| Cover Slide
Frederick Philip Grove's "Rousseau als Erzieher" (1914):
Nietzsche's influence on FPG in Munich & on the Prairies
by Gaby Divay
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2008 LCMND Conference in Winnipeg
(hosted by the UM) 3. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Grove's First Canadian Publication
Frederick Philip Grove's first Canadian publication was the essay "Rousseau als Erzieher" It was published in four parts from Nov.- Dec. 1914 in the German-Canadian newspaper Der Nordwesten
"Fred Grove", a teacher in Winkler, was the author 4. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
"Fred Grove" was Felix Paul Greve
Fred Grove was born Felix Paul Greve in 1879
He had spent a year in Bonn prison for fraud in 1903/4
He left Berlin in late July 1909 with a faked suicide
[after double-selling his Swift translation]
He spent three years in the United States before settling in Manitoba as Grove in 1912 5. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Grove's "Rousseau als Erzieher"
Margaret Stobie found the "Rousseau" essay while preparing her 1973 book on Grove in the "Twayne World Authors series"
Also in 1973, D. O. Spettigue published his discovery that Grove had been Greve in his FPG: the European Years 6. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Greve's First Publication, 1901
Like Stobie's, Spettigue's research papers are part of the UM Archives' FPG Collections
Among his many documents by or about Greve is a 1901 review of Nietzsche's Posthumous Works, v. XI +XII, in a Munich newspaper
This is FPG's first known publication 7. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
FPG's First Publications, 1901 & 1914
Neither FPG scholar was aware of the other's Nietzsche link to Greve & Grove
And neither one pursued the interesting implications of their own respective finding 8. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Grove's Canadian Essays
The title of Grove's rambling "Rousseau als Erzieher" is a clear reference to Nietzsche's 3rd Untimely Meditation (1874)
ITS title was "Schopenhauer als Erzieher" (Sch. as Educator)
Grove wrote several more essays with titles like "Rebels All", "Civilization", "Of Science", & "Of History" 9. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Grove's Canadian Essays
All imitate the loud cultural criticism of Nietzsche's Meditations in form & content
They were edited in Henry
Makow's unpublished Ph.D. thesis in 1982
Makow dates them to ca. 1919
That is four years after "Rousseau" & three years before Grove's first book of nature essays Over Prairie Trails in 1922
He fails to appreciate the Nietzsche echoes resounding in them 10. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Greve's German Essays on Oscar Wilde
Grove's essays resemble Greve's on Oscar Wilde & decadence
A major source of inspiration for these was Nietzsche's Geburt der Tragödie
Axel Knönagel nicely shows how GREVE's outlook changed before and after his prison term in 1903 in his published Thesis, Nietzschean Philosophy in the works of FPG, 1990
He does, however, not link his astute observations to GROVE's Nietzsche-inspired texts
The "Rousseau" text & Makow's essays in the UM Archives were apparently unknown to him 11.Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy
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Grove's Canadian Aphorisms
Among other Grove manuscripts reflecting Nietzsche's influence stand foremost sixty confessional aphorisms entitled "The Life of Saint Nishivara"
The title alone identifies them as the Zarathustra (1883ff) imitation they are
They were published in 1987 in A stranger to my time: Essays by and about FPG 13. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Grove's Canadian Aphorisms
The editor, Paul Hjartarson, does NOT see the obvious Nietzsche parallels
Nietzsche was famous for his aphoristic style inspired by moralists like Montaigne
"Saint Nishivara" is, like Zarathustra, written in aphorisms
Hjartarson also misses the biographical pointers FPG couched in his text
We shall later return to this fragment 14
Grove's "St. Nishivara" Aphorisms (1939)
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Grove's Six German Poems
Many of Grove's poems also have Nietzschean overtones
His six German ones emphasize the "special" individual (FPG), unfettered by ordinary rules "
Kopfschmerz", "Das Fieber…", and "Apokalypse" are typical for applied "Jenseits von Gut & Böse / Beyond Good & Evil" (1886) ethics 16. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Grove's English Poems
Grove's English poem "Ahasuerus" exploits the motif of Greve's 1902 poetry title Wanderungen.
His long "Legends" continue the narrative vein of "Irrfahrt" & "Sage" in Greve's 1902 collection
Both draw on Nietzsche's "Der Wanderer & sein Schatten" (1880) 17. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Grove's English Poems
The epic fragment "Konrad the Builder" exploits Goethe's Faust motif
It joins Nietzsche's Promethean theme which FPG also uses on more than one occasion
Nietzsche was fond of Goethe in general & Faust in particular
He also championed Flaubert who became FPG's post-prison model in 1904 18. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Nietzsche CONCEPTS in both FPGs
Some Nietzschean key concepts found in both FPGs' poetry & prose are:
Heraclitean CHANGE being the nature of all things
(Nietzsche, like FPG, was a Classicist educated at Bonn University.
