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Post by spiderlime on Feb 5, 2016 11:33:42 GMT -5
if this question appeared in the old forum i must have missed it.
anyhow, my question is: which philosopher or system of ideas from philosophy did howard acknowledge as influential in his work? i assume that the most notable would be that of Nietzsche, or at least so it seems to me as a reader. does howard's conception of man's fate of ultimate doom, his views on civilization etc. also owe something to any philosophical teaching?
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Post by neilnv2 on Aug 31, 2016 9:52:40 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Aug 31, 2016 10:18:28 GMT -5
Despite all of the obsessing by people about REH and Nietzsche, Howard only wrote one partial sentence about the man and there were no books by Friedrich in REH's possession. REH to Tevis Clyde Smith, ca. 20 February 1928 [SL 1 #10]: "Nietzsche never untwined the human from the cosmic..."The REH Bookshelf: web.archive.org/web/20051223144402/http://www.rehupa.com/bookshelf.htm
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Post by neilnv2 on Sept 1, 2016 7:42:18 GMT -5
I added a couple of links to "Nietzsche", btw.
There are a couple of connections I see. One is "poetry" vs "law". One is simple, one is very complicated. In "By This Axe I Rule" Kull breaks the law because he is king.
We follow "laws" of nature but (as Alan Moore seems to say in "Blood From the Shoulder of Pallas") the poetry disappears.
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Post by bobbyderie on Sept 1, 2016 10:29:17 GMT -5
Despite all of the obsessing by people about REH and Nietzsche, Howard only wrote one partial sentence about the man and there were no books by Friedrich in REH's possession. Well, two - “Drive them off the main deck or die in the attempt. If you miss me off the poop deck I will be in the cabin reading Nietzsche.” (CL2.36) - though that was part of his parodies; and there is an indirect reference in CL2.137: " I do not believe nor do I have any faith in the eventual super-man." - I rather suspect that Howard had read Lovecraft's essay "Nietzscheism and Realism" but I'm not certain of it.
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Post by neilnv2 on Sept 2, 2016 7:43:30 GMT -5
On the last one: Appearance is Apollo Realism is Dionysus Together it's possible to have poetry. As I see it, laws are urban while realism is more rural. Seasons are rural. Laws are useful but realism can just completely overwhelm them with brute force. This happens in the really bloody The Bacchae by Euripides. REH would have approved of that I believe.
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Post by deuce on Sept 10, 2017 12:02:12 GMT -5
Despite all of the obsessing by people about REH and Nietzsche, Howard only wrote one partial sentence about the man and there were no books by Friedrich in REH's possession. Well, two - “Drive them off the main deck or die in the attempt. If you miss me off the poop deck I will be in the cabin reading Nietzsche.” (CL2.36) - though that was part of his parodies; and there is an indirect reference in CL2.137: " I do not believe nor do I have any faith in the eventual super-man." - I rather suspect that Howard had read Lovecraft's essay "Nietzscheism and Realism" but I'm not certain of it. I didn't count the first instance because it was a parody and there's not much to show that any especial significance should be attached to the Nietzsche mention. I do agree that the "super-man" reference probably has something to do with Nietzsche, but he isn't directly mentioned. HPL's essay can be read here: www.scribd.com/document/121195542/Nietzscheism-and-Realism
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Post by bobbyderie on Sept 11, 2017 13:57:03 GMT -5
—Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, Dec 1930, A Means to Freedom: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard 1.112-113
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Post by neilnv2 on Sept 13, 2017 7:29:06 GMT -5
Howard may not have been a practicing classicist, but there's no denying his philosophy shows more in common with Nietzsche, to whom the tension between Dionysus and Apollo is paramount. Apollo - or social order - is never reality, and ancient shrines encrusted by gnarled vines speak of lost glories. Apollo is a vision of perfection and is nothing without the primeval urge of the unconscious, animal state of being.
That's putting Nietzsche in a very Howardian setting of lost cities and the untamed barbarian. Nietzsche was a classicist, but he thought the classical moment was already over when Dionysus, the god of countryside revelry and gay pursuits, was no longer ingrained in the unconscious spirit (about the time of Euripides), and empty Apollonian pursuits of social civil life dominated (ring any bells?)
Dionysus may be gay, but his frolicsome ways depend on the dark goddesses of degeneration and renewal. Of Artemis of the moon, Diana of the hunt and the moon, Proserpine of the underworld and of spring (Ceres). This attitude of death and renewal is the opposite of Apollo. Where I think there is a connection is that Apollo is actually emptiness, and classicism needs the lustiness of Dionysus. The pillars and pediments of our civilization are not the truth. The truth has a melancholy aspect. But melancholy also speaks of spring and revival. There is no true gaiety without darkness, only emptiness.
PS I'm aware of certain complaints my comments are too broadly based. Any other comments are now in "Crusty Curmudgeon". From a classical perspective, you have to know your Nietzsche as he was quite extreme. Ontology or "being" is what we are, which is the unconscious (spirit). Ancient societies such as the Scythians elevated the spirit world of supernatural beings during life.
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