The rediscovery of a lost symbolism

Joannes Richter

Abstract
In a number of essays bundled in the book Axel's Castle (1931) Edmund Wilson describes the most
significant imaginative literature of the Symbolist school (around 1870-1930).
Most authors of this episode named Symbolist school are considered to have produced literary
works which are extremely difficult and unsuitable to be understood by a average readers.
All the exponents of Symholism have insisted that they were attempting to meet a need for a new
language. Most authors however restrict themselves to just naming the symbols and “deprive the
mind of the delicious joy of believing that it is creating. To name an object is to do away with the
three-quarters of the enjoyment”. The chosen symbols of the Symbolist school are usually chosen
arbitrarily by the poet to stand for special ideas of his own they are a sort of disguise for these ideas.
If actions can be compared with writings, Rimbaud's life seems more satisfactory than the works of
his Symbolist contemporaries, than those even of most of his Symbolist successors, who stayed at
home and stuck to literature.
 
However the authors of the Symbolist school missed the third option which is an alternative to
naming or creating new symbols: the rediscovery of an old and lost symbolism.
Elementary symbolism may be lost if a powerful replacement requires a complete destruction of all
predecessor symbols (such as the sculptures of the deceased Hatshepsut) or an idea (such as the
Maya-codices at the Conquistadors' campaign).
A lost symbolism may be found in the Futhark-alphabet.
From a comparison between the runic Futhark-alphabet and the Gothic, Greek & Roman alphabets
we may identify a common keyword ᚠᚢᚦ (“Futh”) in the runic alphabet, followed by the standard
“A-I-Ω”, respectively “A-I-U”-vowel structure.
The keyword ᚠᚢᚦ (“Futh”) describes elementary symbols, which are used to stabilize the human
societies. The divine names for the sky-gods (Tiw and Tuw), the personal pronouns for the first
person dual “wit” & “wut” (“both of us”), “Thu” and “I(ch)”, the matrimonial core, the law, ...etc.
had all been based on the keyword ᚠᚢᚦ, resp. (in reverse order) ᚦᚢᚠ.
These correlations however are restricted to Germanic languages, which had not been forced to
abandon the dual personal pronouns “wit” & “wut” (“both of us”) by Roman occupation.
In contrast the Romanesque languages are based on a correlation between the personal pronouns for
the first person singular (such as the Provencal word “iéu” (“I”) and the divine name (“Diéu”).
The insight in these linguistic details illuminates the philosophical impact of Roman occupation on
Germanic and Romanesque languages. The relevant words belong to the fundamentals of society.
The symbolism in Axel's Castle (1931) by Edmund Wilson
Axel's Castle1 (published in 1931) is an interesting study in the imaginative literature of 1870-1930,
which is based on lectures held 15 years earlier by Edmund Wilson's teacher (and his master of
criticism) Christian Gauss (→ dated ca. 1916)
In a number of essays the author Edmund Wilson concentrates on the authors W. B. Yeats, Paul
Valéry, T. S. Eliot, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam
and Rimbaud.

The definition of a new language

In his conclusive essay Axel and Rimbaud the author claims:
“in our contemporary society for writers who are unable to interest themselves in, it
either by studying it scientifically, by attempting to reform it or by satirizing it, only two
alternative courses to follow Axel's or Rimbaud's, (287 → pdf: 307).

In the imaginative literature of 1870-1930 European authors use a complex style and disrespect the
capacities of the reader's attention:
In Europe, since 1852, of literary works which are extremely difficult, subtle and
refined, which are written in a complicated style, and which, for that reason, are
forbidden to most readers... (285 → pdf: 305).

Valéry himself had followed Mallarmé in an effort to push to a kind of algebra the classical
language of French poetry; Gertrude Stein has explained that her later writings are intended to
"restore its intrinsic meaning to literature"; and Joyce, in his new novel, has been attempting to
create a tongue which shall go deeper than conscious spoken speech and follow the processes of the
unconscious....(295 → pdf: 315)
Studying the imaginative literature of this episode intensive preparations end professional
introductions are recommended:
Joyce has as little respect as Proust for the capacities of the reader's attention; (page 215
→ pdf: 235)

All the exponents of Symholism have insisted that they were attempting to meet a need for a new
language. (294 → pdf: 314), but only Rimbaud succeeded in producing new concepts.
If actions can be compared with writings, Rimbaud's life seems more satisfactory than
the works of his Symbolist contemporaries, than those even of most of his Symbolist
successors, who stayed at home and stuck to literature (283 → 303).

