Volume 3: Kierkegaard and the Roman World

Jon Stewart

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351874632
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

While Kierkegaard's use of the Greek authors, particularly Plato and Aristotle, has attracted considerable attention over the years, his use of the Roman authors has, by contrast, remained sadly neglected. This neglect is somewhat surprising given the fact that Kierkegaard was extremely well read in Latin from his early youth when he attended the Borgerdyd School in Copenhagen. Kierkegaard's interest in the Roman authors is perhaps best evidenced by his book collection. In his private library he had a long list of Latin titles and Danish translations of the standard Roman authors in any number of different genres. His extensive and frequent use of writers such as Cicero, Horace, Terence, Seneca, Suetonius and Ovid clearly warrants placing them in the select group of his major sources. The chapters in this volume demonstrate that Kierkegaard made use of the Roman sources in a number of different ways. His readings from the Borgerdyd school seem to have stuck with him as an adult. He constantly refers to Roman authors, such as Livy, Nepos, and Suetonius for colourful stories and anecdotes. In addition, he avails himself of pregnant sayings or formulations from the Roman authors, when appropriate. But his use of these authors is not merely as a rhetorical source. He is also profoundly interested in the Roman philosophy of Cicero, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. Similarly, just as he is fascinated by Tacitus' portrayal of the early Christians, so also he is amused by the humour of Terence and Apuleius. In short, the Roman authors serve to enrich any number of different aspects of Kierkegaard's authorship with respect to both content and form.

1
Apuleius: Direct and Possible Indirect Influences on the Thought of Kierkegaard

Stacey E. Ake

I. The Life and Works of Apuleius

Apuleius, also known as Lucius Apuleius by Renaissance writers, was regarded as the narrator of Metamorphoses,¹ and thus as the eponymously-named and silent ass, Lucian, from Corinth.² He is also known by medieval writers, such as his fellow countryman, Augustine of Hippo, as Apuleius Afer, due to his North African origins. He lived in the second century of the Common Era and was probably born around the year 125. His town of origin, Madouros in Numidia, now M’daourouch in Algeria, also gave rise to his being called Apuleius the Madouran or “of Madaura” by Augustine and subsequent writers.³ In fact, aside from his own writings, the only other source of information on Apuleius is Augustine, who argues against him in several places in City of God.

Among the books found in the auction catalogue of Kierkegaard’s library that discuss Apuleius was Carl Friedrich Flögel’s (1729–88) Geschichte der komischen Litteratur from 1784 to 1787, which contains a section “On Satire” in which Apuleius appears.⁴ Among the observations that Flögel makes is a criticism of Augustine that the story of Amor and Psyche is not intended as philosophy but as fable.

A well-educated and affluent Latin-speaking denizen of a Roman colony, Apuleius was also fluent in Greek and a self-described Platonist who took it as his mission to translate the thoughts of the Greeks into the language of the Romans.⁵ His intellectual life and work coincided with the Second Sophistic revival and the spreading of Greek culture and thought throughout the Mediterranean, thus solidifying what would become Greco-Roman culture.

While a student in Athens in the early 150s, Apuleius shared rooms with a fellow North African, named Pontianus, from Oea (near modern-day Tripoli in Libya). About five years later, on a journey to Alexandria, Apuleius stayed with Pontianus and his family in Oea. This visit lasted a year and ended with the marriage of Apuleius and Pontianus’ mother Pudentilla. Relatives accused the young Apuleius of using magic or sorcery to win Pudentilla’s heart, and he was consequently tried before the proconsul Claudius Maximus. Apparently, Apuleius won the day, since a rhetorical tour-de-force of his defense, titled Apologia or Pro Se De Magia, appeared in the early 160s.

Along with several other early works, such as De mundo (a reworking of a text of the same name which is wrongly attributed to Aristotle) and De Platone as well as a set of fine art verses called Florida, Apuleius’ career as a rhetorician and Platonist was established and also ended. The events in Metamorphoses, or The Golden Ass, while alluding to events during his trial for sorcery, imply that the text itself was not used against him. Thus, scholars agree that it was written after the above-mentioned works.⁶

II. The Metamorphoses

The lasting fame of Apuleius rests on his novel recounting of the adventures of one Lucius of Corinth after he has been converted or metamorphosed into a donkey. While the novel is titled Metamorphoses, it is more commonly known as The Golden Ass (Aureus Asinus). It is the only Latin novel to come down to us in its entirety, although there is a debate whether the preface to the work does not belong to Florida. It is also a prefiguring of the picaresque novels and tales of travel that we associate in later ages with Chaucer, Cervantes, Boccaccio, and Rabelais.

III. The Influence of Apuleius

As mentioned above, the tale of The Golden Ass had a considerable impact on the development of European literature. Within that tale, the fable of Psyche and Cupid (or Amor), of the Soul and Love, can be viewed as having an even larger, albeit subtler, impact on that literature. Whether we are considering the transformation of Bottom into an ass in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night Dream,⁷ or the awakening of Sleeping Beauty from a curse by a kiss, or the relationship of love to the soul in Novalis’ Hymns to the Night, we are encountering an often-unexamined cultural and literary appropriation of the Apuleian theme of Cupid and Psyche.

