. What seized my eye in the PL was the extraordinary modernity of the intellectual positions which P. attributes to the Jesuits—their relativism, for instance. I wish I knew whether he is actually quoting SJ writers or inventing them as the bearers of positions implicitly present in actual writings (The Columbia Encyclopedia, the only reference work I have here in the apartment, says, in its article on Port Royal, that BP did a lot of misquoting, but the article sounds like an SJ apologia). From the psychological realism of the Pensées (BP knows as much as any modern psychologist, but with a moral realism not much practiced in modern psychology) I got into Dostoevsky’s novelettes (The Gambler and Notes from [the] Underground) and was astonished—my naiveté again—at the resemblances between the thought of a 17th c. French RC and a 19th c. Russian: either separately or jointly they have put down everything that the 20th c. believes itself to be discovering. And a minor point: Dostoevsky, at least, has anticipated “the angry young men,” but instead of picturing him [sic] as a wounded man with a legitimate criticism of the establishment, he sees him for what he is—a destructively spiteful person (or as the “vindictive man,” to use the term Karen Horney applied in the description of the type) (I know this only second hand, though). Your comments on the lectures are very kind. I am relieved if, in whatever way, my public appearances seem to you personally ones that could get by, or make do. Should you want to reach me in connection with the MS (as seems unlikely), we have so far two English addresses: week of August 31—Ravenhurst Hotel, 2 Broad Walk, Stratford on Avon; week of September 12—c/o Mrs. E. G. R. Hooper, 16 Trevu Road, Cambourne, Cornwall. We’ll let you know when we 12. Both of these have now been translated and published. See the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 6, Anamnesis, ed. David Walsh, trans. M. J. Hanak, Gerhart Niemeyer et al. (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2002); and vol. 31, Hitler and the Germans, ed. and trans Detlev Clemens and Brendan Purcell (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999).
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get—as we hope—a permanent address in October, and we hope we may be seeing Lissy, or possibly both of you, there. We hope the trip to America is a good one. Our best to you both,
105. Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 19, 1965 Dear Bob: Lissy has sent me a long report about her adventures in London—how wonderfully you and Ruth, and the Brookses, have taken care of her; that you are working every day in the BM from 9 to 6, and how she would enjoy, if she did not see me for such a time every day; etc. Hence, let me first of all thank you and Ruth for all your kindness and hospitality. The term here at Harvard is drawing toward its end. This is a funny place. I knew that before, but not so well in detail as one does, if one is part of the crew. The Dep. of Government is loaded with second- and third-rate people; and there is not a single one whom one could say to be really first-rate. They are not behaviorists or anything else seriously reprehensible, but they are all caught in the changing winds of the time and do not know what to do. They are basically conservative in the sense that they want to conduct political science on the level of tradition—Federalist Papers, constitution, supreme court—quite laudable in itself, but no longer feasible, as the field of problems has enlarged into worldpolitics, foreign civilizations, ideologies, etc. which all cannot be mastered by the categories of the Founding Fathers. The way out would be to start seriously philosophizing, and to rebuild political science with proper regard to the new materials and the new theories necessary for handling them. But that is quite beyond their range. The oddest people are the political theorists. There is a man named Louis Hartz who considers political theory a sort of literary criticism, applied to the works of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. And there is a woman named [Judith N.] Shklar who considers political theory an antiquarian interest, to be indulged in by queer people like herself—she pleads for excluding political theory from the exam requirements. A quite different climate prevails at the Divinity School. There is a collection of first-rate scholars: [Krister] Stendahl in New Testament, [Thorkild] Jacobsen for the Ancient Orient, [Frank Moore] Cross for the Old Testament, [Gilles] Quispel for early Church History, and [Preston N.] Williams for the Reformation. I call them the alibi professors—Harvard has a lot of money, it can afford to hire these scholars (three of them from Europe); they give prestige, but have
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no influence whatsoever on the student body. They are appointed by the President against the will of the Faculty and are studiously ignored by the other Departments. Quispel, who is an old friend of mine (I know him from Utrecht; he is the editor of the Nag Hammadi finds), says frankly he feels like [he is] living in a ghetto. They have him here this year on trial and want to offer him the professorship formerly held by [Paul] Tillich. He is very doubtful whether he should take it, especially since Tillich never had more than ten students, thanks to the boycott methods of the “Yard” faculty. If you set aside the Divinity ghetto, the place is depressing. Especially since the philosophy department is a joke—all filled up with British analysts, semanticists, and similar fauna. I always say that this department is proof that the paperbacks have no culture [sic] influence whatsoever. There is Plato and Aristotle available in paperback for the last ten or twenty years, and the Harvard Department of Philosophy still does not know what philosophy is all about. The students are more refreshing. There is, of course, the contingent of hardboiled ideologues who dropped my course before the date of final changes. But the rest, about one half, are enthusiastic and most touching. They have given me a dinner, what seems to be unheard of in the Annals of Harvard; and they assure everybody that at last there was an interesting course in government. From what I hear myself from fugitives from other courses, the chief sentiment among the students seems to be one of utter boredom and frustration, a feeling that their time is being wasted. In sum: This place is coasting on the momentum of the past. There is nothing going on here; even more, there is hostility against anything new. As they have just built a William James Hall for the behavioral sciences, I make myself popular by assuring people that William James could not get a job at Harvard today. In the Government Department this situation is sensed, if not clearly understood; the mood is, therefore, defeatist. They feel doomed to be overrun by the behaviorists. The last weeks were a bit crowded. Lissy may have told you about it. I had to give a lecture at Duke (on The Quest of the Ground). Then I was four days in New York, as some investment banker conceived the idea that the men of his planning division would profit for their long-range view of investments in foreign countries by what I can tell them about politics. That was more interesting, since bankers are tough and have common sense; one can discuss with them rationally; it is not like the academic world where opinions, if wrong, do not cost you money, so that one can have any opinions that look pleasing. And on the day after my return I had the Ingersoll Lecture. That is an Institution since 1893,
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when some lady gave $5000. for establishing such a lecture, to be held every year, in honor of her dear daddy (neither Robert Ingersoll, the Village Atheist; nor the gentleman, who produced the dollar-watches). At first, this seemed somewhat out of my line, but then it turned out that immortality is a central problem in politics. One can even say that modern ideologies can be interpreted as gaining control over other people’s immortality in history—this would be their principal motivation. I gave examples from the Encyclopédie Française, from [Auguste] Comte, and the Soviet Encyclopedia. From the latter, people who have changed from immortality to mortality with the change of the party line must be removed; the leaf is to be replaced by a new one. The instructions coming with the new folio advise the recipient to remove the page with a razor blade, not just to tear it out as that would make the book ungainly. My reflections on the advances in the technology of immortality were well received. There was also a more serious part to the lecture—but that would go too far for a letter. Everybody seemed happy, in particular the Dean of the Divinity School [Samuel H. Miller], who told me that these lectures had become somewhat “wooden” in recent years, as lecturers had taken to deliver themselves on immortality with the Eskimos or Navajos. Then we had a dinner; and when I left, the Dean and Stendahl were engaged in a lively contest who would get the lecture for his pet journal—the Dean wants it for the Bulletin in order to impress the Alumni, Stendahl wants it for the Harvard Theological Review in order to impress the profession. I don’t know yet who won. The lecture, incidentally, was well attended—the large lecture hall in Divinity was crammed full and people were standing. You see, the place is not without its modest amusements. I have told you a bit about Harvard—perhaps at too great length—because I thought such impressions of a great university might interest you. I remember well your observations of the phenomena at LSU. Beginning February 1st, I shall be at Notre Dame. My address will be: Morris Inn, Notre Dame, Indiana. With all good wishes for you and Ruth, Yours sincerely, <Eric>
106. [London,] February 17, 1965 Dear Eric, January was a lucky month for us: first a visit from Lissy, then a letter from you. We had very fine times with Lissy, and the only thing that could have
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improved the occasion would have been your being here also, but since that was impossible, your long and most interesting letter was the next best thing. Your account of Harvard, at least of several different departments in Harvard, was hilarious and depressing at the same time, if those two effects can coexist. (Lissy had previously given us one detail about the Pol. Sci. Department—that when a graduate student elected Latin as a foreign language, you were the only member of the staff that could give him an examination in it!) I would have liked to think that Harvard Pol. Sci. was a superior kind of beast in its own particular zoo (and on second thought I can see that your words do not exclude that possibility). What is especially good about your account is the concrete examples that you casually introduce to dramatize the issue; I could use your paragraph as a good example of expository prose. What you had to say about philosophy did not surprise me at all, however, because the analytical airs from there have been spreading out in all directions. I was pleased to have your judgment of the Divinity School, because I know that that has been a pet of [Nathan Marsh] Pusey’s for which Pusey has been much abused; one enjoys the irony that a president is abused for picking first-rate men. But that the Yard faculty surrounds them with a fence of either indifference or hostility is the saddest news of all. Lissy had told us that you had made short work of the students who felt it was their business to quarrel with you and enlighten you if they could; it made me envious of your method, for I never know how to handle these contentious characters who seem to get more numerous and more rude. That the rest of the class, who came not to confute but to learn, then gave you a dinner pleased Ruth and me no end. Three cheers! The Ingersoll lecture was another great and deserved triumph. (As Lissy has doubtless told you, I told her all wrong, for I thought the Ingersoll in question was the village atheist: we independently used the same term for him, at any rate.) Until I see the rest of the lecture in print, I will cling to the idea of the modern technique of getting control over other peoples’ immortality in history; this, I feel, is bound to have literary echoes—I mean rather in aesthetic methods than in historiographic writing—but so far this is vague, and I will have to see if I can make it come through for myself. What fun to be quarreled over by editors, and I hope that you will send me a copy of the journal of whichever one wins. . . . I am utterly delighted by the ironies in your four days of conferring with investment bankers, and on their accessibility to what you had to say. I would relish a transcript of the meeting, and I hope that the bankers not only 13. Nathan Marsh Pusey was president of Harvard, 1953–1971.
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paid you well in cash but expressed their gratitude in the form of useful market information. Incidentally, what precisely was the train of connection by which they got to you? Lissy told us that you had had an illiterate letter from Hugh Bone. I will confess that I engaged in some correspondence with the Dean and the Provost, both of whom trust me I think, in the interest of producing some gestures toward interesting you in Washington when you retire at Munich. You are the kind of man both would like to appoint. But it has to go through the department, and that is what is discouraging, because they are so stupid. All that gets appropriately symbolized in the epistolary style and manners of Bone, who is not even grammatical. Well, in view of the quality of our Pol. Sci. department, I’m not doing you much of a favor in trying to stir something up there, but it depresses me that even that opening gun of any possibility is stillborn. A thull dud, as someone said. Too soon we shall be running out of time here, and I will not be nearly so far along on Tragedy and Melodrama as I had hoped. I’m not sure now that attempting to deal with a number of dramas in terms of concepts of genre is a good idea; all I can say for it is that I hoped not to be affixing labels, but to be using a way of looking at structure that would be illuminating about individual plays. What I think we have here is two basically different ways of looking at human personality, and ways that seem to persist for a good many hundred years; I’ve wanted to look at enough individual cases to suggest that historically quite alien works are, without forcing, amenable to this way of looking at them. Well, we will see if anything comes out of it that anybody will print. Incidentally, I’ve found [Friedrich] Dürrenmatt and [Max] Frisch very interesting; it seems to me that they go way beyond their master Brecht in permitting dramatis personae to function as characters instead of simply as signposts to desired conclusions. Brecht I think is much overrated, but I have to keep my eye on my own basic rule that you have to be a long way away from the dramatist in time in order to have some sense of whether he is more than topically enchanting, or for that matter, disenchanting. What I would call, in Dürrenmatt and Frisch, the drift from the expressionistic morality to a valid imagining of character seems to me to be in some way characteristic today; very few people start writing as if they had any interest in characters, but they want to prove something about the world or about the force of some element in the personality, and they get away from this narrow objective only, it appears, by accident. It is rather fashionable nowadays, to look down on Tennessee Williams, but he has a great deal of vigor in presenting his characters, as far as they go, and this very vigor tends to make them go farther than the blueprint perhaps called for. Off the evidence of the plays I think TW is a sick man, but yet the sickness always feels as
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if it were about to slip over the line into an offbeat kind of health that might produce something much larger than appears to be there. I’ve taken time off from the BM beat only for a couple of lectures. The one on critic and historian was at the Embassy, the lead-off in a series that Cleanth has arranged, a series that will end with one by Lionel Trilling, one by his wife, Diana, and one by Cleanth himself. An absolutely icy audience. But Cleanth, fortunately, did think quite well of it and recommended it to some other people; so I’ll take him as surrogate for a loud vox populi. We’ve just come back from Leeds, where I used the Munich public lecture at the U; here the situation was the opposite, for the audience responded very well, but no one had anything to say afterwards. We were glad to see Leeds—made up entirely of the worst parts of Jersey City, Chicago, and Scranton, Pa., nearly everything ugly and in the worst 19th century manner. We hope everything is going well at ND, with only the beautiful aspects of winter, only the best of students, and not too many of them. With very best wishes, Sincerely,
107. Notre Dame, Indiana, February 22, 1965 Dear Bob: A letter from you is a rarity and always a delight. Don’t be horrified that I answer so quickly—I am in the middle of a lot of correspondence and if I do not answer immediately the delay might be unconscionable. Besides, you ask about one or two points, above all the letter from Hugh Bone. Well, Bone invited me to come to Seattle for a lecture. I suspected that might not be his initiative but rather yours. So I answered him I would be delighted but could tell him only definitely when I was in Notre Dame in February. Then I had another letter, more lengthy, in which he built up so many difficulties concerning a date that I gathered he would be only too happy if I declined in view of the obstacles. And that is the end of it, as far as I can see. My relations to the investment bankers in New York are quite a saga. I hope Lissy has told you a bit about it. The key to the connection is a young couple in New York, by the name of [Stephen M. and Toni] DuBrul [ Jr.], who took a liking to my Order and History. So one day when they were in Munich, he just 14. Stephen M. DuBrul Jr. was instrumental in helping Voegelin fund some of his research. See Eric Voegelin Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, box 10, file 18 for correspondence between Voegelin and DuBrul.
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called on me to see the famous man, and offered to support my work. He was very insistent. And that is how it all started. We then became good friends, and his wife, Toni, is a charming person. He is a partner with Lehman Brothers; she is one of the daughters of the Container Corporation. Both seem to be very wealthy. One pleasant fringe benefit to my recent activities in New York is his insistence that his father, who seems to be another wealthy man with a function in General Motors, pay for the expansion of the Institute in Munich. Tentatively some $50,000 per annum for five years was mentioned. I am just now exploring this pleasant possibility—which contributes to the increase of my correspondence. But there are less materialistic matters. You speak in your letter of a change in dramatic style from expressionist morality to a new realism represented by Dürrenmatt and Frisch. As I am not accustomed to think in these categories, and am not quite sure with regard to their exact meaning, I should like to hear more about the matter. The reason is that just now I am dabbling again in your field of literature, and I feel that I am after the same problem. Let me present it briefly—but I must warn you that I can only hope I have not completely misunderstood you. I hit on what seems to me the same problem through dealing with language and some other symbolisms in connection with my eternal problem of Gnosis. [George] Orwell develops in 1984, as you know, the symbolism of Newspeak. His elaboration of the issue is in my opinion weak, but he is after a real issue. The restriction of vocabulary and meanings: an ideological language has the purpose of interrupting the contact with reality, and on the other hand to admit as “reality” in quotation marks only the phantasy of the ideology. This restriction now pertains not only to words and meanings, but to whole bodies of propositions in philosophy or to facts of history that could interfere with the ideological “truth” by showing it to be a falsehood. An essential in our American ideological environment is, therefore, the destruction of philosophy, history, and even the knowledge of languages in order to prevent access to recalcitrant sources. Every ideology with its apparatus of taboos is, therefore, a Newspeak in the sense of Orwell. (The opposite Oldspeak, incidentally, has become an established derogatory term among our social scientists inasmuch as they characterize a proposition in philosophic language as “old-fashioned.”) If one translates the Orwellian issue into more adequate terminology, one would have to speak of the “obsessive language” of ideologues—which has the double purpose of repetitious, mechanical iteration of the phantasy and of killing off, at the same time, any conflicting reality. The term “obsessive language” seems to suggest itself
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because the great analyst of speakers of obsessive language in the 19th century was Dostoevsky in his Demons, a work that in the English edition has the title The Obsessed. That seems to be good authority. The result of the obsession, and of the use of obsessive language, is the distortion and deformation of reality. I had to struggle with this problem all last summer when I gave the course on Hitler and the Germans. The adequate means of representation for the distortion seemed to be what I called at the time the burlesque. The term suggested itself through the study of novels and dramas by Doderer, Frisch and Dürrenmatt. Recently, however, I reread [Gustav] Flaubert’s Tentation de Saint Antoine and read some new literature on Flaubert, especially the excellent study by Jean Seznec. The whole complex seems to have been worked through already on occasion of Flaubert. In Flaubert’s emerging as the ascetic from the lush romanticism of the forties, the drama of overcoming ideologies seems to have been acted already once. In the Tentation, especially in the parts on heresies and on the libido scientiae, the whole manifold of ideological aberration seems to have been worked through, on occasion of its first occurrence in the early Christian centuries. The nightmare of Flaubert’s time (and of ours) was cathartically overcome by going through its original gnostic form. On this occasion, of Flaubert, there was also no doubt yet about the vocabulary as these French erudites were a lot more cultivated than we are today. (Excuse me: than I am today; for I am sure you are quite familiar with the problems that trouble me.) The Gnostic symbolism, and the indulgence in them, was called the grotesque—the early Christian centuries were to Christianity what the grotesque is to literature, runs one of the formulations in the literature. So, grotesque seems to be preferable to burlesque as a term. Moreover, these 19th-century men of letters were still wise to the essential connections between heresy and cruelty, profanation and sadism, etc. It was perfectly clear to everybody that the autonomy of man in revolt against God was at the core of the issue; that the attempt to replace a world of God’s making by a manmade world could be perpetrated, as it could not be achieved, only through a sensuous outburst of cruelty in overcoming resistance—a cruelty in permanence as the goal could never be reached. The connection of heresy and cruelty is the connection that we formulate today as ideology and terror, or on the less activist level as the mixture of refined sophistic and spiritual vulgarity that is excellently represented today by the vanitas of Sartre. 15. Jean Seznec, Nouvelles études sur La tentation de saint Antoine (London: Warbury Institute, University of London, 1949).
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I hope you see why your remarks interested me very much. The expressionist morality of a Brecht is still “obsessive” language (through symbolism of characters in the drama). What we find in Frisch and Dürrenmatt, and what you diagnose as the higher validity of their characterization, is a new influx of reality. Against the extreme destruction of reality committed by expressionists, there stands a considerable spiritual substance in the Swiss authors. Even if they construe puppets in order to make a point, the puppets have a reality superior to any figures of Brecht, because the point they make is that they are puppets and not reality. It’s horrible—I am at the end of the second page. And I am not going to molest you with a third one. So long then, All good wishes to Ruth and you. Always yours, <Eric>
108. [London,] March 21, 1965 Dear Eric, I am not sure exactly when you are leaving Notre Dame, so to be on the safe side I shall address this to Munich. When you get back there you will probably have so much official correspondence waiting that you may not be displeased by one letter that brings up no business and requires no answering. Hugh Bone disgusts me, but that is nothing new. I will again complain to the Dean, but nothing is to be accomplished by that, because the Dean thinks Bone is as stupid as I do. I hope for a better opportunity later, though there is no reason why you should go trotting across the country to carry the word to alien parts—except that I would like you just to see those alien parts just once. No, Lissy discreetly said nothing, really, about your relations with the investment bankers in New York, but the story as you sketch it in your letter from Morris Inn is very interesting. For me the great thing is that investment brokers sired by General Motors and out of American Can [Corporation] liked your book so much that they thought something ought to be done about it. I enjoy the irony that they look better than American academics. Then there is the noble by-product that they want to pay for the Institute. Good. I tell you, I have been almost on the edge of writing them a fan letter. Could you suggest to them that, with retirement coming up, you would love to have them set up such an institute in America that you could run for the next 15 or 20 years? This is my idea of what ought to come out of it.
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Re Dürrenmatt and Frisch: I have perhaps been using terms loosely, and you may set me straight. I have used expressionism to denote that kind of literary method in which the characters and actions do not at all resemble those of ordinary life but are used rather as counters for ideas, single character traits taken out of context, fragments of reality, behavioral eccentricities, all these reassembled or simply juxtaposed in novel ways that at their best break the ordinary patterns in which we are accustomed to perceive human conduct and presumably, therefore, give a sharper sense of what we are doing and what is going on. I’ve been making the point that, as I put it somewhere, “Post-realistic expressionism in the end has remarkable resemblances to pre-realist allegory.” Well, either mode can be good or bad, and it will probably take considerable experience of expressionist drama to make us able to have a decent assurance about what is meretricious and about what is really going somewhere and will have some durability for later periods. Allegory (the old morality play) and expressionism can move either toward making points or toward characterological fullness. At their best, it seems to me, Frisch and Dürrenmatt move in the latter direction (even Brecht does, at times), and I imagine that my impression of this is what I was talking about in my earlier letter. I’m trying to proceed on the theoretical basis that the better a writer is, the more the expressionist distortion turns out to be not simply a dramatized editorial, but a novelly presented full character in action. There are all kinds of slippery spots in this, and I can only hope that I don’t fall down too often and make an ass of myself. I am much impressed by your extension of the idea of Newspeak into whole prescriptive vocabularies that have the effect of eliminating from consideration whatever, on some ground or other, it is desired not to have to face. You carry it much further than I am able to. Where I have noted this for years, without ever being able to give a name to it, is in the intellectual practices of liberals, where a very limited world is officially created to be the whole of reality. Liberalspeak is surely one case of an obsessive language. But that is only a minor example of what you find in a fascinating host of other ramifications—in Dostoevsky’s The Possessed (I’ve also seen The Demons used, but not, to my memory, The Obsessed: the connotative values are a little different, aren’t they?), in Flaubert, in the Gnostic symbolism, and then of course in the whole business of the relation between heresy and cruelty as the instrument of imposing a man-made world. [left:] <marginalia: Do you know Mario Praz’s The Romantic Agony?> 16. Mario Praz, The Romantic Agony, trans. Angus Davidson (London: Oxford University Press, 1933).
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The shift from burlesque to grotesque as a term seems a good one. Forgive me for being stupid, but I have still a problem with grotesque, which, as a term for obsessive language, seems to refer only to that deformation of reality which results either from ignorance (the liberals) or from cool political manipulation (demagogues, ideologues, etc.). To people with mainly literary associations it would connote more immediately that deformation of reality which exists on the surface, which is an aesthetic instrument with the intention of doing better than ordinary realism (adjustment of literature to familiar social surface, conduct, etc.) in getting to forgotten reality, or in sharpening perceptions, particularly in a comic mode. Victor Erlich, who left us at UW to become Slavic chairman at Yale, is working on Gogol as a grotesque writer, in which he has one secondary purpose of defeating the Soviet view of G. as a social realist (as an ideological figure). He is working from Wolfgang Kayser’s Das Groteske in Malerei und Dichtung, which doubtless you know, and which perhaps you read differently from the way Victor does. I’ve reached the end of my rope, as you will have seen—but I am delighted to extend it further by means of two quotations from Dürrenmatt that I have just come across. They are from his “Problems of the Theatre,” lectures delivered in 1954 and ’55, perhaps not yet printed in German; it appears that the original MS, or “a version” of it, was used for a translation by Gerhard Nellhaus in Four Plays 1957–62 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1962—translations by various hands): “Our world has led to the grotesque as well as to the atom bomb, and so it is a world like that of Hieronymous Bosch whose apocalyptic paintings are also grotesque. But the grotesque is only a way of expressing in a tangible manner, of making us perceive physically the paradoxical, the form of the unformed, the face of a world without face; as just as in our thinking today we seem unable to do without the concept of the paradox (p. 33), so also in art, and in our world which at times seems still to exist only because, the atom bomb exists: out of fear of the bomb” (p. 34). “Our task today is to demonstrate freedom. . . . Tyrants fear only one thing: a poet’s mockery. For this reason, then, parody has crept into all literary genres, into the novel, the drama, into lyrical poetry. Much of painting, even of music, has been conquered by parody, and the grotesque has followed, often well camouflaged, on the heels of parody: all of a sudden the grotesque is there” (p. 38). (1) For me, he overstresses the bomb as a primary fact. (2) I wonder if he is 17. Wolfgang Kayser, The Grotesque in Art and Literature, trans. Ulrich Weisstein (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981).
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not using “parody” in about the sense in which you were originally using “burlesque”? I’m not sure what he means by it—apparently something more farreaching than the usual literary sense of a playful deformation of someone else’s style by way of ridiculing it. (3) He does not define grotesque but simply assumes the meaning. Maybe he derives from Kayser. We are beginning to pack up. Our lease ends on March 31, and on April 1 we fly to Sicily, then Naples, then Athens. I have hardly had time to think about this, for I have felt desperately short of time at the BM; I realize now that I cannot finish Tragedy and Melodrama before we go back, and I don’t know when I will be able to do it later. But still I am using every minute and Ruth feels, with justice I know, that I am not showing enough interest in forthcoming travels. She is doing a splendid job of reading Greece. I’ve been reading a paperback on [Heinrich] Schliemann—what a man. I hope you had a good season at ND; and I know that both of you will be glad that—or when—you are back in Munich. I wish DuBrul would want to import you! With best wishes from both of us, and affectionate greetings to Lissy, Sincerely, <We saw [Luigi] Pirandello’s Right You Are If You Think So the other night—the inflation of a half-truth to look like a whole one, if I ever saw one (not to mention the inflation of a one-act-er into a 3-act play).>
109. June 12, 1966 Dear Eric, This year Glenn Leggett, who used to be Director of Freshman English in our department and later moved up gradually to the provost-ship, became president of Grinnell College. Glenn told his professor of philosophy, Paul Kuntz, that I knew you, and Paul then sent me a file of the proceedings at the Grinnell colloquium conducted by you and [Arnold J.] Toynbee. Your brilliant Grinnell piece is the first short thing of yours that has come to me in some time, and it took 18. Voegelin gave a speech entitled “The Configuration of History” and engaged in an interchange with Arnold J. Toynbee on April 14, 1963, at Grinnell College. This speech was later published as “Configurations of History,” in Concept of Order, ed. Paul Kuntz (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968), 23–42. It is reprinted in the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 12, Published Essays, 1966–1985, ed. Ellis Sandoz (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1990).
