Chapter 4 "Todtnauer Mountain" Preface and translation: the love story of Heidegger and Arendt (1)

and Jelinek's personal fate From the title of Shen Xiliang, Jelinek’s play (Totenauberg) can be seen as an allusion to the temple and pilgrimage site of the so-called “original root” (Eigentlichkeit, also translated as “authentic nature”) in Germany, that is, Heidegger's Totenauberg, which figures prominently in German appreciation of self-culture. In this four-act play, the authoress illuminates the importance of those revealed in the nonsense about the homeland.An elderly man, wearing a country-feeling ski suit, is strapped to a frame, and a face with a mustache proves that he is Heidegger.A middle-aged woman, dressed in urban travel clothes, is preparing to leave. She is his opponent, Hannah Arendt.In the two protagonists in the play, the two basic positions of locality and exile, self and foreignness are demonstratively confronting each other. "Hometown" is presented as a state of tension, and the characters appearing in the play, hunters and guests, hostesses and tourism cultural and sports event organizers, farmers and dead mountaineering enthusiasts, "man wearing antelope wool hat" and elite athletes, They are in such a state.It is a tension between our world and other world, natural power and natural domination, "thinking" and sports, and even, in the final analysis, disease and health.As the "plot" develops, this tension becomes a battlefield in which only violence against alien objects can keep our worlds alive.This play, prose for the stage and essay at the same time, is Elfriede Jelinek's powerful answer to the new political situation (and its linguistic reflection) in Austria and even in Europe.

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was born in a small town in Baden, Germany.When I was in middle school, I read the works of the Austrian Catholic thinker Brentano (1838-1917) on the multiple meanings of Aristotle’s theory of existence, and my interest in philosophical thinking sprouted. In 1909, Heidegger entered the University of Freiburg to study theology and philosophy, and later gave up theology and specialized in philosophy, and received a doctorate in philosophy in 1914.He served as an assistant to the phenomenologist Husserl. From 1923 to 1928, he was employed as professor of philosophy at the University of Marburg. In 1928, after Husserl retired, he returned to the University of Freiburg to succeed him as Chair Professor of Philosophy until his retirement.

Heidegger's most famous work is "Being and Time", which was published in the 8th issue of "Annals of Philosophy and Phenomenology Research" in 1927, and was published in a separate volume in the same year, which is a representative work of existentialism. The most striking thing in Heidegger's life is that he had an affair with German fascist forces. After the German Nazi Party came to power in January 1933, Heidegger publicly swore to support the Nazi regime and joined the Nazi Party.In May of the same year, Heidegger became rector of the University of Freiburg. In February 1934, due to disagreements with the authorities on personnel appointments, he resigned from the post of principal.

In the work of understanding his religious beliefs and political activities, he was assisted by another celebrity, the German Romantic poet Holderlin (1770-1843). Heidegger's turn to the poet coincided with Holderlin's "period of revival."Shortly before the outbreak of World War I, the Georg Group and its members discovered Hölderlin's later writings and began editing and publishing the Complete Works of Hölderlin.The Georg group found a genius forerunner of "symbolism" in Holderlin's works, "it seems that the most sacred curtain has been opened, and people's eyes are provided with something indescribable."Holderlin is called "the poet as a leader", who can enrich people with "the flow of German power".He is a German poet, a poet who is completely controlled by the power of poetry, and he is the midwife of the new god, the crosser and the loser.This was the image of Holderlin in people's minds at the time.Heidegger also inherited this view.

In the 1920s, the Hölderlinian divinity was called "primitive nature" by Heidegger. In Heidegger's view, the greatness of Hölderlin lies in the fact that at the beginning of a new era, when the old gods have disappeared and the new gods have not yet arrived, he is alone, since he is long overdue. Those who arrive early are those who arrive early.He felt the pain of loss thoroughly, and had to continue to suffer the violence of the future. It can be said that it was Holderlin's thoughts that influenced Heidegger's life, and he kept asking "the meaning of existence".When summing up his writings shortly before his death, he once said meaningfully that they were "paths, not books."In other words, these writings are the proof of his life trajectory.

