EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
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C O U R S E
The Great War and Modern Philosophy
Nicolas de Warren, KU Leuven University
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C O U R S E L E C T U R E Hodgson and Reinach on Foreboding Notes taken on November 21, 2016 by Edward Tanguay |
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British 18 and 19-year-old men found themselves in a foreign land for the first time
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German fathers found themselves in France which they had once visited as a student
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they stood in trenches waiting for the shrill whistle that ordered them over the top
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the saw little of the enemy
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only the crash of artillery
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the murmur of those around them waiting as they were to die
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William Noel Hodgson (1893-1916)
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"Before Action"
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By all the glories of the day
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And the cool evening's benison
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By that last sunset touch that lay
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Upon the hills when day was done,
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By beauty lavishly outpoured
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And blessings carelessly received,
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By all the days that I have lived
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Make me a soldier, Lord.
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By all of all man's hopes and fears
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And all the wonders poets sing,
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The laughter of unclouded years,
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And every sad and lovely thing;
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By the romantic ages stored
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With high endeavour that was his,
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By all his mad catastrophes
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Make me a man, O Lord.
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I, that on my familiar hill
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Saw with uncomprehending eyes
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A hundred of thy sunsets spill
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Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,
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Ere the sun swings his noonday sword
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Must say good-bye to all of this; –
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By all delights that I shall miss,
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Help me to die, O Lord.
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articulated the sense that he was about to die
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each of the three stanzas ends with an evocation to the Lord
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"Make me a man, O Lord"
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"Make me a soldier, O Lord"
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"Help me to die, O Lord"
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the form of the poem is that of a prayer
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the construction of its meter is that of a hymn
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the author is a man praying to God to prepare him for his future, which will be his imminent death
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first stanza
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attempts to draw strength
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celebrates splendor and beauty of nature
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reflects on his own life as a gift, which is in its final hours
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a sense of deep gratitude
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the image of the sunset
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irradiates the countryside
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the countryside and nature is something like a gift of God
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second stanza
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a shift from nature to man
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a shift from a man being a poet to being a soldier
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confronts himself as a man in his mortality
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third stanza
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themes of first and second stanza are brought together
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evokes the classical image of the sunset
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associates the sunset with a moment of saying goodbye and saying farewell
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equally stressed is the sense of his own sacrifice
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ends with a sense of melancholy
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gives the poem a sense of mourning, a mourning for a death
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Hodgson died two days after writing this poem
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gave voice and expression to the experience of foreboding
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preparing oneself for death
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a widespread phenomenon among soldiers of the First World War
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Adolf Reinach (1883-1917)
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discussed in philosophical terms the premonition that soldiers have when they are about to die
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Vorahnung
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the anticipation that one will die
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he discussed this with his comrades
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explains it away as a kind of rational calculation
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a kind of reasonableness
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phenomenological analysis of foreboding
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seen through the concept of intentionality
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a form of consciousness that has both an object, and it is also a certain distinctive kind of relating to that object
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rejects the knowing that is in foreboding as knowledge such as 1+1=2, or that it is going to rain
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it is more of an emotion, a kind of fear or joy
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yet it is original
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something about one's own future is revealed
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yet I have no certainty in knowing about that future
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it is the uncertainty that makes me afraid, but also not without a sense of wonder and mystery