Translating Zapffe's On the Tragic.

[Wolftrappe]

*** 1. Introduction.

A few weeks ago, I was reading an interview with Ligotti (from some time ago), in which he stated that the book he wanted to be buried with would be, ironically, a book that he’d never read and would probably never get to read. The book in question was Die Philosophie der Erlösung by Philipp Mainländer. Anyway, I started thinking about this, and, in doing so, my mind wandered to Peter Wessel Zapffe’s Om det tragiske, another text of note that has yet to be translated into English.

Because I’m a beleaguered graduate student (although not studying anything to do with Norway or Zapffe, I’m afraid), I do have access to rarer books that can be somewhat difficult to acquire for private citizens. Last I saw, Om det tragiske was going for upwards of $500. It's also in Norwegian, of course. As such, I recently acquired access to the 1996 Pax Forlag A/S edition of Zapffe’s book.

To give myself an even more compelling reason to procrastinate and put off doing the work to which I should be whole-heartedly dedicated, I’ve decided to start informally translating and making available at least some of this text, primarily here at our own TLO. I’ve lurked here for years, but I’d like to give something back, however imperfect and tiny.

When I say “informally,” I don’t mean casually or lackadaisically. I have experience translating French (one of the things I spend a great of time studying professionally is a mid-twentieth century French philosopher named Alexandre Kojève, who interestingly enough wrote a book about atheism and nihilism in the early 1930s), although admittedly not Norwegian. Let that not stop me, however! You know that Jean Hyppolite taught himself to read French by translating Hegel's Phänomenologie des Geistes into French?

That being said, I’ve acquired a number of translation aids to assist me, as well as the vaguely paternal interest of a professor of Scandinavian languages with whom I’m acquainted. I want to place a tremendous amount of stress on the consistency of the translation and on its literalness, at least insofar as these things are possible for any translator (see Walter Benjamin’s "The Task of the Translator"). Of course, my work is going to be delayed by a variety of factors, although I hope to be able to provide updates at least semi-regularly. What that will mean exactly, I'm not sure.

Hopefully, at least some of you will find it entertaining or interesting.

Last but not least, if any of you have any knowledge of Norwegian, do feel free to let me know. The book is huge, and I don’t intend to translate it all, or in any order other than that which interests me (or possibly by request).

I think that’s about all I have to say to start, so let’s get down to some content.

*** 2. What's here?

Zapffe helpfully provides an “English Summary” at the end of the text, which I have included first and foremost. Included below is this summary.

Soon to be forthcoming are translations of the "Foreword" by Jan Brage Gundersen (a Norwegian academic, I believe), Zapffe's own "Foreword," and the "Motto," a snippet of text that prefaces the text proper. I will also include a translation of the table of contents shortly.

After that, I will start looking at actual passages in the text, and I'll keep a list of what's been done here in this initial post.

ALL brackets [] and bold text within the text proper is my own. All italics and parenthesis () are Zapffe's. Wherever and in every way possible, I am attempting to maintain the integrity of the text itself.

*** 3. "English Summary" (619-622)

The world of experience is considered in this work from the point of view of the concerns of the individual entities. This means that the entities are classified according to what is important and necessary for them, what they are concerned with. They can thus be classified in an ascending scale from an assumed lack of all concern (the non-organic world), via entities to which humans attribute concerns (plants, animals without consciousness), to what we call conscious animals with a more differentiated range of concerns (§ 1, 3, 4).

After these comes the primitive or “low-status” human being, characterized by basic concerns (biological concerns, simple desires), and the scale continues with increasing differentiation, ending with the “great” men and women, the highest representatives of their respective cultures. In addition to the concerns of primitive people, such people have desires and values in the broadest senses of these words, together with the most highly differentiated social and metaphysical concerns. This system has the advantage of including a great deal of material under a single viewpoint.

