FPG

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FPG
F R E D E R
I C K P H I L I P G R O V E
Felix Paul Greve
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• Frederick Philip GrovesRousseau als Erzieher
  (1914)
• Nietzsches influence onFPGin Munich on the
  Prairies

by Gaby Divayfor the 2008 LCMND Conferencein
Winnipeg (hosted by the UM)
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Groves First Canadian Publication

• Frederick Philip Groves first Canadian
  publication was the essay Rousseau als Erzieher
• It was published in four parts from Nov.-Dec.
  1914 in the German-Canadian newspaper Der
  Nordwesten
• Fred Grove, a teacher in Winkler, was the author

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Fred Grove was Felix Paul Greve

• Fred Grove was born Felix Paul Greve in 1879
• He had spent a year in Bonn prison for fraud in
  1903/4
• He left Berlin in late July 1909 with a faked
  suicide after double-selling his Swift
  translation
• He spent three years in the United States before
  settling in Manitoba as Grove in 1912

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Groves Rousseau als Erzieher

• Margaret Stobie found the Rousseau essay while
  preparing her 1973 book on Grove in the Twayne
  World Authors series
• Also in 1973, D. O. Spettigue published his
  discovery that Grove had been Greve in his FPG
  the European Years

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Greves First Publication, 1901

• Like Stobies, Spettigues research papers are
  part of the UM Archives FPG Collections
• Among his many documents by or about Greve is a
  1901 review of Nietzsches Posthumous Works, v.
  XI XII, in a Munich newspaper
• This is FPGs first known publication

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FPGs First Publications, 1901 1914

• Neither FPG scholar was aware of the others
  Nietzsche link to Greve Grove
• And neither one pursued the interesting
  implications of their own respective finding

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Groves Canadian Essays

• The title of Groves rambling Rousseau als
  Erzieher is a clear reference to Nietzsches 3rd
  Untimely Meditation (1874)
• ITS title was Schopenhauer als Erzieher (Sch.
  as Educator)
• Grove wrote several more essays with titles like
  Rebels All, Civilization, Of Science, Of
  History

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Groves Canadian Essays

• All imitate the loud cultural criticism of
  Nietzsches Meditations in form content
• They were edited in Henry Makows unpublished
  Ph.D. thesis in 1982
• Makow dates them to ca. 1919
• That is four years after Rousseau three years
  before Groves first book of nature essays Over
  Prairie Trails in 1922
• He fails to appreciate the Nietzsche echoes
  resounding in them

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Greves German Essays on Oscar Wilde

• Groves essays resemble Greves on Oscar Wilde
  decadence
• A major source of inspiration for these was
  Nietzsche's Geburt der Tragödie
• Axel Knönagel nicely shows how GREVEs outlook
  changed before and after his prison term in 1903
• in his published Thesis, Nietzschean Philosophy
  in the works of FPG, 1990
• He does, however, not link his astute
  observations to GROVEs Nietzsche-inspired texts
• The Rousseau text Makows essays in the UM
  Archives were apparently unknown to him

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Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy
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Groves Canadian Aphorisms

• Among other Grove manuscripts reflecting
  Nietzsches influence stand foremost sixty
  confessional aphorisms entitled The Life of
  Saint Nishivara
• The title alone identifies them as the
  Zarathustra (1883ff) imitation they are
• They were published in 1987 in A stranger to my
  time Essays by and about FPG

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Groves Canadian Aphorisms

• The editor, Paul Hjartarson, does NOT see the
  obvious Nietzsche parallels
• Nietzsche was famous for his aphoristic style
  inspired by moralists like Montaigne
• Saint Nishivara is, like Zarathustra, written
  in aphorisms
• Hjartarson also misses the biographical pointers
  FPG couched in his text
• We shall later return to this fragment

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St. Nishivara Aphorisms
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Groves Six German Poems

• Many of Groves poems also have Nietzschean
  overtones
• His six German ones emphasize the special
  individual (FPG), unfettered by ordinary rules
• Kopfschmerz, Das Fieber, and Apokalypse
  are typical for applied Jenseits von Gut Böse
  / Beyond Good Evil (1886) ethics

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Groves English Poems

• Groves English poem Ahasuerus exploits the
  motif of Greves 1902 poetry title Wanderungen.
• His long Legends continue the narrative vein of
  Irrfahrt Sage in Greve's 1902 collection
• Both draw on Nietzsches Der Wanderer sein
  Schatten (1880)

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Groves English Poems

• The epic fragment Konrad the Builder exploits
  Goethe's Faust motif
• It joins Nietzsche's Promethean theme which FPG
  also uses on more than one occasion
• Nietzsche was fond of Goethe in general Faust
  in particular
• He also championed Flaubert who became FPG's
  post-prison model in 1904

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Nietzsche CONCEPTS in both FPGs

• Some Nietzschean key concepts found in both FPGs'
  poetry prose are
• Heraclitean CHANGE being the nature of all things
• (Nietzsche, like FPG, was a Classicist educated
  at Bonn University. His Thesis was on the Skeptic
  Diogenes Laertius)
• This view fosters RELATIVITY propagates
  SKEPTICISM
• Skepticism dominates neo-Kantians like Vaihinger
  (Philosophy of AS-IF) Dilthey
• Relativity is evident in physicists like
  Einstein, Mach, Schrodinger, Planck, Heisenberg
  