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me back to the days when manuscripts from you regularly kept me on my toes and seeing over the usual border lines. Then Glenn invited me to Grinnell to hold forth in a literary symposium at his inauguration—the device for suggesting that an inauguration is doing more than inducting a new promotional era. I had some more chat with Paul Kuntz and found, among other things, that his father and mine were very close to being classmates both at a Lutheran college in Pennsylvania and at the Lutheran seminary in Philadelphia which they both attended. Small-world clichés everywhere. In my piece I held forth against some of the standard clichés that govern English departments and English studies, among them the current rush to call everything “absurd” (I’ve been most curious about the enormous popularity of the word existential, and I’ve about come to the conclusion that to most people it means little more than a way of asserting fashionably that they are good reliable liberal atheists). This pleased Paul, and he gave me a postal introduction to his friend, and chairman-to-be, Gregor Sebba at Emory. Sebba then sent me his essay on you. This I am immensely happy to have, for it gives me the impression—not I hope an illusive one—of being a splendid, orderly, overall exposition of your positions in the opus magnum. I was so pleased that I begged a couple additional copies of him to distribute to several UW colleagues whose minds are open to something more than the standard quasi-philosophic yak-yak of the faculty club. Incidentally they are both Jews, and as such terribly liable to fall into the Marxian-Freudian-liberal clichés, the defensive-aggressive dissent against everything, and the specialprivileges-for-me line of the ex-Ghetto boys; but they both have good imaginations and reflective powers and so are constantly transcending the party-line. So they will learn something from EV; they will object and resist, but still they will take something in. Score a couple of runs for our side, as the sports argot has it. Then in sending me the extra copies Sebba also sent me copies of an exchange of letters between himself and a man named [Ellis] Sandoz (a former student of yours I believe) at Louisiana Tech at Ruston—an interesting debate on Sebba’s treatment of Altizer at the end of his EV piece, one which I am not competent to understand but which I took great pleasure in. Among other things, Sandoz urged Sebba to publish the EV essay in a good place, and Sebba replied in somewhat sad tones, “But where?” At this point I got into the act and wrote Don Stanford of the Southern Review urging him to ask Sebba for the essay. I haven’t yet heard from Don, but I would be most pleased if something came of this. 19. This essay was published; see Gregor Sebba, “Order and Disorders of the Soul: Eric Voegelin’s Philosophy of History,” Southern Review, n.s., 3 (1967): 282–310.
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Next Saturday Ruth and I move to our cabin on Camano Island for two months. We rent the white house and move up there as a device for compelling us to get out of circulation here and me to get to work—this time to finish, I hope, the tragedy-melodrama thing which I got moving pretty well in London last year. Once I get that incubus out of the way I want to collect some Shakespeare essays I did during the last couple of years and maybe add several to them in hopes of making a short volume out of it. But since we got back from England just a year ago I haven’t been able to touch anything but very short jobs. I have an essay on Macbeth which will appear in England this fall and which has gone pretty well as a lecture on several occasions, and an edition of Taming of the Shrew led me to think out a sort of theory of farce. But 12 months of administration (I took the summer chairmanship in ’65 mainly to work myself gradually back into the nightmare of history, as Joyce called it) have been taxing. I’ve hired 10 new people (which meant great waves of recruiting during most of the year), fought off offers for good people, got rid of some lemons (though not as many as should be eliminated), shuddered at the usual series of crises (staff going batty or threatening to, assistant professors mistaking themselves for god because of being in short supply, student demagogues mistaking themselves for assistant professors, searching for a new dean {as yet unfound}, and at the end a negro acting instructor, female yet, giving automatic A-grades to all her male students to help keep them out of the draft and hence further away from going to Viet-Nam, where she disapproves of our activities). Has anything yet been consummated at LSU? Now and then we get wind of an intimation of some sort, but nothing definite from any direction. If the question is unanswerable, and shouldn’t be asked, don’t hesitate to say so. I’ve been making some efforts to stir other offers and have apparently had no success. Did anything ever come of the proposal to translate my Voegelin-seminar talk and include it in a volume? I hesitate to ask, for my suspicion is that your translator probably said, “This will never do,” and it seemed expedient to drop it, but I may as well know the facts. Eliseo Vivas has been trying to get some kind of grant to spend a year writing a book about liberalism. I was asked to write a letter in his behalf, and so I got a copy of the prospectus, which I will send on to you under separate cover. I don’t know how well Eliseo will do it, but I shall be glad to see him work out the view 20. Heilman, “The Criminal as Tragic Hero: Dramatic Methods,” in Shakespeare Survey: An Annual Survey of Shakespearian Study and Production, vol. 19, ed. Kenneth Muir (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966): 12–24; and Heilman, “The Taming Untamed; or, the Return of the Shrew,” Modern Language Quarterly 27 (1966): 147–61.
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that in liberalism we have a remarkable case of a new orthodoxy spreading itself under the guise of philosophical disinterested-ness. This, I suppose, is an old intellectual fashion; it is wearisome as a contemporary phenomenon. We have a quite different version of a comparable phenomenon going on before our eyes presently: a set of Fundamentalist Presbyterians (backed, apparently, by Bircher money) are suing the university to compel it to give up a course in English, “The Bible as Literature.” The plaintiffs are making a fascinating two-headed case: (1) the course is really a pressure for faith, and as such violates the churchand-state prohibitions of the constitution; (2) the course is undermining faith by treating the revealed as historical fact. If the plaintiffs were not such dingy people, I rather suspect they would be joined by the ACLU et omne id genus, who so desperately hope that the Constitution will put out of business whatever is contrary to their own dogma. I have let much too much time go by since I last wrote you. And now I have used too many words to say too little. But please take it all as a token of admiration and of affectionate greetings to you both,
110. [Munich,] June 19, 1966 Dear Bob: To have a letter from you is a rare pleasure in a world not altogether pleasant at the moment. It seems you have run into a number of my friends. Kuntz, in Grinnell, is a quite charming man, and a good philosopher in addition. Your mentioning of my lecture I gave at some time in company of Toynbee, however, reminds me painfully of the MS that Kuntz has sent me and that is still lying on my desk unrevised. Sebba, in Emory, again is an excellent man—the author of the great Bibliographia Cartesiana. He is greatly interested in my work: the essay you mention is really good—in some respects better than I have ever myself expressed what I wanted to say. If it could be published, thanks to your help, in the Southern Review, that would be a good solution of Sebba’s publication trouble. “Trouble” is the key word: I have a lot of trouble with my Institute here, as my dear colleague [Hans] Maier is doing his best to wreck what I have built up 21. This is a reference to the John Birch Society, a conservative, anticommunist organization. 22. “And all that sort.”
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with some labor. There is a growing resistance in Germany against everything “foreign.” Hence, my build-up of Eastern Asiatic, Near Eastern, African, American, Ancient Orient sections etc. in the Institute causes resentment. What a good German ought to know is German history, German political institutions, perhaps [Charles] de Gaulle, and a smattering of the Common Market. America is to be kept at arm’s length; students should not study in America, because that would estrange them from the solid German methods of history and philology, etc. That is the new spirit, and it is growing. I don’t want to bother you with details—but the past year has been one of unceasing trouble to ward off the worst effects. It seems, however, that the powers of darkness will have to submit to light—at least as far as the Institute is concerned. Elsewhere in Germany it does not look so good. Not that there is a serious revival of National Socialism, but there is marked increase in the provincialism that was the matrix of Hitlerism, and may become the hot-bed again of unpleasantness in the future. Intimately connected with this kind of trouble is the possibility of my return to Louisiana. Pete Taylor has made a good offer—but I cannot accept it, unless I [am] given my emeritation here in Munich. And they won’t give it apparently, until I have reached the age of 68. Of course, I could walk out [of ] here any day, but then I would lose my pension rights. So, for the moment, I am tied down. Not that I am completely paralyzed. There just has come out a volume of about 400 pages, entitled Anamnesis. It is my philosophy of consciousness. I am not sending you a copy, because it is in German. The book has several functions. In the first place, I had to publish a book in German sometime as a sort of public obligation—my work in English is not read here (see xenophobia above) and a professor has to come out with a book now and then. Second, I had to work through quite a number of theoretical problems before I could finish Order and History—this I have done, in recent years, in a number of articles published in German, and now integrated into Anamnesis. Third, however, and most important, I wanted to experiment with a new literary form in philosophy. Let me explain: Heraclitus has been the first thinker to identify philosophy as an exploration of the psyche in depth—its tension, its dynamics, its structure, etc. This exegesis of psyche or consciousness has remained the center-piece of philosophy ever 23. Hans Maier was the second political science faculty member at Munich. 24. Cecil Grady Taylor became chancellor of Louisiana State University (main campus in Baton Rouge) in 1965 and served until he resigned in 1974.
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since. However, it has been overlaid historically by philosophy in the secondary sense of communicating the results of exegesis as well as its speculative consequences. Hence, philosophy moves in history as an up and down of an exegesis of consciousness and a dogmatic formulation of results, a return to the original consciousness, new dogmatizations etc. At present, we are faced with the problem of getting rid of a considerable heap of dogma—theological, metaphysical, and ideological—and to recover the original experiences of man’s tension toward the divine ground of his existence. Now, while dogma can be presented in the form of systems, of ratiocination from unquestioned premises, or discursive exposition of problems presented in the philosophical literature, original exegesis of consciousness can proceed only by the form of direct observation and meditative tracing of the structure of the psyche. Moreover, this structure is not a given to be described by means of propositions, but a process of the psyche itself that has to find its language symbols as it proceeds. And finally, the selfinterpretation of consciousness cannot be done once for all, but is a process in the life-time of a human being. From these peculiarities stem the literary problems. Heraclitus has found the form of the aphorism as the adequate expression of biographical moments illuminating the structure of the psyche. Another form is the via negativa of Christian meditation, still used by Descartes. The matter is further complicated, inasmuch as every attempt at original exegesis of consciousness is undertaken historically in opposition to the prevalent dogmatism of the time, and receives its coloration from it. The exegesis is an attempt to recover or remember, (hence the title Anamnesis), the human condition revealing itself in consciousness, when it is smothered by the debris of opaque symbols. Hence, one cannot simply take over an historically earlier analysis of consciousness, such as the Heraclitian, Aristotelian, or Augustinian, but must start from the current obstacles to human self-understanding. This should give you some general idea of the problem. In my special case, I proceeded in the following manner: Parts I and III of the book contain two meditative exercises of about 75 pp. each. The first one I went through and wrote down in September–November 1943; the last one, in the second half of 1965. The first one, in Baton Rouge, was the breakthrough by which I recovered consciousness from the current theories of consciousness, especially from Phaenomenology. The second one, begins as a rethinking of the Aristotelian exegesis of consciousness (in Met. I and II), and then expands into new areas 25. In an October 23, 1946, letter, J. E. Palmer, editor of the Sewanee Review, invited Voegelin to contribute something to the journal. On November 5, 1946, Voegelin responded by making several suggestions for possible submissions, and then he offered Palmer another possibility:
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of consciousness that had not come within the ken of classic philosophy but must be explored now, in order to clear consciousness of the above-mentioned dogmatisms. —Between the two meditations, I have placed, under the title “Experience and History,” eight studies which demonstrate how the historical phenomena of order give rise to the type of analysis which culminates in the meditative exploration of consciousness. Hence, the whole book is held together by a double movement of empiricism: (1) the movement that runs from the historical phenomena of order to the structure of consciousness in which they originate; and (2) the movement that runs from the analysis of consciousness to the phenomena of order inasmuch as the structure of consciousness is the instrument of interpretation for the historical phenomena. Well, we’ll see how the public will take to this novel form which is neither pre-Socratic, nor classic, nor Christian, though it has certain affinities to the mysticism of Plotinus and [Pseudo-] Dionysius Areopagita, not to forget the Cloud of Unknowing. Another piece I just finished is a lecture of about 40 pages on the German University as one of the causes of German social disorder. That will make me immensely popular as I had to analyse Wilhelm von Humboldt’s conception of man, science, and Bildung as a case of romantic narcissism calculated to make man unfit for public life in society. Besides I had to praise Thomas Mann who is heartily disliked because he said so many naughty things about dear old Germany. If you would rather have something on the literary side, I have also lying around a MS entitled Anamnesis. It is an intellectual autobiography of my first ten years. The crazy thing originated in a correspondence with a friend on the question whether the Cartesian type of meditation is a legitimate approach to a philosophy of the mind. I denied the legitimacy on the ground that the life of spirit and intellect is historical in the strict sense, and that the determinants of mature philosophical speculation have to be sought in the mythical formation of the mind in experiences of early youth. In order to prove my point, I made anamnetic experiments on myself and collected twenty-odd such early experiences which determined my later metaphysical attitudes. The thing is of objective importance; the autobiographical element is of little relevance. There is, however, one hitch to it. The myths of childhood are fragile, and I used for the description the only language instrument which I master myself and that is German. I would not dare to translate these pieces into English myself. But if you have somebody at hand who knows a little German and a lot of English, you can have it for translation and publication. (Hoover Institution, Voegelin Papers, box 36, file 8) Mr. Palmer did not take Voegelin up on this offer and these anamnetic experiments were not published until the German edition of Anamnesis in 1966.
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In March I spent three weeks in England, under the auspices of the British Council, making a tour of Universities: London, Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester, St. Andrews, Dundee, and Sussex. But I managed to wedge Stonehenge in. I saw Cleanth and Tinkum in London, established in splendour, and was taken to the Atheneum. The purpose of the trip was to form connections for placing our students for a term or two in England. Besides I saw quite a few people whom I had known only from their books hitherto; especially Manchester has a splendid concentration of comparative religionists like [Samuel George Frederick] Brandon, [Frederick Fyvie] Bruce, and [David Syme] Russell. Your account of your administrative woes reminds me very much of our local problems; lack of personnel, and consequent megalomania of the younger set. I am looking forward very much to the tragedy-melodrama piece, of which you told me such enticing bits when you and Ruth were here in Munich. I hope you will have some quiet in your retreat—for which I envy you very much, ours being sadly impaired by the bad weather prevalent in Bavaria at all times. We have no plans yet for summer, but I hope we can spend a quiet time in August and [the] first half of September in Weilheim (where our cottage is), as I want to work now on In Search of Order (the last volume of Order and History). I plan to finish it in March–April 1967 in [the] Widener Library. In late September and early October I hope we can take some time off again for Italy. All good wishes to Ruth and you from both of us, Sincerely yours, <Eric>
111. Munich, May 26, 1967 Dear Bob: I have received the invitation to the Commencement Exercises of Lafayette College. From the enclosures, I see that you will receive an Honorary Degree. Thank you very much for letting me know about this honor so richly deserved. My warmest congratulations to you and Ruth. I believe Lissy has written to Ruth already some information that, in about two years, we shall be permanently settled at Stanford. That will bring us practically in walking distance of Seattle, and I am looking forward very much to an early reunion. At the moment, I am quite busy with working out the lectures on the “Drama of Humanity” that I have given at Emory in April. Another piece of work, the essay on “Immortality” has been completed and is in the press. I shall send you
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a copy as soon as it comes out, probably in July. You see, I am degenerating more and more into a theologian. With all good wishes to you and Ruth for the great day in Lafayette from both of us, Sincerely yours, <Eric> Eric Voegelin
112. Camano Island, June 21, 1967 Dear Eric, Thanks ever so much for taking the trouble to write about the degree from Lafayette. As one of my colleagues said, “I see Lafayette is trying for a nationwide spread but has run out of west coast candidates.” It turned out to be a Doctor of Literature, the ritual encomia were modest and decent, people were very pleasant, and we almost died of the heat. Afterwards we spent a week driving in the East, which we have not done since the time we visited you in Cambridge. We saw some old acquaintances and friends of yours—two nights with [the] Stokes in western Massachusetts (Harold, retired at last from the wars he never loved, seems not very happy, and even a lovely home in a country village seems not quite to do the job), and a lunch with [the] Brookses, just about to head out for Finland, where Cleanth is to take part in some symposium, and Russia. Finally two days in New York, where Ruth hadn’t been for years and where I never get out of the hotel, all spent in museum crawling. At the new Whitney we found most of the space taken up by two Americans of whom we’d never even heard—one [William] Glackins, who is mediocre, and [Jules] Pascin, who seemed extraordinarily talented. We were delighted to hear from you both that you will be at Stanford, which has obviously beaten everybody to the punch, and therefore undermined my usual inclination to feel that the actuality of that place is generally less than the reputation. Cleanth and I were both remarking that we’d failed to get any action out of our own institutions. Three cheers for Stanford. Well, we’ll get you to the Northwest at last, and meanwhile Pete and Janet and our grandson will see you first. Janet came up last week with Erich (that is the strange spelling) 26. Voegelin, “Immortality: Experience and Symbol,” Harvard Theological Review 60 (1967): 235–79, reprinted in the Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 12, Published Essays, 1966–1985, ed. Ellis Sandoz (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1990). 27. A.k.a. Julius Mordecai Pincus, American, 1885–1930.
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for her sister’s wedding, and one evening we had our first grandparental sittingbee—a 41⁄ 2 hour period in which, I fear, we both felt rather nervously inept. I am glad that the Emory lectures are evidently going to be in printed form. (Incidentally, I took great satisfaction in being the intermediary in getting the Sebba essay into the SoRev.) Will this material also include the debate with Altizer? (At my class reunion I had a beer-chat with a classmate who is a Presbyterian clergyman and who seemed to know at least a little something about Altizer.) I look forward to receiving a copy of the essay on “Immortality.” Hopefully we’ll be at the island all summer (except, perhaps, for a brief run to Palo Alto), and I have much work cut out. Random House wants to bring out a new edition of the Gulliver I did in 1950, and that means going over a mountain of stuff that has come out in the last 17 years. My introduction was somewhat novel then, but meanwhile the ground has been worked over by everybody, and I can’t see myself saying anything fresh at this point. The bigger job will be some revisions of the Tragedy and Melodrama MS for the UW Press, which spent a frustrating (for me that is) eight or nine months making up their minds what they wanted to do about a MS that they thought, and perhaps rightly, too long for commercial comfort. The present idea is to bring it out in two volumes, a big one and a little one, a year apart, and I am to do some internal reconstruction. Truth to tell, I’ve been at it too long to face revision with excitement, and I’ll be glad when I’ve pushed myself through the task. Then I do look forward to finishing the summer on the third job—an edition of Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles. The textual part of such jobs is a horrible bore, but then comes the critical essay. I’ve never done a thing on Tess, so this will have the virtue of novelty—if there is time for it. But whatever does or does not get done, we flourish on the island. I spend much too much time working around the place, a sort of compensation for a totally un-athletic ten months at UW. Ruth loves it, even though we seem to keep having summer school visiting professors up for half-days. Our best to you both—and another paean to Stanford. Sincerely,
28. Heilman, introduction to Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles (New York: Bantam Books, 1971), vii–xlvi.
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113. Camano Island, Washington, July 13, 1968 Dear Eric, I have received, from Regnery, a copy of Science, Politics, and Gnosticism, with an enclosed card “With the compliments of Eric Voegelin,” and I am again indebted to you for your kindness. I am glad that you have reprinted these lectures and essays in an English edition, for, to whomever will read, they will bring much enlightenment about the climate in which we live. I had a constant sense of understanding and recognition as I read. You start out with the doxa that “takes on the appearance of philosophy”: it describes the state of most university faculties. The “prohibition of questions,” if it does not take on quite a Marxian quality, is standard procedure among the liberals who make up most of the faculties—and, above all, the kind of question that you raise introducing the relevance of transcendent being. Deicide is a source of self-congratulation among these characters; insofar as they know about Prometheus, he would be a hero just as he was for [Percy Bysshe] Shelley (who, I learn from you, did not invent the idea of Prometheus as a deliverer from tyranny). The distinction between possessing knowledge and loving knowledge again fits perfectly what we see around us all the time—the assurance of possession and the deficiency of love. The movement from philosophy to gnosis keeps suggesting to me—and I hope this isn’t only sloppiness on my part—the denial of essence and the totalizing (to invent a horrible word) of existence which has now become cant even among undergraduates, the knowing ones, that is, that have some axe to grind (and it reminds me, also, of John Ransom’s distinction between getting attuned to “nature” and conquering it). The use of parousiastic as a term to match, or rather refine upon, chiliastic makes a distinction that I would expect to be taken up. Has it been? (I find myself wanting to come upon an occasion when I can say “is, as Voegelin says, parousiastic.”) The deicidal approach to the “just and perfect order,” with the incidental acquisition of supermanhood or divinity, seems to me to have now reached an ultimate extreme in which the project is taken over by people under 30; not only do they make the snatch, but many over 30 seem perfectly content to concede them the spiritual wherewithal for the project.<*> [left:] <what I now think of as “the children’s crusade” to liberate the holy city of man from the corrupt.> What was once the possession of theorists has been taken over by bandits. As you say, “Sentence has been passed; the execution follows.” (Incidentally, I learn from you that there is “scripture” for the “indignation” and “denunciation” that seem to have become a standard form of public discussion.) Finally, the essay “Ersatz Religions” ought to be required reading for university faculty and students generally. That is a beautifully organized analysis
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of the teleological and the axiological components, of the types of immanentization, of the Joachitic symbols and their modern applications, of the types of omission of parts of reality, of the types of setting forth of insecurity in the psychological conclusion. Incidentally, I was struck by Hobbes’s sense of the Puritans: “the libido dominandi of the revolutionary who wants to bend men to his will,” for this, it seems to me, is what I have increasingly seen in my colleagues who are conspicuously reformist and self-righteous. Alas, Hobbes’s view of the alternative is, I think, the only one they would be open to, having disposed of all final judgments as a guide to life. As always with you, there is some wonderful writing, in longer sections, notably pp. 43 ff., on to the end of the chapter, and again in the concluding sections of the Ersatz chapter, though there it is hard to say of one part, rather than another, that it is particularly distinguished. And throughout there is a great flow of epigrams, e.g., pp. 45, the top of 64 (how true), the top of 107. And I did enjoy the parodic use of Beowulfian-alliterative verse style in “Heavy with fate fall the formulas.” There is a case of style as wit. I wanted to write and tell you how much, also, I got out of the immortality essay, and then I got so bogged down in department problems (some year, what with the Black Students Union, whom at least one can understand, and the Students for Democratic Society, who are nothing but destroyers) that I never had the time. What stands out most clearly in my memory is your general tactic of speaking of an experience as no longer experienced, and of the consequences of the original experiencing and later on the non-experiencing. If you don’t recognize this as an account of it, you will have to attribute it to the translation of complex Voegelin into simple Heilman. Incidentally, a propos of Voegelin-into-Heilman: I can account for some of the current events in America (Columbia University and elsewhere) only by postulating a destructive instinct which is as much of a given as sex. And I am sure that this is a version of your concept of “floating hatred” (do I quote correctly?) which I remember hearing you talk about 25 or 30 years ago. We’re at the cottage for two months—for me, reasonable separation from the department, and hence writing time. Essays, mostly; but there hasn’t been anything that I felt like sending on to you.<*> (Incidentally, I was rather pleased that some German publisher, planning to get out a volume on the picaresque, asked permission to have my Felix Krull essay excerpted, translated, and included; I even had some correspondence with the translator. This was a year ago, and I’ve heard nothing since.) Tragedy and Melodrama is now in page proof and should be out this fall. But I’ve been at it too long and too interruptedly.
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We’re delighted that everything finally worked out right at Palo Alto, and hope that that will be your permanent spot. You’ll have to put up with our looking in on you occasionally. With all good wishes for a good summer, good travels, and a good translation to California, Warmly, as always, <*However, I may send you one I’ve just finished, if it gets into print: “Diabolic Strategies: Frisch’s Firebugs and Pinter’s Birthday Party.”>
29. Published as Heilman, “Demonic Strategies: The Birthday Party and The Firebugs,” in Sense and Sensibility in Twentieth-Century Writing: A Gathering in Memory of William Van O’Connor, ed. Brom Weber (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 57–74.
