Sex & Character: Authorised Translation from the Sixth German EditionWeininger, Otto
Philosophy
Sex & Character: Authorised Translation from the Sixth German Edition
Weininger, Otto
Character; Sex; Sex (Psychology); Sexual ethics
Where anything obviously depends on strong moulding women have not the
smallest leaning towards its production, neither in philosophy nor in
music, in the plastic arts nor in architecture. Where, however, a weak
and vague sentimentality can be expressed with little effort, as in
painting or verse-making, or in pseudo-mysticism and theosophy, women
have sought and found a suitable field for their efforts. Their lack of
productiveness in the former sphere is in harmony with the vagueness of
the psychical life of women. Music is the nearest possible approach to
the organisation of a sensation. Nothing is more definite,
characteristic, and impressive than a melody, nothing that will more
strongly resist obliteration. One remembers much longer what is sung
than what is spoken, and the arias better than the recitatives.
Let us note specially here that the usual phrases of the defenders of
women do not apply to the case of women. Music is not one of the arts to
which women have had access only so recently that it is too soon to
expect fruits; from the remotest antiquity women have sung and played.
And yet....
It is to be remembered that even in the case of drawing and painting
women have now had opportunities for at least two centuries. Every one
knows how many girls learn to draw and sketch, and it cannot be said
that there has not yet been time for results were results possible. As
there are so few female painters with the smallest importance in the
history of art, it must be that there is something in the nature of
things against it. As a matter of fact, the painting and etching of
women is no more than a sort of elegant, luxurious handiwork. The
sensuous, physical element of colour is more suitable for them than the
intellectual work of formal line-drawing, and hence it is, that whereas
women have acquired some small distinction in painting they have gained
none in drawing. The power of giving form to chaos is with those in whom
the most universal memory has made the widest comprehension possible; it
is a quality of the masculine genius.
I regret that I must so continually use the word genius, as if that
should apply only to a caste as well defined from those below as
income-tax payers are from the untaxed. The word genius was very
probably invented by a man who had small claims on it himself; greater
men would have understood better what to be a genius really was, and
probably they would have come to see that the word could be applied to
most people. Goethe said that perhaps only a genius is able to
understand a genius.
There are probably very few people who have not at some time of their
lives had some quality of genius. If they have not had such, it is
probable that they have also been without great sorrow or great pain.
They would have needed only to live sufficiently intently for a time for
some quality to reveal itself. The poems of first love are a case in
point, and certainly such love is a sufficient stimulus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account