Arthur Schopenhauer, c. 1818.

After completing the first third (30+ pages) of The Elf King this weekend, I take a short breather so that speed does not overwhelm craft. This is always a challenge, this balancing act: one wants to finish a draft of a play, and to get it right the first time, but such things often require a considered and restful pace rather than haste. So I scale back, at least for a few days.

In the meantime, I post here a few passages from Arthur Schopenhauer that seem to be germane to a few issues of the play. The first is from the philosopher’s epistemology as described in the first volume of The World as Will and Representation, and concerns the nature of consciousness, knowledge, and the world. It is relevant here because it suggests that along with the birth of every new human being, the world itself is born anew: that every “first light” that a child sees is indeed the first light of the universe, and that, consequently, with every individual death the world is eradicated:

And yet the existence of this whole world remains for ever dependent on that first eye that opened, were it even that of an insect. For such an eye necessarily brings about knowledge, for which and in which alone the whole world is, and without which it is not even conceivable. The world is entirely representation, and as such requires the knowing subject as the supporter of its existence. That long course of time itself, filled with innumerable changes, through which matter rose from form to form, till finally there came into existence the first knowing animal, the whole of this time itself is alone thinkable in the identity of a consciousness. This world is the succession of the representations of this consciousness, the form of its knowing, and apart from this loses all meaning, and is nothing at all.

The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1
Trans. E.F.J. Payne, p. 30

The parents of The Elf King find that the knowledge that their child will die is a useless knowledge: it, like perhaps the most important knowledge, confers neither wisdom to be passed on, nor comfort, nor a lesson to be taught to others. Obviously, this flies into the face of the truisms of traditional drama and theatre, which insist upon reconciliation, catharsis, and some kind of practical lesson to be learned from the experience of the characters on the stage. Instead, the question becomes how to continue to live with this knowledge, which once gained can no longer be lost. Every individual must find the answer to this question for themselves; there is no one response that can be shared among the community as a whole. In a late essay, Schopenhauer provides an intimation of one response, which also provides the basis for his consideration of morals:

In fact, the conviction that the world and thus also man is something that really ought not to be, is calculated to fill us with forbearance towards one another; for what can we expect from beings in such a predicament? In fact from this point of view, it might occur to us that the really proper address between one man and another should be, instead of Sir, Monsieur, and so on, Leidensgefährte, socii malorum, compagnon de misères, my fellow-sufferer. However strange this may sound, it accords with the facts, puts the other man in the most correct light, and reminds us of that most necessary thing, tolerance, patience, forbearance, and love of one’s neighbour, which everyone needs and each of us, therefore, owes to another.

“Doctrine of the Suffering of the World”
In Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 2
Trans. E.F.J. Payne, p. 304

Finally today, Emily Rapp, whose essay “Notes from a Dragon Mom” provided one of the inspirations for The Elf King, offers a consideration of some of the same issues in her new essay, “Where is God in Tay-Sachs? The Shadow World and a New (or New-ish) World Order,” published last week at The Nervous Breakdown. The conclusion of the essay:

I’ll think about all those mothers and fathers of kids all over the world — so many of them, so much suffering — who know or have known or will know how I feel now, how I’ll feel tomorrow, how I’ll feel forever. We are all walking together under the same invisible net. I know and they know that losing a child gradually or suddenly — however, whenever — and then making the choice to go on is to enter each remaining day of one’s life by walking carefully down a steep set of unlit, winding stairs into some new unknown. That shadow world bumping up against the other one that may — or may not — have specks of light. Grief and gratitude right next to one another. Cosmic or not, time is passing and things are changing and Ronan is dying. No reasons, no answers, no apologetics. Just another seal on another baby day. Just a slow descent; this is the only act of faith I have, and it signals no choice, it only is.

The rest can be found here.