Theologically speaking, as allegory and parable, the relationship between love and the soul, whether it is the relationship between the Lover and Beloved from The Song of Songs or simply the New Testament notion of a God of love redeeming the human soul or Christ as Bridegroom to his Church, we begin to see how attributes from the tale of Cupid and Psyche can become entwined with these other stories to the point where it is almost impossible to tease the different strands apart.

But there is an aspect of Christianity that Apuleius’ tale amplifies: namely, that “an incomprehensible happiness rests upon an incomprehensible condition. A box is opened, and all evils fly out. A word is forgotten, and cities perish. A lamp is lit, and love flies away….An apple is eaten, and the hope of God is gone.”⁸

IV. Kierkegaard’s Explicit Use of Apuleius

In his pseudonymous works, Kierkegaard’s references to Apuleius are fleeting. It is known from the auction catalogue of his library that he owned a copy of Appuleii Fabula de psyche et cupidine.⁹ The 1833 work was one of a series of classical texts edited by Johann Kaspar von Orelli (1787–1849) and Johann Georg Baiter (1801–77) of Zurich. This edition was intended especially for the use of adolescent students beginning Gymnasium. This version was edited from a text originally translated (or transliterated) from Classical, albeit Silver Age, Latin into Renaissance Latin by the Dutch poet and professor Bonaventura Vulcanius (1538–1614) in 1602.¹⁰

Although no mention is made of Kierkegaard’s actually having read works by Apuleius during his years at the Borgerdyd School, a younger classmate, Frederik Peter Welding (1811–94), observed that Kierkegaard

at an early age produced work in Latin composition and in Danish which showed signs of such unusual maturity and meticulous preparation that we others found it odd and eccentric without being able to appreciate it. I was often surprised by his work, but did not really understand why the teachers were pleased with his written compositions.¹¹

Perhaps the young Kierkegaard had access to Latin texts that his fellows did not? When one considers the “extravagant” nature of Apuleius’ style in the Metamorphoses, with its “multifarious” vocabulary and picaresque content, along with the future works Kierkegaard would produce, one could certainly believe that the young Kierkegaard may indeed have had access to just such a book.¹²

Thus, we find in “The Seducer’s Diary” that Johannes has used a German translation of Amor and Psyche as a weapon in his campaign to conquer Cordelia.¹³ Yet, it is interesting to note that Johannes himself does not consider the story either poetry or poetical—at least not as poetical as Cordelia herself.¹⁴ The book is a prop in his seduction of Cordelia, just as Cordelia is a prop in his own amusement. We see that Johannes considers her desire to finish the absently discarded, yet deliberately left book, as something akin to his desire to finish (with) her. “She wants to read this book, and with that the goal is reached. —When she opens it to the place where it was last read, she will find a little sprig of myrtle, and she will also find that this means a little more than to be a bookmark.”¹⁵

In the same fashion, when Johannes has reached his goal with Cordelia, he laments: “Why cannot such a night last longer?…But now it is finished, and I never want to see her again….I do not want to be reminded of my relationship with her; she has lost her fragrance….”¹⁶ What was once thought to be a flower, a sprig of myrtle, has lost its fragrance, and Cordelia is now nothing more than a bookmark.

In the “Diapsalmata,” however, it is a couplet from the German translation that is quoted: “Mit einem Kind, das göttlich, wenn Du schweigst / Doch menschlich, wenn Du das Geheimniß zeigst.”¹⁷ Here, Amor tells Psyche that her child will be divine if she keeps silent and does not divulge her state of happiness or the nature of her husband (and her lack of knowledge thereof) to her envious sisters. But the child will be a mere mortal if she divulges her secret, he warns her. From this, the writer of the “Diapsalmata” seems to derive a broader message: that everything (whatever that may entail) will be acquired and made well through silence and stillness.

But, oddly enough, what allows the birth of pleasure, the eventual immortality of Psyche, the soul, and the reconciliation of love (Amor), desire (Venus), and the soul (Psyche), is the simple fact that Psyche does not keep silent, and although both love and the soul have to pay dearly for her indiscretion, the final outcome is a happy ending. ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Apuleius: Direct and Possible Indirect Influences on the Thought of Kierkegaard
• 2 Cicero: A Handy Roman Companion: Marcus Tullius Cicero’s Appearance in Kierkegaard’s Works
• 3 Horace: The Art of Poetry and the Search for the Good Life
• 4 Livy:The History of Rome in Kierkegaard’s Works
• 5 Marcus Aurelius: Kierkegaard’s Use and Abuse of the Stoic Emperor
• 6 Nepos: Traces of Kierkegaard’s Use of an Edifying Roman Biographer
• 7 Ovid: Of Love and Exile: Kierkegaard’s Appropriation of Ovid
• 8 Sallust: Kierkegaard’s Scarce Use of a Great Roman Historian
• 9 Seneca: Disjecta Membra in Kierkegaard’s Writings
• 10 Suetonius: Exemplars of Truth and Madness: Kierkegaard’s Proverbial Uses of Suetonius’ Lives
• 11 Tacitus: Christianity as odium generis humani
• 12 Terence: Traces of Roman Comedy in Kierkegaard’s Writings
• 13 Valerius Maximus: Moral Exempla in Kierkegaard’s Writings
• 14 Virgil: From Farms to Empire: Kierkegaard’s Understanding of a Roman Poet
• Index of Persons
• Index of Subjects