N O T A P O S T S C R I P T AT A L L B U T A N E W E S S AY Letters 114–29, 1969–1972
114. Camano Island, Washington, August 26, 1969 Dear Eric, I hope that I have not distressed you by mentioning your work-in-progress to Don Ellegood. I did not forget that your preference is for a commercial publisher, nor did I have any intention of trying to deflect the book into amateur (though none the less commercial) printing. I assumed that you would feel completely free to ignore Ellegood or to give him a gentle, or not so gentle, no. But I also thought it not uncomfortable to have a press in pursuit of one (though here I may be inaccurately transferring to you a feeling of my own): one can at least always fall back on it if one gets weary or doesn’t find something palpably better, etc. When we got back to Seattle, I found a day of interviews set up at the office (mostly talking to blacks whom we have hired or might hire) and another three days of business letters that had piled up and that the summer chairman wasn’t quite able to handle. Since then, I’ve been trying hard to catch up on my working schedule with plays, but I’m still way behind, and this weekend, alas, we have to go back to town and get ready for the SDS, assistant professors, English graduate students, and English majors who will bring purity of heart, intellectual clarity, and the will to power to the improvement of the present state of affairs in English. Twice I have heard Ruth, talking about a house she liked, say something like, “It’s just like Eric and Lissie’s house—spacious and unexpected.” We’re glad you are in so satisfactory a spot, and we are glad to have seen you in it. We’ll keep hoping that some time we can see you at this end of the line. The Palo Alto Heilmans are here for two weeks—last week with the Bennies, this week with us, here at the island. Of course the local weather, at best ill adjusted to the physiological temperament of Californians, is sulking, and they shiver. I don’t know whether this will come to the Institute during your trip abroad or not; but if it does, it will keep. To repeat: ignore Ellegood if you prefer. Our warm greetings to you both. 250
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115. Seattle, September 23, 1969 Dear Eric: During the summer I had a letter from Don Stanford, editor of the Southern Review, saying that he had heard that you had done some Joyce criticism which he would like to print, and asking me whether I knew anything about this (I am of course pleased by the fact that he thought I might know). I naturally replied that I did not. This was before he had your reply to August 18. Having dealt with that matter of business, I quickly went on to another in which I have been interested for a long time, as you know. I told Don that though I could produce no Voegelin-on-Joyce for him, I could produce something equally good, Voegelin-on-James, and asked him whether he wanted to see it. He replied immediately, urging me to send it to him. However, it was some time before I could do this, since we were up on the island, and your essay was, I thought, in my file at home, still occupied by the summer renters. When we got back there about Labor Day, I found the essay (it was actually in my file at the office, to go into full historical trivialities), had it Xeroxed, and sent it on. I made perfectly clear to Don that this was your property, not mine, and that if he liked it and wanted to publish it, it would then be necessary to take up the matter with you. I emphasized that I had no way of knowing whether you were willing to have it printed; hence the author’s permission was something we both had to gamble on. I even explained to Don why I was sending the essay to him without first asking you about it. Once I had encouraged you to submit the essay to an editor whom I knew, and then the editor had rejected it. While you had taken this with your customary urbanity, it could not have been a wholly delightful experience, and I simply did not want to subject you to a possible repetition of it. I myself thought the other editor had made a very bad mistake. But if he, Don, did not like the essay, then you would never know that the adverse judgment had been made. If he did like it, then we would see whether you wanted to print it. That is where we are now: I have just received an enthusiastic letter from Don, and I enclose a copy of it. I am very happy about Don’s attitude to the article, and I am also happy to see that there may be no problem about the author’s acceptance of the acceptance! For Don has enclosed (as his words to me make clear) a thermofax of your August 18 letter to him in which you do indicate interest in the publication of the James essay. In fact, I am delighted by the remarkable coincidence: it must have been just about the same time that you and I were both proposing to Don the James essay as an alternative to the Joyce
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criticism! I am delighted, too, by the fact that Don proposes their maximum rate of payment. (The essay must run about 4500–5000 words.) If you will let me know how you feel about it now, I’ll pass the word on to Don, and of course he’ll write to you formally. I’d be glad to follow Don’s suggestion and write a short note, mostly, as far as my own preference goes, on the circumstances out of which your essay developed, which I think I remember pretty clearly. I could also say a few words about the general direction of subsequent criticism of The Turn. But whatever its contents, that note would come to you first for approval: your recollection of the occasion might be rather different from mine. If you felt inclined to make them, some “preliminary remarks” from you would be excellent. But enough of this. I’ll wait to hear from you. One minor personal note. Did I ever report to you that several years ago a Darmstadt outfit, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, asked permission to translate my essay on “Krull as Picaresque” (or part of it) for a volume on the picaresque that they were getting out? After that, a long silence, but I have just heard from them that they are sending offprints and DM 80. So I guess the thing has come off, and I’ll be curious as to how it looks (or sounds) in German. Ruth enjoyed her telephone chat with Lissy last night. Our best to you both. Sincerely yours, Robert B. Heilman
116. September 26, 1969 Dear Bob: Thank you ever so much for your letter of September 23. The correspondence with Don Stanford occurred in the days just before I left for Europe. He, indeed, wanted some lectures on Joyce, which I had never given, and I suggested The Turn of the Screw as some other paper instead. The solution, which now offers itself, is delightful. I am very glad Stanford likes my letter to you, though I am quite aware that it must appear somewhat dilettantic to experts on Henry James. Still, I understand that, in a modest way, it belongs to the history of LSU in a certain phase. Even more happy am I that you still approve of the letter so far that you are willing to write some introductory remarks to it. I would appreciate it greatly indeed if you could go so far into detail that the shortcomings of my letter are pointed out, as I cannot do that job myself. Whether I should add any remarks of my own, I do not know yet. They would
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pertain to the effect which your education of my English has had on me—and in this context, I wonder whether it would not be advisable and permissible to change a word here and there that now, in retrospect, would look infelicitous. What do you think concerning this point? I am writing, at the same time, to Stanford that we have come to an agreement, and that I shall be delighted and honored to have the letter published by The Southern Review. Incidentally, on October 6, I shall give a lecture at Loyola, New Orleans, on Aeschylus. If time permits, Don Stanford and I could get together for a talk. I remember him as a most pleasant and learned man from my last visit at Baton Rouge. That’s the way all things come to light at last. With many thanks, and all good wishes to you and Ruth from both of us, I am, Yours sincerely, <Eric Voegelin> Eric Voegelin
117. Seattle, October 2, 1969 Dear Eric: I’m delighted that you are willing to have the Southern Review print your James essay. Incidentally, as I should have said in the first place, please do not feel compelled to keep the form of the letter to me if you would rather have the essay appear as straight essay. On the other hand, I’m most happy to get into the act as recipient if you don’t mind. You will find enclosed several things. The first is my “Note,” in which I attempt to do only what Don Stanford suggested: namely, give the historical context in which the essay was written, and note the relationship of the essay to other criticism. I send this to you so that you can make any correction you find necessary or suggest any change you find desirable. Please be candid about anything you think inaccurate or inappropriate. In answer to your inquiry in your fifth paragraph: I see no reason for not making any stylistic alterations that may contribute to clarity and idiom. In fact, the officious editor, the pedant, and the busybody in me got to work and listed all the places where you might want to consider an alternative. This list is the second enclosure. I’m sure you’d catch all these yourself; the only thing to be 1. This document by Heilman, entitled “Eric Voegelin’s Manuscript on James’s The Turn: Possible Syntactic and Mechanical Changes,” may be found in the Hoover Institution Archives, Voegelin Papers, box 77, folder 3.
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said for my intrusion is that it may save you a little time. (This assumes, of course, that the list is complete enough to save you from feeling that you want to go over everything else.) Needless to say, you are the judge of whether these suggestions make sense; whenever you don’t like them, pay not the slightest attention to them. I’ve retained the first copy of my “Note”; when I have made any changes that you may propose, I’ll send it on to Don. I’ve also, of course, kept a copy of the list of passages and can refer to it if there is any need. If you will forgive me, there is, I think, one slight rhetorical problem in the middle of the essay. Let me say what I think it is (and run the risk of your thinking me merely stupid, which may be just what I am being). Your interpretative generalizations are in the first six pages and the last three; no problems there. In between is a summary of all the details that lead to your conclusions. As you summarize the textual materials, however, you rely on the reader’s having your own grip of the subject and, as if you were avoiding an unnecessary condescension to him, do not always make connections between the details and the relevant generalizations. Maybe he needs just a little more condescension? Just an example or two. In the last sentence of section III, I assume that the point is that the “human virtue” holds a dead body because the virtue, though determined, is misguided and inadequate. But will the reader make the connection with the “vanity of the soul bent on self-salvation”? On p. 9 I take the implication to be that James is being clever in using the verb “know,” which encases two meanings both applicable to the Governess: being recognized in her virtue, and being known carnally. On p. 13 at the end of section VI I wonder whether the implications of the summary of the action should not be made explicit. Will the reader make the connection with the demonically closed soul? Might there also be an allusion to this as the source of the continued and relentless turning of the screw (p. 15, 5b)? On p. 16, last paragraph, the second sentence is very compact, containing much that the literary-academic reader may need to have sorted out for him by an expansion of the statement. Perhaps this is also true of the last sentence in the section, on p. 17. Poor man, with your leaping and subtle imagination, to be tormented by your literal-minded friend who wants to tie you down with a net of explicitnesses! I know I’m exposing myself here. But if I’m right about the readers on my side of the fence, I hate to see them not feel the full effect of a fine analysis whose subtleties may evade them now and then. Hence my rather diffident call for an occasional crutch. But you, Eric, may feel that you are not in the crutch-
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manufacturing business, and that I would wholly understand. It is a great essay, and it can stand on its own feet. Sincerely yours, Robert B. Heilman
118. Seattle, October 29, 1969 Dear Eric: Our “James man” tells me that he knows of no biographical facts which would indicate that James was, or permit the inference that he was, schizophrenic. If better information is available, I hope that you will have got it from a Stanford informant. I am not quite sure how reliable our boy is. I would be glad to do some checking myself, but I am swamped in the office. I enclose a newspaper column in which you are mentioned. The man who writes it is, I suppose, “nationally syndicated”; he appears occasionally in the Seattle Times. Doubtless you have seen other printings of this, but you may as well also see that from the Northwest. Best wishes to you both. Sincerely yours, Robert B. Heilman
119. [Stanford,] November 3, 1969 Dear Bob: Thanks to the help of Dr. [Manfred] Henningsen—one of my Munich assistants who is now working here at the Hoover Institution—I have been able to ascertain what are the facts in the story about Henry James’s late schizophrenia. The matter goes back to an article in the Times Literary Supplement of May 2, 1968. I enclose a photocopy, as I am sure you will be interested in it. With many thanks for your letter and all good wishes, I am, Yours sincerely, <Eric> Eric Voegelin
2. “Agnew: A Talkative Political Greenhorn with a Good Mind,” Seattle Times, October 31, 1969.
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120. Seattle, November 10, 1969 Dear Eric, Many thanks indeed for the Xerox of the Leon Edel communication to TLS about James’s aberration in his last illness. Oddly enough, just this week I received from the publishers a new book on James by an English writer, Montgomery Hyde, who alludes to the stroke and the subsequent disturbance, and even mentions briefly the Napoleon analogy. I wonder whether he is the British writer whom Edel did not want to anticipate? As it turns out, he needn’t have worried, since Hyde does much less with it than Edel does. How fortunate you are to have a researcher who could dig this up, and how remarkable that you should have remembered a matter which doubtless you saw only glancingly and which is so little related to your major concerns. I am most curious to see how you are going to use this (if indeed you do plan to do so) in whatever additional remarks you append to the Turn materials. Ruth left in haste this morning on another trip to Madison, since her sister phoned to say that their mother is in bad shape. During the week she had broken a toe by walking into something, so she was not in the best condition for traveling. My best to you both. Sincerely yours, Robert B. Heilman
121. [Stanford,] December 11, 1969 Dear Bob: At long last, the Postscript is finished. Enclosed [is] a copy. I hope that your horror will not be aroused by too many grammatical and other mistakes. At the same time, I am sending a copy to Don Stanford. I wonder what he will say when he sees into what that Postscript has gone. With all good wishes and many thanks for the hospitality you extended so graciously to us. Yours cordially, Eric Voegelin
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122. Seattle, December 22, 1969 Dear Eric: Thank you very much for sending me a copy of your Postscript (not to mention, also, the preceding materials). Thank you much more for doing the Postscript, which is of course not a postscript at all but a new essay. The Southern Review is lucky to have this extraordinary study, which is miles ahead of any other essay on the Turn and which, above all things, does so brilliant a job of establishing the “relevance” (to use the fashionable word which fortunately you do not mention) to the modern world of the prison-house (to take over your metaphor for an existence of closure). One notices especially, of course, the movement from Vacuum to violence, though you do not make a separate issue of it but introduce it only as a part of the development of consciousness in closed existence. You start off with that very nice urbane retrospect which is the only really postscriptal part of the Postscript—noting which [sic] you did observe and were not yet ready to observe in that first reading of the Turn. In fact, you use an almost fictional rhetoric, introducing an issue which now stands as a mystery and is to be resolved only later—the nature of a certain evasiveness or inconclusiveness in the James symbols. When you ultimately identify these, the central case is concluded: the Inspector has solved the case, not of the man who went too far, but of the man who did not go far enough. Those early pages on the “deformation of reality” and on its modes of symbolization are immensely revealing to me: This places Romanticism, for instance, in a way that I have never placed it before. The “garden history” likewise: the course from Milton to immanent Edenism and the illusion of creativity is a fascinating one (how effectively you note the outcome of this in “The Wasteland” [sic] and Huit Clos). Then you get that enormously complex (at least for me) issue that keeps coming up all through the second half of the essay—the cloudiness of the symbol which in some way represents the artist’s participation in, or imperfect escape from, closure. I think you keep an ambiguous issue wonderfully poised between, or perhaps rather partaking of, alternative possibilities: being in prison and yet knowing it, symbolistically straining one’s way out, and yet not quite making it. From the general problem you go on to the even more unresolvable (though you really resolve it by the complex stating of the unresolvedness) problem of James himself, who doesn’t achieve or at least express consciousness of 3. Works by T. S. Eliot and Jean-Paul Sartre (No Exit).
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open existence, who yet implies this in his perception of existential deformity, but who keeps repeating this perception as if enclosed in it, and yet who grasps the truth as he reveals in the use of the traditional symbolism. I’m not altogether sure of the role of understatement or gentility here; not that I don’t take it on faith, but that it needs more spelling out for one of my limited dimension of understanding. And so then on to the final point about the complex of symbolizations of oneness that have to be taken as a spectrum rather than separated out—a nice final disposition of the purely Freudian. Incest as a snatch at divine oneness: I shall steal this from you at the first opportunity. I found myself gratified when you came back to re-stress how far James does go in seeing the immanent Eden go down the drain. There are many happy phrases that I could quote, but I’ll mention only one or two: “Dead men die hard”; “Most depressing about the Garden, finally, is the deadly futility of these men who cannot take a woman and these women who cannot shake up a man”; “He is not obliged to pretend that disease is health, or that men who suffer in public do not bore him à dormir debout.” And if I seem to pick on obiter dicta, it is only that these are detachable from rich context. I hope that Don Stanford and the editors are properly appreciative. They are in luck to have this splendid study to print—and I to be having a momentary hand in this as a sort of redcap. Our best to you both. Sincerely yours, Robert B. Heilman
123. Stanford, December 30, 1969 Dear Bob: Thanks ever so much for your letter of December 22nd. I am greatly relieved that you have no major objection to what I did with the Postscript. It seems that what you did when you initiated me to Henry James has come to a happy end after all. Of course, that is still not the last word about James by far, but I am quite content if you say that my effort is at least ahead of the current treatment of James in the expert literature. Certainly this was the occasion to work out some new problems such as the concept of a “spectrum” of symbolization that appears as the expression of certain modes of existence. There is one point on which you have very justified misgivings, however politely you express them—the question of the “understatement.” I have misgiv-
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ings myself. Yet there is more to the problem than appears in the Postscript. We are faced with the oddity that English philosophy, or thought in general, acquires a peculiar subduedness after the Glorious Revolution. After Hobbes, Locke, and Berkeley, English thinking loses the incisiveness which characterizes the French Enlightenment and the German outburst from Kant, via [ Johann Gottlieb] Fichte and Hegel, to Schelling and Marx. The English 18th century— setting aside Hume and his belated skepticism based on Sextus Empiricus, an aftermath of the Pyrrhonian revival of the sixteenth century—has produced the “common sense” philosophy from [Thomas] Reid onward. And “common sense” is, for Reid and his successors, a deliberate toning down of philosophy, from Aristotelianism and Stoicism, to Reason, in the same sense as Aristotle and the Stoics have understood it, on the level of the common man who does not engage in philosophical meditations. The common sense man of the Scottish philosophers is a man who holds the same truths with regard to man and his ethical conduct as a philosopher but without the philosophical apparatus. It is a regression to what one might call a pre-philosophic “wisdom” literature which, however, has absorbed the results of the philosophers. On this level, of course, one can think only as long as the substance of the wisdom holds out. It cannot be renewed actively from the philosopher’s movement in intellectual meditation. Still, it holds out for quite a while. John Dewey’s Human Nature and Conduct, of 1925, is still a pure product of this Common Sense thinking. But it becomes extremely vulnerable, when the social scene is dominated by ideologists who think incisively, however wrong their thought may be. To illustrate what I mean, let me quote a passage from [Edmund] Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, where he speaks of the function of the Church to instill “worthy notions of their function and destination,” including their hope of immortality in the rulers of a society. These notions, Burke says, are necessary “to build up that wonderful structure Man; whose prerogative it is, to be in a great degree a creature of his own making; and who, when made as he ought to be made, is destined to hold no trivial place in the creation. But whenever man is put over man, as the better nature ought ever to preside, in that case more particularly, he should as nearly as possible be approximated to his perfection.” There can be no doubt that Burke in this passage speaks of the nature of man in the classical sense, as well as of the classical tension between potentiality and actualization. Still, he uses the symbolism of progressive ideology—man a creature of his own making, approximating to his perfection, etc.—so that the classical actualization which cannot overstep the limits of man’s nature is softened up to man’s making himself his own creature. The definite limit drawn by nature is transformed into a “great degree” to which no limit is stated. Here you
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have a good example of what I mean by an “understatement” that blurs the intellectual structure of the problem so badly that any progressivist can quote Burke, if he wants to, for justifying the immanentist approach to perfection which Burke abhorred. The “fuzziness” in the use of symbols, which I criticized in James, is also peculiar to Burke. It is an English style of messing up the Logos of reality that goes parallel with the development of the symbols “understatement” and “gentility.” From these remarks, I hope, you will see that there is more to the problem of “understatement” than I could let meet the eye in the Postscript. But you will also see that here we have a secular problem of an English style of thinking (which also has entered the American style as a component) yet quite insufficiently explored. I should add perhaps that these observations are not meant as a negative evaluation: The deliberate refusal to enter into explicit intellectual debate has proved an effective preservative for the substance of common sense in England and America. The French and German adventures in more penetrating thought have proved disastrous in their social consequences. Still, the AngloSaxon world is no longer an island. The contemporary penetration of our public scene by the concoction of Hegel-Marx-Freud, on top of an undigested progressivist Enlightenment, can spell disaster also for America—incalculable in its dimensions, because intellectual resistance cannot fall back on an established discipline of thought, but must move in such dubious wash-out modes as “traditionalism” and “conservatism.” Don Stanford has accepted the Postscript. He seems to be pleased by it. As far as publication is concerned, thus, everything appears to go all-right. Many thanks again for all your help. And a Happy New Year to you and Ruth from both of us. Yours sincerely, <Eric>
124. [Stanford,] January 26, 1971 Dear Robert: I just received a copy of The Southern Review with our Henry James efforts. The splendor of the make-up overwhelms me, and I feel greatly honored by 4. Voegelin, “The Turn of the Screw,” Southern Review, n.s., 7 (1971): 9–48. This lead article contained: Donald E. Stanford, “A Prefatory Note”; Robert B. Heilman, “Foreword”; Voegelin’s “A Letter to Robert B. Heilman”; and Voegelin’s postscript, “On Paradise and Revolution.” Moreover, following all this in the same issue were: William C. Havard, “The Changing Pattern of
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such excellent presentation of my amateurish prying into the secrets of American consciousness to the general public. Let me thank you very much again for your part in the effort to have this letter put into print. Recently, we spent a week in Hawaii—our first vacation in four years—and were delighted. Especially Lissy could recover a bit because she was free from housework. The daily chores still are hard on her physique impaired by the operation. Next week, I am going for a semester to Notre Dame—but alone. Lissy refuses to shut herself up in the prison of the blizzards and, of course, rejoices in being rid of me for a while. With all good wishes to you and Ruth, from both of us, I am, Yours sincerely, Eric Voegelin
125. Seattle, February 1, 1971 Dear Eric: That whole issue of SR pleases me very much. I’m delighted to have a small hand, barely a finger, in getting Voegelin-on-James into public (well, at least semi-public) circulation. Recently I had occasion to write to Gerald Willen, who has edited the “Casebook” on Turn, and I called his attention to this and expressed the hope that sometime he would want to include one of your essays in his anthology. But since he himself wrote one of the sillier Freudian pieces on Turn, I fear he may not be well attuned to the wave-length you use. On the other hand, he may help advertise this issue among Americanists who tend to read only American Literature. I have also found the [William C.] Havard and [Dante] Germino interpretative essays very useful. Havard in particular interests me because of his sense of your “growth.” Has he inferred all this from the writing, or has he had the benefit of some help from the master? The editors are to be congratulated on getting the Voegelin material together for this issue. Hawaii sounds as if it had been a very pleasant experience, and we are both delighted by the fact that it seems to have done something special for Lissie. Voegelin’s Conception of History and Consciousness,” 49–67; Dante Germino, “Eric Voegelin’s Anamnesis,” 68–88; and James L. Babin, “Melville and the Deformation of Being from Typee to Leviathan,” 89–114. The last of these articles explores in Melville the deformation analyzed by Voegelin in his postscript.
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Your move from Hawaii to Notre Dame in midwinter gives you a nice little experience in contrasting physical worlds. May the contrast not be too sharp, and may Notre Dame provide its own pleasures. In the department we await the appointment of a new chairman. A good outside candidate has just turned us down, having used us to get the usual astronomical raise out of his present department. I’m hoping for a solution before too long, so that I can start turning things over to the new man. Ruth’s been better lately. This weekend we go to Camano to see what to do about some trees that blew down. All good wishes. Sincerely, Robert B. Heilman
126. Morris Inn, Notre Dame, Indiana, March 28, 1971 Dear Robert: Thanks for your letter of February 1st. It is outrageous that I have not answered it earlier. But about the obstacles later. The issue of the Southern Review looks indeed magnificent. As you suspect, Bill Havard had the benefit of some special information. The last time I was in Amherst, he interviewed me in due form and took notes. As it usually happens on such occasions, the details are all true, but the proportions look a bit odd to me. Dante Germino, on the other hand, is an odd case. From a true-blue Catholic he has developed into a supporter of the student revolt; and now, as I have been informed, he wants to make me into a mind-expanding guru, a sort of substitute for LSD. Well, I shall see him on the occasion of the Symposium at the end of April. There has been a reaction to the great issue: A person named Quentin Anderson, Professor at Columbia University, wrote a complimentary letter, but informing me that he too had done something on Henry James, most recently a book on The Imperial Self. That book now is in my office in Stanford, and I shall not see it before the middle of May. Do you know anything about the man? The title of the book sounds intelligent. My daily schedule is still a bit strenuous: Two courses with two 90-minute periods each per week. Preparing the MS of Vol. IV for the printer (200 pages done). Minor chores, such as translating the “Gospel” essay into German, for publication this fall. Next week, then, I shall be in Rome, for a meeting of the Michigan Center for Co-ordinating Ancient and Modern Studies—for that one
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I had to write a ten-page piece on Classical Studies (I revenged myself by giving it a humorous cast). When I am back from Rome, I must give my Public Lecture here at Notre Dame. At the end of April, there is that Symposium at the end of which I am supposed to give an edifying address. On May 1st, there is a lecture in Duke. Lissy will come here for the Symposium. Since we, then, have to go on to Duke, I plan to go further on to Merida, to see Chichenitza etc. The additional plane-fare seems to be bearable. By May 10th I hope to be back home. In order not to be bored to death with my active self, I do a little reading on the side. Just now it was Joseph Conrad’s Nigger of the Narcissus—a magnificent study of the disintegration of a community through sentimentalism about life and death—the “Nigger,” who degrades everybody by forcing him into pity and compassion with his dying, and “Donkin,” with his insistence on “rights,” transforming the crew into “a discontented and aspiring crowd” to the point of mutiny; not to forget the “cook” with his unsavoury zeal for saving people. All good wishes to you and Ruth. Lissy was most happy to see you both at the house. <Sincerely yours, Eric (Voegelin)>
127. Seattle, July 19, 1971 Dear Eric, I wrote only a brief note to accompany the Xerox of John Sisk’s letter to me. Sisk, a once graduate student here, and also once chairman at Gonzaga, where obviously he still teaches, has written many articles for Commonwealth and more recently, also, for Commentary. He has seemed to me one of the more intelligent critics of the recent scene. I have not yet had time to read the last thing he sent me, an article on the Berrigans and other Catholic radicals. But I digress from the central fact, that Sisk’s letter reveals an enthusiastic appreciation of your James article. Forgive him his polite references to my own words, and note what he has to say about yours. Ironic that he should also bring into it your recent Columbia correspondent. We are in rather a bind trying to get away from here August 15. We have two houses rented but still two cars to sell—a kind of preparation for travel for 5. Daniel and Philip Berrigan were Roman Catholic priests who were leaders in the anti–Vietnam War movement. They were tried and convicted on charges of conspiracy and destruction of government property.
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which we have no gifts. Aside from that, making all the other arrangements to be away for a year—matters that you know about more fully than we. For her vaccinations Ruth had to do without cortisone for two weeks before and two weeks after; with four days to go, she is all but crippled. So she’s had a rough time. I am trying to carry on at the office afternoons and in the morning finish a companion volume to Tragedy and Melodrama. Not enough time, alas. Hence I write only briefly. We do hope that all is well with both of you. Sincerely, Robert Heilman
128. London, March 21, 1972 Dear Eric, Heilman surgery never even faintly matches Voegelin surgery, so I can claim nothing for my just-ended bout in a London hospital—appendectomy, reengineering of a Z-curve in some gut or other, and alleged widening of the exit of the bladder—except that I come around more slowly than you people have always done, that I spent 13 days in the place, and that now, two days later, I seem up to nothing more than brief letters. After your article on the Turn came out, I sent a copy to John Sisk at Gonzaga, a Catholic writer who has seemed to me brighter than average. He liked it, read more EV, used you in a recent piece “On Intoxication,” and has sent you (if he followed my request) a copy of it. He has also sent me a Xerox of a NYTBR article which attributes influence by you to Flannery O’Connor, the first-rate Southern Catholic fiction-writer who died of some terrible disease a few years ago. You’ve probably seen this, but, just to be on the safe side, I enclose the copy that Sisk sent me. The year’s been a rather good one, though I am way behind schedule on comedy, and the present stoppage is doing me no good. Ruth’s rheumatoid arthritis gives her some violently bad days, but she manages to make herself stay mobile. The cataracts brought on by excessive cortisone dosage moved so fast during the fall that [she] was almost blind waiting for new glasses (this country is so inefficient that it’s difficult to imagine its ever having been the technological leader of 6. John P. Sisk, “On Intoxication,” Commentary 53 (February 1972): 56–61; Francis Sweeney, “Flannery O’Connor,” review of Voice of the Peacock, by Sister Kathleen Feeley, New York Times Book Review, February 13, 1972, sec. 7, pt. 1, p. 30.