His Thesis was on the Skeptic Diogenes Laertius)
This view fosers RELATIVITY & propagates SKEPTICISM
Skepticism dominates neo-Kantians like Vaihinger (Philosophy of AS-IF) & Dilthey
Relativity is evident in physicists like Einstein, Mach, Schrodinger, Planck, & Heisenberg 19. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Nietzsche CONCEPTS in both FPGs
DECADENCE Nietzsche saw his times in sad decline, especially, when compared to Antiquity
ETERNAL RETURN This belief attributed to Heraclitus fosters a cyclical world- view, & also dominates artistic form: poetry cycles (Stefan George) & musical ones (Richard Wagner)
LIFE … has priority over Art, the noblest art being the Art of Living
Greve reverses O. Wilde's Art/Life poles in prison in favour of Life
THE TRAGIC (in Geburt der Tragödie) Nietzsche's views of rivaling "Dionysian" & "Apollonian" forces are embraced by many, incl. FPG, & Thomas Mann (who sees them at work in Grove's Two Generations in 1939) 20. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Nietzsche TOPICS in both FPGs
Some of Nietzsche's pet topics commonly found in both FPGs poetry & prose are:
The "GENIUS" being above the law Faust & Prometheus are typical figures
MASKS & LYING as approved tools of dissimulation
These themes are prominent in O. Wilde
Dual SLAVE & MASTER standards
An elitist CONTEMPT for the "Herd" or the 'Masses" 21. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Nietzsche TOPICS in both FPGs
A pronounced distrust of PROGRESS, especially, if technology-based
A COSMOPOLITAN outlook fostering tolerance (goes together with Skepticism)
A belief that WOMEN snare the Genius … and keep him from realizing his mission 22. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Nietzsche's pervasive Influence
Nietzsche was the foremost philosopher of DECADENCE and LIFE (Lebensphilosophie)
His impact on FPG's entire generation cannot be over-estimated
Recently, FPG's debt to him has come into sharp focus
A volume of sixty early manuscript poems by Greve was discovered & acquired by the UMA in March 2008 23 Facsimile eEd. of Jahr der Wende
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Greve's Jahr der Wende, 1901
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Greve's First Poetry Book, Nov. 1901
Completed in Nov. 1901, Das Jahr der Wende opens with four poems about Nietzsche
In Greve's Wanderungen (23 poems, Feb. 1902), Nietzsche, the painter Böcklin, the poet Stefan George, and Beethoven are hailed as "Masters" – in this order!
Only Böcklin & Nietzsche then have an entire poem devoted to them 26 Contents of Jahr der Wende
<https://images.slideplayer.com/15/4621926/slides/slide_26.jpg> 27 "Vision", Jahr der Wende
<https://images.slideplayer.com/15/4621926/slides/slide_27.jpg> 28 Friedrich Nietzsche, 1899
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Greve's First Poetry Book, Nov. 1901
It is interesting that Das Jahr der Wende reflects the unstructured style of Nietzsche's "Dionysos Dithyramben"
They concluded the Zarathustra complex in 1888, just before Nietzsche suffered the mental breakdown that ended his career
In contrast, Greve's Wanderungen show the mark of the so-called Stefan George- Mache, a formally rigid way of crafting poetry 30. Nietzsche's Dionysos Dithyramben
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Grove's indirect Nietzsche-Hints
Greve wrote FIVE poems about Nietzsche
In comparison, ALL of Grove's Nietzsche pointers are covert & indirect
We saw his sly title reference to Nietzsche in the 1914 "Rousseau" essay Das Jahr der Wende / Year of the Turning Point also echoes a title: Grove chose The Turn of the Year (1923) for his 2nd Canadian book He thus pointed to the poems he had written in Jahr der Wende two decades earlier 32. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Grove's confessional Aphorisms
Back to Grove's "Saint Nishivara" aphorisms: they are a confession in the disguise of Nietzsche's Zarathustra
They can be dated internally to 1939:
30 years the hero spent "in the East", another 30 "in the West"
Both times he became entangled in sin …
Greve left Berlin when he was 30 in 1909, & at 60 he mused about his life in 1939 33. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Grove's Aphorisms, 1939
1939 marks a period of intense Soul- Searching for Grove
Around his birthday in mid-February 1939, he sends two of his books to Thomas Mann at Princeton
He revises & expands his "Author's Note" for the 1939 ed. of ASA with explicit references to Goethe's Dichtung & Wahrheit/Fact & Fiction
Gide's autobiography & fame provides the impetus to start his autobiography ISM 34. Nietzsche's "Thus spake Zarathustra"
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More Traces of Nietzsche in FPG's Poetry
While preparing the 2007 e-Edition of FPG's complete poetry, two of Greve's poems in Wanderungen warranted a link to Nietzsche
One was to the moving "Die Sonne sinkt", the other to "Aus hohen Bergen"
Both the day/life & the mountain metaphors were used repeatedly in Grove's poetry 36. LCMND, Sept 2008 gd
Nietzsche in Grove's Autobiography
Two years before his death, in In Search of Myself (1946), Grove acknowledged his great admiration for Nietzsche
He insists that he preferred the "early" Nietzsche
And he obscures the fact that he made lavish use of Nietzsche's late & most literary "Zarathustra" 37. UMA FPG (Greve/Grove) & FrL Website SlidePlayer Img 37
38. eEd. of Grove's In Search of Myself (1946)
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39 . Grove on Nietzsche in ISM (p.166)
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40. Wikipedia: Nietzsche
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41. Stanford Encyclopedia: Nietzsche
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42. Wikipedia: Nietzsches Werke
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43. Stanford Encyclopedia: Nietzsche's Works
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44. Nietzsche's "Ecce Homo"
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Grove, Fred. "Jean Jacques Rousseau als Erzieher". Der Nordwesten, November 25 to December, 1914.
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