Premium
A MODERNIST MYSTIC: PHILOSOPHICAL ESSENCE AND POETIC METHOD IN GERDA WALTHER (1897–1977) *
Author(s) -
Burns Niamh
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
german life and letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1468-0483
pISSN - 0016-8777
DOI - 10.1111/glal.12262
Subject(s) - mysticism , poetry , scholarship , philosophy , phenomenology (philosophy) , literature , epistemology , art , theology , linguistics , political science , law
This article presents the work of the neglected philosopher and mystic Gerda Walther (1897–1977) as a work of modernist philosophy. It offers an analysis of Walther's two most important texts, Ein Beitrag zur Ontologie der sozialen Gemeinschaften (1922) and Zur Phänomenologie der Mystik (1923), written during Walther's involvement in the Freiburg and Munich circles of early phenomenologists. Analysis of these texts reveals a compelling, non‐discursive philosophical methodology in which mystical essences unfold as social and historical realities, rather than some ideal standing behind or beyond materiality. Walther offers a pragmatic and poetic vision of language that is inadequate in a representational sense, yet still capable of guiding us to philosophical redemption. In quoting the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, she displays a complex interrelation between poetic and philosophical language in her work. This article argues for a significant re‐orientation of emerging scholarship on Walther, with a focus on her language and textual strategies. It positions her work in terms of recent developments in scholarship around the connections between phenomenology and modernist literature.