Alongside the scale of concerns one can draw up a scale of abilities (a distinctive group of qualities in the entity, or organism); these are associated with a group of concerns relating to development or realization (§8 et passim). The concerned individual consciously attempts to realize his concerns by using his abilities. Sometimes the abilities are adequate (sufficiency), sometimes they are inadequate (deficiency), and sometimes there is a surplus of ability in relation to the demands of the problem or situation. The surplus may provide additional advantages, it may be irrelevant to the solution of the problem, or it may have harmful consequences (sec 8 and ch. 5). When an ability occurs with a single or very few functional variations it is referred to as predetermined; when it is mutable, sometimes with an unlimited applicability, it is referred to as non-determined. These are also the two extremes of a scale; in between one finds for example a wrong determination, where an ability is determined in a way that is unfortunate compared with another way assumed to be more fortunate, and variations of this are over-determination, where an ability is too strictly determined, and under-determination, where it is too little determined (ch. 3, 5, and 6, § 82).

The normal and valid realization of a concern is referred to as the proper solution to the problem that existed prior to the realization. When a proper realization cannot be obtained (owing to conditions inside or outside the organism), then the concerned individual may settle for a pseudo-solution, a surrogate (ch. 6).

The environment (ch. 3) in which the organism attempts to realize its concerns may be so formed that it consciously promotes or wishes to promote the realization; it is then referred to as a sympathetic environment as regards these factors. Sometimes the environment takes no conscious part in the realization; it is then indifferent. Finally, it may sometimes consciously work against the organism, and then it is referred to as inimical or satanic. In all three cases the environment may have been propitious, unpropitious, or neither, irrelevant (§ 4).

The result of the conflict (after a single clash or over a longer period) may be the attainment of the concern (sanction), or its non-attainment (veto); sometimes, on the other hand, it may be opposed or violated. When primary concerns are deeply and irreversibly violated the event is referred to as a catastrophe (ch. 7). A catastrophe may be elementary or qualified; i.e. contain qualities that draw attention to it rather than to something else. Some of these catastrophes have a particular quality referred to as tragic; they are then part of a whole, a tragic process (§ 75).

The tragic process has three characteristics: a culturally relevant greatness, or magnitude, in the afflicted individual, a catastrophe that befalls him, and a functional relation between the greatness and the catastrophe. With this definition of tragedy the study approaches its principal aim: to give meaning to the word “tragic” that is sufficiently nambiguous [sic] and that cannot naturally be applied to any other term (§ 1), and one that at the same time lies well within the mainstream of aesthetic and literary tradition.

This choice of meaning has a further advantage, in addition to the purely terminological one: The quality of the process described by the word tragic, in its empirical aspects, has strong philosophical implications. Tragedy is given a central and dominating role in the human battle of concerns and throws a significant light on the human condition here on earth (§ 76, 90, 91). “Significant light” means a light that reveals consequences that are relevant for human concerns. The victim not only undergoes immediate suffering, through the violation of the relevant concern, he is also deprived of his fundamental expectation; a spectator with the same concerns as the victim will therefore also feel his expectation waver. This expectation is that of a universal moral system, a regulation of history according to human values. In other words: the expectation that perfectibility will lead to fulfilment is confounded when a tragic constellation blocks the way to a proper solution and opens the way for a pseudo-solution or defeat (§ 93).

The adequate affective reactions of a spectator to the violation of a concern of his own or of a person he identifies with are aversion, dejection, disgust, bitter revolt, and so on. His reaction as a whole is to reject what has happened; to use Volkelt’s expression, the event “should not happen.” This ought to be particularly true of qualified catastrophes and especially tragic processes. But experience shows that accidents to others can under certain circumstances attract the spectator. How can one explain (i.e. make available to the understanding through some structural model) this apparent paradox? Is this merely a special case of the fascination contained in all unusual events of great magnitude in IT spite IT of IT the suffering they may cause a fellow human being? Or are there indications that the spectator is attracted because of the human suffering involved? Or are we dealing with two completely different ways of experiencing the event, two irreconcilable aspects? An elucidation of this question in practical terms is attempted in ch. 9, cf. §133 and 81.

The value of witnessing another’s misfortune has been shown to be isolated and to some degree intensified when a tragic process is recreated in literature or in other forms of art. The description and explanation of this and especially the “problem of tragedy” have tempted philosophers and aesthetic writers (particularly Europeans) for over 2,000 years. This is briefly dealt with in §§ 95 ff. Each of the factors that are regulary [sic] present in a tragedy are examined for their capacity to contribute to the experience of the spectator, and the results are summed up in the following contention: the richest experience of a tragedy can give is a a pseudo-solution of the metaphysical problem of meaning through poetic sublimation (§102). Three examples of tragic literature are then given in ch. 10.

