Alexander Schmid: Welcome back to another instantiation of seminar. I believe this is our third seminar of this time around. First time we talked about Don Quixote second time about Faust, and now about Don Giovanni, the Italian equivalent to John Juan, the Spanish Alexander Schmid: version of this character, and then also, as you said, as you pronounce Wes Don Juan in the English tradition. Alexander Schmid: Well, good morning to you, Wes. Nice to see you again bright and early for another semi
nar chance to if we were post modernists, I suppose to talk about another text, though of course this is a strange text, and that it is an opera both a libretto and a performance. Music and literature brought into one. And just one note. I'm not sure if we we mentioned this last time. But Alexander Schmid: It was Goethe's perspective that Mozart was the only composer worthy of sending music to Faust, and so when when Mozart died, I think, in the early 18 twenties, maybe the mid 18 twenties goeth
e no longer believed that there was any composer who could try Alexander Schmid: truly do justice to his dramatic, tragic masterpiece, sort of similar, I imagine, to Alexander, at least, the story, the Apoc, perhaps perhaps apocryphal story of Alexander weeping, for there was there because there was no Homer to write his like there was for Achilles. Alexander Schmid: But thank thank you for watching this with me taking this little inter met so between the textual text, the book books, and being
a little bit more spectacular and theatrical than literary, and this moment but perhaps we'll collapse those distinctions again like a post modernist, though I suspect also, perhaps not. Wesley Schantz: How are you doing? How did you like this? What did you see, my friend? Oh, yeah, no, it's my pleasure. Good morning. And I really enjoy Wesley Schantz: this production. I have never actually successfully watched Wesley Schantz: whole, you know, from beginning to end. Opera on any device, I would
say so like II tried listening to a little bit of it when I couldn't watch it on on Youtube. And then I watched. I saw the beginning and almost the very end. But, as you pointed out this this production, we watched like kind of cuts off with the the Wesley Schantz: the last scene that has Don Giovanni in it. And there's actually an epilogue after that. So I missed that entirely. But I was also reading the libretto as I was going along. I had it in Italian and English, which is very handy to see,
like, you know, certain words will get repeated, but they're not necessarily translated the same way every time, or there's like, you know, puns and things going on. So it's kind of Wesley Schantz: it's kind of making my head explode right, because I also don't know much about music as much as I've tried to kind of study music now and off and on. Wesley Schantz: It's something I don't have a great talent or knack for and obviously Wesley Schantz: one of the great things about this piece is is t
he sort of spirit of lightness and energy that's that's so characteristic of the Mozart time, period, and Mozart particularly his, his style right Wesley Schantz: and so to try to explicate it and break it down is already very difficult and already sort of missing the point, maybe. But I, in my ponderous way, want to see like, okay, so what are the like? Key themes, like musical themes that will repeat throughout the piece. And how are they changing keys or being, you know, modified in different
ways. And I and I just have no idea, like I, just, there's certain arias and things that I recognize right. They've been sort of lifted out of the opera, and they get performed or Wesley Schantz: played on the radio, or whatever, separately. And there's a lot of music from this time that gets like adapted into things like Tom and Jerry, or whatever you know, bugs, Bunny. So like there's a lot of this that is just sort of in the air now. And of course this character, Don Giovanni Don Juan, is a
you know, a motif. a cliche almost that. Wesley Schantz: you know, is a type that we recognize. But Wesley Schantz: I never I never fully embodied him. You know I was. I say I embody the Faust quite a bit the Don Giovanni. Not so much although I think inevitably there, there's pieces of our popular culture, our society, now that are deeply imbued with this this sort of demonic spirit of pleasure, seeking, or pretending to have no fear, or whatever it is. That sort of Wesley Schantz: like defines
Don Giovanni. So there's there's a ton here that. I'm really interested in in digging into at least a little bit of it. And and I don't know. Maybe we start by saying like, how does this connect with this kind of thread that we've been tracing from from Quixote to Faust to Don Juan. Do you want to sort of speak to that a little bit? And maybe there's some Faust things that were left over that we could sprinkle in there. Alexander Schmid: Well, that's exactly what I would like to address. Alexan
der Schmid: Wes. Sorry I'm messing with my Alexander Schmid: headphones here. You're sounding good. No worries. Okay. Okay. Good. Alright. Just kicked something. And Wesley Schantz: things started to change Alexander Schmid: for a moment. So let me just 1 s. Alexander Schmid: yeah. So while you were talking, I there are lots of elements that we could dig into. And as myself, not a musicologist, though. Someone very interested in music. Yeah, what I really thought that I might try and pick apart
