Hegel's Aesthetics-Filter

February 16, 2007 10:25 AM

Hegel's "Aesthetics"-filter: I'm wondering what the German original is for the word "glance" in the English text? Blick? Flüchtiger Blick? Augenblick?" An English version of Hegel's Aesthetics can be searched here, fwiw. Thanks.
posted by rumbles to religion & philosophy (7 comments total)

Augenblick? That's the best translation I can come up with. With Hegel you never know because he can use words in ways that aren't always intuitive to our usage c.f. "Geist." I'd look at the German version to be sure.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:35 AM on February 16, 2007

Try a German copy of his lectures?. This particular page appears to favor "Blick."

Wah, German.
posted by that girl at 12:51 PM on February 16, 2007

It would be a help if you'd provide a specific citation where you want to know the original. When I search on "glance" in the translation you link to, I get:
Page 660
... the architectural forms arising from the purpose for which the classical work of art was built; Thirdly, we may cast a glance at the actual and concrete ...
Page 674
In conclusion we will cast a brief glance at this unification which in architecture cannot be more than a juxtaposition, and an association, ...
Page 676
... in Classical Architecture If in conclusion we cast a glance at the different forms of building which are typical of classical architecture throughout, ...
Page 689
The pillars become thin and slender and rise so high that the eye cannot take in the whole shape at a single glance but is driven to travel over it and to ...
Page 706
... the entire emergence of the spirit in its inner life, and the whole concentration of mind in the glance of the eye that reveals the soul. ...

For the first citation, the German reads "Drittens können wir einen Blick auf die konkrete Wirklichkeit werfen..." where Blick is 'glance.' But this is probably not the use you had in mind, being a passing bit of rhetorical transition rather than actual philosophical vocabulary.

Note: Guesses are not helpful in answering questions like this.
posted by languagehat at 1:25 PM on February 16, 2007

It's almost certainly not Augenblick since that means 'moment'.
posted by jouke at 3:01 PM on February 16, 2007

Searching through the English translation you have linked to, I note some later occurrences of "glance" that are compounds of "Blick" that might be better rendered as "look" or "expression". Eg:

"Die Skulptur, wie wir gesehen haben, entschlägt sich des Auges und Seelenblicks, die Malerei ergreift dagegen dies reiche Moment des Ausdrucks..."

(Sculpture, as we have seen, dispenses with the glance of the eye and the soul; painting on the contrary seizes this rich moment of expression.)

I can't even find Seelenblick in my hefty dictionary, which suggests to me it might be a coinage. ("Soul-expression" or "soul-appearance", perhaps). I understand that Hegel is a fiend for redefining existing words and inventing new ones...

Another thing to watch out for is that the German "Glanz", meaning glitter or gleam, can easily be rendered as "glance" by a careless person.

In the absence of a Hegel scholar dropping by, we could help you better if you could cite a particular passage.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:05 PM on February 16, 2007

To expand: on reading the rest of the passage I just looked at, it's clear that he is talking about how things appear, how they are portrayed, and what is conveyed; not about the act of looking or seeing.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:08 PM on February 16, 2007

Blick is a really cool word, if I remember my German correctly. It has the sense of both "view" and "blink," which means that what might otherwise be rendered as "eye-view" or "eye-blink" (Augenblick) has taken on the idiomatic sense of "moment" or split second (I remember a Nena song about loving "mehr und mehr mit einem Augenblick"). And if I recall my Heidegger, he uses "blick" in the sense of instantly apprehending (and I believe it's translated as "apprehending").
But, as I just had a discussion on Hegel versus Heidegger in translation, the general consensus is that Hegel's been butchered in English, due mostly to inconsistent preservation of the source material.
posted by klangklangston at 7:01 PM on February 16, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]