Schongeisterei-Harry Graf Kessler

[Teacher]

Originally Posted by LabelKing

This surely is a profile, not of courage but of style. The Germans presumably called this Schongeisterei, which as English would have it, no appropriate translation exists.

Do you mean Schoengeisterei? It literally translates as something like "spirit of beauty," and I think one would really say it means something akin to "loving or attentiveness to appearance..." or something like that.

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by Teacher

Tennessee Williams was also like this in his later years, in direct opposition to his wanton youth and middle age.
True. Although for some, as in the Count, it was always a bit of an hermetic lifestyle.

I'd cite Marcel Proust but he was apt to hysterics.

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by Teacher

Do you mean Schoengeisterei? It literally translates as something like "spirit of beauty," and I think one would really say it means something akin to "loving or attentiveness to appearance..." or something like that.
Yes, rather like kunstwollen. English, unforunately, doesn't have any corresponding words.

 

[Fabienne]

Originally Posted by Teacher

Do you mean Schoengeisterei? It literally translates as something like "spirit of beauty," and I think one would really say it means something akin to "loving or attentiveness to appearance..." or something like that.

Der Schöngeist = the aesthete.
Schöngeistig = Aesthetic

Aesthetics = die Ästhetik or Schöngeisterei

 

[Teacher]

Originally Posted by Fabienne

Der Schöngeist = the aesthete.
Schöngeistig = Aesthetic

Aesthetics = die Ästhetik or Schöngeisterei

It's more than just aesthetics. It has more to do with fastidiousness or preoccupation, or something along those lines.

 

[Sator]

Originally Posted by LabelKing

Yes, rather like kunstwollen.

English, unforunately, doesn't have any corresponding words.

Actually if you see the word "Geist" used anywhere just give up translating immediately into any language. There was a time when Hegel still had a big foothold in English speaking academic circles around the turn of the 19th century when they commonly just used the word "Geist" verbatim in German.

 

[Fabienne]

Originally Posted by Teacher

It's more than just aesthetics. It has more to do with fastidiousness or preoccupation, or something along those lines.

From the Webster's:

an aesthete 1. a person highly sensitive to art and beauty. 2. a person who artificially cultivates artistic sensitivity or makes a cult of art and beauty.

Sorry, I don't have my Dudens on hand.

 

[Sator]

Originally Posted by Fabienne

From the Webster's:

an aesthete 1. a person highly sensitive to art and beauty. 2. a person who artificially cultivates artistic sensitivity or makes a cult of art and beauty.

Sorry, I don't have my Dudens on hand.

Dudens:

Schoengeist

jmd. der sich sichtbar nicht so sehr mit alltaeglichen Dingen beschaeftigt, sondern in Belletristik, Kunst o. ae. schwelgt, darin aufgeht u. dabei einen vergeistigten, intellektualistischen Eindruck macht.

Schoengeisterei

einseitige Betonung schoengeistiger Interessen.

It's too late at night here in Oz for me to translate however.

 

[Fabienne]

Originally Posted by Sator

Dudens:

Schoengeist

jmd. der sich sichtbar nicht so sehr mit alltaeglichen Dingen beschaeftigt, sondern in Belletristik, Kunst o. ae. schwelgt, darin aufgeht u. dabei einen vergeistigten, intellektualistischen Eindruck macht.

Schoengeisterei

einseitige Betonung schoengeistiger Interessen.

It's too late at night here in Oz for me to translate however.

Thanks!

PS if you're still up: You woudn't happen to also have the Herkunftswörterbuch der deutschen Sprache?

 

[Swann]

Duden Herkunftswörterbuch:

Schöngeist im 18. Jh. wie "schöner Geist", nach frz. bel esprit

schöngeistig Anfang des 19. Jh.s für "belletristisch", im Gegensatz zu "Schöngeist" nicht ironisch gebraucht

 

[Fabienne]

Originally Posted by Swann

Duden Herkunftswörterbuch:

Schöngeist im 18. Jh. wie "schöner Geist", nach frz. bel esprit

schöngeistig Anfang des 19. Jh.s für "belletristisch", im Gegensatz zu "Schöngeist" nicht ironisch gebraucht

Das hatte ich mir gedacht! Ehrlich.

I'm probably the only one who gets a smile out of such things.

 

[Sator]

Originally Posted by Fabienne

Das hatte ich mir gedacht! Ehrlich.

I'm probably the only one who gets a smile out of such things.

Point well taken but the moment you translate l'esprit into Geist it means something different. Just as le smoking and a smoking jacket are two quite different things.

 

[MrSmith2U]

This is all jolly good fun!

I was going to bed but I think I'll 'hang around' a tad longer.

 

[bengal-stripe]

Originally Posted by Sator

but the moment you translate l'esprit into Geist it means something different.
Ich bin der Geist, der stets verneint!
Und das mit Recht; denn alles, was entsteht,
ist wert, dass es zugrunde geht;
Drum besser wär's, dass nichts entstünde.
So ist denn alles, was ihr Sünde,
Zerstörung, kurz, das Böse nennt,
Mein eigentliches Element.
- Mephistopheles in "Faust", J.W. Goethe 1338-1344

I am the Spirit that denies!
And rightly too; for all that doth begin
should rightly to destruction run;
'Twere better then that nothing were begun,
Thus everything that you call Sin,
Destruction - in a word, as Evil represent -
That is my own, real element.
- Mephistopheles in "Faust", J.W. Goethe 1338-1344

 

[LabelKing]

"Weh! steck ich in dem Kerker noch?
Verfluchtes dumpfes Mauerloch,
Wo selbst das liebe Himmelslicht
Trüb durch gemalte Scheiben bricht!
Beschränkt mit diesem Bücherhauf,
den Würme nagen, Staub bedeckt,
Den bis ans hohe Gewölb hinauf
Ein angeraucht Papier umsteckt;
Mit Gläsern, Büchsen rings umstellt,
Mit Instrumenten vollgepfropft,
Urväter Hausrat drein gestopft -
Das ist deine Welt! das heißt eine Welt!"