Goethe, Nietzsche, and Wagner: Their Spinozan Epics of Love and Power (2006)
In Goethe, Nietzsche, and Wagner: Their Spinozan Epics of Love and Power, T. K. Seung develops his novel theory of Spinozan epics as first presented in Nietzsche’s Epic of the Soul. In the latter book he systematically examines Nietzsche’s text, defining its thematic content as an epic of the soul. He substantiates the theory with historical knowledge of main currents and undercurrents in European philosophy and literature, identifying the Faustian themes in Nietzsche’s epic and associating it with Spinozan naturalism.
In a comparative examination of the thematic content of Goethe’s Faust, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, and Wagner’s Ring, Seung elucidates how the understanding of Spinoza’s pantheistic naturalism, its inspirational background and influences on European philosophy and literature, is indispensable for the understanding of the development and conditions of modern times. The book is the culmination of a life long study of the Faustian roots of Western culture. The first step was taken in his study of Dante’s Divina Commedia as an epic of the Trinity as presented in The Fragile Leaves of the Sibyl: Dante’s Master Plan (1962). In Cultural Thematics: The Formation of the Faustian Ethos (1976), he showed how the 13th and 14th centuries, in European philosophy and literature, constitute the formative period in the transition of the medieval outlook of Dante’s epic to the Faustian view of the Renaissance. The theory was further substantiated in Semiotics and Thematics in Hermeneutics (1982) and Intuition and Construction: The Foundation Normative Theory (1993). Now, with his book on the Spinozan epics, Seung brings further clarity to the complex development and conditions of modern times.
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