about this work, and in particular, in connection with Alexander Schmid: Falstandon, Kyota, and and even notes from underground are the the ways in which, the Stan Giovanni is a modern character or modern character. Alexander Schmid: and so one immediate connection that suggests itself to me is that Don Giovanni, like Faust, is a pursuit, pursues momentary experience and sort of an eternal Alexander Schmid: way. What do I mean by that like and and and this is partially based on well everything t
hat he does but his extolling of wine and pleasure with women of lane with women and and you know he even says all the better if it's your mole. Yeah, if it's your wife to you know, even to Leporello, is loyal Alexander Schmid: servant, but Alexander Schmid: what I see in both of these characters is a desire for immediacy and experience, a a a desire to transcend the subjective, and to experience either the objective or the absolute, or the whole. To have a a meaningful experience that we're is
revelatory of something beyond the fictional, the opinionated, the believable and takes one out from one's normal sort of Alexander Schmid: psychological apparatus and connects one to well something which may or may not even exist in modern times. Sort of an interesting, I'd say. Juxtaposition with the moderns is that while they're having so much trouble determining the relationship between faith and Secularism and religiosity and sort of scientific scientism. Alexander Schmid: They still seem t
o have quite a bit of faith, particularly moderns like Kant and Spinoza and and Hegel in there being some sort of absolute or transcendent reality. And so Alexander Schmid: part of what I think I see is that with in with in both Faust and Don Giovanni's case, without there being Alexander Schmid: a set transcendent ideal towards which to dedicate their efforts. Both of them are stuck with the sort of second best option, with just pursuing that which is temporary, which that with that which leave
s you with either a shame, hangover, or an actual physical hangover, temporary relief, so very similar in some ways Alexander Schmid: to the more postmodern version of brave New world where, sex and drugs are basically free and and consume the vast majority of one's leisure time in that existence. But Alexander Schmid: But to to to trail it back what I what I think I see, as a very strong connection between Don Giovanni and Faust. And they're not the same class. From what I can tell, Don Giovann
i is slightly higher class. What? Whereas Faust is more middle class, like Professor doctor type, though though a very impressive one. Is that Alexander Schmid: they're both seeking for something more from life. but through in a inferior means. They are seeking for the absolute through the temporary, or Alexander Schmid: they're looking for the eternal. Alexander Schmid: do the temporary they they they are. It's as if they're struggling to find a substitute for the transcendent Alexander Schmid:
by looking for the transcendent in that which couldn't possibly have it, which would be sorted love affairs that lead from one to another to another to another. In the case of Don Giovanni, or from one pleasure to another for Faust, whether it be sensual pleasure with Marguerite, whether it be the pleasure of spectacle and fame with the Emperor or whether it be the the pleasure of being Alexander Schmid: sort of a Tycoon later on, where he he helps to win a war with his 3 mighty men, and then e
ven reclaims water from the earth, as if he is. Alexander Schmid: you know, not to be crude about it, but that's almost like the ultimate rapture or or rape right? Instead of taking virginity, or like the initial innocent femininity away from a woman in sort of Don Giovanni or Helen in the case of when she was 10 with Theseus, or in the case of Hades and Persephone. Alexander Schmid: this is like a masculine social stealing from nature as earth stealing from the the earth spirit. And and I see t
hat also is, if we wanted to make a connection to final fantasy 7, which again, is a post modern. The post modern version of this is stealing the the life force out of the earth or energy sort of similar to what I think modern people would connect to Alexander Schmid: or contemporary, our contemporaries connect to use of fossil fuels and in in contemporary America and Japan and Western Europe. Well all across the world as well. And so Alexander Schmid: And so I. The 2 things that I really think
I see are a substitution of maximal experience to Alexander Schmid: to make up for the fact that experience is no longer meaningful or or integral, and that it doesn't Alexander Schmid: It doesn't lead to one feeling connected to the whole in a meaningful way. And so one finds oneself constantly searching, and one of those methods of searching is to ravage and to violently take in the same way that sort of Faust violently enters Marguerite's life and takes her, in a sense, though not technically
a rape. It's sort of like one. He's used to love potion. He has the devil on his side. He has yet another sleeping potion there. Alexander Schmid: Yeah. Her autonomy. Marguerite's autonomy is limited in the situation, and then later he will reclaim land from the water, and I wonder if Alexander Schmid: if that sort of Alexander Schmid: violence and desire to take and re appropriate that sort of either personal, romantic imperialism, on the one hand, the with Don Giovanni, but also sort of Alexa
nder Schmid: property and and territorial Imperialism, Territorial, not taking from another people, but, in fact, even taking from the earth itself, in the final fantasy, 7. And in Faust. Whether that is itself a Alexander Schmid: I don't know. Like a negative response, a violent subjective response Alexander Schmid: to I don't know the the earth, mother, not providing that which we consider our natural dowry, or or for hating the feminine because of being brought into this cruel world, which do