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the world). Now that’s solved. For my repairs I got into Catholic hands, a sheer accident which put me into a hospital that resembles about an 1895 high school in a Chicago ghetto, but that more than makes up for this by as attractive a squadron of Irish nursing lassies as I have seen anywhere, and I don’t think this is only my advanced years. I limp down the corridor holding my wounded paunch, and Sr. Flaherty chirps, “Hi Yankee Doodle, how’s your bambino this morning?” That kind of thing. Our best to you both,
129. Stanford, March 29, 1972 Dear Bob: We were quite shocked to hear of your appendectomy—and apparently under not the best clinical conditions. But we hope that by now you will have recovered, after having duly completed linguistic studies with Irish lassies. They are quite an important part in the London infra-structure; I also had some amusing experiences with Irish girls in this or that boarding-house. They have an uninhibited way of making intelligent and funny remarks to you as among equals. We also hope that Ruth has recovered from her bad bout with arthritis. This cortisone treatment is terrible; I have a colleague here at the Hoover Institution who, last winter, suffered so badly from cataracts that he had to read with a magnifying glass. This winter was a bit exacting, because I had to give a course on “Greek Religious Consciousness from Homer to Alexander” in the Humanities Division here at Stanford (January to middle-March; with 25 exam papers). That’s over now. But on the weekend of March 17, I gave a lecture at the Hartford Theological Seminary on “Modern Gnosticism,” with Hans Jonas treating ancient Gnosis. Quite interesting, as permanently [constantly] new materials are coming out. Tomorrow I shall fly to New York for a meeting on philosophy of politics, with Raymond Aron coming from Paris, and [Shlomo] Avineri from Jerusalem, and [Robert Jay] Lifton from Yale. To my lot has fallen the lecture on “Reason—the Classical Tradition.” Enclosed you will find a copy of the synopsis, detailed enough to be intelligible. It might interest you, because I have stressed certain linguistic factors. The dates in the section “The Newspeak of the Self ” are taken from Oxford Dictionary (the continental first appearances of the new words lie a little earlier); if one accumulates these dates systematically, a 7. For this enclosure, see Appendix C, no. 4.
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fairly good picture of the symbols becomes visible which express the experience of a contracted, warped existence. When I had finished the synopsis, I compared with Whitehead’s lectures on The Function of Reason (1929) and found that we agree on all the principal points. The classic existential analysis also agrees with Pascal’s in the Pensées. On April 5th, I have to go to the University of Dallas, for a concentrated term of six weeks (six hours teaching per week). Lissy will come only for the last two weeks in May. Sisk sent me his article on “Intoxication”—very good—and I answered him immediately. Thanks also for the article on Flannery O’Connor. I must confess that I am not familiar with her work—I’ll have to do something to repair my ignorance. All good wishes to both of you for your convalescence, and to you especially for the progress of your work.
W H AT WA S F O R M E D AT T H AT T I M E H O L D S TO G E T H E R Letters 130–52, 1973–1984
130. Stanford, April 11, 1973 Dear Bob: Professor Geoffrey Barraclough, a Fellow at All Souls College in Oxford, has suggested I should apply for a Visiting Fellowship at his College for the Spring term of 1975. There is a procedure in applying for this Visiting Fellowship which involves what is known as “short testimonials” on behalf of the applicant. Do you think you could write a few lines to the Dean of Visiting Fellows, Mr. Denis Mack Smith, All Souls College, Oxford, OXI 4AL, telling him that I am a respectable scholar who would not disgrace All Souls College? You would oblige me greatly by doing it. I am presently preparing two additional volumes of Order and History for publication. The volumes should come out in the Spring and Fall of 1974. After that ordeal I should be very happy to spend three months in Oxford. The Fellowship at All Souls College would be a great help in finishing The Drama of Humanity through contacts with the English archaeologists and prehistorians. With all good wishes, I am, Sincerely yours, <Eric> Eric Voegelin
131. Seattle, April 14, 1973 Dear Eric, I will be very happy to write a “short testimonial” to All Souls; the execution of this promise will be delayed only until Monday when I shall be at the office and have the help of a secretary to make the thing look as if it came from a 267
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typographically competent, and therefore literate, source.<*> I am delighted that All Souls wants to have you as a visitor; I only wish that the scheduled time were longer than three months. When you are there you may run into Alistair Crombie, a historian of science whom I knew when he was a professor of philosophy (visiting) here. Alistair is a Catholic, and the local boys, all raging liberals, considered this quite dishonest of him (they had not done their homework and found it out in advance; it appeared that anybody having a connection with science, even only historical, was trustworthy). He gave as good as he got; liberals are not used to being talked back to by intellectuals, and the shock was terrible. You are a more courteous man than I. By now, perhaps, you have discovered that I listed your name as that of a possible referee for me vis-à-vis the Behavioral Sciences institute at Stanford. They had written me to ask whether, if they were ever to approve me, I would be interested in spending a year of study there. I allowed as how I was, and they asked for names. Since they explained that the processing would take several years at least, I assumed that it would be a long time before they got to referees, and I would have plenty of time to explain to everybody how I had taken his name, if not in vain, at least without permission. But they got to several referees very quickly. If not yet to you, I am relieved, and I hope that you will forgive me [the] assumption that you might be willing to testify at least to my character (won’t steal the pencil-sharpeners, etc.). That is very good news that two volumes of Order and History will be out next year; I look forward to them. And The Drama of Humanity sounds as though it will be a magnificent summa. Three cheers for it. My flamboyantly entitled The Iceman, the Arsonist, and the Troubled Agent (the publishers [right:] —begged for an imagistic title) came out a few weeks ago. Since it is only a continuation of Tragedy and Melodrama, with more recent drama as the subject, but no new theory to speak of, I will spare you by not sending you a copy. My annual March surgery is now a month behind me, and I am still in a footcast; still wearing an inflexible wooden shoe, and still limping. Maybe in two or three weeks my diminished foot will be able to go on its own, and I can get back to normal locomotion. Thank you for asking to write to All Souls. All our best to you both. Sincerely, Robert B. Heilman <*unlike the present letter>
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132. Stanford, April 19, 1973 Dear Bob: Thank you very much for your letter of April 14; and many, many thanks for your willingness to write the famous “short testimonial” to All Souls. One could apply for a whole year, but I preferred only three months, because a longer residence would disturb my work too much. In the course of three months I can hope to reach all the people who are important for the archaeological and prehistorical questions in which at the time I am interested. I am delighted to hear that we shall have you here at Stanford, perhaps even for a whole year. I have not received a request to write a testimonial for you, but you can imagine that I shall throw myself fervently into it as soon as it comes. That would be real nice to have you and Ruth here. My calendar is just now filling up. I have received a tentative question, whether I would spend some time, perhaps a semester, at the University of Vienna during the academic year 1973/1974. If that comes through, we would be in Vienna during the beginning of the Fall term sometime in October and November. I would combine such a trip with further studies of the Megalithicum in the Bretagne or in Spain and Portugal. In the Spring of 1974 I shall give again my three months term at Notre Dame. For 1975 there is the All Souls thing in the offing, and in 1976 I would be in Notre Dame again. Via Ruth and Lissy I have heard of your ailment in the foot and the necessary operation. I very much hope that the procedure was successful and that, after the healing process, you can move readily again. Via the same route I have also heard of the new book of yours that just came out, and I am glad to have the title. Of course, I have ordered it immediately and shall read it as soon as it comes in. The title is beautiful. At present I am finishing the Far Eastern section of Volume IV for print. That involves bringing up to date my studies on Chinese Ecumenism and on the Mongols—unfortunately requiring again some theoretical work. That is what always takes the time. The facts themselves are comparatively simple. With many thanks again for your kindness and all good wishes to you and Ruth, I am, Yours sincerely, <Eric> Eric Voegelin
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133. Seattle, October 8, 1974 Dear Eric, Thank you very much for the offprint of “Reason: The Classic Experience,” which is your usual superb performance, and which, as always, made me feel that I had entered into a new illumination (subject to my own limits, of course)— “the discovery of Reason as an epochal event,” the inseparability of the zoon noetikon and politikon and historikon, the differentiation of the psyche, “openness toward reality” as the content of Reason and hence alienation as the psychopathological state, the Ciceronian “list of syndromes that sound quite modern,” Reason “as a means of justifying the escape from Reason,” the epigram “Man cannot live by perversion alone,” the sick claiming the status of health (once in an essay I remarked, un-historically I fear, that our age was the first in which sick men presented themselves as medicine men: I learn from you that it’s an old pitch), existence in metaxy as [the] definition of man’s “specific humanity” (I once suggested that the trouble with “humanism” is its denial of man’s essentially human trait—the seeking for gods {sounds like good Voegelin translated into bad Heilman}), the nice ironic comments on modern ideologies (especially by [sic] the wonderful paragraph on Hegel that ends the section on p. 258), the final definition of the life of reason on p. 261. I want to ask a silly question that will only reflect my own ignorance. It’s really two questions, reflecting the two parts of the phrase “tension toward the ground.” I am so used to the idiom “tension between” (which you also use) that I can’t get hold of “tension toward.” Is the meaning “ex-tension” toward? reaching or stretching toward? attraction to? openness to? attunement to? Or none of these? “The ground” is a long-used term of yours which I don’t sense securely. Origin? source? genesis? “onlie begetter” (to borrow the famous Shakespeare phrase from another context)? I should be sending you something too, but I don’t think anything I’ve done recently is worth sending. On the other hand, if your comic sense or your tolerance of academic jokes is generous, you might find some amusement in some essays of mine about the trade. If you haven’t run into The Ghost on the Ramparts, I’ll send it along. We had a charming message from Lissie in Japan, where, I gather, the experience has been wonderful, and whence, I assume, you will soon depart. We liked 1. Voegelin, “Reason: The Classic Experience,” Southern Review, n.s., 10 (1974): 237–64, reprinted in The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, vol. 12, Published Essays, 1966–1985, ed. Ellis Sandoz (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1990). 2. Heilman, “The Ghost on the Ramparts” and Other Essays in the Humanities (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1974).
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Lissie’s comment on the state of Japanese philosophy and the alarm which your revelations created in the gentle Oriental auditors. That I should have liked to see. Incidentally, they do a lot of writing about English literature—they have a journal or two in the field (typographically marvelous, with their own beautiful characters here and there interrupted by quotations in roman letters)—and it all sounds like very genteel observations from about 1920, as if they had been brought up on pre-World-War-One English dons. School is on again, and the comedy theme I spent this summer on will lag again for nine months. A ten-hour-a-week schedule just about does me in. Two years to go at most. The rate at which my pension is decreasing, what with the condition of the market on one hand and inflation on the other, discourages [me] from trying to make it before the compulsory termination. Welcome back, good luck, best wishes.
134. Seattle, January 1, 1975 [OH] Dear Eric, Anyone who entertains so well, at lunch as well as at dinner, should have a long succession of birthdays. Since this would be of great profit to guests, a birthday wish from a chronic guest may seem only another evidence of selfinterest. But even with that risk: three cheers for your having achieved this birthday, for your having achieved it in such fine condition, and for your going on tirelessly with these January occasions. Yours, Robert [The following handwritten note from Ruth to Eric was enclosed with Robert’s.] Dear Eric, Happy birthday and happy New Year. We recollect our evening with you and Lissy as one rather splendid gathering of forces; what goes on at the ladies’ luncheon date, I refuse to say. Do you know the great 2 volume Arts of Japan by Noma Seiroku? The illustrations are magnificent, and I’ve just been checking on your Kani scroll. Perhaps that’s your birthday gift (the book, I mean), as it was mine several years ago. Love to you both, Ruth
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135. Stanford, January 7, 1975 Dear Ruth and Bob: That was most touching of you to send me a birthday card, with your charming congratulations. You found it out, because Lissy told Ruth about the Sachertorte she had to make for the occasion—which (the Sachertorte), incidentally, was excellent and disappeared rapidly. Thanks to Ruth especially for the reference to the Arts of Japan. It was a great pleasure to have you all here for X-mas. With you here, I was just reminiscing, and having seen the [Robert] Harrises in November in Charlottesville, and having letters from Cleanth Brooks, Louisiana was not such a bad place at all. What was formed at that time holds together. About the influences of Japan, I just ran across an interesting observation. [R. C.] Zaehner, of Oxford, wrote an article about the [Charles] Manson case. The peculiar state of mind in which ecstatic murder becomes possible appears to have been induced by a combination of mind-expansion through LSD and sex orgies with a mystical transformation induced by Zen Buddhism in its California variations. Considering the sources given by Zaehner, there seems to be something to it. Thanks again for your kindness, and with all good wishes from both of us, Always yours, <Eric Voegelin>
136. Seattle, January 12, 1975 Dear Eric, We are glad that the birthday went off as it should, with a due production, and a swift and total consumption, of Sachertorte. There seem to have been no inner miseries to reflect a judgment of the conscience upon the sacrifice of Sachertorte. Your references to Zaehner on the Manson case reminded both Ruth and me of a recent Gothic novel that we both have [been] reading, William [Thomas] 3. I cannot locate Zaehner’s article, but in the author’s preface to his Our Savage God (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1974), R. C. Zaehner writes: “This book is largely the result of chance or what C. G. Jung would have called ‘synchronicity.’ It was, I suppose, triggered off by a letter I received from an American professor which included an offprint of his, along with a typescript of an article he had written about the Bhagavad Gita which pointed out how dangerous this most highly esteemed of all the Hindu sacred books could be if literally interpreted. As witness for the prosecution he produced, among others, the sinister figure of Charles Manson who was responsible for the Sharon Tate murders, which shocked the world in 1969” (9).
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Tryon’s Harvest Home—a best-seller paperback and yet astounding in that it doesn’t come out the way a best-seller may be assumed to be obligated to do. The combination of elements is like that seen in Manson by Zaehner. These occur in a naturalization of Eleusinian mysteries in a New England village. Compare also the famous short story, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” Your interpretation of magical social transformations as essentially alchemical made a deep impression on me, and I keep letting it sink in, hoping it will bounce back with some further illumination of matters for me. Incidentally, it sharpened my awareness of a passage which otherwise I might have hastened over un-observantly. The passage is in David Ketterer’s New Worlds for Old (Indiana, 1974), a book which sees science fiction as apocalyptic and therefore in line with the main tradition of American literature which Ketterer alleges is apocalyptic. (The word has become enormously fashionable in recent criticism, and Americanists seem to use it so broadly that it seems to mean little more than something like “concerned with a crisis.”) At any rate Ketterer, pp. 10–11, quotes Northrop Frye’s definition of apocalypse (a much less easy and popular one than most) and adds “The perception of our conversion to this reality, Frye relates to the alchemical principle whereby base metal is transformed into gold.” The reference is to Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton, 1957), pp. 119, 148. (This book, which gives basic definitions of the various genres in archetypal terms, has been the most influential work of criticism in the last 25 years.) Ketterer adds a footnote: “The possible relationship between alchemy and apocalypse is explored by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier, The Dawn of Magic, trans. Rollo Myers (London, 1963), p. 73.” For possible lazy reading, Anthony Burgess’ The Clockwork Orange, a tale of the shortcomings of bio-mechanical transformations of personality, at least of a man of malicious violence into non-violent maliciousness. As you say, there’s too much to read. These references come only as information, not as recommendations. Our best to you both, who were so wonderfully generous as hosts. Yours,
137. Seattle, March 29, 1975 Dear Eric, This is mainly to say thank-you for the copy of The Ecumenic Age, which has come to me from the LSU Press. I had entered a standing subscription for all the
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volumes in the series, and I don’t think you ought in this way to have undercut the activities of the sales-and-promotion. But I needn’t tell you that I am happy to have a copy from the author himself; the only thing remaining is to find the occasion to ask for his signature in the volume. I read slowly, as you know; so I am still in the Introduction. I need in a quite literal way to work through the conceptual density line by line, and I am not sure then that I bring to the text sufficient imagination, not to say knowledge, to be certain that I am clearheaded about what you are saying. But no time is better spent, and it is a pleasure to sense the increments of understanding that emerge from my slow pursuit of you from a distance. I don’t know that I have ever had the experience of a thinker’s recording the accrual of new evidence, the impact of that evidence upon his original intellectual schematization, and the resultant alteration in concept and procedure, as you do with such wonderful fullness and equanimity here. (What an example of grace in that last sentence!) Of course I am always delighted by the Voegelin sense of humor, which is so evident in the long paragraph pp. 3–4, and which you never repress as if it were an indecent invader. The most real thrill, of course, is in the wonderfully lucid epigrammatic summaries as in the final sentence on p. 6. Incidentally, the clause at the bottom of p. 8 (“the removal of the gods . . . science”) delighted me because it seemed to confirm a device I had hit upon for a general lecture on the Renaissance to a lay audience: starting with the familiar “humanities” I came up with two parallel terms, “divinities” and “physicalities” (another triad of historiography). It seemed to work as a publicly accessible scheme. Would you by any chance consider, for your final volume, an appendix containing a glossary of your central technical and philosophic terms? I know that, for one writing to his peers, this would seem inadmissible. So I’m thinking only of a non-theological, non-philosophic audience—a presumably intelligent “lay” or “popular” audience—that might be assisted into the fold by such a device. Decapitate me if this seems the naughtiest suggestion of recent decades. Lissie made Ruth and me both very happy when she told Ruth about the Marquette degree. Excellent! The lecture that I mentioned above was the “keynote address” at a University of Georgia alumni seminar in February: I rather liked the experience of trying to describe, to a wholly lay audience, a historic period and to suggest its metamorphosis into “our own times.” I had to do a similar job for honors students at the University of Southern Mississippi in January—an occasion made especially pleasant by my being met in New Orleans by the USM operative and spending a few hours there for the first time since 1948: traipsing around the Quarter and
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gorging at an oyster bar. In March a lecture at Wisconsin: there I worked off a few gripes by discussing literary portraits of ambiguous characters whose formal personae are “man of integrity” and “man of benevolence.”<*> Full-time teaching in winter quarter, plus the lecture trips, did little to help a continuing case of what the office girls call “the plague”—a sort of half-flu, three-quarters cold, full-time cough, and general debility which kept me for two weeks coming home from classes and spending the rest of the day in bed. But I think (knock on wood) I am over it now. I have just got word—still confidential (announcements in April some time)—that I’m going to have a Guggenheim in 1976, so I’ll probably retire formally at the end of 1975. If we’re up to it, we may be off to London again. Half the time I think Ruth is up to it, and the rest of the time not. The ailment seems to be slowly worsening, but sometimes she has good days, or even a whole week, when the stiffness and pain are reduced enough to make her seem to be going about things “normally,” i.e., pre-arthritically. This week (between quarters) I cut a PBK [Phi Beta Kappa] meeting in D.C. and a Shakespeare shindig at New Haven to try to get caught up here—clearing the desk, etc. The only important thing was writing to you. I hope that Texas has been a good scene to be in, at least temporarily. Have you by any chance run into William R. Keast—formerly Dean at Cornell, President of Wayne State, English chairman at Texas—and now curator of some collection there? He was the most savage reviewer of This Great Stage. We’ve become friends since. He’s said to be now a bit on the alcoholic side, but I don’t know this for a fact. He was one of the old Chicago Aristotelians; they used to slaughter everyone else, but not do much affirmatively. This is turning into an unending gossip; forgive it. Congratulations on The Ecumenic Age (with its interesting typographic similarity to the preceding volumes, but with what is, I think, a more elegant version of the same basic type design), and my gratitude for the copy that I have received. All my best. Yours, The thing at Georgia was run by a pol-sci man named Robert Clute. He told me that he reads you in German, and likes the German very much. <*I didn’t quite have courage to use publicly the title I would have preferred “Robespierre and Santa Claus.”> 4. This speech was later published with the title Heilman preferred: “Robespierre and Santa Claus: Men of Virtue in Drama” (Southern Review, n.s., 14 [1978]: 209–25).
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138. [Seattle,] May 13, 1975 [The following quotations were typed at the top of the page, preceding the letter.] David Ketterer, New Worlds for Old: The Apocalyptic Imagination, Science Fiction, and American Literature (Indiana University Press, 1974). Ketterer quotes Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton University Press, 1957) on p. 10 as follows: “. . . Frye states: ‘By an apocalypse I mean primarily the imaginative conception of the whole of nature as the content of an infinite and eternal living body, which if not human, is closer to being human than to being inanimate.’ {Frye under Blake’s influence.} The perception of our conversion to this reality, Frye relates (10) to the alchemical principle whereby base metal is turned into gold {Frye, p. 148}. . . . Frye reveals three basic images of the apocalyptic world: the mineral image of the heavenly city of Jerusalem, the vegetable image of the Arcadian garden, and the animal imagery of the sheepfold and pastoral existence—to be opposed to his basic images of the demonic world: seas and dark cities, forests and wasteland, and beasts” (Ketterer, p. 11).
Ketterer’s footnote 15 adds this: “The possible relationship between alchemy and apocalypse is explored by Louis Pawels and Jacques Bergier in The Dawn of Magic, trans. by Rollo Myers (London, 1963)” (p. 11). Ketterer quotes a sentence or two from Pawels and Bergier’s p. 73. Dear Eric, A propos of your talking about alchemy and its influences on socio-political thought—this was last Christmas—I couldn’t help copying out the above from a book that recently came to me. I’m sure that it tells you nothing new, and may be in a state of error which you will immediately recognize. Ketterer, by the way, seems intent on making a more or less absolute identity between the three elements named in his sub-title. You may still be on the road as I write this, but sooner or later, I assume, your good character will earn you a return to the promised land, Palo Alto. Lissy’s reports indicated that Texas life was not all it might be. I can only hope it paid well, let you at least survive, and set you up for more joyous doings elsewhere. Have a good summer. Our best to you both. Yours truly, <Many thanks to Lissie for the very interesting review of book by D. Sayers: we both enjoyed it.>
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139. London, May 24, 1976 Dear Eric: I brought The Ecumenic Age along from Seattle—the only book to accompany us but some paperbacks—and have been working my way through it. I say “working my way” not to imply that my passage through it is work rather than pleasure (it is both) but rather to acknowledge what you very well know, that I am not equipped to hasten through it or even to be sure that the way is anywhere near the right one. But the labor is one that I would not have missed, and one that, I know, has kept me as close to greatness of thought as I have been or ever will be. The spread of your knowledge is incredible, knowledge as grasp both of information and of the extremely complex and rigorous tools (some of them fashioned by yourself ) to analyze the information and interpret it. I have a new concept of history, if one may use “history” inclusively enough: a record of the varying degrees of human openness to theophanic events, an openness modified by different modes of self-interpretation, and reaching a nadir in the postEnlightenment egophanic (an excellent coinage, if coinage it is) revolt, especially as this appears in ideological doctrines (what a good crack at Hegel at the top of 263). I am enchanted by your running head-on into a central modernity by insisting on the mystery of the cosmos, and detecting the various modern devices for putting “off confrontation with the divine mystery of existence” (211). As to the hundreds of supporting ideas developed in the course of the exegesis, I only wish I had what it would take to take them in, naturalize them, and make them productive citizens in my own intellectual economy. Alas! I am much taken by the definition of the philosopher’s task (228 and of course elsewhere), by the contrast of the Platonic and the Pauline (with the latter represented as an advance over the former), by your use of the concepts of the Beginning and the Beyond, by the over-all self-revisionism of the Introduction, by the many comments on gnosticism (I think the phrase “magic pneumatism,” 27, gave me more of a sense of the implications of gnosticism than I have ever had, even though the “pneumatic” causes me much struggle with connotation), by the numerous references to the impact upon modern times of historically distant intellectual events (e.g., the Stoic deformations, 23, and the very fine summary on 48), the numerous skillful parallels (a small example at the bottom of 55). One need not go around being a bore by parading one’s own ignorance, but it has seemed to me that a confession of several of my difficulties might be useful in illustrating the problems of the willing, eager, but ill-equipped outsider. (Or, if not “useful,” perhaps simply amusing.) One can’t expect a diminution of the complexity inevitably created by the combination of a highly technical vocabulary
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with the syntactic interwovenness essential to a highly precise qualification of meaning. Actually, technical terms may present a difficulty at odds with an apparent simplicity of verbal form—e.g., those basic terms “compact” and “differentiated,” to which I still cannot give a sense that I am sure of. I try substituting “unified” or “integral” for “compact,” with the implication of an unreadiness for making distinctions that would later improve the situation. But when “compact truth of reality” seems to be synonymous with “earlier wholeness” (175) and when I read the phrase “compact or deformed” (187), the virtue seems to lie in “compact,” even though at other places “differentiation” appears to imply a gain in insight. I don’t know whether the problem is in my basic ignorance or in my failure properly to digest passages in which the connotations do become clear. Again I am not sure whether “historiogenesis” means a bringing forth by means of history (analogy with “parthenogenesis”) or a bringing forth of history (for purposes of self-aggrandizement, etc.). I would suppose the latter from the definition on p. 101, but I remain unsure. I tend to translate the key terms “noetic” and “pneumatic,” for which I have, so to speak, no “feeling,” into “intellectual” and “spiritual,” but I am embarrassed by the thought that this probably means at best a gross oversimplification. Numerous uses of it still leave me unclear about “exodus,” which obviously takes on rich reverberations not present in its root sense. When I come across “libidinous” and “concupiscential,” I assume that they work metaphorically as does “lust” in such phrases as “lust for power” (cf. “libido dominandi,” 254), “lust for money,” etc., but I am not sure. This idea seems not to work in a phrase like “libidinous obsession,” so I try “obsessive drivenness by desire” or something like that. Sometimes a locution involves an unfamiliar idiom, as in “tension toward” (which I confessed earlier; cf. the entirely familiar “tension between,” 137). For “transparent for” I try reading “revelatory of,” but diffidently. Again, on 270, I assume that “becomes conscious” means “enters consciousness,” but this may be an idiotic misreading. In certain phrases “luminous” is not luminous, at least to me, especially in “to” and “for” combinations when the luminousness appears not to be in the object upon which light is thrown or in the mind receiving or gaining enlightenment: e.g., “process becomes luminous for itself ” (228), “luminous for its structure in noetic consciousness” (232); “psyche . . . luminous for the order of reality” (237—perhaps “psyche has received light on the order of reality”?); and perhaps most difficult of all, “paradox . . . becomes luminous to itself in consciousness” (258). I mean merely to illustrate, not complain needless to say. What is being illustrated is some typical problems of the mind lacking the philosophical training or the conceptual intake that presumably would prevent one from having stumbling blocks at such points as those I have noted.
