special ships

[Dave Monroe]

This was all very interesting, and shame on you,
Thomas, for not having at least flipped through Michel
Foucault's Madness and Civilization.  That "Ship of
Fools" bit is right at the beginning (although the
English trans. is, I believe, somewhat abridged). 
Just don't tell me you didn't know that The Order of
Things (Les mots et les chose) discussed Velazquez's
Las Meninas, is all I ask.  But this all reminded me
of ...

Blumenberg, Hans.  Shipwreck with Spectator:
   Paradigm of a Metaphor for Existence.  Trans.
   Steven Rendall.  Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
   1996.

"... Shipwreck with Spectator traces the evolution of
the complex of metaphors related to the sea, to
shipwreck, and to the role of the spectator in human
culture from ancient Greece to modern times. The sea
is one of humanity's oldest metaphors for life, and a
sea journey, Blumenberg observes, has often stood for
our journey through life. We all know the role that
shipwrecks can play in this journey, and at some level

we have all played witness to others' wrecks, standing
in safety and knowing that there is nothing we can do
to help, yet fixed comfortably or uncomfortably in our
ambiguous role as spectator. Through Blumenberg's
seemingly inexhaustible knowledge of letters, from
ancient texts through nineteenth-century reminiscences
and modern speeches, we see layer upon layer revealed
in the meaning humans have given to these metaphors;
and in this way we begin to understand what metaphors
can do that more straightforward modes of expression
cannot."

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?sid=5FDC9E98-7861-4519-91A5-003B97A21048&ttype=2&tid=4819

I'm guessing that this is ...

Blumenberg, Hans.  Schiffbruch mit Zuschauer. 
   Paradigma einer Daseinsmetapher.  Frankfurt:
   Suhrkamp, 1979.

... on yr end, Kai, Thomas.  And if it's big books ye
be a-wantin' t'read, see also Blumenberg's The
Legitimacy of the Modern Age, The Genesis of the
Copernican World, and Work on Myth ...   

--- Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>
wrote:
> Well, ships are a hobby of mine, so I'll hope you
> will excuse some, uh, free-floating associations:
> 
> Kai wrote:
> 
> >  ~~~ witnessing the pequod's fate chapter by
> > chapter, i came to think about, well,
> > s p e c i a l  s h i p s. by this i mean ships
> > which are not of mere military and/or economic
> > character.
> 
> > there are probably many other death-ships in
> > literature (anyone?)
> 
> I have not read Traven's eponymous novel, but you
> could try E. A. Poe's "The Narrative of Arthur
> Gordon Pym". Death-ship indeed.

Note, of course, how this theme has been taken up
(naturellement) by science fiction as well, e.g., the
Alien/s series and its imitators (Event Horizon, Pitch
Black, et al.), Silent Running (I mean, really, Bruce
Dern ...), maybe even 2001: A Space Odyssey (note HAL
9000's "madness") ...
 
> More generally: Hugo Rahner - a Jesuit familiar with
> Giordano Bruno and just about everything else
> written in Latin, Greek or Hebrew; also brother of
> Karl - has written a very, very brilliant book about
> the symbolic meaning of ships and the sea
> in ancient and Christian literature. If I remember
> correctly, the title should be something like
> "Symbole der Kirche. Die Ekklesiologie der Väter."
> Father Maple's sermon, for example, takes on a whole
> new meaning in the light of Rahner's book ...

Couldn't find that this has been translated into
English.  Church and State in Early Christianity,
Greek Myths and Christian Mystery, Ignatius the
Theologian.  But you did have the correct title ...

Rahner, Hugo.  Symbole der Kirche. Die Ekklesiologie
   der Väter.  Salzburg: O. Müller, 1964.

So if anyone knows of a translation ...


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