Šillers, Gēte un Rainis par spēli: kultūrfilozofiski NAIVĀ un SENTIMENTĀLĀ izpratnes krustpunkti
Authors: Senkāne Olga 
Published: June 2020

The study attempts to find the common in the cultural philosophy of Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) and Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832) and to discover the role of Schiller’s play theory in the formation of Goethe’s tragedy “Faust” in order to clarify subsequently the possible inspiration of Latvian writer Rainis (1865–1929), the first renderer of “Faust” in Latvian, from Schiller through Goethe’s text. The cultural philosophy of Schiller and Goethe is based on the idea of the sick and healthy culture or its cultural and pre-cultural state. The ideal of a healthy culture stems from the achievement of a former pre-cultural state: to synchronize the incompatible, usually separated in time, functioning one by one sense and rational passions with the third passion – the play. In ancient art, the observed balance of passions is permanently lost; one can only aspire to it perpetually and yearn morally. The endless struggle is always represented by the aesthetic play or balancing product – semblance, a characteristic feature of a cultural state, an interplay between reality and truth, nature and thinking. The aesthetic play, creation of individual forms, is the only path to human perfection – the general form (concept and law) because it respects and reconciles the two basic passions. Semblance or art confirms a person’s desire to return to the balance of passions and regain lost perfection. The type of culture can be determined depending on the attitude towards polar passions and the success or failure of a balance between them. Semblance or art offers solutions for finding the essence of a human being and renders it in two ways: 1) selects common forms (concepts) and reveals them with original content (Goethe and Rainis); 2) chooses original shapes (ideas, ideals) and discovers them with recognizable content (Schiller). Images by Goethe and Rainis are characterized by symptoms of lack. To recover the missing element, you have to return to the balance. The direction and sequence of the balancing movement are pointed out by Goethe and Rainis according to Schiller’s vision: nature is at the back, idea – in the front, but between them is the play. The indicator of success or failure of balancing is the followers or descendants. As long as the artist suppresses some of the passions or is satisfied with one at a time, then another, he does not enter the aesthetic field of the play, his perfection does not manifest itself and no one follows him. Faust’s pursuit of perfection is difficult because he is in the power of sensuality and will; he must go a long way of delusion to get into the field of play. Therefore, in the finale of the tragedy, when he finally activates his dormant will, he can only imagine the desirable but he cannot implement it. He marks the shape in the semblance but leaves it without matter. Also, Tots, an image created by Rainis, gets into the field of play (however with the help of others) and finds the willpower within himself, activates it, but is unable to create anything. In the text of Goethe and Rainis, willpower collides with time and freedom clashes with necessity. To return and align passions is only possible in the imagination which is the key to the artist’s immortality.