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The opposite side of the coin is the great pleasure I have found in passages where I did think I knew what was going on, and there are very many of these, their charm ranging from humor to wit to lucid penetration and at times to magnificence. I am charmed by the acid observations in the last dozen lines of para. 1 on p. 4, the epigrammatic definition of the process of history (bottom 6), the great series (17–18; and just before end of para. 1, p. 19), the ironic remark about baffling Stoic combinations and “atheist reprobates.” Constantly there are these easy, urbane cracks along the way. Delightful paragraph just above the word “Conclusion” on p. 57, and the conclusion itself is a beautiful pullingtogether; and the next-to-last para. is wonderfully enlightening or “luminous” (as I understand the word). I have to mention the wit in the “fabulating the fabulation” sentence (63), on the “inconsiderate Sumerians and Egyptians” (68), of “ideological mortgages” and “pagans like Plato” and other phrases in a pungent paragraph (78), of “mythically excessive” (84), of “decay like any other under the pressure of victory and prosperity” (127), the epigrammatic crackling all through the first para. on 134, the wit on “liberation” (168–9), the epigrammatic account of the “truth of the process” (176–77), the witty “newspeak of Enlightenment” (195) (and the “egoistic” phenomena that need to be distinguished), “shortcuts to immortality” (237), the aphoristic quality of the bottom lines and top lines (253–54). A propos of verbal wit and witty thought, that questionnaire (243) is a gem, wonderfully ironic. Three cheers for the effective slang re Hegel (mid 264). I particularly enjoyed points (4) and (5) on pp. 217–218—lucid, pointed, fluid. Some of the historical sections flow along in a particularly effective way— e.g., “The Hellenic Case” (101ff.), the problems of the historiomachs, history cum humor (110ff.), the Ecumenic Age in toto (115ff.). The introduction to the Pauline Vision is very effective expository writing (239–240). You rarely use a parallel series without doing it extremely well. I’ve already mentioned a case or two, and I can’t help mentioning others that “sent” me— the “time” sentence (79, near top), several examples in the conclusion of section 2 (142). Other passages that I like for one reason or another: effective image (line 1, p. 115), definitions of ecumene (124, 133, end of sec. 2), the convergence of trends para. (117), the exegesis of Polybius (127), the “older societies” sentence, parallelism again (mid 128), the easy and lucid para. on Plato (223), the definition of Revelation (bottom 232), the great “No longer” sentences, once again the series managed so beautifully (234), the nice pairing of “fundamentalist” and “positivist” (244), the page on “degraded symbols” (254), the paragraph on the modern situation (under [3], p. 267), one of many of its kind. Some of the passages I have alluded to are examples of the summarizing section, a phase of discourse which you can handle masterfully. There is an
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example on p. 95, one on p. 117 (already alluded to), the parallels para. (149), then pp. 191–2, 211 (and here I have also to mention expository paragraphs which I especially liked on pp. 182 [“The games by which, etc.”] and 214, under Sec. 1). But the finest achievement of all, I think, is the concluding sec. on p. 266, which is both brilliant and moving (and add the final sentence on p. 267). Qy.: is the “wheel” in Herodotus a possible source of the medieval “wheel of fortune,” or is the latter an independent image? The passages on mortals as immortals (179) and on “immanentist countergrounds” (192) remind me, if ever so distantly, of a passage in Marlowe’s Tamburlaine which might be of mild interest to you. But I have to go to the library and look it up, and I mean to do that before I mail this letter. As you will see, I tend to take in detail better than large concept, and I have to live with that. Speaking of detail, I have made a list of a few typos (in case LSU might want to correct in a reprint), of places where there seem to be problems of idiom or of connotation, and of words which, insofar as they cause me problems, might also do so for other readers of the same class. I once introduced the possibility of a glossary. This is pretty presumptuous, but not, I hope, absolutely offensive; the only issue would be whether one wanted to make all that effort to play for the widest possible audience. I don’t know. Please don’t feel obligated to ask for the transmission of any of these notes, which can die quietly without loss; I have already inflicted enough words on you. All of them are only ways of saying what a magnificent performance the book is, and of my good fortune in knowing the author. I will enclose an admiring letter from Gene Webb at UW, a copy of a book review which doubtless you already have, and a clipping of a newspaper column interesting in the fact that something like an idea of yours, even though its begetter is not acknowledged, appears in a popular sheet with a circulation of 1,300,000. Our very best to you both. We look forward to seeing you. Good traveling.
140. Stanford, June 3, 1976 Dear Robert: I just had your long letter of May 24th. We are leaving in a few days for Rome; and this is not the time for an answer of the length your conscientious analysis would require. We have to leave something for our talk in London. But 5. See Appendix C, no. 6.
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I must tell you that I am deeply touched by the time and labor you have invested in reading a book that, after all, moves somewhat on the periphery of your main interests. As always I could learn a lot from your detailed praise and criticism (even with page-references!). And I am deeply in sorrow about the “tension” of human existence which is characterized by its direction toward the ground of existence. I simply do not know how to describe this phenomenon other than by the word tension, which the Latins have already used to render the Greek tasis or tonos in reality. The Latin tensio derives from the verb tendere, which means, just as the English tend, being stretched or tending in a certain direction toward something. I am a bit at a loss to understand why the philosophical meaning of tension, which stresses the directional factor in the existential tension, should cause such difficulty? Especially since the cognitive direction of consciousness is covered by the related term intentionality. The abstract tension was formed in antiquity to cover such concrete cases of tension as love, hope, and faith; and even more generally, the directional tension of matter toward the form that is fit for it. For Plato and Aristotle, this tension of existence manifests itself concretely in the “quest,” the “search,” the “questioning” and “inquiring” of the thinker in the direction of the ground of his existence that is, at the same time, the “mover” of the inquiry and the “drawer” of the soul toward its immortality. But obviously, such questions need talk rather than writing. We shall arrive in London on July 11th, and probably stay until the fourteenth. Then we shall try to organize some visit to the southern cathedrals (Salisbury, Winchester, Canterbury, not to forget Stonehenge). We are looking forward very much to seeing you both as soon as possible. With many thanks, Sincerely yours, <Eric> PS. The letter by Webb is really touching. Sandoz, by the way, has invited him to participate in his panel on Political Theory at the meeting of Amer. Pol. Sc. Ass. in September.
141. August 3, 1976 [OH] Dear Eric, The time is so short, and there is so much to be done here, that I shall not attempt a letter. Ruth has already told you how fine an evening we had with you as generous hosts; our only regret was that you were pretty tired after all the
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travels. I’m not sure whether you walked back to the hotel; at any rate, I hope that somewhere you found stamina for the remainder of the journey home. I cannot resist sending on to you another letter from Gene Webb—so full is it of the most charming admiration for you and gratification at being included among the devoted students. South Africa was an immensely enjoyable experience, and of course after ten days there I am ready to explain the country to the world—well, at least the topography. The depths don’t show easily, of course, but still one gets a sense of considerable foreboding. No answers, alas. Our affectionate greetings to you both, Bob
142. [Stanford,] January 16, 1977 Dear Bob: Just a note to thank you for your memoir on Cleanth Brooks. We both read it with delight, and with admiration for the style and form in which you accomplished your task. Of course, I should have liked to hear more about the situation in which Brooks, and you, engaged in the new criticism, about the execution and effect of your work, and the “trends” at which you hint toward the end. I liked the “every-man-his-own-Toynbee” dig at interdisciplinary studies (and I shall use it on occasion), but from my own observation of such studies I would rather complain about the illusion that something new will come out, when half-a-dozen specialists get together and none of them knows what the other fellows are talking about. Well, I always deplore not to have you nearer by to ask you questions about what is going on in Eng Lit. With many thanks again, Always yours, <Eric>
6. Heilman, “Cleanth Brooks and The Well Wrought Man,” (“The Critics Who Made Us” series), Sewanee Review 91 (1983): 322–34. Reprinted in Heilman, The Southern Connection: Essays by Robert Bechtold Heilman, as “Cleanth Brooks: Selected Snapshots, Mostly from an Old Album” (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1991), 81–97.
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143. Seattle, March 4, 1978 Dear Eric: The enclosed dinner-table place-card—obviously academic, since it is a converted 3 x 5 card (I’ve done this myself)—reveals, on the pink side, a rather rococo hand by the hostess. On the blue-ink side is a name, written out for me by the owner of it, which may ring a bell or two from your distant past. The dinner where this card identified the woman whom had been introduced to me as “Mrs. Elkin Wilson” was in Birmingham, Alabama. Mrs. Wilson and I, as a matter of fact, had been thrown together during the highball period, and somehow we got to talking about trips to Europe. She had mentioned a freighter trip—originating in Houston, perhaps?—taken a long time ago, maybe around 1950. I said that I had never been on so long a freighter trip and wondered how it worked out: suppose all the rest of the small number of passengers were impossible people, and so on. Well, she said, she didn’t know, because she had been lucky on this trip, for one of the passengers was a very interesting man named “Eric Voegelin.” I promptly acknowledged that I could claim knowledge of the bearer of the name, and we were off into as much of a bosom palship as a dinner party permits to two people when the total number of diners is seven. She reported something of your conversations and of a walk or two in Paris, on one of which you said, “Maybe the master will show himself,” and sure enough, when you went by his place, the master did look out and become visible—Jean-Paul Sartre. Then I got around to the story of Ruth’s and my temerity in being your house-agents the time you were evicted in a hot August, and she said, “Why, I have been in that house.” Well, that’s about it. But she did want me to give you her greetings, and she wrote out the name Whitis which I gather was hers at that time. Mrs. or Miss, I don’t know. The marriage to Elkin Wilson took place just a few years ago, I gather—perhaps a second, or a late-ish first, marriage for each. Elkin, now 77, was at Harvard part of the time I was, and although we had barely known each other, we had of course, much to talk about. He is a rather courtly gentleman from Valdosta, Georgia, and I suppose that he moved to Birmingham when he retired from NYU, and then met Mildred, who apparently taught school there for many years. I was there as “visiting scholar” at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, the Alabama medical school which is becoming a university by their building a college of A & S around the extensive medical establishment. They apparently hope to launch it in the right direction by having a series of academic visitors for ten days at a time; I was the second of three in English in the present term. I had to do two lectures and then take over three two-hour meetings of the Shakespeare
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seminar. Since I had never taught Shakespeare, the preparations took a good deal of time. Birmingham is a more attractive city than it was in the late 30’s and early 40’s when we used to go through it driving US 11 up to Pennsylvania and New York, and I had completely forgot that it is rather nicely equipped with a semicircle of nearby mountains, or at least large hills. But I nearly froze. Only one day did the temperature go over 50; every night it was down in the 20s, and one night, coming home from dinner about 8:30, I saw a “19” on a bank thermometer. Then back here to camellias and flowering fruits. I’ve just finished the index for the comedy book, due presumably in April. The contents are pretty well summarized in a piece in the winter Sewanee. Otherwise I’ve been making non-haste slowly on several essays I’ve got committed to. Ruth sends affectionate greetings to you both. She’s doing an early-to-bed after a midday dinner for 8 today. Two of the 8 were Wex and Helen Malone, whom you probably knew at LSU. Wex, now retired, is just finishing two quarters here as a visiting torts man in the law school—a witty and charming man; we should have done more for them than we did. Good luck on the next volume and the next travels. My best to you both. Yours,
144. Camano Island, Washington, September 3, 1978 Dear Eric: This elegant paper is what is produced by the paper-drawer in the old desk at the cottage. I hope you don’t find the color blinding. When we were at Sewanee in late May, another guest at a dinner party was Hal Weatherby of Vanderbilt. He told me that he had written an essay which either concerned you or made central use of your work (my memory is hazy, as you see). I urged him to send you an offprint. He asked whether he might use my name in forwarding it, so that he would not seem to be pushing himself upon you. I said of course. He was also going to send me a copy, but he has never done so. Forgetful, or indifferent, or timid—I don’t know. At any rate I hope that he may have sent the copy to you. I have been invited to contribute to a “Shakespeare and Politics” conference at the U. of Dallas next month. The organizer is a man named Cole in the Department of Politics there; one of the letters alluded to my having known 7. Heilman, “Comedy and the World,” Sewanee Review 86 (1978): 44–65.
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you. I suspect that you are responsible for the invitation, since you have been to Dallas a number of times, I think, and I am grateful. They may not be, for they will expect something Voegelinian, and I shall fall miles short of it. But I hope to satisfy my usual curiosity about the tone or style of a place to which I have never been. Retirement is a burden. I don’t get anything done. Too much time to attend to what ails me now. My best to you both. Maybe you met Weatherby at the Vanderbilt shindig—an ascetic-looking fellow recently converted to the Greek church.
145. [Seattle,] March 1980 [OH] Dear Eric, In a late Sunday evening reading of the Sunday-morning paper—a quietening down exercise after the latest of the all-families-in-one long-distance bash— I came across the enclosed. Since I doubt you’re engaging in the same reading, I venture to send it on. Don’t bother to acknowledge; just cause another clearing—[indecipherable] if you will. We had a lovely time with Lissie and you, generous and amiable as always. I was blessed as usual, not only with a host of ideas but with a special nugget or two of gold that may be stamped into coins in my own lesser market. Ever yours, Robert
146. Seattle, December 30, 1980 Dear Eric, I did not call you back because I could not bear to waste any more of your time in the trivialities of phone-chat. I know a busy man when I see one, and I feel that I intrude enough into your schedule by taking a half-day of your time whenever we come to Palo Alto. You and Lissy are most generous hosts, and we are grateful. But there is no reason for taking more time away from your work. You keep at it all the time as I rarely do. 8. Harold Bloom, “Gnosticism: An Elitist Religion Featuring a Cosmic Dungeon,” review of The Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels, Sun-Examiner Chronicle, December 23, 1979.
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I hope that you may have a moment’s amusement from the enclosure— a clipping from a UW organ that on this occasion devoted itself to a dozen retirees. Most of them told how well they are doing; I thought it worthwhile to mention the problems. The quotations on the other side of the page are from a luncheon talk which was obviously an occasion for trivial jests. But my main purpose in writing is to offer good wishes for your birthday that is due shortly and that will receive such deserved attention from the scholarly world. You have done magnificently in the past, and the passage of years allows you no longer pause for idle breaths. Cheers. With admiration and best wishes, Yours, Robert Heilman
147. Palo Alto, February 14, 1981 Dear Bob: Many thanks for your letter with the birthday wishes, as well as the delightful enclosure about retired professors. As always when I read a few sentences of yours I pale with envy—I wish I could write English like that. To one of your remarks I can add an experience of my own: Sometime ago I had a reporter from Time here—he thought professor emeritus was some honorific title, as e.g. distinguished professor. But I must protest against your reasons for not letting me see more of you. Of course, I am busy—but my business consists in knowing people from whom I can learn something, not to mention the pleasure and entertainment of your conversation. And certainly I have not forgotten what you did for my English by your patient and thorough criticism in LSU, and how you helped me by your inexhaustible knowledge of English literature. I have always a whole list of questions I would like to ask you, as for instance just now about what you think of William Arrowsmith’s article on T. S. Eliot in the most recent issue of the Southern Review. I am unable to judge on the basis of my 9. “UW Retirees Continue Productive Professional, Personal Activities,” University of Washington Report (date and page numbers undiscernible from clipping). 10. William Arrowsmith, “The Poem as Palimpsest: A Dialogue on Eliot’s ‘Sweeney Erect,’” Southern Review, n.s., 17 (1981): 17–69.
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own knowledge whether the man is right about the symbolism of “Sweeney Erect.” If he is, that would open quite an insight into the symbolism of mananimal ever so far back as Swift. Ruth called the other day, and Lissy is quite worried about how she is doing after her recent mishap. Is she all-right again? We should like to hear more how things are going. With all good wishes, and the hope of seeing more of you the next time, I am, Affectionately yours, <Eric Voegelin>
148. Seattle, March 14, 1981 Dear Eric: Thank you very much for your gracious letter of several weeks ago. You made me feel quite literate, and I went around preening myself for an hour or two on my accomplishments. But I do promise not to take benevolent correspondence too literally, however gratifying it may be to fasten on the kind words themselves rather than on the amiable spirit of him who orders them. And if only my English even faintly approached your mastery of subtlety and precision in philosophic vocabulary. Thank you too for the card that went to all of us who are fortunate enough to be on the Tabula Gratulatoria (I was struck by the fact that three old LSU admirers of yours were bunched together under the H’s). You are kind to make all those acknowledgments. I’m sure all the others feel as honored as I do to be on the Tabula. (Gene Webb is very angry that he is not there. The Department of English, under new management now and very lax in many ways [naturally], failed to forward the invitation to him until too late. There is no explaining these secretarial lapses. Ruth is probably right in saying that Gene should have practical wits enough to stop in the English mailroom regularly.) My copy of the Festschrift came a few days ago—immensely impressive, I need hardly say. What a distinguished international list of contributors, and what a bibliography of the honoree, with its remarkable 52-year extent, and as yet, obviously, nowhere near an end. Your exchanges with Alfred Schutz are masters of differences managed with unequaled firmness and urbanity: that is the style one would like to have. In order to have something to quarrel with and thereby show my independence, I pick on the jacket photo, which hardly does 11. See Appendix C, no. 6.
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justice to the subject, who seems at this moment to be in danger of a climax of mal de mer. I like much better the one on the jacket of Gene Webb’s book, of which I saw a prepublication copy at his house the other day. Gene is pleased with the photo, which he took, and which he feels approaches the best levels of his photographic art. The book itself is handsomely designed, as you have perhaps already seen. I hope that you will like the contents—but after all, you probably did read it in MS. Ruth was delighted by Lissy’s phone call the other day. The phone chats with Lissy are among the happy events of her life. We were both charmed by the news that you fly to Europe first class: that extra width of seat, and the lesser extent of population, are among the blessings available in the physical world. The events in Europe will, I hope, be as delightful as they are gratifying. We both wish you the happiest of trips. Yours admiringly,
149. Eric (and Lissy) Voegelin to Robert B. Heilman [Mailgram] July 16, 1981 Congratulations and all good wishes for the Remaining Quarter of Your Century. With gratitude for all the help you have given us. Eric and Lissy
150. Camano Island, Washington, July 20, 1981 Dear Eric and Lissie, I was enormously pleased by your birthday wire; it confirmed my belief that I have a quarter of a century to go (actually I count only on nineteen years, which will take me to the magic date of 2000). You are both gracious and generous, as we have long known; your ceremonial kindness may detract a mite from your truthfulness, but let that pass. On a birthday one can briefly believe anything; credulousness for 1/365 of a year will not morally destroy the rest of it. Your wire was a glorious surprise, and I hope you will relish the brief history of my reception of it. The message somehow sounded “like family,” a category 12. Peter J. Opitz and Gregor Sebba, eds., The Philosophy of Order: Essays on History, Consciousness, and Politics (Munich: Klett-Cotta, 1981). 13. Eugene Webb, Eric Voegelin: Philosopher of History (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981).
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from which I should not exclude you but in which I did not instantly recognize your membership. Thus I began to read words in my own idiosyncratic way, when I heard the signature—the wire came first by phone—the “Eric” made me resolve that the sender was my grandson. So I made the second sender fit the pattern. Later I realized that what I had heard was “Lizzie,” and that should have alerted me, for Elizabeth, though often called “Liz,” has almost never been “Lizzie.” But by then I was beyond being alerted. “How cute of the children,” I thought. “They knew they would be in our house on my birthday, but they thought that a wire would be something special, and so fun; hence they worked all this out before they left Palo Alto. Clever youngsters.” When the P. A. Heilmans returned—they were out somewhere at the time of the call (I guess seeing to Pete’s car, since he had got run into in Seattle: much damage, no injuries at all)—I told Pete how pleased I was by the wire I had just got from the kids. He looked a little blank. Then, as the kids appeared, I told each of them separately how sweet they had been to work out this rare greeting. Well, they are honest. They refused to take any credit for it. So Ruth and I decided that Pete or Jan had worked this out in the name of the kids, but they both denied complicity. We saw in their faces, however, what was not really there—a touch of smugness, so that we continued to tax them with birthday vision; only after repeated denials by them did we accept the fact that some other senders had to be identified. When we were talking about it, it was Liz who said, “Have you thought about the Voegelins? After all, the names are almost the same.” “Impossible,” said I with assurance, “it isn’t their style.” But then slowly, as slowly as all matters great and small percolate into the Pennsylvania Dutch mind, it began to come to me that I had heard “Lizzie,” and that this might well have been “Lissie.” Finally, in due time—a lot more of it, in fact—I began to suspect that scholarly research was, as the medicoes say, “indicated.” I checked the phone book and found that the nearest W.U. station was Everett, some 20 or so miles from here. So I call them. They check all their files, and report no evidence of their having phoned a wire from Palo Alto to one Heilman on Camano Island. In fact, say they on second thought, it wouldn’t come through them anyway, but through the Portland, OR, office, which does all phoning of wires for the region. They give me the Portland number, and in time I get through to Portland. Yes, such a wire would come through them. They would check their files. They checked for five, probably nearer ten, minutes. No luck. So they said that, if the sender had known my phone number, the wire wouldn’t come to Portland at all but would be routed through the Reno, NV, office and phoned from there. They would give me the Reno number. They did. But just as we were terminating they had a second thought and said that maybe the Reno office wasn’t the right place after
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all, since under certain conditions (these I did not grasp), the right place to call was their Red Bank, NJ, station, which knew all about everything. So I ring Reno, feeling that professional gambling is safer than the state which had the most bootleggers during Prohibition. When I ring Reno, I get a series [of ] odd sounds, and then a recorded announcement, “It is impossible to complete your call as dialed. Please dial again, or consult your operator.” Well, I am dialing the number that Portland gave me and that for accuracy’s sake I had double-checked with Portland, so it seemed unlikely that I could be dialing a non-existent number. So I dial Reno again. Again the same recorded announcement. I sink back with a sigh and think. Should I call Portland again to see whether I do have say one digit wrong? Oh, that would take so much time and effort. I shall go with Red Bank, NJ. So I do get thru to the W.U. office there. But oh what trouble I cause to the gal there, the gal with a Jersey City accent which established irrefutably that it’ll be hell to explain things to her. Think of asking a Jerseyan, provincial and probably idiotic, about a wire from California to a small place in Washington. I try. “What state?” says she incredulously. She has heard vaguely of California, but Washington has to be DC or else, and obviously Camano Island is a gag, not a place. Contempt drips from her voice. But she says “wait a minute, I’ll put you on to” whoever it was (I missed the identity), while I thought, “No, not again. I can’t go thru another explanation.” So I wait, I would guess, five minutes. Then the other party turns into a machine which lets off a series of loud rhythmic sounds painful to the eardrum, and communicating nothing but indifference tinged with sadism. Suddenly it stops— thank god—but now I am back on dial-tone: nowhere. That is how Jersey handles the west coast, even the west coast registering curiosity on the beginning of a man’s final quarter century. So clearly I would have to write to you and make a tactful inquiry as to whether you had sent me a wire recently (not mentioning my birthday, lest I seem to indicate expectations of universal action on that occasion). I would delay this for a few hours until I got my strength back. Then the mail came— and there was the mailgram, now clearly from “Eric and Lissie.” They had mailed it even though I had failed to ask them to do so, a mistake which, they had informed me, would probably mean the wire was lost forever. Puzzlement came to an end, life was restored, and my pleasure was great. Many thanks indeed. And I hope that the story of my identifying the sender, if not morally uplifting, has a moment or [two] that generates farcical pleasure. Affectionate greetings to you both. Now I realize that this letter may never get to you. Another strike.
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151. Seattle, December 8, 1981 Dear Eric: How very charming and generous of you and Lissi to propose lunching Ruth and me once again. What sponges we are—not only of the bounty of both of you but especially of your time. I rather feel that, like ladies about to be hanged some years back, you might well “plead your belly,” i.e., its filled state, relinquish the lunch, assign the care of the ladies to me, and devote the needed time to your desk. But then, alas, we should miss your wit. So I can’t push the really sensible idea too hard. The enclosure is a printed version of the sermon I delivered at the Red Warren 75th at Kentucky last year. Maybe it will have a little quasi-historic interest. Cleanth writes me that he has had a tumor removed from his neck, and is undergoing radiation, but seems to feel no apprehension. Tom Kirby parked his loaded car in front of a motel in Cleveland, took a suitcase inside, came back just a few seconds later, and found the car, and everything in it, gone—and apparently gone forever. Ruth coughs, and I hear the melodies of tinnitus. But we make out. You both sound in excellent shape. Good. Au voir. Best greetings to you both,
152. Stanford, September 28, 1984 Dear Robert: I am sorry to learn you have trouble with a review on my account. The sentence you quote does not make sense as it stands. Regarding the sense intended, there are various possibilities—of which I consider #1 of the following most probable: (1) The author intended Anschluss. Ausschluss is a typographical error which escaped the author. 14. Reprinted in Heilman, The Professor and the Profession (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999), 103–17. “Red” was a nickname for Robert Penn Warren. 15. Apparently, while writing a review of Thomas W. Cutrer’s Parnassus on the Mississippi: The Southern Review and the Baton Rouge Literary Community, 1935–1942 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984), Heilman had called Voegelin—no written inquiry appears in the correspondence—to ask him about a sentence that appears in Cutrer. Voegelin writes this letter in response to his inquiry. Heilman’s review of Cutrer later appears as “The Story of The Southern Review,” in Sewanee Review 93 (1985): 330–33. In a footnote on page 332, Heilman points out a number of errors that he found in the book and the clarification between “Ausschluss” and “Anschluss” appears here. Voegelin died on January 19, 1985, before this review appeared.