The naming of symbols

Mallarmé suggests the creation process generates more satisfaction than just naming the symbols:
The symbols of the Symbolist school are usually chosen arbitrarily by the poet to stand
for special ideas of his own they are a sort of disguise for these ideas. "The Parnassians,
for their part," wrote Mallarmé, "take the thing just as it is and put it before us and
consequently they arc deficient in mystery: they deprive the mind of the delicious joy of
believing that it is creating.

1 Axel's Castle - A Study in the imaginative Literature Of 1870-1930 (published 1931) by Edmund Wilson
The rediscovery of a lost symbolism
Apart from (1) naming and (2) creating symbols we may choose a third alternative option:
rediscovering a lost symbolism. The rediscovery of an ancient idea is advantageous as we do not
need an intensive research for the optimizing process. In the historical records the success of the old
idea may have been recorded as successful.
Rediscovering a lost fundamental symbolism however may turn out to be a time-consuming project
in deciphering the forgotten symbolism. A fundamental symbolism must be forgotten if a newly
created symbolic element requires the complete destruction of all sculptures which remind the
population of the predecessor “Deity”.
In ancient Egypt the Pharaoh's death was to be followed by the destruction of all sculptures of the
passed regime. Usually the removal from the collective memory resulted in a complete deletion of
all memorial details. As an example the erasure of Hatshepsut's name may be interpreted as follows:
The erasure of Hatshepsut's name—whatever the reason or the person ordering it—
almost caused her to disappear from Egypt's archaeological and written records. When
nineteenth-century Egyptologists started to interpret the texts on the Deir el-Bahri
temple walls (which were illustrated with two seemingly male kings) their translations
made no sense2.

Another example is the destruction of the codices of the Maya civilization. The Spanish conquest
stripped away most of the defining features of Maya civilization.
However, many Maya villages remained remote from Spanish colonial authority, and
for the most part continued to manage their own affairs. Maya communities and the
nuclear family maintained their traditional day-to-day life3.

The deciphering of the Maya-code had to be managed by a project described in Breaking the Maya
Code (1992) by Michael D. Coe.
Idols and ideas will often be kept hidden in various niches of social structures, such as language,
sculptures, burial gifts and scriptures. Combinations of different sources may allow us to combine
the details for a reconstruction.

The Futhark as an alphabet

In Medieval runes the Futhork (or Futhark) structure seems to consist of a standard keyword ᚠᚢᚦ
(“Futh”), followed by an “A-I-Ω”- or “A-I-U”-vowel structure.
Usually the European alphabets, for example the Roman, the Greek and the Gothic alphabets, are
based on an “A-I-Ω”- respectively “A-I-U”-vowel structures for their initial, their central and their
terminal character symbol4.
The keyword ᚠᚢᚦ (“Futh”) describes fundamental words, which is used to describe basic elements
in society. The names of the sky-god (Tīw, Tīg), the personal pronouns of the first person dual Ƿit (Wit) /
Ȝit (Git) (→ “both of us”) 5, “Thou” and “Ic”, the matrimonial core, the law... etc. are based on the core ᚠᚢᚦ,
resp. ᚦᚢᚠ. These correlations however are restricted to Germanic languages, which had not been
influenced and forced by the Roman imperial forces to change or abandon their divine names and
personal pronouns6.
2 Hatshepsut Problem
3 Persistence of Maya culture
4 The Bi-faced Deity
5 In Germanic languages the dual therefore remained only in the first- and second-person pronouns and their
accompanying verb forms. Old English, Old Norse and the other old Germanic languages had dual marking only in
the personal pronouns, but not in the verbs. (The Nuclear Pillars of Symbolism)
6 The Kernel of the Futhorc Languages
The strategy in deciphering the keywords for symbolism
Studying runes and deciphering runic words regularly provides me with new insights in the ancient
concepts of symbolism. Usually I regularly change my viewpoints.
Each study is to be documented in its own manuscript. A chronologically ordered overview of these
papers is kept in the Proceedings in the Ego-pronouns' Etymology (and partially also in The
Hermetic Codex).
The initial insights started with linguistic correlations between the personal pronouns of the first
person singular (for example in the Provencal language: “iéu”) and the corresponding divine names
for the sky-god (in Provencal: “Diéu”). These correlations however are restricted to the
Romanesque languages, which may have abandoned the the personal pronouns of the first person dual,
which had been defined in Old-English as Ƿit (Wit) / Ȝit (Git) (→ “both of us”).
Instead the Roman symbolism have been founded on IU-vowel combinations, which may be identified in
IU-piter, justice and iugum (yoke).
The insight in these correlations illustrates the etymological development and linguistic evolution
inside and outside the borders of the Roman Empire. The involved fundamental words belong to the
basic dictionary, which is needed to stabilize a society.