esn't fulfill its promise, or something like that just to start just as a start. Wesley Schantz: What we see, of course, is Don Giovanni proclaiming his love of women right? He's he's almost protesting too much right, because he doesn't treat them very well. Wesley Schantz: But in his mind he seems genuinely to think that this is the way that he can express his wonderful sentiments of love and affection. By just sort of spreading Wesley Schantz: as broadly as possible, broadcasting his his affec
tions to as many women as possible, and it doesn't work out well for him in the end, of course, but for a while there he seems to be really having a grand time. And really seems completely unable to empathize or feel bad, you know shame. Wesley Schantz: or as he he proclaims more often about about fear being the thing he can't feel, and so I wonder how much he kind of conflates those 2 emotions. or Wesley Schantz: you know. Wesley Schantz: has at any rate, you brought up the the class thing, too
right. He's he's got a notion of himself Wesley Schantz: as an individual, but also, as you know, his status as a great person, a great man, a noble, and how he needs to maintain that at all costs, it seems Wesley Schantz: versus. Of course, Leporello. who is Wesley Schantz: really sort of the voice of of conscience like a kind of jiminy cricket there, but full of fear, full of shame, knows that he's gonna Wesley Schantz: be in for trouble if he stays with this master, and Eddie sticks with him
right. He serves him Wesley Schantz: faithfully to the end or not so faithfully. But but he sticks with him right, and and there's a money piece to that right? Don Giovanni pays him. There's also maybe something more compelling about the Angio kind of magnetism that you know as as it attracts women also attracts. Others, including Leprella, so Wesley Schantz: like thinking about the the latent violence and and hatred and such like. Wesley Schantz: you know, that gets Wesley Schantz: expressed W
esley Schantz: in Don Giovanni's case right up front in the attempted rape of Donna Anna right, and she successfully fence him off, at least in her story. And and her father appears right. The commendatory, another great sort of alter ego of Don Giovanni. Right. He is the true nobleman, the old man, the father and Don Giovanni kills him like on the spot. Alexander Schmid: I distinct you, he says in the English train I disdain to fight you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he doesn't want to fight, but but the
the commendatory insists right for the honor of his daughter Wesley Schantz: and his own families and his own, and sure enough, the younger man, you know, does him in Wesley Schantz: and this sets in motion right? A kind of Wesley Schantz: Hamlet. I got a lot of Hamlet vibes right? Because because her her betrothed what's his name? Otavio? Donna Tavio comes in and and is is sworn to get vengeance right before she'll actually marry him. Right? So it's kind of a funny twist on the hamlet thing. W
esley Schantz: But it's definitely there. There's some there's some. And speaking of modern, you know, figures of of literature. And you know, psychology that that Hamlet figured we've got to probably deal with at some point. Sometimes we talk ourselves into this is like the moment in the presentation where you you realize you have to add something to the syllabus. Let me just go back and tweak a few things. Yeah, yeah, but there's no Wesley Schantz: There's no point in this story at which it se
ems like he's gonna get away with it, and that this violence is not going to be avenged, and there's there's a very strong morality to that. But, but, on the other hand, all of the sort of energy cuts totally against that. It's all you know. Don Giovanni is the Wesley Schantz: figure that is Wesley Schantz: You know this kind of anti-hero. And so I'm interested in that tension right. The story demands that he be punished. and yet the energy, if I, if I can be kind of woolly about it, right, seem
s to be on his side. You know he's the one that we remember, not the commendatory usually. So so what's up with that? Alexander Schmid: that's that's a fantastic question. And I think that shows an anxiety. And let's bring Hamlet into the equation in the modern imagination about morality and what ethical action is, and what it nets. So in Hamlet there's a tension between Protestantism and Catholicism. Does does one soul go immediately to purgatory, and is therefore saved if one is killed while w
hile praying like King Claudius. Alexander Schmid: is doing, and Hamlet seems to believe. What does it mean for the former king to show up as a ghost Alexander Schmid: that is in some sort of liminal space, not not in heaven, not in hell. And so and so. Hamlet is very concerned with even the eternal Alexander Schmid: aspects of his uncle Alexander Schmid: going to going to heaven. He doesn't wish him to go to heaven, and so fast. Very similarly to Don Giovanni has all the energy on his side righ
t? And also like Don Giovanni and Don Quyote has an odd couple sort of second, who is not his equal in an interesting way so, but it's inverted, or Alexander Schmid: Don Quixote is almost a nobleman. He's a minor. He's minor gentility right? He's not a don, but he does call himself, Don. This Don Giovanni is a Don and Sancho is a peasant, and Leporello is also up. A peasant, and so Alexander Schmid: sorry I'm forgetting what I was going to say, based on that. Alexander Schmid: Don Giovanni and A