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(2) The author intended Ausschluss as an event that afflicted me personally. In that case he could refer only to my dismissal. But the German word for dismissal is Entlassung. It would require more poetic license than is permitted without explanation to transform the Entlassung into an Ausschluss. (3) The Ausschluss could be intended as an ironical inversion of the Anschluss. But in that case, the point of the irony remains undetermined. Did the Anschluss entail my Ausschluss from Nationalsocialism? or the Ausschluss of Nationalsocialism from civilization? The ironic relation of Anschluss and Ausschluss has tempted me frequently; but I doubt it was the author’s intention. (4) The author may not have intended anything at all. As a German word, Ausschluss looked to him just as good as Anschluss. In that case, he would have wanted in mastery of the linguistic means necessary for expressing the intended thought adequately.
We are sorry to hear of the new water-break in the house—this year you have really got a full measure. Our good wishes are with you, especially for Ruth’s health. We are already looking forward to seeing you both again at some future holiday. Sincerely yours, <Eric>
APPENDIX A Chronology of Letters and Locations
Eric Voegelin Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University
Robert B. Heilman Papers, Manuscripts, Special Collections and Archives, University of Washington, Seattle
Box 17, File 9
Accession 1000–5–90–19, Box 3, Folder 6
1. RH May 27 [no year] 2. RH No Date 3. RH No Date [OH] 4. EV
July 12, 1944 [OH]
9. EV
April 9, 1946
5. RH July 21 [1944] 6. RH October 25, 1944 7. RH November 20 [probably 1944] 8. RH July 3, 1945 [OH] 10. RH November 4, 1947 Accession 1000–14, Box 1, Folder 2 11. EV November 13, 1947 (EV’s long letter on James with RH’s questions and corrections) 12. EV March 19, 1948 13. RH April 26, 1948 14. EV 15. RH May 8, 1948 16. EV May 16, 1948 17. RH May 18, 1948 293
May 1, 1948
294
Appendix A
18. EV
November 4, 1948
Accession 1000–5–90–19, Box 3, Folder 6 19. EV
January 1, 1949
21. EV 22. EV
January 31, 1949 April 2, 1949
25. EV
April 3, 1950
27. EV
April 18, 1950
29. EV
May 26, 1950
31. EV
July 7, 1951
33. EV 34. EV
August 1, 1951 October 28, 1951
36. EV 37. EV
February 25, 1952 May 3, 1952
41. EV
October 21, 1952
45. EV 46. EV
July 17, 1953 December 29, 1953
48. EV
February 9, 1954
20. RH January 6, 1949
23. RH April 18, 1949 24. EV November 14, 1949 26. RH April 7, 1950 28. RH May 21, 1950 30. EV December 1, 1950 32. RH July 11, 1951
35. RH February 6, 1952
38. RH May 13, 1952 39. EV May 22, 1952 (Box 65, File 1) 40. RH October 14, 1952 (Box 63, File 11) 42. RH March 12, 1953 43. EV March 30, 1953 44. RH June 30, 1953 (postcard)
47. RH January 20, 1954 49. RH February 19, 1954
Chronology of Letters and Locations
295
50. EV 51. EV
February 24, 1954 March 1, 1954
52. RH March 10, 1954 53. EV March 14, 1954 54. Lissy Voegelin to RH May 30, 1955 (re: dedication to EV of Magic) 55. EV June 28, 1955 56. 57. 58. 59.
RH EV RH EV
December 11, 1955 December 19, 1955 May 14, 1956 May 19, 1956 60. EV
June 8, 1956
62. EV 63. EV
July 23, 1956 July 24, 1956
67. EV 68. EV
October 17, 1956 December 29, 1956
72. EV
June 5, 1957
76. EV
March 18, 1958
79. EV
August 31, 1958
82. EV
December 30, 1958
84. EV
August 20, 1959
61. RH July 20, 1956
64. RH August 19, 1956 65. EV August 22, 1956 66. RH October 13, 1956
69. RH January [8,] 1957 70. RH February 16, 1957 71. EV February 23, 1957 73. RH June 26, 1957 74. EV March 7, 1958 75. RH March 1958 77. RH March 26, 1958 78. RH June 4, [1958] 80. RH December 21, 1958 81. RH Christmas noon [1958] 83. RH August 16, 1959 85. RH August 30, 1959 (aerogram)
296
87. 88. 89. 90.
Appendix A
RH EV RH RH
93. RH 94. EV 95. RH 96. RH 97. EV 98. RH 99. EV 100.RH 101. RH 102. RH
86. EV
October 4, 1959
91. EV 92. EV
January 14, 1961 April 11, 1964
103. EV
August 13, 1964
105. EV
January 19, 1965
107.EV
February 22, 1965
111. EV
May 26, 1967
October 29, 1959 November 2, 1960 November 5, 1960 January 9, 1961
April 27, 1964 May 5, 1964 May 14, 1964 June 23, 1964 [OH] June 25, 1964 June 29, 1964 [OH] July 2, 1964 July 7, 1964 July 30, 1964 August 4, 1964
104. RH August 19, 1964 106. RH February 17, 1965 108. RH March 21, 1965 109. RH June 12, 1966 110. EV June 19, 1966 112. 113. 114. 115.
RH RH RH RH
June 21, 1967 July 13, 1968 August 26, 1969 September 23, 1969 Accession 1000–2–71–16 (no box or folder numbers) 116. EV 117. RH 118. RH 119. EV
120. RH November 10, 1969
September 26, 1969 October 2, 1969 October 29, 1969 November 3, 1969
Chronology of Letters and Locations
297
121. EV December 11, 1969 122. RH December 22, 1969 123. EV December 30, 1969 124. EV
January 26, 1971
126. EV
March 28, 1971
125. RH February 1, 1971 127. RH July 19, 1971 128. RH March 21, 1972 Accession 1000–5–90–19, Box 3, Folder 5
131. RH 132. EV 133. RH 134. RH
April 14, 1973 April 19, 1973 October 8, 1974 January 1, 1975 [OH]
136. RH 137. RH 138. RH 139. RH
January 12, 1975 March 29, 1975 May 13, 1975 May 24, 1976
129. EV 130. EV
March 29, 1972 April 11, 1973
135. EV
January 7, 1975
140.EV
June 3, 1976
147. EV
February 14, 1981
150. RH 151. RH 152. EV
July 20, 1981 December 8, 1981 September 28, 1984
141. RH August 3, 1976 [OH] (Box 115, Item 381) 142. EV January 16, 1977 143. RH March 4, 1978 144. RH September 3, 1978 145. RH March 1980 146. RH December 30, 1980 148. RH March 14, 1981 149. EV and Lissy Voegelin July 16, 1981 (mailgram)
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APPENDIX B Number of Letters and Publications Referenced in Letters1
Year
RH
EV
Total Letters Exchanged
No Date or No Year
3
0
3
1944
3
1 4 “Siger de Brabant” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research; “Nietzsche, the Crisis, and the War” in Journal of Politics; “Political Theory and the Pattern of General History” in American Political Science Review
1945
1
0
1
1946
0
1
1
1947
1 1 2 “Freudian Reading of The Turn of the Screw” in Modern Language Notes Turn of the Screw letter to RH; “Plato’s Egyptian Myth” in Journal of Politics
1948
3 4 7 This Great Stage: Image and Structure in King Lear; “The Turn of the Screw as Poem” in University of Kansas City Review
1. Because it does not include publications not mentioned in the letters, this document does not present the larger picture of Heilman’s publications that include numerous critical introductions to classics of English literature, articles, books, and collections of essays. Neither does it present the larger picture of Voegelin’s work.
299
300
Appendix B
“The Origins of Scientism” in Social Research 1949
2 4 6 “An Inquiry into Anti-Highbrowism” in AAUP Bulletin “The Philosophy of Existence: Plato’s Gorgias” in Review of Politics
1950
2 4 6 “Introduction” to Gulliver’s Travels “The Formation of the Marxian Revolutionary Idea” in Review of Politics
1951
1 3 4 “More Fair Than Black: Light and Dark in Othello” in Essays in Criticism “More’s Utopia” in Österreichische Zeitschrift für Öffentliches Recht; “Machiavelli’s Prince” in Review of Politics
1952
3 4 7 “Dr. Iago and His Potions” in Virginia Quarterly Review The New Science of Politics
1953
2 3 5 “Alcestis and The Cocktail Party” in Comparative Literature “The World of Homer” in Review of Politics
1954
3 4 7 Review of Critics and Criticism by R. S. Crane et al., in Modern Language Notes
1955
1
1956
4 7 11 Magic in the Web: Action and Language in “Othello” Israel and Revelation, vol. 1 of Order and History
1957
3
3 4 (1 from Lissy Voegelin to RH)
2 5 The World of the Polis, vol. 2 of Order and
Number of Letters and Publications Referenced in Letters
History; Plato and Aristotle, vol. 3 of Order and History 1958
5 4 9 “Variations on Picaresque: Mann’s Felix Krull” in The Sewanee Review
1959
3 2 5 Review of D. H. Lawrence: The Failure and the Triumph of Art, by Eliseo Vivas, in Sewanee Review; “Fashions in Melodrama” in Western Humanities Review
1960
1
1961
1 1 “Bardolatry” in Yale Review
2
1962
0
0
0
1963
0
0 0 Speech: “The Configuration of History,” Grinnell College
1964
8 5 13 Lectures in Munich on “Historian and Critic: Some Observations” and “The Role We Give Shakespeare”
1965
2 2 4 “Historian and Critic: Notes on Attitudes” in Sewanee Review; “The Role We Give Shakespeare” in Essays on Shakespeare Speech: “Immortality: Experience and Symbol,” Ingersoll Lecture, Harvard Divinity School
1966
1 1 2 “The Criminal as Tragic Hero: Dramatic Methods” in Shakespeare Survey; “The Taming Untamed; or, the Return of the Shrew” in Modern Language Quarterly Anamnesis: Zur Theorie der Geschichte und Politik
1
2
301
302
Appendix B
1967
1
1968
1 0 1 Tragedy and Melodrama Science, Politics, and Gnosticism
1969
6
1970
0 0 0 “Demonic Strategies: The Birthday Party and The Firebugs” in Sense and Sensibility in Twentieth-Century Writing
1971
2 2 4 “Introduction” to Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles Turn of Screw letter and “Postscript: On Paradise and Revolution” in Southern Review
1972
1
1973
1 2 3 The Iceman, the Arsonist and The Troubled Agent . . . 1 0 1 The Ghost in the Ramparts “Reason: The Classic Experience” in Southern Review; The Ecumenic Age, vol. 4, of Order And History
1974
1 2 “Immortality: Experience and Symbol” in Harvard Theological Review
4
1
10
2
1975
4
1
5
1976
1
1
2
1977
0
1
1
1978
2 0 2 “Robespierre and Santa Claus: Men of Virtue in Drama” in Southern Review
1979
0
0
0
1980
2
0
2
1981
3
2
5
Number of Letters and Publications Referenced in Letters
1982
0
0
0
1983
0
0
0
1984
0
1
1
Totals
78
73 151 (+1 from Lissy Voegelin)
303
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APPENDIX C Selected Enclosures in Various Letters
1. Series of Letters Discussed in Letters 50, 52, and 53. a. Karl E. Ettinger to Eric Voegelin Washington 25, D.C., December 22, 1953 Dear Professor Voegelin: Congress has given this committee the mandate to study the significance of foundation activities, especially those of foundations in education, propaganda, and in influencing legislation. The committee thereupon decided to concentrate on the study of the support and non-support of activities in the social sciences. By social sciences we understand the scientific and pseudo-scientific activities generally conducted under this label in American universities and research organizations. The money of foundations, as you know, is responsible for the emergence of a considerable bureaucracy and for the existence of very influential organizations, which dominate this field. Some foundation managers have formulated their philosophy in expressing the hope that by applying the methods of the natural sciences to the problems of society, we may finally bridge the cultural lag. Although we have not reached any final conclusions, we are very much under the impression that the trade associations of university professors who influence foundation giving exert a very energetic influence in favor of “quantitative” and “inductive” social studies to the almost complete exclusion of philosophical and historic inquiry. By sheer volume the manufacture of degree diplomas in the social sciences is the major product of American diploma mills. The product of foundation supported research and teaching programs therefore influences the thinking of the 1. This whole series of letters are to be found in the Correspondence File for the Rockefeller Foundation, Voegelin Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, box 30, file 14, and in the Heilman Papers, accession 1000–5–90–19, box 3, folder 6. 2. Karl E. Ettinger was a research consultant to the Special Committee to Investigate Tax Exempt Foundations (House Resolution 217), House of Representatives, U.S. Congress.
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half-educated that like to think of themselves as educated, and consequently influences popular pressure on legislation. Whether you approve or disapprove of foundation policies in the field of [the] social sciences, I would greatly appreciate your advice and opinion on how best to use the opportunity contained in our research assignment. I hope that you will have time to give me the benefit of your advice at your earliest convenience. Very truly yours, /s/ Karl Ettinger Karl E. Ettinger Research Consultant b. Eric Voegelin to Joseph H. Willits [Baton Rouge,] January 14, 1954 Dear Mr. Willits: I have received a letter from Mr. Karl E. Ettinger, Research Consultant of the Special Committee to Investigate Tax Exempt Foundations. Of this letter I enclose a copy for you. The letter was somewhat embarrassing, because I could not well ignore it. I drafted an answer designed to make clear to Mr. Ettinger that the foundations are not responsible for the situation to which he referred, and that certainly no Congressional Committee could do anything about it. Then, however, I thought it better not to send the letter, because my analysis of the problem might provide materials which politicians could use for purposes not intended by me. Hence, I wrote an evasive letter to Mr. Ettinger, of which again I enclose a copy for you. Nevertheless, while my analysis of the situation should not be made accessible to politicians, the draft of my letter to Mr. Ettinger should be read by a man in your position. Hence, you will find a copy of the draft as a further enclosure. I do not believe, of course, that the line of investigation suggested by Mr. Ettinger’s letter will be pursued by the present Committee just now. And as long as they play with Communism and the Kinsey Report, not much can happen. If, however, a Congressional Committee is sufficiently well organized to hire as Research Consultants men who are as intelligent as Mr. Ettinger seems to be, they might find out what the trouble really is. And when that day should come, 3. Joseph H. Willits was director of the Division of Social Sciences at the Rockefeller Foundation.
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the consequences might be unpleasant. The danger, I repeat, seems to be not “clear and present.” But in our hectic times, one never knows how fast events will move. With my best regards, I am Sincerely yours, Eric Voegelin c. Eric Voegelin to Karl E. Ettinger [Baton Rouge,] January 14, 1954 Dear Mr. Ettinger: Your letter of December 22, 1953, came just at the time when I had to undergo an operation in New Orleans. I have now sufficiently recovered to resume my correspondence. It is most interesting that the Committee wants to extend its investigation to the regrettable fad of quantitative research in the social sciences. And I thank you for asking my opinion in the matter. Unfortunately, there is not much I could tell you, and the little that I can tell will not be of much help. For, personally, my experience with foundations were of the most pleasant kind. I received a Guggenheim Fellowship for collecting materials in Europe which have resulted hitherto in my “New Science of Politics”—a work which is definitely of the philosophical and historical, not the quantitative variety. And since my post-graduate years, in the twenties, I have received support from the Rockefeller Foundation in a most agreeable manner: Three years of study in America and France; support when I was secretary of the Austrian Committee that worked for the International Studies Conference in 1937; support when I came to America in the first years of my integration into the American university life; and, finally, support for my studies in the history of political ideas, of which the first volume is to be published in the fall of this year. My personal experience, of course, does not invalidate the observation, made by all of us, that a vast amount of support goes to quantitative research. But nobody who does not make a special study of the record of grants over the years, can form an opinion concerning the actual state of things. I certainly would not venture an opinion which I cannot base on a knowledge of facts. With regard to your question what the Committee, of which you are a Research 4. This letter was sent to Ettinger.
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Consultant, could do in the matter, I am afraid my opinion will also disappoint you. For I suspect it can do nothing at all. You suggest yourself that the origin of the undesirable situation is not to be sought in the policies of the foundations, but in the suggestions which they receive from the academic profession. Again, we all know that the profession is loaded with positivist ideologues. But what can one do about it? The predominance of ideologues is a symptom of the vast phenomenon to which we usually refer as the “crisis of Western Civilization.” Do you believe that a Congressional Committee can “do” something about a millennial historical process? If you have any more concrete questions, I shall always be happy to answer them to the best of my knowledge. With best regards, Sincerely yours, Eric Voegelin d. Draft Letter Eric Voegelin to Karl E. Ettinger Dear Mr. Ettinger: Thank you very much for your interesting letter of December 22, ’53. This is, indeed, surprising news that a Congressional Committee wants to take a look at the direction in which the social sciences move under the influence of various foundations and, inversely, at the direction in which foundation policies move under the influence of pressure groups in the academic world. I am very glad to offer you such opinions as I can reasonably form, but I am afraid these opinions will not have the character of a rounded, well-founded judgment. Such a judgment would require a detailed knowledge of the actual practice of various foundations which I do not have. I am not engaged in any of the “research projects” which have become a by-word for the knowing in the profession. And my own relations with foundations have been the most amiable ones. I received a Guggenheim Fellowship for collecting materials in Europe which have resulted hitherto in my “New Science of Politics”—a work which is definitely of the “historical and philosophical” variety which foundations are suspected of not supporting sufficiently. And since my post-graduate years, in the ’twenties, I have received support from the Rockefeller Foundation in the 5. This letter was not sent to Mr. Ettinger, but a draft copy was sent to Heilman and to Joseph H. Willits at the Rockefeller Foundation, among others.
