Byron and Goethe by Giuseppe Mazzini
Trying a new archive tonight. Bartleby, which used to be a public domain archive until Barnes & Noble bought them. But they didn't scrub all the old stuff. They're nicely formatted like Gutenberg, and taken directly from the T5FSOB versions, so that's helpful.
Summary: A guy who has all the answers writes an essay about how bad individuality is.
Comments: I didn't love the Milton poetry, but I was willing to chalk that up to a matter of taste. This was just terrible. Repetitive and dramatic, it could easily have been cut in half (how many times do I need to reread some slight paraphrase of "people don't know what to do with their liberty" or "Byron is more X and Goethe is more Y." Always in italics. He likes his italics. He is from Italy.) and would still have probably felt over long. Ostensibly a critique of society's obsession with individualism, Mazzini's continued insistence that he knows better than anyone who disagrees with him feels contradictory at best, with constant insistence that his reading is the true "soul's eyes" reading, and all others are "superficial" idiots.
On the other hand, a large part of the point of this exercise (and essays and philosophy in general) is to learn and challenge ideas, so it did have some value in that regard. I appreciate that one of the intros to T5FSOB explicitly gives the reader permission to disagree, and that engaging with ideas we disagree with is valuable:
The sentiments and opinions these authors express are frequently not acceptable to present-day readers, who have to be often saying to themselves: “This is not true, or not correct, or not in accordance with our beliefs.”
It is, however, precisely this encounter with the mental states of other generations which enlarges the outlook and sympathies of the cultivated man, and persuades him of the upward tendency of the human race.
I'm undertaking this project in part because I feel like the universities I went to were lacking, and this quote really sums that up. The main thing I learned in college is that you never question anything in college, because it's impossible for you to be right. The development of knowledge stopped X years ago when you professor got their degree, and things have only gone downhill since then. (I keep reading about this publish or perish thing, but many of my professors hadn't published anything in years.) Being actively encouraged to disagree and challenge ideas is refreshing.
And, while I don't care for the writing or attitude, I don't disagree with a lot of Mazzini's points. His points on unfettered capitalism are (if somewhat basic) the exact same thing people are saying today. And, while I haven't read much Goethe, I do enjoy Byron.
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