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Nietzsche CONCEPTS in both FPGs

• DECADENCE
• Nietzsche saw his times in sad decline,
  especially, when compared to Antiquity
• ETERNAL RETURN
• This belief attributed to Heraclitus fosters a
  cyclical world-view, also dominates artistic
  form poetry cycles (Stefan George) musical
  ones (Richard Wagner)
• LIFE
• has priority over Art, the noblest art being the
  Art of Living
• Greve reverses O. Wildes Art/Life poles in
  prison in favour of Life
• THE TRAGIC (in Geburt der Tragödie)
• Nietzsches views of rivaling Dionysian
  Apollonian forces are embraced by many, incl.
  FPG, Thomas Mann (who sees them at work in
  Grove's Two Generations in 1939)

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Nietzsche TOPICS in both FPGs

• Some of Nietzsches pet topics commonly found in
  both FPGs poetry prose are
• The GENIUS being above the law
• Faust Prometheus are typical figures
• MASKS LYING as approved tools of dissimulation
• These themes are prominent in O. Wilde
• Dual SLAVE MASTER standards
• An elitist CONTEMPT for the Herd or the Masses"

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Nietzsche TOPICS in both FPGs

• A pronounced distrust of PROGRESS,
• especially, if technology-based
• A COSMOPOLITAN outlook fostering tolerance
• (goes together with Skepticism)
• A belief that WOMEN snare the Genius
• and keep him from realizing his mission

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Nietzsches pervasive Influence

• Nietzsche was the foremost philosopher of
  DECADENCE and LIFE (Lebensphilosophie)
• His impact on FPGs entire generation cannot be
  over-estimated
• Recently, FPGs debt to him has come into sharp
  focus
• A volume of sixty early manuscript poems by Greve
  was discovered acquired by the UMA in March
  2008

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Facsimile eEd. of Jahr der Wende
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Greves Jahr der Wende, 1901
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Greves First Poetry Book, Nov. 1901

• Completed in Nov. 1901, Das Jahr der Wende opens
  with four poems about Nietzsche
• In Greves Wanderungen (23 poems, Feb. 1902),
  Nietzsche, the painter Böcklin, the poet Stefan
  George, and Beethoven are hailed as Masters
  in this order!
• Only Böcklin Nietzsche then have an entire
  poem devoted to them

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Contents of Jahr der Wende
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"Vision", Jahr der Wende
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Friedrich Nietzsche, 1899
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Greves First Poetry Book, Nov. 1901

• It is interesting that Das Jahr der Wende
  reflects the unstructured style of Nietzsche's
  "Dionysos Dithyramben"
• They concluded the Zarathustra complex in 1888,
  just before Nietzsche suffered the mental
  breakdown that ended his career
• In contrast, Greves Wanderungen show the mark of
  the so-called Stefan George-Mache, a formally
  rigid way of crafting poetry

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Nietzsche's Dionysos Dithyramben
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Groves indirect Nietzsche-Hints

• Greve wrote FIVE poems about Nietzsche
• In comparison, ALL of Grove's Nietzsche pointers
  are covert indirect
• We saw his sly title reference to Nietzsche in
  the 1914 "Rousseau" essay
• Das Jahr der Wende / Year of the Turning Point
  also echoes a title
• Grove chose The Turn of the Year (1923) for his
  2nd Canadian book
• He thus pointed to the poems he had written in
  Jahr der Wende two decades earlier

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Groves confessional Aphorisms

• Back to Grove's Saint Nishivara aphorisms they
  are a confession in the disguise of Nietzsches
  Zarathustra
• They can be dated internally to 1939
• 30 years the hero spent in the East, another
  30 in the West
• Both times he became entangled in sin
• Greve left Berlin when he was 30 in 1909, at 60
  he mused about his life in 1939

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Groves Aphorisms, 1939

• 1939 marks a period of intense Soul-Searching for
  Grove
• Around his birthday in mid-February 1939, he
  sends two of his books to Thomas Mann at
  Princeton
• He revises expands his Authors Note for the
  1939 ed. of ASA with explicit references to
  Goethe's Dichtung Wahrheit/Fact Fiction
• Gides autobiography fame provides the impetus
  to start is autobiography ISM

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Nietzsche's Thus spake Zarathustra
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More Traces of Nietzsche in FPG's Poetry

• While preparing the 2007 e-Edition of FPGs
  complete poetry, two of Greves poems in
  Wanderungen warranted a link to Nietzsche
• One was to the moving Die Sonne sinkt, the
  other to Aus hohen Bergen
• Both the day/life the mountain metaphors were
  used repeatedly in Grove's poetry

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Nietzsche in Groves Autobiography

• Two years before his death, in In Search of
  Myself (1946), Grove acknowledged his great
  admiration for Nietzsche
• He insists that he preferred the "early"
  Nietzsche
• And he obscures the fact that he made lavish use
  of Nietzsches late most literary Zarathustra

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UMA FPG (Greve/Grove) FrL Website
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eEd. of Grove's In Search of Myself (1946)
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Grove on Nietzsche in ISM (p.166)
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Wikipedia Nietzsche
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Stanford Encyclopedia Nietzsche
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Wikipedia Nietzsches Werke
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Stanford Encycl Nietzsche's Works
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Nietzsche's Ecce Homo