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most munificent manner. Three years of studies in America and France; support when I was secretary of the Austrian Committee that worked for the International Studies Conference in 1937; support when I came to America in the first years of my integration into the American university life; and, finally, support for conducting my studies in the history of political ideas, of which the first volume is to be published in the fall of this year. With such a record I am inclined to be prejudiced. If support of this kind is not given more widely than it is; if, quite obviously, the dubious “research” enterprises to which you refer by far outweigh in foundation support the type of studies which I pursue; I am inclined to believe that the reason has to be sought in the nature of the applications made, [and] in the nature of the stimulations which foundations receive from the academic environment, rather than in policies originating in the foundations. This is my principal thesis. And with this in mind I can see[,] not without alarm[,] a Congressional activity which, however cautiously conducted, might cast a shadow on the policies of foundations. This is not to say that the evils to which you refer do not exist. But I believe they have their root in the social sciences as a profession, not in the foundations. That the social sciences are in bad shape, is a matter of public record. I have not attended a meeting of the American Political Science Association in years, without being appalled at the mediocrity of the performance and without hearing numerous, frank expressions of disgust. Insofar as a certain amount of this exuberant mediocrity is supported by grants from foundations, they are involved in it. But anybody who would want to criticize foundations under this aspect of their involvement, should be aware that foundations are organized for the purpose of giving support to science, not for the purpose of pushing scientists around and telling them what to do. Precisely when they stick scrupulously to their task and do not interfere with the freedom of science, their policies in awarding grants will become reprehensible when the state of the science which they support is as dubious as it is today in the social sciences in the departmental sense. I can only express my hope, therefore, that the Congressional Committee will recognize where the cause of the evil lies and not attack it at the point of its effects [and] that it will occupy itself with the state of science (if that is what it must do) and not interfere with the work of the foundations. In the spirit of these declarations I shall now attempt an analysis of the problem. With the reservation that for dubious foundation policies not the foundations are to be blamed but the profession which they support, one must say that
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the policies are indeed sometimes dubious. One of the most important sources of funds for work in the social sciences is the Social Science Research Council. Let me reflect on its policies as a concrete example. In recent years, the SSRC has issued statements of policy by which it frankly favors the allocation of funds for quantitative and “behavioral” studies, to the practical exclusion of theoretical and historical work. I remember one of these policy statements which provoked me to closer examination. I estimated that the available funds were sufficient to bribe every promising young man in the profession into studies of this type. If the program were completely effective, within twenty years there would be no social scientists left in America. They would be replaced by a horde of “research workers” engaged in “projects” whose relevance for science would not even be doubtful. Scholarship in these fields would be effectively destroyed in America. That sounds bad. But now let us consider what actually is going on. First the practical aspect. I doubt that the program is really effective. I myself have received grants from the Social Science Research Council, as well as from the Rockefeller Foundation directly, for my studies (as previously mentioned) which do not fit into the overt program at all. And I have no reason to assume that my case is isolated. If such cases should be not more frequent than they are, the reason probably will have to be sought in the lack of applications. Moreover, I have recently received a letter from the Director of the Social Science Division of the Rockefeller Foundation, informing me that special fellowships are available for studies in political and legal philosophy, and requesting me to submit names of suitable candidates. Certainly the Rockefeller Foundation is not to be blamed for the fact that in answer to this letter I could submit only one single name of a man who looked fit to me to receive such a fellowship. The trouble obviously lies in the academic environment. To this environment we must look when we want to understand how such reprehensible policies as the just mentioned of the SSRC are formed. The policy in question expresses the attitude of positivist ideologues. To this class probably belonged the academic “representatives” who were consulted by the SSRC in formulating the policy, as well as perhaps one or the other administrator within the Council who had been drawn from the profession. The well-known fallacy of determining the object of science by the method, instead of choosing the method which is adequate to the object, is characteristic of this attitude. Objectively, by the standards of critical science, such men do not know enough about epistemology and methodology. Subjectively, their specific ignorance is motivated by their contempt for the intellectual and spiritual life which lies at
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the essential core of man and society. If the use of quantitative methods is extended beyond their legitimate field of application (economic statistics, population statistics, etc.), and the monopoly of their use is erected into a dogma, the result is destruction of the object of the social sciences. To adopt a program of destruction, we may agree, is not exactly the purpose for which a Social Science Research Council is instituted. But not much is gained by indulging in the beloved game of approving or disapproving such policies. We must realize that the cause of such grotesque perversions of purpose lies in the predominance of positivist ideologues in the social sciences in the departmental sense. The scholars, who certainly also are to be found in the departments, cannot make their influence effective against the overwhelming mass. Hence, the trouble in the academic environment is real. But it is difficult to repair, if it can be repaired at all. Educational idealism and economic wealth permit in this country the maintenance of an extraordinar[il]y large number of universities. Scholars of outstanding quality, however, are rare, and cannot be multiplied by wealth. Considering the number of universities and colleges, on the one hand; and the number of outstanding scholars that will be thrown up by a nation of one-hundred-and-sixty million people in one generation, on the other hand; the result must be inevitably a rather thin spread of scholarship over the academic surface. This seems to be a hard fact about which nothing can be done. If you then consider that among the academic personnel of not so outstanding scholarly qualities, there are great numbers of intelligent, industrious, ambitious, promotorial men who want to justify their professional existence by playing at science though science is not a virtue in their souls (in the Aristotelian sense); if you, furthermore, consider that this country is wealthy enough to provide, through foundations, private gifts, and state-governments, the necessary play-things for such men[,] the result will be unhappy. A number of men who would never leave much of a mark in any science, if left to shift by their wits, will acquire social power in their academic environment through the sheer force of apparatus with which their activities are lavishly equipped. And, finally, we must realize that there is an intimate connection between intellectual and spiritual poverty, on the one hand, and the pursuit of quantitative studies, on the other hand, insofar as the pursuit of quantitative studies does not require the intellectual and moral stature of scholarship. This is the only point at which I would admit that the activities of foundations can have an aggravating effect on the situation. But I hasten to add that the effect would be the same, whoever dispenses the funds under whatever policy. The pursuit of scholarly studies in the social sciences does perhaps not require the amounts of money at present
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dispensed; if they are dispensed nevertheless, the result will be a social reenforcement of mediocrity. And this is not a problem for universities alone, but generally in our society; and not in America alone, but everywhere. When a member of the British Labor Government, after the Second World War, glanced at the effects of the rising standard of living for the masses, he felt compelled to observe: the income of a lot of people is higher than their moral stature. If you place money in the hands of academic mediocrities, it will hardly improve scholarship or advance science, but rather increase the social power of mediocrity. In the academic environment the result will be what may be called a “swamping effect” by which the great majority of the mediocrities, with powers of patronage and economic advantages concentrated in their hands, will make such scholarship as there exists socially ineffective. This aspect of the matter is rather serious. For we have developed in our universities, through the process indicted, a sort of “science commissars.” Since we are living in a period of communist hysterics, let me hasten to say that the term has definitely no communist implications. I want to stress that in no case of a research project that has come to my attention[,] however dubious it may have been for other reasons, have I ever caught the faintest whiff of communism, either in the research personnel, or in the sources of its funds. If I use the term nevertheless, I do it because communism is not the only ideology which can be used for the destruction of science. Our home-grown varieties of progressivism, pragmatism, instrumentalism, positivism, operationalism, behaviorism, and so forth, do the job quite as well. I am also fully aware that these home-grown varieties are politically by far not so atrocious as communism—but as far as science is concerned their effect is about the same. When you jump from a sky-scraper, as Christopher Dawson said, whether you choose the window to the right or the left does not make much of a difference by the time you reach the pavement. For a scholar there is not much to choose between a “rigorous method” boy and an adherent of dialectical materialism. Hence, by a “science commissar” I understand an ideologue of one or the other variety who, by the use of economic power, makes himself a social power in the academic environment and detracts young men who should become scientists into the followership of some ideology. This, as I said, is a serious matter; and on this point I shall not hesitate to use strong language, for I firmly believe in the justice of the Platonic dictum: The corruption of young minds through false doctrine is a crime, second in foulness only to physical murder. The evil is great and pervasive, but in detail it is difficult to trace from within the academic environment, and probably not at all from the outside. Let me
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give you an example. I know a young man, intelligent, energetic, and ambitious, a philosopher, who specializes in political philosophy. For the public he assumes the position of a pragmatist; in private conversation it turns out that he is not at all convinced of the validity of the position assumed in public. But he is careful not to betray his true convictions, because that would ruin his career. Since in addition to his talents he is a likeable, presentable fellow, my prognosis is that he will end as a highly respected professor in some Eastern university; and in due course his opinion will be solicited by foundations when it comes to the allocation of funds for this or that purpose. I know two or three such cases. Now, these cases of the semi-conscious rascals are rare, because such semi-consciousness already requires a degree of intelligence, literacy, and sensitiveness which is not to be found generally. In a larger number of cases you will find young men who are too dopey ever to find out, by their own powers, that something is wrong. Once they have gone through the process of college and graduate school, they are sufficiently brainwashed and morally debased to hold their positions with sincerity, and for the rest of their lives will never have a critical doubt. And then, of course, there is the small, but still surprisingly large number of young men who have enough intelligence and moral stamina to resist corruptive influences but are badly hampered in their development, because their education does not find sufficient institutional support. They will never achieve the full unfolding of their talents, because too much of their energy is lost in overcoming the handicap of their environment. You may have become impatient at the digression, and wonder what all this has to do with your problem of investigating tax exempt foundations. Well, it leads to the conclusion that we are dealing with a highly complicated situation which neither is caused by the foundations, nor can easily be influenced by them in any direction. Let me give you a concrete example to illustrate the nature of the difficulty. One of the oddest things about our social sciences as a profession is their attitude toward Marxism. I think we can agree that communism is of a certain importance on the contemporary scene, and we might expect political scientists to throw themselves with full force into the understanding of the phenomenon. Well, in 1933 were published, from the archives of the German SocialDemocratic Party, the early works of Marx, from the period 1843–1847. They came as a revelation. For the first time it was possible to understand the background of the Marxian ideas, their motivation and genesis, their meaning and implications. In his later works little information is to be found on these questions because Marx always presupposed the process by which he had arrived at
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his position and only rarely reverted to his philosophical principles. The early works are recognized by all scholars who dealt with them (that is, by barely ten persons in America and Europe) as the key to the understanding of Marxism down to its present Russian deformations. Moreover, Marx gives in these early works an analysis of the various aspects of communism that would furnish inestimable propaganda material, from a strictly political point of view, against communism. Some passages, if judiciously quoted by an American representative in a UN meeting, would make a laughing-stock of the communist representatives. Here is a treasure for any ambitious political scientist to carve a career for himself by evaluating these materials. But what has happened? These works are available in print by now for exactly twenty years, and not a single social scientist has given any evidence in writing that he has ever read them. (I am excluding now the aforementioned scholars.) As far as I know, the social sciences as a profession are blissfully unaware of the existence of these fundamental materials on communism. Why is that so? I can only give you my guesses for what they are worth. In the first place, probably the language barrier is the great obstacle. Second, however, there is the even worse problem of philosophical illiteracy. When I think of a series of my colleagues in this connection, I wonder whether there are many who could make head or tail of Marx’s Economic-Philosophical MS., if they could read it in the first place. I consider the digestion and adequate discussion of the early works of Marx a matter of the first importance in science, as well as in politics. But: what could a foundation do, in order to get this task under way? Let us assume, first, that a foundation could do anything at all in the matter through grants. How should such grants ever be extended, if the academic “representatives,” on whose stimulation and opinion a foundation would have to depend, are not even aware that such a problem exists? And if the case would be brought to the attention of a foundation, what should it do about it? What obviously should be done is that a certain number of political scientists drop their “research” for a while, instead repair to their respective libraries, and sit on their posteriors for a year or two, until they have digested Marx and know what communism is all about. But that does not require any grants except perhaps a little money to purchase the works in question, as well as the small amount of monographic literature. It rather requires serious work, for in order to understand the works of Marx one must know at least as much about philosophy as Marx did—and that was a good deal. It might easily happen that a “researcher” fresh from his “project” would find that a year or two is not enough to read a hundred pages of Marx, but that he
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will have to invest ten years in order to acquire the background knowledge necessary for an intelligent analysis. Of course, that would be all to the good; for it would keep him for a while from research and in the end he might find that he really has become a political scientist. But again: what conceivably could a foundation do in such matters? It can support men with scholarly inclinations when they appear, but it cannot produce them. And it cannot support them in opposition to the academic environment. I have chosen this concrete example because it goes a long way to illuminate the intellectual and spiritual paralysis in our universities in the face of communism. I doubt that there is much active communism in our universities; personally I have never encountered any case at all. But there is a formidable force of philosophical illiteracy. And sometimes I wonder how many universities there are in the country where a lively, idealistic young man, with liberal tendencies shading off to the left, could find a professor, with sufficient competence to impress an intelligent, and naturally rebellious youngster, who could explain to him what the problems of communism are and what is wrong with it. A good deal of moral and intellectual confusion among young people in the universities is not caused by active political intentions, but by the absence of authoritative guidance. Before coming to a conclusion one more point must be touched. It is little observed, but essential for a rounded picture of the situation. From the brief sketch which I have drawn, one might gain the impression that social science today is in bad shape. As a matter of fact, it is not. To be sure, social science in the departmental sense is in the doldrums; but social science in the substantive sense is flourishing today in our country as hardly ever before. American scholarship with regard to basic questions of the social sciences is not only as good as anywhere in Europe, but in certain respects even leading. But: this important development only to a small extent takes place in the social science departments; it rather occurs in classical philology, Egyptology, Semitology, history, and theology. A survey of this development would go beyond the framework of this already rather long letter. Let me give only one concrete instance, that is, the work of the Chicago Oriental Institute. Such works as [John A.] Wilson’s Burden of Egypt, [Henri] Frankfort’s Kingship and the Gods, the collective enterprise of [Henri Frankfort, Mrs. H. A. Frankfort, John A. Wilson, and Thorkild Jacobsen, Before Philosophy:] The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man outweigh in their advancement of basic problems most of the production of the Sociological and Political Science Associations. Let me add, at random, the work of [Werner] Jaeger and [Moses I.] Finley in Harvard, of David Grene
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in Chicago, of [probably Erwin Ramsdell] Goodenough in Yale, the magnificent edition of Ancient Near Eastern Texts by [James Bennett] Pritchard in Princeton, the work of [William Foxwell] Albright in Johns Hopkins, the giant enterprise of [Harry Austryn] Wolfson in Harvard, the work of the two Niebuhrs [Reinhold and Richard] in Yale and New York, and so forth—and you have a picture of occupation with basic problems relevant to the social sciences, unprecedented in American history, and of a brilliance of which any country at any time could be proud. But: this important development has no noticeable repercussions in the social sciences in the departmental sense. The professional social scientists rarely take notice of the substantive development of their own science. What is wrong here? There is a fairly watertight separation between substantive and departmental social science. This separation occurs not only in America, but also in Europe, whenever social science departments are instituted as independent organizations for a generation or two. If in Europe the evil is as yet less flagrant than in America, the only reason is that Europe is too poor to institute social sciences on our mass scale. The cause of the evil is well known, and it is not irreparable. We must face the plain fact, that there is no such thing as a social science in the abstract. Social science is the theoretization of historical materials by referring them to a philosophical anthropology. In order to accomplish this task one must be, first, familiar with historical materials; and be, second, a good philosopher. “Memory and comparison” are still the methods of the social sciences as they were when Aristotle laid down the rule. It is not surprising, therefore, if a classical philologist is frequently a better political scientist than most professionals, for in order to write a competent study of Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, or Demosthenes, one must know not only Greek, but a good deal about political history and philosophy—while any group of doubtful scholarship can engage in a formidable research-project on election statistics. Hence, the social sciences in the departmental sense had their great day in the time of their “founders.” For the “founders” were no “social scientists” but had a solid grounding in history, law, economics, philosophy, theology, or a combination of such basic sciences. I am thinking of men like [Emile] Durkheim, [Vilfredo] Pareto, [Max] Weber, [Max] Scheler, and so forth; or of men like [William Archibald] Dunning or [John William] Burgess in America. With the passing of the “founders” begins the inbreeding of the departments, that is, the cutting off of the social scientists from their basic sciences; and the situation becomes more dreary with every new social scientist who has received his training in a social science department in-
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stead of in a basic science. A man like Durkheim could write a study of Rousseau, with a philosophical competence which no director of any contemporary research project I know of could match. And now for the conclusion. The situation, I think we can agree, is dismal. It is so dismal—and here I am speaking from the experience gathered at various meetings—that a surprisingly large number of men in the profession is nauseated by it, even if they do not quite know what to do about it. But what can one do about it? The answer will have to be very cautious and restrained. I hope I have made it clear that the foundations are not an appreciable cause in the situation, and consequently they can not be much of a cause in repairing it. We are faced with a historical process of infinite complexity, that is, with the secularist crisis of our age, and the evil must heal from within. Certainly one can not do what on the basis of my sketch would seem obvious. One cannot throw massive foundation support to the actually flourishing substantive social sciences, because that would only result in the dilution of quality and perhaps kill a hopeful development. The support which actually is extended in this quarter—and could perhaps be somewhat increased—is strictly limited by the absorptive capacity of sciences which require men of quality for their pursuit. And one cannot, through the power of the purse, compel the departmental social scientists to mend their ways. In this quarter we run into the brute fact that the scale of our social science development makes a formidable amount of mediocrity inevitable. I shudder to think what would happen if the hordes of intellectuals who at present play at “behavioral” studies would descend on Plato and Thomas and wring them through their IBM minds. The healing process must start from within. And I think one can discern the ever so faint beginnings of it even now. The separation of the departmental from the substantive social sciences can only be repaired by the resumption of relations. As William Rappard once formulated it: Cooperation in science consists in one man writing a book, and another man reading it. The intellectual climate of the departments would change fundamentally, if the professionals would start reading and digesting the fundamental treatises of their own science, classic and Christian, as well as the contemporary work of the scholars in their own field. The root of the evil is non-cooperation as it inevitably will spread where sectarian ideologues cut themselves off from the intellectual and spiritual development of humanity. And the evil can be repaired only by abandoning ideological sectarianism and returning to the fold. This situation—that the departmental social sciences have run off on a wild tangent and lost their contact
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with substantive science—is beginning to be recognized. And the recognition manifests itself, though in rare instances yet, in the resumption of reading. In recent years I have noticed more than one case of a colleague who hit on the idea that perhaps he could learn something if he read [Henri] Bergson, or [Nicholas] Berdiaev, or [Reinhold or H. Richard?] Niebuhr, or [Arnold J.] Toynbee, or [Karl] Jaspers. But this is a slow process, and the day is far off when a political scientist who does not master his Aristotle will be as much of a joke as a physicist who cannot handle a differential equation. We shall not live to see it. Nevertheless, this is the healing process on which we must rely fundamentally. Nothing drastic can be done about the situation. Still, the process can be accelerated, perhaps, through support and pressure. And here I see a point where the foundations could lend a helping hand. Research grants in the social sciences usually are extended to personnel in social science departments. I consider it possible that a foundation, when considering a grant, will take a good look at the department of which the applicants are members. If it should turn out that such a department is overloaded with ideologues to [the] exclusion of scholarship, the foundation might turn down the application until such time as the composition of the department is sufficiently diversified to give room to at least a modicum of scholarship. Such a policy could justify itself by the principle of guaranteeing freedom of science and breaking the totalitarian stranglehold of the ideologues. Clearly this is a ticklish task. We all remember the howl that went up when Hutchins in Chicago tried to introduce freedom of science in the philosophy department by breaking the monopoly of the pragmatists. Later he resorted to the more devious device of organizing a Committee on Social Thought, in competition with the existing departments, in order to check their influence on the students. But that is an expensive luxury, setting aside that one could not organize many groups of this kind because of the natural scarcity of good men. Ideologues are aggressive and vociferous, and our native variety is quite as ready as their communist opposite numbers to yell that the most precious freedoms of mankind are at stake if they can’t have it all their own way. Nevertheless, this is an unpleasantness we must face. And I am afraid the foundation will have to face it, too, if they want to live up to the purpose for which they are created. Goodwill in this matter, however, is not enough. Not even a dictator with unlimited power and wealth could break the ideological predominance, because there are not enough scholars in the social sciences to establish a respectable balance in every university. One must start from the education of young men; and that means breaking the inbreeding of the social science departments. We must
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attempt to restore the situation of the time when the departments began to be founded by men who came from the outside. That is to say: nobody should be permitted to become a social scientist who has not a solid grounding in one of the basic sciences which furnish the materials and the theory for the work of the social scientists. A social scientist must be solidly a historian (political, legal, economic), or a classical philologist, or a philosopher, or a theologian, and so forth, in addition to, or rather as a precondition of, being a social scientist. That, of course, can be done by appropriate combination of degrees in the social sciences with degrees in basic sciences. And here certainly the foundations can lend a helping hand by financial assistance in training a stock of young scholars, as well as indirectly by putting pressure on the departments to join in such a program. A program of this kind would also have the advantage of automatically weeding out the weaker types since serious studies are not their speed. Only when young scholars with such training are available, can one consider the further assistance of foundations in putting pressure on recalcitrant departments to employ them. That a solution must be sought in this [sic] directions is today recognized, even if imperfectly, by some foundations. The Russian Research Center at Harvard draws on scholars from various fields in addition to departmental social scientists in order to create an academic organization which competently can tackle a task as complicated as the exploration of Russian political culture. And the experiment has been remarkably successful. Every one of the studies published hitherto is respectable. And some of them, as the Documentary History of Chinese Communism (by [Conrad] Brandt, [Benjamin] Schwartz, and [John K.] Fairbank), are of inestimable value in presenting critically edited materials. Still, there seems to be a limiting factor even in this successful enterprise, as far as one can judge it at all considering that it has run for only five years. While the series of studies is highly respectable, none of them is marked by the broad background knowledge, the grasp on the essentials of Russian intellectual history, that distinguishes the works of [Charles] Quénet (Lettres Philosophiques de Pierre Tchaadaev, 1937),6 of [Alexander von] Schelting (Russland und Europa [im russischen Geschichtsdenken], 1948), or even of the liberal, somewhat pinko, theologian [Fritz] Lieb in Basel (Russland Unterwegs[: Der russische Mensch zwishen Christentum und Kommunismus], 1945). None of the studies of the Russian Research Center, valuable as this accumulation of materials is in other respects, 6. This work is listed in the Union Catalogue (Great Britain) as Tchaadaev et les “letters philosophiques”: Contribution à l’étude du mouvement des idées en Russie, 1931.
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has advanced our critical understanding of Russia to the same degree as any of the aforementioned studies or a number of others that could be added to the list. As I said, it is too early to pass judgment on an enterprise of so recent origin. Nevertheless, it seems as if wealth and organization were no substitute for the “free enterprise” of personal scholarship. The trend which appears in the Russian Research Center is healthy, but the reunion of the social sciences with basic sciences must be carried beyond external organization into personal achievement. And that is long and slow work for a generation or two. This is all the advice I can tender in this matter. And now let me say a word about the role of the Congressional Committee, of which you are a Research Consultant. From the outline of the problem which I have presented, I can only arrive at the conclusion that the Committee can do nothing at all. It can study the situation, it can clarify it, it can attract public attention to it, it can by its existence be a warning signal to the profession that time is running out for ideological nonsense, and thereby accelerate a reform process which is under way already—but that is all. Certainly nothing can be done by molesting the foundations. They have not caused the deplorable situation, and where possibly they have acted unwisely they have succumbed to the unwisdom of a profession which they tried honestly to support. And let me remark incidentally that one of the greatest sinners in sponsoring silly research is today the Federal Government—I have become aware of some projects sponsored by the Navy that are hair-raising. The house-cleaning, which is urgently needed, must start from within the universities. The foundations can do no more than lend a helping hand to leadership where it appears, and use some discrimination in the awarding of grants so that scholars will be strengthened in their influence in academic life rather than ideologues. Nobody, and least of all a Congressional Committee, can “do” something about a situation which has its profound origins in the crisis of Western Civilization.
2. Enclosure with Letter 68 Copy of Letter Written by Eric Voegelin to the Guggenheim Foundation in Support of Robert B. Heilman’s Application. It is a somewhat delicate task to answer your request for a critical appraisal of Professor Robert B. Heilman’s abilities, because any elaboration of the theme would imply that praise is necessary—and that implication, in the case of one of the foremost American literary critics, would make me look a bit ludicrous. Moreover, Bob Heilman is one of the very few real friends I have found in this
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country—and this friendship is based on common endeavor over the years, on the development of parallel methods in our respective fields of science. Hence, my critical appraisal must praise him for doing the work in history of literature that I myself would do, if that happened to be the field of my choice. With these provisoes, let me say the following: Heilman has broken out of the prevalent positivism and historicism in the treatment of works of art. He has created, and successfully applied—in his books on Lear and Othello—the methods for interpreting a work of literature as a symbolism which expresses verities about human existence. Of special interest in this respect is H’s theory of the “parts” of a tragedy—these “parts” being, not only the scenes of the drama, but also the recurrent language symbols, the dramatis personae, their actions and modes of speech. All of these “Parts” are essential instruments for expressing the meaning intended by the poet. By using these methods, H. has developed the understanding of recurrent symbols in tragedy—such as the symbolism of “blindness” and “seeing” in Sophocles and Shakespeare (in his Lear); while in his Othello he has given a masterful exposition of Shakespeare’s art in measuring the whole gamut of human order from spirit and salvation to passionate defilement and cons[p]iratorial destruction. In this second work, H. has taken special care to draw the parallels between Shakespeare’s study of order and disorder and contemporary phenomena, so that Magic in the Web is as much a criticism of contemporary society as it is a study of Shakespeare. About the project, the “Changing Structure of Tragedy from Shakespeare to Lillo,” I cannot say much in detail, because I do not know enough about the materials in question. From the description it looks like a study of the disintegration of tragedy as a literary form. And that line of investigation would dovetail with the problems raised by [Erich] Auerbach’s Mimesis—a line that has not yet been pursued in America, as far as I know. That alone would be a considerable achievement; but anyway, if H. proposes the study, one can rest assured on the basis of his past achievement, that the problem will be an important one. Let me conclude by saying, that it would be difficult, in my opinion, to find a man whose work is more worthy of support by the Guggenheim Foundation than Heilman.
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3. Enclosure with Letter 115 Donald E. Stanford to Robert B. Heilman September 20, 1969 Dear Bob: Thanks for sending me the Voegelin piece on Turn of the Screw. I am planning to accept this fascinating document. As you can see from the thermofax copy of Voegelin’s letter of August 18 he has given prior approval. However, before writing to him I want to exchange an idea with you. I think the MS should be published just as it is, entitled “On The Turn of the Screw: A Letter to Robert Heilman” by Eric Voegelin and dated November 13, 1947. It is both a literary and historical document. It gives us the response, the initial response, of an important mind (Voegelin’s) to another important mind (James’s). And I think it would be appropriate for you to write a preliminary statement, recalling the situation in which the letter was written, and making any updated remarks you want to on the content of Voegelin’s interpretation and the present critical situation with regard to The Turn of the Screw. Perhaps Voegelin would also like to make some preliminary remarks. Perhaps you could mention to Voegelin that you sent me the Letter, that I want to publish it, and add my suggestions about the preliminary statement. Payment would be five cents a word (our maximum rate, not very often employed) on acceptance for Voegelin’s Letter and also any preliminary statement or statements. How does all this strike you? Favorably I hope. Please let me know soon. Sincerely Donald E. Stanford
7. Heilman Papers, accession 1000–2–71–16. A series of letters passed among Professors Heilman, Voegelin, and Donald E. Stanford concerning publication of Voegelin’s letter to Heilman. In the Voegelin Papers (box 36, file 34), a series of letters between Stanford and Voegelin culminates with an exchange of letters in which they continue a discussion of literary criticism that began with a visit by the Stanfords to the Voegelins in California. The discussion in these latter letters centers around two poems by Wallace Stevens and brief summative comments on Eliot’s Four Quartets.
Selected Enclosures in Various Letters
4. Enclosure with Letter 129 Eric Voegelin to Robert B. Heilman Excerpt from Outline. “Reason as Governor of the Passions: The Classical Tradition.”8 V. Reason—Diagnostic Instrument (3) The Newspeak of the Self a. Existential Moods Optimism (1759) Pessimism (1794) Nihilism (1817) Ego (1824) Egoism (1785) Egomania(1825) Altruism (1853) Megalomania (1890) b. Reality as Fundamentalist Belief Liberalism (cca. 1820) Conservatism (1835) Socialism (1839) Communism (1843) Positivism (1854) Capitalism (1854) < Humanism (1812) Fundamentalism (1923) Modernism (1737) (1907) Pluralism (1818; 1887???)> c. Self-Compounds Self-conscious (1697) Self-control (1711) Self-restraint (1775) Self-assertion (1806) Self-reliance (1837) Self-culture (1847) Self-repression (1870) Self-realization (1876) Self-expression (1892)
8. Voegelin Papers, box 77, file 8.
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5. Handwritten note sandwiched between pages of Letter 139 Robert B. Heilman to Eric Voegelin C. Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (short title) Sc. Vi, the first few lines, F. tends to “repent” of his bargain “When I behold the heavens.” M. replies with a seductive humanism: But think’st thou heaven is such a glorious thing? I tell thee, Faustus, it is not half so fair As thou or any man that breathes on earth.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ’Twas made for man; then he’s more excellent. [in some edd., made into Act II, Scene ii]
cf. also Sc. Iii, 38ff (in some edd., Act I, Sc. Iii, 35ff ), in which F. summons up M., reveals his own humanist arrogance, and hears (but disregards) some homely [?] truths from M.
6. Enclosures with Letter 147 Eric Voegelin to Robert B. Heilman Empfangen Sie, bitte, meinen herzlichsten Dank für die besondere Liebenswürdigkeit, Ihren Namen der Tabula Gratulatoria für die Festschrift anzuschliessen.
Please, accept my affectionate thanks for your personal kindness in having your name included in the Tabula Gratulatoria of the Festschrift.
<Eric Voegelin> [A Xeroxed copy of “Eric Voegelin at Eighty” by Gerhart Niemeyer, National Review, December 31, 1980.]
9. While Heilman claims to be sending a passage from Tamburlaine, he actually sends a passage from Faustus with no explanation. The letter from Gene Webb that Heilman apparently enclosed was not found in either the Heilman file (Voegelin Papers, box 17, folder 9) or the Eugene Webb file (Voegelin Papers, box 41, folder 5).