lexander Schmid: the main character, in fact, right at the beginning of Don Giovanni, after the initial escapade. Alepperello asks Don Giovanni to swear Justin not to get mad at him, and Don Giovanni says he will, just in case he minute mentioned the commendatory that he's just killed, and he says you're living the life of a scoundrel, and eventually he even tries to leave him. Similarly. Mephistopheles, who is the literal German devil. Alexander Schmid: and is under contract with Baus to help h
im experience anything necessary until he demands to album Blicka and says, do this. So shown. Alexander Schmid: he! Alexander Schmid: He starts to run out of ideas, even by Act 4 of of Part 2 of Faust, and he's like, Well, what is it that you want? You know? What are you? What are you striving for? He? Alexander Schmid: It is as if both of these modern characters spouse and Don Giovanni are, are Alexander Schmid: neither of them like you, said the force. Alexander Schmid: The force of the narra
tive is on both of their sides like there is a certain, I mean, and especially in the edition that we watched with. Don Giovanni played by Rodney Guilford. He's a very handsome character, and so and so besides him being having a beautiful operatic voice, and being very well dressed and and also being an extremely just, attractive character. Alexander Schmid: And the music itself leads us forward alongside him. So there are all of these, and and similarly with Faust. But, like you said, both of t
hem, become entrenched in their sort of amorality or immorality. They they can. There is no hint that either of them is going to repent and be saved. And so the like. You said the momentum is on their side, but it's clearly leading in one direction at some point. Alexander Schmid: They're mostly. What is the Alexander Schmid: There's an immovable object and a and unstoppable force unstoppable force. They are very similar to unstoppable forces during the Alexander Schmid: entirety of their dramat
ic sequences until the end, and at the end, I think, is where you see the biggest one of the larger connections between them, which is that one is drawn down into hell, and the other is, is apotheosized into heaven. Alexander Schmid: And, in fact, helped along by the eternal feminine. And Margarita, the woman that that Faust, in a Don Giovanni, like way as an upper class man with a lower class woman, sort of despoiled and in in to some extent ruined her life, and was complicit in the death of se
veral of her family members, including her brother and and mother. Alexander Schmid: But Faust is saved. Wesley Schantz: whereas Don Giovanni is damned. Alexander Schmid: I agree with you that both of them double down, both of them. Move almost in an unadulterated, unimpeded way, with ultimate momentum throughout their stories Alexander Schmid: just to come to a crashing halt Alexander Schmid: at the end. But Faust Alexander Schmid: saved Don Giovanni. Damned! Why do you? I mean, if this analysi
s is on is on base, that they both move with a similar sort of momentum, and the story itself does not stop them. But it is the conclusion that reveals Alexander Schmid: to then the weight of their actions. In? Did they act in the same way, or did they act fundamentally differently, or is there. or is there some sort of fundamental difference that I'm missing Wesley Schantz: between Alexander Schmid: between the ultimate evaluations of their deeds? Wesley Schantz: II think that's a really import
ant moment Wesley Schantz: in the Wesley Schantz: you know, to look to the end right, as as I think Solon says, right in in Aristotle's, Wesley Schantz: right. So there's there's like the No that Don Giovanni utters when he's told to repent Wesley Schantz: by the Commendatories spirit statue, whatever it is. That's there, right he's he. He doubles down, triples down, you know, infinitely Wesley Schantz: repeats his no, and it's too late for him. But he's been told before. Then, as you point out,
right, Leporello has told him, Donel Vera has told him Wesley Schantz: all all along the way. He's he's been invited Wesley Schantz: cajoled, you know. Pursued. You know he's pursued intern, and and at no point will he turn, you know, convert, repent? It's it's impossible for him, it seems. Wesley Schantz: to cause he would stop being done. Giovanni, I guess, and and so, on the other hand, Faust, having his Wesley Schantz: kind of trajectory, which is a bit different, right? A bit more Wesley S
chantz: intellectual. Right? Reflective is a word that I think Kierkegaard use. I'm I'm I'm heavily influenced here by by Kierkegaard's either, or Wesley Schantz: which I've read not too long ago, although it's been a while and he's got he's got a lot of thinking about this exact question, like the immediate. Wesley Schantz: you know, the immediacy, the pursuit of Wesley Schantz: of feeling, or something like that, and then the reflective, the intellectual, the spiritual. He's very much in this
dialectical mode. In that work, of course. Wesley Schantz: as he must be, anyway. So there's something about the way in which Faust is able to. Wesley Schantz: you know. Wesley Schantz: Be be open to others. Pity for him, you know this is a very Dante and Beatrice kind of vibe that I'm getting to where it's it's somebody that he loved. Who in turn is coming back to kind of save him. Wesley Schantz: That idea Wesley Schantz: is, I think, absent from Don Giovanni's vocabulary. Right? The idea that
