BtZ42: Woutan rides high.

[Mark Kohut]

This from Jung from Monte's post strikes me as possibly a direct Pynchon
influence, since we
know he read (some of) him at least and seems to have some beliefs in
common with these statements.
The repressed daemonic, its inevitable Return, the social dimension.

Jung:
*“Christianity split the Germanic barbarian into an upper and a lower half,
and enabled him, by repressing the dark side, to domesticate the brighter
half and fit it for civilization. But the lower, darker half still awaits
redemption and a second spell of domestication. Until then, it will remain
associated with the vestiges of the prehistoric age, with the collective
unconscious, which is subject to a peculiar and ever-increasing activation.
As the Christian view of the world loses its authority, the more menacingly
will the “blond beast” be heard prowling about in its underground prison,
ready at any moment to burst out with devastating consequences. When this
happens in the individual it brings about a psychological revolution, but
it can also take a social form. *

On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 10:35 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> MK > I have no idea whether Woutan usages were more common when GR was
> written
>
> The Germans insisted on "W(u)otan" after their great 19C burst of
> history/philology/mythography/nationalism, but you need to Ngram "Odin" too
> if you want a broader European (let alone Anglophone) survey. Most people
> outside Germany (and GR studies), seeing a one-eyed dude with winged helmet
> and crows, are gonna say "Norse" before "Teutonic."
>
> I realized early in studying with Campbell that our impressions of the Age
> and Importance and Profundity of mythical figures, tropes and themes are
> very much filtered through historical contingencies of (1) who wrote it
> down when (or had a broad, continuous oral tradition), (2) whose stuff got
> adopted/adapted with some coherence to ensuing cultures, e.g.
> Greek->Roman->upper-class Anglophone, and (3) which bits got highlighted in
> which canons of early-modern and modern literature, drama, Wagnerian
> music/drama. etc...
>
> Of possible interest, wholesome or otherwise:
> https://volkischpaganism.com/2014/10/08/carl-jung-on-hitler-as-personification-of-the-wotan-archetype/
>
> On Mon, May 30, 2016 at 5:26 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Laura writes:
>> "They hunt the sky like Wuotan and his mad army." Wuotan and his wild
>> hunt signifying death to those who see it (a folkloric concept most
>> recently ripped off by Game of Thrones, in the form of the White Walkers).
>> After the obscurities of the Kenosha Kid, this is a little heavy-handed,
>> no?"
>>
>> I've always, again without fully examining, thought this might have come
>> from Wagner maybe thru Nietzsche. We seem to know P has read and used some
>> Nietzsche,* The Birth of Tragedy *at least.
>> But we also know from elsewhere that he does like the old Black Forest
>> Deep Germany of folk tales, etc. so he surely went there in his reading.
>>
>> I have no idea whether Woutan usages were more common when GR was
>> written, hence maybe a heavy-handed cliche and just accept it as a fanboy.
>> I have always felt it more fun to simply ingest and right on compared to
>> the obscurities of the Kenosha Kid section, a frustrating section without
>> real help and thought.
>>
>>
>> After writing the above, It occurred to check out book citations of
>> Woutan, Wotan in Google Books:
>> Another fascinating look at such things. Woutan was HUGE (because Wagner,
>> I'm sayin"?) in books over a hundred to 150 years ago THEN went down thru
>> and to the sixties---and had a rise again!
>>
>> https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Woutan%2C+Wotan&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CWotan%3B%2Cc0
>>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20160530/b4815cc2/attachment.html>