III. Influences. Conclusions

III. INFLUENCES. CONCLUSIONS

The philosophic currents of Salome’s time were numerous and complex, with topics ranging from Darwinism to the unconscious, from the death of God and denial of free will to the alternative of Nietzsche’s Ubermensch. Salome participated in the debates and followed the modern trends in science very closely through her extensive, and distinguished, range of acquaintances. Many of her articles appeared in pacesetting journals such as Die Freie Biihne. Of the swirling currents available to her, Naturalism seemed most in accord with Salome’s way of thinking.75 Yet it cannot be said that she subordinated herself to any school, only that she sympathized with many.

The circle of notables who successively surrounded Salome through her life is so complex as to defy elaboration. Here we shall content ourselves with but a few such figures with philosophic significance.76

Among the first of Salom6’s contacts outside of Russia was Malwida von Meysenbug, feminist writer and political activist. Like Salom6, Meysenbug was born into the German nobility, which she abandoned to follow the cause of revolution in 1848. Having made a way for herself in the world, she was in many ways a suitable role model for Salom6, then plotting her own independence. Certainly they shared a commitment to the cause of equal education for women. Meysenbug’s salon for girls in Italy was attended by Salome in 1882, and it was there that she first met Paul Ree, who in turn introduced her to Friedrich Nietzsche (both friends of Meysenbug).77

Among Salome’s most influential friends was the philosopher Paul Ree.78 Ree made the connection to Nietzsche possible for Salome, being a friend of Nietzsche’s prior to this time. His relationship with Salome was very warm and intimate, but devoid of sexuality (on her insistence). Together they explored the realm of ethics and religion, both of which Ree’s positivism rejected as irrational fantasies. Their friendship lasted until her sudden marriage to Andreas, which sent R6e irrevocably away from her and into the life of a dedicated and isolated physician (his intentions toward philosophy having being thwarted by continued lack of success in the academic arena).

From the standpoint of history, the most significant philosophical acquaintance of Salome was Friedrich Nietzsche.79 Their actual period of contact lasted less than eight months. From all available accounts, the relationship seemed quite asymmetrical, with Nietzsche alone envi-sioning it as leading to a major commitment.80 Salome sought a “brother” for her work and studies, Nietzsche a disciple and lover. On the positive side, their relationship served as a catalyst for his major work, Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra). Nietzsche later admitted “of all acquaintances I have made the most valuable and full of consequence is the one with Fraulein Salome. Only since knowing her was I ripe for my Zarathustra.”81

The brief Salom6-Nietzsche relationship should be described less in terms of mutual influence than in terms of mutual confirmation. Each found in the other a validation of their deepest, and most profound, thinking and feeling about life. Hence, commenting on their long dia-logues, Salom6 observes in her diary - “We kept coming to those dizzying spots where one had once climbed alone to look down into the depths.”82 

For Salome it was another opportunity afforded by intellectual intercourse to fill the void of loneliness which was her heritage from childhood.

It seems a grave oversight that so little recognition is given to Salome for stimulating serious discussion of Nietzsche’s philosophy through her groundbreaking text, Friedrich Nietzsche in his Works (1894). Running through the text is her thesis, shared with Nietzsche, of the auto-biographical character of any philosophy. This judgment is summarized in her statement that Nietzsche’s life consisted of “a falling ill from thoughts and a getting well from thoughts,” and again “Not what the spiritual history of mankind is, but how his own spiritual history is to be understood as that of the whole of mankind, that was for him the main question.”83

As in the case of Nietzsche and Spinoza, Salome’s relationship with Sigmund Freud was one of mutual anticipation rather than discipleship. Freud maintained the greatest respect for Salome as both a professional and a person, numbering her among his honored “co-workers and co-fighters” rather than as inferior disciple. Moreover, he pays tribute to her “as a new weapon for the truth of the analytical teachings”.84 In tribute to her book, Mein Dank an Freud (My Thanks to Freud), Freud declared it “an involuntary proof of your superiority over us all, which accords with the heights from which you came down to us.”85

Finally, mention must be made of the intimate intellectual, spiritual, and physical relationship between Salome and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Although thirteen years her junior, Rilke formed a close attach-ment to Salome which lasted throughout his life and significantly impacted his development as an artist.86 Her advice to him spanned the areas of art and mental health, the two of which seemed inseparable for Salomd.87 She in turn was influenced by Rilke in her thoughts on art and the artistic process, and came to participate in his creativity.88 The final outcome can be seen in Salome’s work on the poet from a psychoanalytical standpoint,89 along with her pronouncement:

Human life - indeed all life - is poetry. We live it unconsciously

day by day, piece by piece, but in its inviolable wholeness it lives us.90

IV. CONCLUSIONS

In summing up the life and work of Lou Salome, it is somewhat para-doxically true that, despite her many relationships, she was “a woman 

thinking alone”.91 Although exposed to the ideas of many of the strongest- willed and famous individuals of the age, she was able to maintain her identity as an independent spirit who refused to be trapped by conventional labels or categories. This very independence may explain why so many of her interpreters have accused her of intellectual perversity and even inconsistency. Still, the phenomenological tone of her writings is consistent with her guiding principle that “we know only that which we experience.”92

Two keynotes of Salome’s thought are her continual reference to dualities and the image of home. In fact, the two elements are intertwined in that we return home to the primal oneness (as in narcissism) after our excursion into the dualities of life. Her arguments on a myriad of subjects are outlined under the headings of dual concepts - whether humility versus pride in religious experience, the wild and domesticated animals of her Ibsen discussion, the tensions between art and illness in Nietzsche, or the conflicting temptations of surrender and assertion in sexual experience. Later Salome adopted the psychoanalytic term “ambivalence” to convey this root reality, describing it as “nothing but the polarity or duality which life never outgrows, and all creative activity on which the culture of humanity rests flowers from it.”93

Understood in her own right, Salome has left behind invaluable critical accounts of those around her - most notably Nietzsche, Rilke, Freud. In these accounts her incisive mind is always clearly at work, shifting and analyzing one moment, synthesizing the next, extending the original thoughts above and beyond the intentions of their initiators. Speaking for Nietzsche, Binion writes “no idea, he well knew, was ever the same for having been discussed with her.”94

Salome is especially to be valued for her insights into questions of philosophical interest offered from the rarely heard woman’s perspective. If her comments on religion, art, love, and sexuality occasionally confound the reader, this may be due to the fact that she presents us with new phenomenological categories to complement those of masculine thinkers. For example, Spinoza’s denial of mind-body dualism breathes most expressively in her writings. Reacting to the beauties of spring while traveling northward from Italy toward Germany Salome exclaims "if human receptivity were only more capable of nuance and were more deepreaching, the Immeasurable would await us in the most Earthly.”95

Thus, when criticism is leveled at her concepts the fault may lie more in the deficiency of the interpreters than in Salome herself. In 

particular, her recognition of the limits of logic lead her to put forth contradictory statements. Yet she does so with full cognizance of the contradictoriness, which is an inevitable by-product of having transcended logical categories, or perhaps of having substituted a both/and logic for the either/or of mutual exclusivity.96 Her statements are intended to provoke our own thinking, to challenge the reader to participate in the very process of her thought which reflects the process of life itself - “In the fundamental condition that accompanies us all our lives (and especially penetrates all creative experience)... megalomania and absolute dependence seem to flow into one another”.97

Emphasizing these same lines of thought, future research needs to reconsider the significant impact of Spinozistic philosophy upon her overall outlook. Yet, here too, her interpretations remain provocative, as when she explains the strict determinism of the Spinozistic universe as “a principle of universal reciprocity” which takes us “from the empirical world of movement to the eternal rest of his philosophy” which is simultaneously “the most passionate ecstasy”.98 Spinoza’s perspective is most especially evoked in the life-affirmation which pervades Salome’s thought. Livingstone calls this Salome’s characteristic “profound joie de vivre”, which stands in sharp contrast to “the strenu-ously achieved affirmations of Nietzsche, the lamentations and anguished acclamations of Rilke and the scepticism [sic] and final misanthropy of Freud.”99

The criticism has been made that Salome’s writings lack cohesive-ness and that her style is problematic.100 This may be accounted for in part by the sporadic nature of her formal education, especially at the university level. Nonetheless this flaw need not prevent us from realizing the brilliance of her thoughts, even when wrapped in stylistic obscurities. Instead, it should spur us on to more assiduous digging to find the treasures buried beneath. For example, the contents of the Freud Journal extend far beyond what the title would lead one to expect, wandering far and wide across Salome’s own intellectual landscape, to integrate observations on epistemology, philosophical methodology, ethics, and aesthetics with the expected psychoanalytical topics.

Perhaps Salome’s most fitting epitaphs have been written by those who knew her as both a person and an intellect. Her sometime lover and longtime friend, Rilke observes:

... she turns all that books and people bring her at the right moment

into the most blessed comprehension,... she understands, and loves, 

and moves fearlessly among the most burning mysteries - that do nothing to her, only beam at her with pure firelight.101

From the end of her life we have the comment of another acquain-tance:

She loved the spirit and was at home in the world of solitude.102 5. Mary Whiton Calkins (1863-1930)