There is a certain
intolerable nastiness about the real Ibsen: the same thing is in
Strindberg and in most of the Norwegian and Swedish writings. It is with
them a sort of phallic worship also, but now the worship is mental and
perverted: the phallus is the real fetish, but it is the source of
uncleanliness and corruption and death, it is the Moloch, worshipped in
obscenity.
Which is unbearable. The phallus is a symbol of creative divinity. But
it represents only part of creative divinity. The Italian has made it
represent the whole. Which is now his misery, for he has to destroy his
symbol in himself.
Which is why the Italian men have the enthusiasm for war, unashamed.
Partly it is the true phallic worship, for the phallic principle is to
absorb and dominate all life. But also it is a desire to expose
themselves to death, to know death, that death may destroy in them this
too strong dominion of the blood, may once more liberate the spirit of
outgoing, of uniting, of making order out of chaos, in the outer world,
as the flesh makes a new order from chaos in begetting a new life, set
them free to know and serve a greater idea.
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