As one of the greatest female thinkers of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was a German Jew who met Heidegger at the University of Marburg.It was the fall of 1924, not long after Arendt entered university.She was eighteen years old that year, and she was studying in his class as a student.And Heidegger, who is thirty-five years old, already has a family.Their secret affair lasted four years before parting ways after two decades.During this period, Heidegger was deprived of his teaching position for supporting the Nazis, and Arendt immigrated to the United States, focusing on the research of political theory and philosophy. In 1950, the relationship between the two resumed again, maintaining a close friendship in an extremely complicated and embarrassing situation. On December 4, 1975, Arendt died before him.A few months later, on May 26, 1976, Heidegger also drove west.

How can Arendt and Heidegger, two people with completely different life paths and philosophical views, get together again?It is indeed difficult to answer this question. In February 1950, Arendt went to Europe as a representative of the Jewish Cultural Revival Committee. She took this opportunity to meet Heidegger in Freiburg. A five-year relationship has turned a new page.The relationship ranged from their brisk, lively correspondence to long periods of silence, to orchestrated meetings and brief moments alone with him that Arendt so dearly valued. Arendt even became Heidegger's unpaid agent in the United States.She finds publishers for him, negotiates publishing deals, selects the best translators, and more.Not only that, but she also did her best to clear him of Nazi charges.Even Heidegger's wife paid tribute to Arendt's active activities in the United States.You know, before 1955, the name Heidegger had almost become a curse word in German academic circles and even other circles.At this time, whatever Arendt did in favor of Heidegger really moved the latter.He needed her to listen to him, to excuse him, to restore his reputation.

By 1955, Heidegger had regained his former authority.He obviously wanted to forget their meeting in 1950 (they also met later in 1952), because he was the one sitting in the confessional.From then on, the two gradually became estranged.This estrangement lasted for twelve years, until they met again in 1967, when she was sixty-one years old and he was seventy-eight years old.At the dusk of their lives, they seem to know how to cherish better, and they have never broken contact since then.In his later years, Heidegger was more and more often in a state of depression, which may be just when he needed her.But in the past few years, he has never left her mind or her work.He didn't want to see Arendt anymore, whether it was because of his wife's relationship, because of Arendt's popularity, because of Arendt's friendship with another famous philosopher Jaspers, or because of what just happened and long ago what happened.It was actually very easy for them to meet, because Arendt often went to Germany.But deep down, she hasn't changed.Whether Heidegger made her happy or miserable, she always held on to their friendship.

① Parts of the above three paragraphs are excerpted from Arendt and Heidegger, written by [US] Edinger, translated by Dai Qing, Chunfeng Literature and Art Publishing House, March 2000 edition.Jelinek, the author of this book with Jewish ancestry, was born in the second year after World War II. Fifty-one relatives of her died in the concentration camps of the Nazis.There is a question that always lingers in her mind: why Heidegger can deeply influence a large number of leftist philosophers with critical vision, except postmodern thinkers (such as deconstructionist Derrida), Marcuse And besides Sartre, there was Hannah Arendt.The Jewish woman, Heidegger's student and lover, was forced to leave Germany in 1933.She developed her own philosophical theory in the United States (published "Active Life", "The Roots of Totalitarianism", "On Spiritual Life" and other treatises).They resumed contact in the 1950s, including their reunion at Todtnauberg in 1967.

This is the point of departure for Jelinek's play: Heidegger ("the old man") and Arendt ("the woman") meet in an idyllic setting on the Todtnau mountain, where there are many ski tourists.This is by no means a traditional anti-fascist educational play—an endless, sarcastic monologue, partly in Heidegger's idiosyncratic, often excruciating language.