The evolution of the personal pronouns in Dutch language

Even today languages such as Dutch may quickly modify the dictionary and grammar rules. As my
studies are based on comparative correlations of the personal pronouns and the divine names I
checked the modifications of the last 100 years for which my father's library provided me with the
relevant documentation.
The oldest Dutch grammar book I found in my father's library is titled “Korte Nederlandse
Spraakkunst” by B.G. Alberts & B.F. Martens7 (published in 1912), in which the personal pronouns
are specified as follows (page 55):
• for the 1st person (for all 3 genders): singular “ik”, plural “wij”
• for the 2nd person (for all 3 genders): singular and plural “gij”
• for the 3rd person (for the 3 genders M, F, N): singular “hij”, “zij”, “het”, plural “zij”
Inside this booklet my father had stored a few spelling updates from 1934, 1946 and an undated
modern pamphlet (maybe 1979), which illustrated the expansion of the personal pronouns as
follows:
• for the 1st person (for all 3 genders): singular “ik”, plural “wij”, “we”
• for the 2nd person (for all 3 genders): singular “gij”,“jij”,“je”,“u” and plural “gij””, “je”, “u”
• for the 3rd person (for the 3 genders M, F, N): singular “hij”, “zij”, “het”, plural “zij”, “ze”
These variants (in green) had been added to the official grammar within a few decades. This
illustrates how quickly language may have evolved. The word “gij” (standard in 1912) had become
obsolete and a number of new words had been introduced.
These kind of modifications of course could have influenced the correlations and symbolism.

7 5314 Lesmethode voor het taalonderwijs

Extended forms of integral symbolism

Color symbolism in literature

Apart from Rimbaud I also identified a color symbolism in Musil's “The Man Without Qualities”
(published 1930–1943)8, which probably is to be considered as the most voluminous novel up to
today. I considered the pile of words as a pyramid, which symbolized Musil's grave. Musil had
started the project by naming the work “Salvator”9.
I studied the novel and found Musil's core symbol, which is found in the relation between Ulrich
and his twin sister Agathe:
“We might dress ourselves in an opposite pattern, Agathe delightedly responded. Yellow
one of us, and the other blue, or red opposite to green. And our hair might be colored
violet or purple10”.

My analysis of this quotation is documented in The Color Symbolism of Philosophers:

In “The Man without Qualities” Robert Musil uses color symbolism to explain the Creation
of Man which as a mythological model had been documented by Plato.
Musil had chosen to symbolize the contrasting antipodes Male and Female by color pairs
blue and yellow, which had been applied as antipodes by Goethe as well. Musil however
also considers red and green as antipodes whereas purple and violet represent synthesis.
Musil's description in chapter 25 – “The Siamese Twins” may be compared to existing color
theories. One of these theories seems to match Musil's model: Ewald Hering's color wheel
(1874). In contrast Goethe based his antipodes Blue and Yellow on his own analysis.
Purple-red is to be included as an extra, fundamental color symbol.
According to Miranda's diary records the colors blue, yellow, red in three South-American
flags seem to have been chosen on the base of Goethe's discussion with de Miranda.
This symbolism may now be compared to the three of four primary colors, red, white, blue
and purple, which in the Bible have been specified as divine commands for the architecture
of the temple.
The numerous variants in color theories (Newton, Goethe, Ewald Hering,...) basically ruins the
color symbolism, as each researcher invents his own symbolic fundamentals. Of course we know
the human eye is restricted by the threefold system of the cone cells in our eyes. The commonly
cited figure of six million cone cells in the human eye was found by Osterberg in 1935.[2]11 This
insight probably failed to reach Robert Musil, who (in studying mechanical engineering) had been
inspired by Ewald Hering's color wheel (1874).
These numerous color theories practically disturbed any systematic study of color symbolism. I
documented the historical facts in a chronological order in The Hermetic Codex II - Bipolar
Monotheism, but stopped the updating of this document a few years ago. In fact the color-elements
did not really seem to have reached the quality of the alphabets, the vowels and written texts...