someone else could do something for him. Wesley Schantz: On that scale. you know he he's the one who's dispersing Wesley Schantz: the good he's the one who's livening things up, and Wesley Schantz: and I don't know that that he would be Wesley Schantz: the Don Giovanni figure once he didn't, you know, do that anymore? It? It's kind of like Wesley Schantz: how Don Quixote, once he stops believing in his adventures. Dies right. He he cannot Wesley Schantz: sort of Wesley Schantz: relinquish Wesle
y Schantz: the qualities that that made him the character he was, and go on living. Wesley Schantz: That's the end of the story for him, so II don't know if Wesley Schantz: the idea of Wesley Schantz: grace or forgiveness is there in his. His repertoire in Don Giovanni's case, whereas it is for those other, you know, for you, Don Quixote. Yes, for sure, and for Faust they're at the very end. Wesley Schantz: just buy a hair. You know he's he's saved. So Alexander Schmid: I think that's a really g
ood response and something something else I'm wondering is Don Giovanni in some ways is very like Faust, but he also reminds me quite, quite a bit of Mephistopheles. The spirit in the gates, you know, even at the beginning of his name. May not the non realigator in Greek? Not like Matisse, nobody, and the Odyssey Alexander Schmid: And and Don Giovanni? No, no, no! Is what he yells at the end. Interestingly, that is what we hear. Women at least I think twice Alexander Schmid: in in the play yell
at him. It so one thing about him is, it's as if he is a representation of radical autonomy and agency that he, like Faust, Faust, objectifies that which he desires, because he pursues it as an object of desire, whether it be a land or a woman. Alexander Schmid: or whether it be the even the ideal woman. And so it is as if Don Giovanni, in his refusal of in in his. Alexander Schmid: It is as if he, like a modern, or even like a romantic, wishes to eschew the natural wishes to punish women for th
eir reproductive faculty, because reproduction suggests a lack of autonomy on one's part. A. Because one doesn't bring oneself into being. One is brought into being by a father and mother, and and B, because, insofar as there is reproduction, there is death. Alexander Schmid: And what is the what is a more radical restriction on one's autonomy and agency than the fact that one is mortal and cannot extend one's life indefinitely. And so Don Giovanni Alexander Schmid: seems to be experiencing at t
he end the same sort of rape, and losing his life as he was in trying to impose on the world, and in trying to impose his will on the world and not be imposed on at all. He finally experiences just Alexander Schmid: just how much of A false representation or superstitious representation or an ineffectual set of gestures those were in in trying to assert his ultimate autonomy and agency over the world and over the feminine representatives Alexander Schmid: in the world. All he does is shows his o
wn impotence and like. And this is also something he's, I think, to some extent literally shouting right? Because we don't hear about Don Giovanni having many children Alexander Schmid: 1,003 lovers in Spain. And yet this is not a comedy about inheritance, and all the problems that go alongside it. Alexander Schmid: But my, my second piece of this guidant, I guess I would say this pitchfork, as it were, is that it? I think it might be possible that Faust is saved, because. Alexander Schmid: thou
gh he is also attempting to to demonstrate his own radical autonomy. Alexander Schmid: he accidentally does good in the same Mephistopheles does good without intending to. He he thinks about the fact that he's made this city. Alexander Schmid: and it will do good for multitudes of people. That is not what made him make the city. In the first place, he was simply demanding that he wanted land from this emperor, and is, in fact, given water that he has to pump. Alexander Schmid: It is accidental t
o the situation that he does, that a. He does good, and B that he recognizes that he does good, and this is what kills him, whereas Don Giovanni, II think he doesn't Wesley Schantz: far more like Matt the sophalase. He knows that he's trying to do bad, but perhaps he does good in the end. By being himself a symbol for justice prevailing in the end, or something of Pluto and Persephone. It's like one of the very last things there. And yeah, he's very much the Persephone figure here. That's that's
really as much as he's been the pursuer. He's he's ultimately pursued and and cocked. Yeah, yeah. Alexander Schmid: that's yeah. Take my hand. And and he said, so instead of him being, you know, taken up to heaven and assumed into heaven the hand he takes drags him down to the flames. But I wonder to what extent that says something about a ethical action among modern heroes. Don Quixote seems to act for our amusement acts in a sort of diluted fashion. Faust. Alexander Schmid: he! Alexander Schm
id: He seems to Alexander Schmid: well, he either suffers from a series of delusions, or from one grand delusion, which is that Alexander Schmid: his Alexander Schmid: which which is perhaps our grand illusion, which is, that if he makes a pact with the devil, things will work out. I mean, that seems to be that that premise itself is sort of a poisoned premise, right that Alexander Schmid: once he makes that pact Alexander Schmid: all that we read that nothing, I mean, except insofar, as Alexand
