Das Ewig-Weibliche Zieht Uns Hinan! Or does it?

I became fascinated by German literature and philosophy in college, spent my junior year at a German university and ended up getting a B.A. in German along with my engineering degree.  I enjoyed reading many different German authors and poets, but Goethe is my favorite.

Goethe’s opus magnum is the poetic drama Faust, the classic interpretation of the Faustian bargain with the devil.  It is a complex work that spanned much of his life.  He completed it shortly before his death.

At the end of the drama, Faust’s soul should have been given over to Mephistopheles according to the pact he made, but instead he is redeemed and ascends to heaven as a mystical choir sings the final lines:

Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis

Das Unzulängliche, hier wird‘s Ereignis

Das Unbeschreibliche, hier ist‘s getan

Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan

In English:

Everything transitory

is only an allegory;

the unachievable

here comes to pass;

the indescribable,

is here accomplished;

the Eternal Feminine

draws us aloft.

There are of course many interpretations of this final quatrain, but perhaps the most intriguing part of it is the concept of the Eternal Feminine.

I believe that Goethe, as a romantic, was convinced that the best qualities of humanity were exemplified in women - nobility of character, self-sacrificing love, gentleness and strength of spirit, forgiveness.  Indeed it was Gretchen, the young woman whom Faust had seduced and ruined, whose love and forgiveness intercedes on Faust’s behalf in providing for his redemption.

The romantic ideal of womanhood has been a common thread in literature and poetry.  Its contrast to the brutal masculine world provided an image of purity and compassion that could be offered as a goal in the savage reality of a world filled with wars, disasters and merciless competition.

But the sad irony of this romanticism was its tendency to keep women in ‘their place’ as symbols, protecting them from the brutality of normal life by preventing their participation in any meaningful way.  To keep the feminine ideal pure and unsullied, men put it on a pedestal, but rarely allowed the ideal to have any influence in their lives or habits.

There is condescension and hypocrisy inherent in the creation of ideals and symbols.  The ‘noble savage’, for example, was supposedly a respected symbol of a simpler world where men were untainted by the corrupting influence of so-called civilization.  Native Americans were glorified by some poets and writers in this way, but we all know how that story ended.  Mankind has a long history of paying lip service to ideals but totally ignoring them or even opposing them in day-to-day living.

A similar fate awaited the romantic concept of the ‘eternal feminine’.  Women were treated with great reverence, but little respect.  Their honor was protected at all costs, but their opinions and contributions were rejected or belittled.  Rather than seeing their opportunities to influence society grow, women found that their exalted state bound them in ever tighter bonds of irrelevance.

The romantic spirit began to fade by mid 19^th century and unsentimental, materialistic philosophies began to dominate the thought landscape.  Marxism and capitalism spawned their own ideals with antithetical goals, but very similar hard edges of idealized behavior.  Strength, ruthlessness and cunning were paramount - hardly the eternal feminine ideal!

By the beginning of the 20^th century, women began to vigorously claim their own place in the evolution of society, demonstrating their capacity for scholarship, labor and political influence.  In order to achieve this equality, women found it expedient to shatter the romantic feminine ideal and compete in a man’s world, embracing the masculine ethic.  If becoming an executive or a political leader required a remorseless competitive spirit, then so be it.  If an inclination toward compassion or diplomacy was seen as feminine weakness, then it must be abandoned.  If emotional expressions were not acceptable at the top, then a cold, controlled demeanor must be adopted.  If being the vulnerable victim in sexual affairs narrowed one’s options, then the answer was to switch the tables and become as emotionally indifferent and manipulative as the males.

So as we enter the year 2015 instead of the eternal feminine drawing us upward, we find that women, to some extent, have been coopted by the masculine reality. The romantic in me hopes that this is a temporary cloaking of the ideal rather than a true metamorphosis of the feminine into the masculine, and that the eventual equal, interaction of men and women as true partners in our civilization will produce a spiritual awakening of love, compassion, forgiveness and cooperation.