The critical analysis of norms and values, leading into moral and political relativism, destabilizes the artists' self-given position in society around 1900. Weltschmerz and the perception of change ...as apocalyptic indicate this social restructuring of the artist's role. The concept of Weltschmerz is a very engaging but controversial response to the demise of social norms, which opens up a multiplicity of possible alternatives. The awaking of authorial uncertainty indicates a larger social movement, which extends into the individual context, into the space of normative social order. Weltschmerz becomes a negative term to conjure the end of culture, of any further social development, of history itself. Traditional authors celebrate this "re-evaluation of all values" by reviving social patterns from the ancient world. By contrast, female authors who have to justify their art against voices who view them as the very reason of the cultural decline, can act with a new kind of liberty. Beside the genre of the novel, especially the urban space, which makes possible an anonymized life without constant social control, opens female paths to literature. This liberty is used to mask and present the author's own person self-confidently and hence is a genesis, which literature seeks to probe, to question or to affirm. The turn of the century is a time where all known concepts of life itself collapse, but it is also a time when the de- and reconstruction of the normative world establishes channels for those who have so far been suppressed and who had remained unheard.
Life-in-work : autobiography in Arnold van Wyk's music The essay deals with the popular question regarding meaning in the art of music, in particular in the music of the South African composer Arnold ...van Wyk (1916-1983). In an interview with the composer in 1982 he gave indications concerning the creative process of his piano work, Night Music (composed 1945-1958). Recent insight into sketches and letters relating to this and other works not only confirmed the composer's communications but also revealed what can be seen as indications of an autobiographical nature of the music. It can be argued that the composer reserved aspects of his inner self and his life-style to be expressed only through his music. Die artikel handel oor die populêre vraag rakende die konsep van betekenis in die kunsmusiek, meer spesifiek die musiek van die Suid-Afrikaanse komponis Arnold van Wyk (1916-1983). Tydens 'n onderhoud met die komponis in 1982 het hy aanduidings gegee ten opsigte van die skeppingsproses van sy klavierwerk, Nagmusiek (wat geskryf is in 1945-1958). Onlangse insae in sketse en briewe wat betrekking het op hierdie en ander werke het nie alleen die komponis se mededelings bevestig nie, maar ook dit onthul wat gesien kan word as aanduidings van die outobiografiese aard van die musiek. Daar kan geargumenteer word dat die komponis bepaalde aspekte van sy innerlike self en sy lewenstyl teruggehou het, om slegs deur middel van sy musiek tot uitdrukking te bring.
. The Bhagavadg?tā is a popular Hindu text containing eighteen chapters. It begins with the hero, Arjuna, showing a marked unwillingness to engage in combat on the eve of battle. He is finally ...persuaded to do so by Krishna, who is an incarnation of God. Krishna actually reveals himself as such to an amazed Arjuna in the eleventh chapter. The fact that Arjuna does not immediately heed Krishna's advice to engage in battle after Krishna's sensational self‐disclosure has long puzzled students of the text. It is only at the end of the eighteenth chapter that Arjuna finally shows his readiness to fight. In this essay I argue that the discussion of the nine primary sensory states by Eugene d'Aquili may help resolve this issue and thus provide an instance of a case in which modern scientific study of religion enhances our understanding of a religious phenomenon, as a corrective to the usual charge that it must invariably diminish it.