INDEX
Aeschylus, 86, 158; Eumenides, 87; Prometheus, 86, 87; Suppliants, 86 Agee, James, 88 Albright, William Foxwell, 316 Allegory: pre-realist, 235 Altdorfer, Albrecht, 177 Altizer, Thomas J. J.: Voegelin’s “debate” with, mentioned, 238, 246 Analogia entis, 189; Thomistic, 105 Anamnesis. Zur Theorie der Geschichte und Politik (Voegelin), 12, 223, 225, 241, 242 Anderson, Quentin: The Imperial Self, 262 Aquinas, Thomas, 195, 317 Aristophanes: Frogs, 86 Aristotle, 82, 137, 158, 227, 259, 316, 318; and homonoia (like-mindedness), 2; and human nature, 105; method of (memory and comparison), 316; and methods of social sciences, 316; Poetics of, 83, 89, 210; and Thomas Reid, 259; and tragedy (Voegelin on), 89, 158 Aron, Raymond, 193, 265 Arrowsmith, William, 286 Auden, W. H., 88 Auerbach, Erich, 321 Augustine, Saint, 105, 137 Avineri, Shlomo, 265 Baader, Franz Xavier von, 111, 157 Babbitt, Irving, 87 Balthasar, Hans von Urs: Theology of History, 92 Barraclough, Geoffrey, 267 Barth, Karl, 92, 143 Being: consubstantiality of all, 16, 152; dialectics of, 111; divine, 110, 111; essential movements of, 225; in flux, 223, 224; and Homeric characters, 129; leap in, 187; meaning of, 16, 152; mode of, 102; transcendent, 147, 186; truth of, 87 Berdiaev, Nicholas, 318
Bergier, Jacques, and Louis Pauwels: The Dawn of Magic, 273, 276 Bergson, Henri, 318 Berkeley, George, 122, 259 Berns, Walter, 193 Berrigans, Daniel and Philip, 263 Bios theoretikos, 105, 195 Blake, William, 108; bibliography on, 25–26 Bloch, Ernst, 222 Bochenski, Joseph M., 208 Bosch, Hieronymous, 236 Brandon, Samuel George Frederick, 244 Brandt, Conrad, Benjamin Schwartz, and John K. Fairbank: Documentary History of Chinese Communism, 319 Brecht, Bertolt: and Max Frisch, 234, 235; Mother Courage, 192; and obsessive language, 234; relation to Friedrich Dürrenmatt, 230 Brinton, Crane, 30 Broch, Hermann: Death of Vergil, 168 Bronson, Bertrand Harris, 218 Brooks, Cleanth, 4, 24, 26, 29, 57, 58, 59, 141, 272 Bruce, Frederick Fyvie, 244 Brunner, Otto, 192 Buckley, William F., 141 Bultmann, Rudolf Karl, 202 Burgess, Anthony: The Clockwork Orange, 273 Burgess, John William, 316 Burke, Edmund: Reflections on the Revolution in France, 259; and understatement, 259, 260 Burlesque: and distortion of reality, 233; and the grotesque, 233, 236 Butler, Rohan d’Olier, 30 Camus, Albert, 115 Carnap, Rudolf, 115 Chadwick, John, 170
325
326 Chambers, Raymond Wilson, 65 “Chicago School” (of Aristotelians), 20, 159, 275. See also Neo-Aristotelians Christianity, 111, 189, 194, 233; Dostoevsky’s, 100; problems of, 126, 169 Civilization(s): cosmological, 223; inferior, 160, 163; Mycenean, 127, 134n21; Western, 91, 120 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor: Kubla Khan, 103–4; and Plato, 103 Comedy: and melodrama, 85; and tragedy, as basic literary types, 84–85. See also Melodrama; Tragedy Communism, 22, 66, 164, 166, 208, 306, 312, 319, 323. See also Marxism Community: cooperative, among men, 2, 194; disintegration of, 263; of the psyche, 20, 158 Comte, Auguste, 228 Confucius, 105 Conrad, Joseph, 95n60, 103; Nigger of Narcissus, 263; Under Western Eyes, 103 Conscience: complex of consciousnessconscience-virtue, 40; and Homer, 98–99; and responsible ego, 42–43 Consciousness: Aristotelian exegesis of, 242; in closed existence, 257; cognitive direction of, 281; concrete, 16n24; dogmatic formulations of, 242; and intentionality, 281; meditative exploration of, 242; of open existence, 257–58; philosophical, 16, 152; and philosophy, 241–42; Voegelin’s philosophy of, 241–43 passim Conservatism, 323 Conservatives: Voegelin on, 142–43; 208 Cosmos: and Time of the Tale, 223; in comedy, 85 Cowley, Malcolm, 3, 4n6 Cromwell, Oliver, 55 Cross, Frank Moore, 226 Dante, 108 de Gaulle, Charles, 241 de Jouvenel, Bertrand, 193 Demosthenes, 316 Dempf, Alois, 83, 92, 137, 180; Critique of Historical Reason, 173 Descartes, René, 111, 242 Deutero-Isaiah, 169, 190 Dewey, John: Human Nature and Conduct, 259 Dialogue: as form of art, 82; great, in history, 19, 20, 157, 158; meditative, 223; Platonic, 153, 190
Index Diderot, Denis, 225; Rameau’s Nephew, 221 Doderer, Heimito von: The Demons, 168; and portrayal of obsession as burlesque, 233; and “second reality,” 168–69. See also Dürrenmatt, Friedrich; Frisch, Max Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 27, 35, 225, 232–33; Brothers Karamazov, The, 77; Gambler, The, 225; Idiot, The, 100; Notes from the Underground, 225; Possessed, The (Demons), 233, 235 Drama: cosmic, 52; Expressionist, 235; forms of, 84–85, 86; language body of, 31; novels and, 233; symbolism of characters in, 234 Drama of Humanity (Voegelin lectures/writings), 244, 267, 268 DuBrul, Stephen M., Jr., 231–32, 237 Dulles, John Foster, 66 Dunning, William Archibald, 316 Dürer, Albrecht, 177 Durkheim, Emile, 315, 317 Dürrenmatt, Friedrich: expressionism of, 230, 235; and new influx of reality, 234; and portrayal of obsession, 233; “Problems of the Theatre,” quoted, 236. See also Doderer, Heimito von; Frisch, Max Ecumenic Age, The (Order and History, vol. 4), 7, 13, 273, 275; Heilman’s response to, 277–80 Eliot, George: Adam Bede, 123 Eliot, T. S., 286; Cocktail Party, 108, 129n18; Family Reunion, 108; Sacred Wood, 108; “The Waste Land,” 257 Empire and Christianity (Voegelin), 147, 170 English (language, usage, style), 1, 7, 8, 10, 21, 23, 252–53, 286; and philosophical language, 110–11, 281 English, Louisiana State University Department of, 4, 29n3 English, University of Washington Department of, 4n6, 114n6, 250 Enlightenment: fundamentalism of, 189 Erasmus, Desiderius, 65, 71 Eroticism: in The Turn of the Screw, 49. See also Love; Passion; Sex Euripides: Alcestis, 9, 126, 128–29, 132 Evil: Voegelin on forces of good and, in The Turn of the Screw, 40–52 passim. See also Good Fairbank, John K., 319 Faith: Hebrews 11:1, 105; and hope and love, 105, 281
Index Faulkner, William: Hamlet, The, 70; Heilman on, 70; Lissy Voegelin on, 169; Voegelin on, 65; Warren’s article on, 65; Wild Palms, The, 70–71 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 259 Finley, Moses I., 315 Flaubert, Gustav, 235; Tentation de Saint Antoine, 233 Form(s): of the aphorism, 242; appropriate literary, 153; appropriate symbolic, 16; connection of content and form, 104; and content, 223; differentiated, 223, 224; Heilman’s classification of dramatic, 86; literary, of the Gospels, 183; of myth, 223; new literary, in philosophy, 12, 241; poetical, 104; specifically human, of literature, 223; and spirit, 39; of the via negativa, 242; Voegelin’s classification of symbolic, 183 Frankfort, Henri: Kingship and the Gods, 315 Frankfort, Henri, et al.: Before Philosophy: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man, 315 Frankfort, Mrs. H. A., 315 Freud, Sigmund, 260 Friedrich, Carl Joachim, 134 Frisch, Max, 230, 232, 233, 235; Firebugs, 249; new influx of reality in, 234. See also Doderer, Heimito von; Dürrenmatt, Friedrich Frye, Northrop: and alchemy, 273; Anatomy of Criticism, quoted, 276 George, Stefan, 30 Gigon, Olof Alfred, 92 Gnosis, 100, 188, 222, 265; in literature, 120; movement from philosophy to, 247; problem of, 232; Voegelin’s search for materials on, 144 Gnosticism, 277, 265; and the grotesque, 233; and revolt against God, 158 God: and Baader’s Cogitor ergo sum, 111; of governmental order (Jupiter), 35; intellectuals and, 189; of Light (Apollo), 35; measure of man is, 20, 158; revolt against, 20, 158, 233; symbolism of, 111; Thomas Mann and, 77; in Turn of the Screw, 41–43 passim Gods, goddesses: as creations of humans, 102, 186, 189; and evil, 123; Homeric, 98; human seeking of, 270; in King Lear, 34, 35; as symbols that articulate transcendence, 189; there are no, 132, 186, 189; and the unconscious, 93 Goethe, Johan Wolfgang von, 5; Shakespeare und kein Ende, quoted, 36–37, 104
327 Gogol, Nicolai, 236 Good, 65; forces of, and evil, 40, 41, 42, 52; love of the, 2. See also Evil Goodenough, Erwin Ramsdell, 316 Gospels: literary form of, 183; and Western spirituality, 183, 190 Grene, David, 315–16 Grotesque, the: and Gnostic symbolism, 233; and obsessive language, 236; as understood by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, 236; uses of, in literature, 236 Guardini, Romano: Der Herr (The Lord), 169 Guérard, Albert J., 95, 123 Haberler, Gottfried, 62 Hadas, Moses, 189 Hardy, Thomas, 95, 123; “On an Invitation to the United States” (poem), 26–27; Tess of the d’Urbervilles, 246 Hayek, Friedrich A. von, 61–62, 63, 208 Heer, Friedrich, 92 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 222, 259, 260, 270, 277, 279 Hemingway, Ernest, 65 Heraclitus, 105, 241 Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 157 Heresy: ideology and terror, 233; as instrument of imposing man-made world, 235 Herodotus, 127, 158, 280 Hesiod, 82 Historicism (historism), 163, 321; and historical relativism, 157; and history, 18, 157; in literary studies, 156, 213 Historiography: of literature, 92; and psyche of historian, 19, 157 History: Greek-Hellenic, 158, 170; of literature, 66; philosophy moves in, 242; philosophy of, 144, 222, 223; practice of literary, 155; as unfolding of the human psyche, 157 History, The [of Political Ideas] (Voegelin), 4, 5, 6, 13, 69, 82, 91, 98, 107, 307, 309 Hitler, Adolf, 29n2, 59; and Ostara fantasies, 211 “Hitler and the Germans” (Voegelin lectures), 212, 223, 225, 233 Hitlerism: in Austrian academy, 92, 96; German provincialism as matrix of, 241 Hobbes, Thomas, 226, 248, 259; Leviathan, 65; theory of politics, 194–95 Hölderlin, Friedrich: Odes, 209 Homer: and beginnings of “conscience,” 98–99; Carl J. Friedrich on Voegelin’s, 134; complicated psychology of, 93; Elizabeth de
328 Waal on Voegelin’s, 126–27; Heilman on de Waal’s reaction to Voegelin’s, 129–31; Heilman responds to Voegelin on, 123; and theory of blindness and sight, 98–99; Voegelin on characters of, 127 Hope: and experiences of transcendence, 105; of immortality, 259; as tension toward ground of existence, 281. See also Love Horney, Karen, 225 Humanism, 161, 187, 270, 323, 324; atheistic, 189; and humanity, 189; modern, 189; Thomas Mann’s, 77, 79; “true,” 189 Humanities, 105, 184, 185; “divinities,” and “physicalities,” 274; positivism in, 5; and television, 103 Human nature: always wholly present, 18–19, 157; artist and the fullness of, 210; insights of poets into (Aristotle), 210; and poet’s compact symbolism of, 15; in a time of crisis, 64; and the Victorian novel, 21, 161 Humboldt, Wilhelm von: conception of man, 243 Iceman, the Arsonist, and the Troubled Agent, The (Heilman), 12, 268 Ideology: American varieties of, 312; conservative, 142; and language, 232; and Newspeak, 232; progressive, 259; symbolism, 232; and terror, 233 Ingersoll, Robert, 228, 229 Ingersoll Lecture (Harvard), 227, 229 Israel and Revelation (Order and History, vol. 1), 13, 147, 149, 167; and amnesia of the past, 21, 161; Heilman’s response to Voegelin’s acknowledgement in, 21, 159–61 passim; Voegelin’s acknowledgment of Heilman in, 1 Jackson, Shirley: “The Lottery,” 273 Jacobsen, Thorkild, 226, 315 Jaeger, Werner, 89, 315 James, Henry, 71, 109; Princess Cassamassima, 103; and schizophrenia, 225, 256; symbols of, 258, 260; The Turn of the Screw analyzed by Voegelin, 39–52 passim; Voegelin essay for Southern Review on, 251–58 passim, 260–61 passim, 262, 263, 322; vogue, 103 James, William, 109, 227 Jaspers, Karl, 92, 193, 318 Jonas, Hans, 265 Joyce, James, 169, 197, 239; rumor of Voegelin lecture on, 251, 252; theory of static and kinetic art, 88 Jung, Carl, 185, 190
Index Kant, Immanuel, 259 Kayser, Wolfgang, 237; Das Groteske in Malerei und Dichtung, 313 Kennan, George, 199 Ketterer, David, 273, 276; New Worlds for Old: The Apocalyptic Imagination, Science Fiction, and American Literature, 276 King Lear: Heilman’s study of, 57, 63, 104, 113, 198, 321; Voegelin’s comments on Heilman’s manuscript on, 31–37. See also This Great Stage: Image and Structure in King Lear (Heilman) Kinsey, Alfred Charles, 210 Kirk, Russell, 143; and Conservative Review, 140; as reviewer of Order and History (Voegelin), 186, 189 Kraus, Karl, 53 Ladner, Gerhart B., 208 Language: ideological, 232; knowledge of, 232; Liberalspeak as obsessive, 235; and Newspeak, 235; and reality, 232 Lattimore, Richard, 61 Lawrence, D. H.: Heilman review of book on, 204; Lady Chatterly’s Lover, 209; Plumed Serpent, 209; Sons and Lovers, 209; Voegelin on, 209–11 passim Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 122 Lerner, Max, 143 Lesky, Albin, 124 Liberals, 101, 117, 132, 143, 235, 247, 268; and conservatives, 208; northwest, 124, 140. See also Conservatives Lieb, Fritz, 92; Russland Unterwegs: der russische Mensch zwishen Christentum und Kommunismus, 319 Lifton, Robert Jay, 265 Literary criticism: formalist, 102; historism in, 156; and Homer essay by Voegelin, 123; and humanism, 189; as permanent occupation of Voegelin, 142; in the United States, 65 Literature, 4n7, 19n25, 103, 165, 211, 236, 240; American, 7, 24, 126, 261; as former of reality, 205, 210; “of disaster,” 155; English, 65; as expression of human experience, 5; the grotesque and, 233; history of, 66, 321; Homer’s work as first, 98; life and, 186, 192, 197; moral status of, 205; myth and, 223; positivistic studies in, 80; Renaissance, 93, 100; symbolism and, 321; teaching, 21, 161 Locke, John, 105, 226, 259 Love, 73; and D. H. Lawrence, 211; deficiency of, 247; faith, hope, and, 105; of the Good, 2; and governess in The Turn of the Screw,
Index 51; and hate, 152; and Helen, 106; for life excessive, 128; in Othello, 97; scene and symbolism in Turn of the Screw, 49; as tension toward ground of being, 281; of true reality, 211. See also Eroticism; Sex Löwith, Karl, 222 Lubac, Henri de: Drame de l’Humanisme Athée, 189 Luther, Martin, 75 Machiavelli, Niccolo, 65, 94, 105 Magic in the Web: Action and Language in Othello (Heilman), 149, 321; Heilman’s response to Voegelin’s comments on, 153–56; Voegelin’s response to, 147, 150–53, 156–59; winner of Explicator Prize of 1956, 175. See also Othello Man: American “self-made,” 94; autonomous, in revolt against God, 233; “common,” 35; differentiated, 223, 224; Everyman, 152; God is measure of, 20, 158; little, 20, 158; mass, 153; “modern,” 152; nature of, 21–22, 105, 157, 158, 161, 259, 270; and relation to nature, 34, 95; “socialistic,” 94; and theology, 11, 111; views of, in “naturalistic” tragedy, 9, 95, 123–24, 126. See also Human nature Mann, Thomas: and the devil, 77, 79; Doctor Faustus, 77, 79; and the German disaster, 77; humanism of, 77, 79; and the picaresque (Felix Krull), 175, 186, 198, 248 Manson, Charles, 272 Marlowe, Christopher, 280 Marx, Karl, 98, 222, 259; capitalism and, 209; Heilman responds to Voegelin’s article on, 94–95; Voegelin on, 314–15 Marxism, 313–15 passim. See also Communism McLuhan, Marshall, 120 Melodrama, 85, 88, 196; complacency and, 95; disaster and conquest, 192; Heilman on, 197–98; Hobbesian psychology and, 194–95; politics as, 193–94, 197; replacing genuine drama, 194; spirituality and, 195; Voegelin on, 193–95 passim; war as, 193. See also Comedy; Tragedy Mill, John Stuart, 63, 105 Milton, John, 257 Montesi, Gotthard, 137 More, Thomas, 65, 71, 75, 101 Musil, Robert: The Man without Qualities, 168; and problem of “second reality,” 168 Myth, 51–52, 155; Coleridge, Plato, and, 75–76; and language symbols, 151; and metaphysical speculation, 82; new philosophy of, 189;
329 poetry, truth, and, 170; political, 126; “Shakespeare,” 213; as symbol of human existence, 76; and Time of the Tale, 223 Myth, History, and Philosophy (Voegelin), 122 National Socialism (Nazism), 96, 241. See also Hitlerism Neo-Aristotelians (at University of Chicago), 17, 141, 154. See also “Chicago School” New Criticism, and “old historicism,” 213 New Critics, 102 New Science of Politics, The (Voegelin), 107, 307, 308; Heilman acknowledges receipt of, 112; reprint planned, 122; Voegelin comments on reviewers of, 136–37 Newton, Isaac, 122 Niebuhr, Helmut Richard, 318 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 143, 318 Niemeyer, Gerhart, 202, 324 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 30, 222; and demonically closed human will, 52 O’Connor, Flannery, 264, 266 Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 199; and the University of Washington, 3, 4n6 Order and History, 13, 170, 173, 174, 177, 190, 231; Heilman comments on, 185–86; last volume of (In Search of Order), mentioned, 244; and theoretical problems, 241; two additional volumes planned, 267, 268; Voegelin responds to Heilman’s editing of chapter 1, 10, 110–11; vol. 1 received by Heilman, 159; vol. 4, mentioned, 147, 169, 170, 202, 209, 212, 214 Order and Symbols (Voegelin), 122 Orwell, George: and symbolism of Newspeak, 232 Othello: and cholos of Achilles, 126; Heilman’s study of, mentioned, 104, 113, 119, 141, 143, 146, 147, 321. See also Magic in the Web: Action and Language in Othello (Heilman) Pacher, [Michael or Friedrich], 177 Pareto, Vilfredo, 316 Pascal, Blaise: Pensées, 225, 266; Provincial Letters, 225 Passion: and excellence, 102, 195; life of, 194–95; psychology of, 194; the seer’s, 160; and spirit, 195; in The Turn of the Screw, 51. See also Eroticism; Love; Sex Philia politike (political friendship), 2, 194 Philosophical anthropology: Lear, a study in, 64; and literary criticism, 15; problems of, 105. See also Human nature
330 Philosophy, 16, 18, 153, 157, 158, 189, 211, 232, 247, 314, 316, 319; “common sense,” 259; of consciousness, 241–43; English, 259–60; of existence, 208; at Harvard, 227, 229; history of, 11, 111; of history, 144, 222, 223; of language, 10, 110, 223, 232; of myth and revelation, 189; new literary form in, 12, 241; political, 136–37, 265, 313 Pinter, Harold: Birthday Party, 249 Pirandello, Luigi: Right You Are If You Think So, 237 Plato, 35, 82, 84, 105, 108, 111, 137, 157, 158, 227, 279, 316, 317; Coleridge and, 75–76; Heilman’s response to Voegelin on, 37–38; interpreted as fascist, 151; Ion, 75; Laws, 37, 38; and meditative dialogue, 223; Phaedo, 75; Republic, 38; sense of tragedy in, 89; and tension of existence, 281; and theology, 110; Timaios, 34; and twentieth-century way of life, 38; Werner Jaeger on, 89 Plotinus, 243 Political Science, 65, 151, 157, 226 Political theory, 30, 226 Politics, 227, 314; academic, 212; classical (Aristotelian) conception of, 194; Gnostic, 100; and immortality, 228; intellectual, 189; as melodrama, 193–94, 197; philosophy of, 265; science of, 137; as struggle for power, 194–95, 278; theoretical, 91 Polybius, 279 Pomponazzi, Pietro, 65 Praz, Mario: The Romantic Agony, 235 Pritchard, James Bennett: Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 316 Proust, Marcel, 169, 224; and time, 223 Pseudo–Dionysius Aeropagita: and Voegelin’s meditative form, 243 Quénet, Charles: Lettres Philosophiques de Pierre Tchaadaev, 319 Quispel, Gilles, 222, 226 Ransom, John, 247 Reality: as actualized nature, 210; appearance of, 152; attitude toward, 197; constructed and true, 211; and D. H. Lawrence, 211; deformation/destruction of, 233, 234, 236, 257; demonic, 87; genuine love of, 211; Homeric, 130; and language, 223; and literary artist, 210; literature constitutes, 210; new influx of, in Friedrich Dürrenmatt and Max Frisch, 234; omission of parts of, 248; and problem of “second reality,” 168–69; as
Index state of potentiality, 210; symbolic apprehension of, 140; whole of, 235 Reid, Thomas, 259 Religion, 132, 133; among intellectuals, 88; ersatz, 247, 248; humanism tinged by, 77 Rijn, Rembrandt van, 177 “Role We Give Shakespeare, The” (Heilman lecture), 213, 214, 217, 219 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 226, 317 Rubens, Peter Paul, 177 Russell, David Syme, 244 Salin, Edgar, 92 Santayana, George, 30 Sartre, Jean-Paul: and Camus 115; Huit Clos, 257; vanitas of, 233 Scheler, Max, 316 Schelling, Wilhelm Joseph von, 111, 157, 259 Schelting, Alexander von: Russland und Europa im russischen Geschichtsdenken, 319 Science, Politics, and Gnosticism (Voegelin), 247 Schlick, Moritz, 115 Schmitt, Carl, 137; and his conception of politics, 194 Schwartz, Benjamin, 319 Science (natural): and the antitheological tradition, 124; and power, 123 Science (philosophical), 22, 58–59, 156, 164, 309, 310; as an Aristotelian virtue, 105; condition of, 151; cooperation in, 150; freedom of, 74, 309; ideology and destruction of, 312; inventions of sciences by man, 102; Wilhelm von Humboldt’s, 243 Science (political), 157, 177; conventional treatment of Thomas More in, 65; need to rebuild, 226 Science (social): foundation policies toward, 306; positivism and historicism in, 5; positivist ideologues in, 310; quantitative research in, 307; Voegelin’s analysis of the state of the social sciences, 308–20 Scientism: “The Origins of Scientism” (Voegelin), 74, 79, 122, 124 Sebba, Gregor, 238, 240, 246 Second reality, 168–69. See also Reality Sex, 209, 248; Kinsey and, 210; orgies and LSD, 272. See also Eroticism; Love Sextus Empiricus, 259 Shakespeare, William, 104, 151, 270, 275; Anthony and Cleopatra, mentioned, 37; on blindness and sight, 321; Coriolanus, mentioned, 37; and Elizabethan habits of mind,
Index 161; Goethe on, quoted, 36–37; greatness of, 161; Julius Caesar, mentioned, 37; and “modern man,” 152; on nature and astrology, 34; and Plato on man, 157; role given to, 10, 222 “Shakespeare and Politics” (Heilman lecture), 284 “Shakespeare 400” (lecture series), 213 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 247 Shils, Edward Albert, 186 Socrates, 86, 153, 170 Soul: as component of human nature, 16, 152; conflict within the, 84; demonically closed, 41, 254; fate of, 88; and human order, 87; and immortality, 281; order of the, 87; spiritual transfigurations of a, 16, 152; symbolized as the governess in The Turn of the Screw, 41–52 passim; “vanity” of the, 254 Spengler, Oswald, 209 Spirit, 108, 321; capacity for acting as, 102, 105; excellence and true, 195; form and, 34; law of the, 38; life of the (bios theoretikos), 105, 195; mind and, 17, 154; passion and, 195; polis and, 39; problems of the, 194; quality of, 36; true role of, 169; of the world, 37 “State and History” (Voegelin lectures), 123 Stendahl, Krister, 226 Swift, Jonathan, 287; Gulliver’s Travels, 85, 86, 89, 246 Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 108 Symbol(s): Classic and Christian, 111; cloudiness of, 257; of contracted existence, 266; experience and, 16, 152; “fuzziness” in, 260; ideological, 142–43; inconclusiveness in James’s, 257; Joachitic, 248; and language, 15, 151; opaque, 242; pattern of, 40; and rationality, 151; sight, 31–32; and transcendence, 189; in The Turn of the Screw, 51–52; of “understatement” and “gentility,” 260; word, 32 Symbolism: of ancient gnosis, 222; of blindness and sight, 321; and characters in drama, 234; Gnostic, 232, 233, 235; of the God who becomes man, 111; of man-animal, 287; of Newspeak, 232; and progressive ideology, 259; sensual, 31; for transcendent meaning, 31; in The Turn of the Screw, 49, 51 Symbolization(s): compact, 15; complex/spectrum of, 258; and forces of the soul, 87; modes of, 257; and tensions in the Puritan soul, 40; of transcendental reality, 171 Tate, Allen, 65 Tension(s): Heilman questions Voegelin’s use
331 of, 11, 270, 278; between potentiality and actuality, 259; of the psyche in depth, 241; of the soul toward the divine ground, 242; Voegelin’s response to Heilman’s reservations, 11, 281 Theology, 315, 316; and attunement to divine being, 10, 110; Bultmann’s, 202; and man, 10, 110–11; Protestant, 203 This Great Stage: Image and Structure in King Lear (Heilman), 5, 38, 57, 63, 104, 113, 116; Voegelin’s comments on, 63. See also King Lear Thomas Aquinas, 195, 317 Thucydides, 316 Tillich, Paul, 227 Time of the Tale, 223 Toynbee, Arnold J., 237, 240, 318 Tragedy: Aeschylean, 86–87, 89; Aristotle and, 83, 89, 158; and catharsis, 87–88, 89, 192; and death, 126; and disaster, 192, 195, 197–98; and excellence, 198; and happy endings, 85, 86; Heilman’s study of, and melodrama, 186, 188, 192, 195, 197, 205, 239, 244; Heilman’s theory of “parts” in, 16, 152, 321; as literary genus, 16, 152; and milieu, 86, 153; modern variant of, 16, 152–53, 155; naturalistic, 9, 95, 126; Platonic sense of, 89; Shakespearean, 151; structure of, 84, 146; Voegelin’s study of, mentioned, 86, 97. See also Comedy; Melodrama; Tragedy and Melodrama Tragedy and Melodrama (Heilman), 12, 230, 246, 248, 264, 268 Transcendence: articulation of, 189; experiences of, 105 Trilling, Lionel, 65, 231 Unamuno, Miguel: Nivola, 77 Valéry, Paul, 116, 169, 185, 190; Voegelin’s translation of Semiramis, 116, 118 Ventris, Michael, 170 Viereck, Peter Robert Edwin, 197 Vivas, Eliseo, 204, 209, 210, 239 Warren, Robert Penn, 65, 70, 291 Ways of the World, The (Heilman), 12 Webb, Eugene, 8, 280, 281, 287, 288 Weber, Max, 217, 316 Wedekind, Frank, 209 Whitehead, Alfred North, 266 Wilkerson, Marcus M., 99 Willen, Gerald, 261
332 Williams, Preston N., 226 Williams, Tennessee, 230–31 Wilson, Edmund, 123, 168 Wilson, John A.: Burden of Egypt, 315 Wimsatt, William K., 141 Winternitz, Emanuel, 193 Wittfogel, Karl August, 208 Wolfson, Harry Austryn, 316
Index Xenophanes, 189 Zabel, Morton, 217 Zaehner, R. C., 272 Zen Buddhism, 272