Although the problems associated with tragedy have been taken up by many of the most prominent European men of letters, the results are neither convincing nor conclusive for a modern reader, despite a blinding wealth of detail. The newcomer is quite willing to acknowledge the authority vested in this imposing list of names; on the other hand it is notable that the renown attached to names such as Aristotle, Lessing, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer does not derive from their researches into tragedy, which have been more or less a side issue. There seem to be two main reasons for the lack of clarity and the endless discussions: first, that researchers have not managed to describe the tragic process in such a way that it could be clearly distinguished from a non-tragic process, and secondly that they have not distinguished clearly enough between tragic process, tragic writing, and what they variously refer to as tragic experience, tragic mood, tragic feelings, etc. (cf. §§110, 111, 112).

By distinguishing as accurately as possible between these concepts, I have tried to contribute to research on the subject.

Zapffe, Peter Wessel. Om det tragiske. Oslo, Norway: Pax Forlag A/S, 1996. Originally 1941. 619-622.
ISBN: 82-530-1842-8 / ISBN 82-7350-437-9 (Dagens Bok)

	TLO THOMAS LIGOTTI ONLINE

[Charles Dexter Muir'd]

This would be fantastic. I was just thinking the other day how I would never read that book because of its rarity and the certainty that I will never study the language it's in (and, honestly, a tendency to putting off my more ambitious reading projects). And thanks for pasting in the English Summary.

thank you very much for endeavoring to undertake this. several years ago a friend who was working at a library in copenhagen at the time was able to procure me a copy, but because i am relatively ignorant of dano-norwegian, i have been unable to enjoy its content in anything other than a piecemeal fashion. i have no doubt your efforts will be appreciated in this place.

[Wolftrappe]

*** 1. Comments

Here is Gundersen's foreword, translated from the Norwegian. It's pretty standard fare, as you're probably aware. If anything, it's rather phlegmatic and reserved, although that might be more customary there (in U.S. academic circles, these sorts of forewords tend to be rather a bit more laudatory and a little less explicitly concerned with bald justification). There is no analysis or summary beyond a sort of history of publication.

Contrary to Gundersen's description of the text itself as "stylish and accessible," I'm finding it to be rather slow going, in addition to the fact that Zapffe not only uses unusual words ("autotelic") in specialized ways (not to be unexpected in this kind of text), but also the spelling seems to be frequently non-standard. This probably has something to do with regional variations in grammar and vocabulary (I think). We'll see. Before I venture too much further, I need to look at a few grammar manuals. As stated, I'll update when I can.

*** 2. “Foreword” by Jan Brage Gundersen. (1-2)

On the Tragic is Peter W. Zappfe's doctoral dissertation from 1941. It is the result of eleven years of work that Zapffe invested after he had quit his position as a [lawyer, probably] in Tromso and returned to school at the University of Oslo. He had a prior degree in law, and he began to study literature. On the Tragic was first planned as a master's thesis in this subject. Zapffe came into contact with Professor Fredrik Paasche, who recommended that he submit his work as a dissertation for a doctorate in philosophy instead.

The dissertation was published by Gyldenhal [the Norwegian publisher Gyldendal N.F.] and printed in small quantities. The timing of the publication of On the Tragic could not have been worse. Few copies were sold, although they were eventually to command high prices in the antiquarian market. In 1968, excerpts from On the Tragic were published in the book Peter Wessel Zapffe, edited by Guttorm Fløistad, professor of the history of ideas at the University of Oslo. It also contained an extensive preface, where aspects of Zapffe's philosophy were discussed, as well as the philosophical essay "The Last Messiah," the poem "Lullaby," and the short story "The Story of a Light."

Zapffe's literary production is large, ranging from beautifully literary examples of poetry and drama to essays on art and philosophy. To list only a few would include The Prodigal Son: A Dramatic Retelling (1951), An Introduction to Literary Dramaturgy (1961), and The Logical Sandbox (1967). A Collection of Essays and Epistles came in 1967, edited by Sigmund Hoftun and Bernt Western. In 1970, Fr. Christiansen and Guttorm Fløistad published a collection of essays covering aspects of Zapffe's thought. The contributors included, besides Christiansen and Fløistad, Sigmund Kvaløya and Arne Naess. The volume also reprinted the ninth chapter of On the Tragic ("The Autotelic Experience of the Tragic").

