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‘Monologue’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

J. M. Bernstein
Affiliation:
New School University, New York
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Summary

Speaking and writing is a crazy state of affairs really; true conversation is just a game with words. It is amazing, the absurd error people make of imagining they are speaking for the sake of things; no one knows the essential thing about language, that it is concerned only with itself. That is why it is such a marvellous and fruitful mystery – for if someone merely speaks for the sake of speaking, he utters the most splendid, original truths. But if he wants to talk about something definite, the whims of language make him say the most ridiculous false stuff. Hence the hatred that so many serious people have for language. They notice its waywardness, but they do not notice that the babbling they scorn is the infinitely serious side of language. If it were only possible to make people understand that it is the same with language as it is with mathematical formulae – they constitute a world in itself – their play is self-sufficient, they express nothing but their own marvellous nature, and this is the very reason why they are so expressive, why they are the mirror to the strange play of relationships among things. Only their freedom makes them members of nature, only in their free movements does the world-soul express itself and make of them a delicate measure and a ground-plan of things.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

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  • ‘Monologue’
  • Edited by J. M. Bernstein, New School University, New York
  • Book: Classic and Romantic German Aesthetics
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803734.015
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  • ‘Monologue’
  • Edited by J. M. Bernstein, New School University, New York
  • Book: Classic and Romantic German Aesthetics
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803734.015
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • ‘Monologue’
  • Edited by J. M. Bernstein, New School University, New York
  • Book: Classic and Romantic German Aesthetics
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803734.015
Available formats
×