er Schmid: Mephistopheles intends to do bad, but does good. We're going to see a lot of bad intent on his part that ends up doing some sort of good at the end. But I mean there's a lot of death. Alexander Schmid: and and perhaps even innocent death, I mean Baucus and Philomon. At the end. Margarita Slash Gretchen even poor Euphorian and Helen must die again. Are you foreign first time. But Helen, for you know Alexander Schmid: she's been like a zombie re revivified and put back to death many tim
es Wesley Schantz: would be appalled has been brought back to life. He would insist that her original author. Alexander Schmid: perhaps Homer, probably someone before him back in the ground. But but what I'm wondering is. Alexander Schmid: there doesn't seem to be a coherent set of mechanisms or actions that lead towards a coherent system of ethical action. Wesley Schantz: To me there still seems to be a flattening of ideals and values which makes it so that one Alexander Schmid: can only act in
a diluted way, and being be observed as acting in a sort of diluted way, and almost in a random way, like Don Quixote, and then almost random. Alexander Schmid: which is this, is almost a language of religiosity right that one cannot determine who God will save and who will not serve, or and who will not be saved by God. In a sort of irrationalist way. Well, who? Which modern heroes are going to be saved? Donkey dies sort of ignominiously, but he does come back to his wits. Does that mean? He's
saved? Faustus literally save don Giovanni is literally damned. Alexander Schmid: and Alexander Schmid: but they at at particularly Faust and and Don Giovanni seem to only act in their own self-interest, and not for the interests of others, and it only is incidental to Faust, pursuing his own self-interest that he does the good that seems to save him. And so could Don Giovanni Alexander Schmid: continued on this sort of listless single focus. Life where he pursues objectifying his loves over an
d over and over again, and mistakenly, have done good. I mean, is this the basis for a relativistic way of looking at morality, that that none of these are heroes. They're simply protagonists, and they simply exist on this on this. Like what William James called it. What like this? This sort of inert rock. Wesley Schantz: and and and had they not existed, there would be no such thing as ethics, and even with them existing. Alexander Schmid: while ethics may just be an epi phenomenon of these the
se conscious characters. Themselves existing. But perhaps they could just like waiting for Guido, sit around and do nothing. Perhaps, like Don Giovanni. They can just pursue women! And and in in inglorious action, or or like Don Quixote, they could just make up an ideal that never existed which they pursue, which eventually causes them so much shame that they die. Alexander Schmid: What? So? I'm having trouble calling any of these characters heroes, because I'm not sure what their tellos is. Ii
mean, I know that they they pursue some sort of subjective ideal, but I'm not seeing a Alexander Schmid: That is a subjective ideal. It's not a transcendental ideal that exists, or an objective ideal which exists in the world. And so Alexander Schmid: I still wonder whether you know. One might as well just be one flu over the cuckoo's nest. One might just as well be in the the insane asylum Alexander Schmid: or out fighting the war sort of like in a very famous friend or not a very famous Frenc
h movie, but a very good French movie that I like called The King of hearts where it's World War I. And actually, Adolf Hitler is a character. And these insane asylum people from from France escape into a city. And there's a parallel drawn between who's truly insane soldiers who are fighting, or the insane people. Alexander Schmid: and that parallel, I think, is apropos to what we're wondering with these heroes? Alexander Schmid: What is it that they strive towards what can be growing? Alexander
Schmid: And can there even be a such thing as like a communal or general ideal if these people are just pursuing that which is Alexander Schmid: subjectively good, but ultimately not very good, at least in the case of Don Giovanni, and perhaps with Faust it's Alexander Schmid: still unclear. What he did to deserve. Grace. Wesley Schantz: indeed! Wesley Schantz: yeah, no, I mean, I mean, I think there's a question there. Yeah, whether it's possible to deserve grace? Right? Is it his actions? Is
it the good that comes out of them at all? Or is it just Wesley Schantz: the predestination or the system right, the occluded hidden system behind the scenes, working its way towards whatever it is that has been planned from the start. Right? Wesley Schantz: because that question of faith and works Wesley Schantz: is at the heart of the like wars of religion that you know. That story comes shortly after, and that, you know sort of schisms down through Europe Wesley Schantz: around the same time
Wesley Schantz: as the wonderful printing press comes on the scene, you know. So all of that seems wrapped up in this idea of the modern. Absolutely. I wanna. Say in Don Giovanni's case, that if we see good come out of it we could see it in the form of the lesson that the audience learns right, that the epilogue kind of speaks to Wesley Schantz: it could be seen in the sort of like negative right? In the sense of this is a model of what not to do. And here's the bad things that happen. I think
that's a little simplistic, but I think that's there. Wesley Schantz: And, on the other hand, we could see, yes, a communal good Wesley Schantz: in the form of these other characters who are brought together. And again, that's a little bit, you know. Kumbaya, but it's also kind of there, right? There's this idea that as much as he's betrayed each of them, and made it many times, in some cases repeatedly. They've offered. Wesley Schantz: you know, forgiveness. In the case of Elvira. Leporello has