There can be hardly any doubt that On the Tragic is the cornerstone of Zapffe's thought, at least as we see it today. Knowledge of this work is an indispensable prerequisite for having an informed opinion of Zapffe as a philosopher and writer. It cannot be doubted that Zapffe ranks highly among the very best and most original Norwegian philosophers. For this reason alone, the work should be republished sporadically so that an interested public has a chance to read it (in much the same way as the best and brightest authors should, from time to time, be made available through new editions). Zapffe can easily be compared to such classics, especially for the reason that On the Tragic is written in a stylish and accessible language, so subtle and funny, and articulate enough that the book can be read by those who are philosophically unschooled. This may explain some of the appeal that Zapffe has had outside of philosophical circles, particularly among the younger generations.

Peter Wessel Zapffe's On the Tragic is a work that deserves to be read once more. Surveying the different reactions upon its initial publication, as well as when it was released in part twenty-seven years later, we see that the work has not yet been fully appreciated or understood, but we remain confident that it will inspire a new generation of readers.

This new edition contains the "English Summary" in the back of the book, so that the work can find more easily its proper place in foreign libraries.

Oslo
June 1983
J. B. G.

NOTE: Updated to correct errors noted below. Thanks, everybody!

[MadsPLP]

It's a very nice thing to do, Wolftrappe!

Quote Originally Posted by Wolftrappe

The dissertation was published by Gyldenhal [a Danish publisher] and printed in small quantities.

Actually, there is both a Danish publisher named Gyldendal and a Norwegian Gyldendal (usually referred to as "Gyldendal Norsk [Norwegian] Forlag [Press]" or "Gyldendal N.F.). The latter started in 1925, after Norwegian interests had raised money to buy back Norwegian writers' rights (at least those which had been in the hands of (Danish) Gyldendal), something the Norwegians are still proud of today.

Thus, there are two Gyldendals, one Danish and one Norwegian. On the Tragic was published by the Norwegian Gyldendal.

Edit: And I have some knowledge of Norwegian bokmål since it's veryclose to my native Danish - feel free to contact me. I know of others here who has a much better command of the Norwegian than I do, but I think they will probably come forward without me mentioning them.

[zapffefreak]

my blog has a google translation of On the tragic. it's not an excellent translation, but it's a readable version (until the full translation is finished).

Zapffe Project : Files

[ToALonelyPeace]

Quote Originally Posted by zapffefreak

my blog has a google translation of On the tragic. it's not an excellent translation, but it's a readable version (until the full translation is finished). Zapffe Project : Files

Even with google translation it is more readable than I thought Thank you for your hard work sir!

[Michael]

Quote Originally Posted by zapffefreak

my blog has a google translation of On the tragic. it's not an excellent translation, but it's a readable version (until the full translation is finished). Zapffe Project : Files

Dear God, you did a HELL of a job on this. It looks wonderful. If this is the UNFINISHED version, I can't wait for the finished one. It shows that this is a labor of love. Many, many, many thanks.

[Malone]

Many, many thanks for this, Wolftrappe. You are rendering a heroic service!

[Viva June]

A very commendable undertaking. I once promised to try something similar and never delivered so much as a foreword, and so I'll refrain from that kind of grandstanding this time around. However, I may be able to at least provide some assistance; I even have the same edition. Send me a private message and I'll give you my email address.

The work looks solid so far. I don't have the book at hand, but I can provide some minor corrections anyway:

"[...] after he had quit his position as a judge [...]". Zapffe was never a judge. I'm guessing the word in the original is "jurist", which just means he had a law degree. I believe he was a solicitor for a while, but I will have to check with the biography (by Jørgen Haave, sadly not very good).

"Gyldenhal [a Danish publisher]". Gyldendal. See the above reply by Mads.

"The Logic of the Sandcastle". Actually The Logical Sandbox (Den logiske sandkasse).

Those are the only mistakes I can spot without looking at the original.

Edit: Oh, and you can omit the "A/S" after the publisher's name. It's short for "aksjeselskap", i.e. publically traded company, like "Inc." or "LLC".