offered service even to the point of maybe practically dying for him. You know it's a kind of like taking on his form for a while there, and almost being killed, and then, in the case of Donna Anna, the Commendator's family, her betrothed, Ottavio, there's this idea of honor that's sort of like Wesley Schantz: is preserved in a weird way, you know, like she escapes him, which seems like unthinkable right? She gets away from Don Giovanni. Wesley Schantz: It's it's this case of like the the frien
dship that Otavia thought they had has been betrayed. And so he's led to kind of think about friendship where you know he never reflected on it before, and and we again are led to think about honor, and the possibility of communal versus just subjective self interest or value even being a thing, you know. So it sort of spurs Wesley Schantz: the desire for exactly what you're talking about transcendent Wesley Schantz: operations of grace and meaning. And we want those things very badly. You know
more than we even want vengeance, I think, although I you know, it's easy to say that having never experienced something quite this bad. But Wesley Schantz: but yeah, that's that's where I go, you know, thinking about your diet and your dilemma. There Wesley Schantz: II again have a fairly optimistic outlook, and and I don't. I don't feel Wesley Schantz: truly the abys, the abyss of the absurd or the post modern, or maybe even the modern, because II still have a certain Wesley Schantz: naive fai
th, I think, in in these matters so as much as I'd like to think that I've thought these things through, and that these literature examples and these, you know, hero, anti hero protagonists say like, Help us Wesley Schantz: process all this. It might just be my subjective, you know, take on things, but but I do think Wesley Schantz: there's value here Wesley Schantz: beyond just entertainment, right? As as much as this is a fun thing to watch and enjoyable. There are certain lessons. Wesley Scha
ntz: and they're not quite as trite as they might appear Wesley Schantz: at first glance. So when I Wesley Schantz: when I ultimately look at you, know these kind of modern characters. Wesley Schantz: I do see reflections of myself. and and I also sort of catch glimpses of the ways that Wesley Schantz: we are still connected. There is still some kind of communal Wesley Schantz: goal or telos. It's just. It's just Wesley Schantz: difficult to Wesley Schantz: what except now II don't know somethin
g like that. Alexander Schmid: maybe even to see and to believe in the existence of so something you're making me think of is that possibly one aspect of the modern contra and postmodern is that Alexander Schmid: there is a certain natural reaction in the world, possibly the social world as an extension of the natural world Alexander Schmid: that, like in physics creates a certain reaction. So one acts in such a way within society, over and over again, that one creates a certain amount of like,
say, a malignant will, and others that necessitates Alexander Schmid: a certain action. And so perhaps something about the modern age. And it's transition from transcendent values provided by by religion to a more secular society. Is that the basis for such feelings of for such collective feelings of ill will towards an actor Alexander Schmid: is philosophically subverted, but at a human communal level doesn't seem to be subverted at all. So even if marriage is protect, protected not simply civi
lly, but say religiously, and it's supposed to be something that is not trespassed upon, and perhaps Alexander Schmid: civly and religiously. Alexander Schmid: the autonomy of the will of a woman should be should be respected. And yet these modern characters. Alexander Schmid: are not respecting these things precisely because they are sort of they they are philosophical in that they no longer accept the fundamental. Civil and religious premises underlying communal engagement. The. Alexander Schm
id: And it is true that the philosophical principle, insofar, as there being a transcendent divinity that Alexander Schmid: that punishes or rewards. Ethical or unethical action is brought into question at this time, but even in being brought into question that doesn't make the actions that are based on it. Those actions are themselves, they still net similar consequences to when the philosophical foundations underline those actions. Were still stable. Alexander Schmid: Right? I think, perhaps,
in the post modern age. And this is something will, III imagine, move into at some point I think that reaction might be limited or or stunted. Because there's even less. Because there's a second thought, right? Not only is there. So even if there is a sort of social reaction to a certain way of Alexander Schmid: acting in a traditionally unethical way. The second thought is not to observe the mounting reactionary force, but to then question why there should be a mount reactionary force. It's lik
e, well, if we philosophically no longer believe in this, and yet we all feel that this man is committing Alexander Schmid: evil deeds. But the foundation for even calling something evil is gone, and perhaps we need to question our interrogate our own feelings right instead of interrogating one's thoughts because of the feelings that don't accord with one's thoughts. One then needs to bring one's think one's feeling in line with one's thinking a in in some ways it seems almost like a reversal. I
t's like, well, your natural feelings are in the wrong. They should. Alexander Schmid: You should feel different. Alexander Schmid: some. But that is probably my better point, my my other point, just because I know that we have to touch on this because we've said we're going to touch on. This is that I think that there's an interesting question of identity and mixture of identity in Don Giovanni between Leporello and Don Giovanni, particularly near the end when Leporello is made to take on the
identity of Don Giovanni, wear his clothes and lay with Elvira, which apparently he does Alexander Schmid: and then is going. He is going to be killed as Don Giovanni. And so there is. Alexander Schmid: There's a certain taking. There is at least the taking on of the identity of Don Giovanni by Leperello in a in a similar way to Cloud, taking on the identity of Zack Fair. He is, he does not have the skill necessary. Probably even the looks necessary, though all anime video game characters look p
retty good now, I guess this in these days they can look up there than others, but they often look. Alexander Schmid: you know, better than better than non animated figures. And so Alexander Schmid: in a similar way to Leperello, taking on the identity of Don Quixote, or excuse me of Don Giovanni and and then even acting in a similar way to them, and almost enduring the same fate as he does so does Cloud take on a similar role with Zack, but he also does not live out the same fate Alexander Schm
id: as Zack in the same way that Leprello in and and I'm still working this through, perhaps in admitting that he is Leporello, and that he did have a role in Don Giovanni's actions. Alexander Schmid: Well, it is while he is telling his story that he escapes. It's not. His story is accepted that helps him to escape. It is the fact that he is telling a story and then escapes and so in any case, there is a mixture of identities. Alexander Schmid: but and a sort of Tran trans. Transmission of ident
ity, but also an incomplete transmission of identity between the characters that II see as a similarity, even if not a a an extraordinary similarity between Leprello and Don Giovanni, and Cloud Stripe and Zack Alexander Schmid: and Zack fair and which is itself perhaps just a representation of what we've already seen with Don Po day, and Sancho and Faus and Mephis, softly, which is that influences run in at least 2 directions. Alexander Schmid: but I just I just wanted to mention that. Because I
know that I didn't mention my connection between Faust and final fantasy, lo! Last time, and how Faust pursues a a real figure of the divine feminine in Marguerite, and a sort of and also an idealized version. And Helen, in the same way that I think that Cloud pursues the idealized feminine, and Eric real feminine in Tifa. Okay? Finally got it in there. Alexander Schmid: Well, also, of course, living in a world that is transitioning from reliance on magic to reliance on science. Interesting. Fa
ntasy. 7. Magic is still used, but in a scientific way. Alexander Schmid: It is it is. The material is is what hardened Moco, which is itself the live stream of the literal live stream of the planet which, in final fantasy, 6 and 7 machines are used in order to derive energy from those and sometimes monsters. Wesley Schantz: Yeah. that's a lot Wesley Schantz: that I will have to muse on and and chew on here. Wesley Schantz: that's a really cool connection between Wesley Schantz: Faust and final
fantasy. 7 Wesley Schantz: one that Wesley Schantz: I think we'll I mean. we'll have to kind of put in conversation with the other things we were saying about how there's this like Wesley Schantz: need to tell more stories or something like that, right? The the idea of an identity or a role being transmitted, and the idea of stories being transmitted. I feel like you were kind of saying that about Leporello, even in the act of storytelling as well. Right, which makes me think of Shahrazad the 1
,000 and One Nights right her, her storytelling being an act of self preservation, and of saving the King right from his own worse self. Wesley Schantz: So there's something there's really something interesting there. I wanted to throw out. Wesley Schantz: as you're talking about that Wesley Schantz: a very classical example of this in the Achilles. Patroclus. Right? Patrick. List donning the honor, taking on the the role of Achilles. Yeah. So that's another thing. Maybe we could look at but my
time here. Wesley Schantz: my time here is up for today. So Wesley Schantz: so next time is it Hamlet? Is it underground? What do you? Wanna what do you want to do next week? Well, maybe let's start with notes from underground, because I think we'll have a strong connection between books, literature, and being Alexander Schmid: several times. Alexander Schmid: So one time in Don Giovanni we hear the expression, you speak as if you're in a book, or as if you were Alexander Schmid: those expressio
ns proliferate and notes from underground. They're constant references saying that this this character piece from the book. So the there is a literararariness, a constant a conscious literariness to the text, and also the idea that stories or books can perhaps eliminate, but also perhaps drive on insane Wesley Schantz: words, words, words. Yes, okay. There we go Wesley Schantz: alright. Thank you, my friend. I'm looking forward to our next our next visit with each other. Sounds good, thank you.
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