8 Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften

9 Der Lebensfries als Lebenswerk - Alles Ist “Anders” Im “Erlöser” Von Robert Musil
10 Own translation from German to English - Page 904-905 in Rowohlt's Gesammelte Werke von Robert Musil (1978)
- Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften – Teil 3 – Ins tausendjährige Reich (chapter 25, The Siamese Twins).
Original: »Wir können uns ja auch gerade entgegengesetzt kleiden« entgegnete Agathe belustigt. »Gelb der eine, wenn
der andere blau ist, oder rot neben grün, und das Haar können wir violett oder purpurn färben, und ich mache mir
einen Buckel und du dir einen Bauch: und trotzdem sind wir Zwillinge!« (904-905) Kapitel 25 - Projekt Gutenberg-
DE - SPIEGEL ONLINE
11 Osterberg, G. (1935). "Topography of the layer of rods and cones in the human retina". Acta Ophthalmol. Suppl. 13
(6): 1–102.
Colors in religious schooling
In Catholicism as a child I was told that Adam and God were dressed in red and Eve in blue, which
has been documented in my notebooks from school12.

Colors in (religious) paintings and sculptures

In some churches the entries or windows may be decorated with knotted pillars, of which some in
analogy to the Solomon temple may be labeled Boaz and Jachin (or Iachin and Booz). In Würzburg
the knotted pillar labeled Iachin is decorated with some traces of red paint.
There is some confusion in choosing red for men/boys and blue for women/girls. In religious
paintings the saints and divine beings mainly had been dressed in red & blue 13. In the church the
usage of blue garments is restricted to some festivities for St. Mary14.

Colors in flags
Primary colors will often be found in flags. In some cases the history of the banner's design may be
traced back to the origin of the idea. An example of these concepts is documented in Miranda's
Conversation With Goethe in Weimar (1785), in which the design of the flags of Venezuela,
Ecuador and Columbia has been traced back to ideas of Miranda and Goethe.

Colors in divine commands

I remember to have identified Rimbaud's poem Voyelles / Vowels, a poem by Arthur Rimbaud, in
which the author defined the colors for the vowels: A black, E white, I red, U green, O blue.
In my documentation “On the Symbolism of the Vowels A-E-I-O-U” I identified the restriction to
the ancient, basic triad A-I-Ω, which reduces the fundamental colors to A black, I red, Ω blue. Also
I am aware how important the colors are in the biblical references, which in Exodus and Chronicles
have been defined as divine commands for the structures of the Tent and the temple.15
The following quotations document the first divine commands out of a total of 25 references in the
Book Exodus (Exodus 26:1) to make the Covenant Tent after offering gold, silver, brass, 4blue,
purple, scarlet, fine linen:

26-1: “Moreover you shall make the tent with ten curtains; of fine twined linen, and blue,
and purple, and scarlet, with cherubim. The work of the skillful workman you shall make
them.”
Although the Covenant Tent and Solomon's Temple reveal a completely different character it may
be noted that God's prescription for the coloring code remains identical to both David and Solomon.
The Second Book of Chronicles reports:
2-7:”Now therefore send me a man skillful to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in
iron, and in purple, and crimson, and blue, and who knows how to engrave all manner of
engravings, to be with the skillful men who are with me in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom
David my father did provide.“

12 Godsdienstles 1954-1955
13 Red and Blue as Gender Symbols (2010)
14 Liturgical (and Royal) Colours (2011)
15 Paint It Purple (2010)
Appendix – Notes to Axel's Castle – Edmund Wilson (1931)
From: Selected Footnotes - The Concentrated Reading Project
• Subtitle: A Study In The Imaginative Literature Of 1870-1930
• Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, N.Y.
• based on lectures - 15 years earlier held by Edmund Wilson's teacher (and his master of
criticism) Christian Gauss (→ dated ca. 1916).
• Size: 319 pages
• Concept: a bundle of essays as an introduction to the literature of the 20th century with
criticism on W. B. Yeats, Paul Valéry, T. S. Eliot, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Gertrude
Stein.
• The conclusive essay “Axel en Rimbaud” is based on Axël (by Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle-
Adam) and results in the advice for authors to follow only two courses either (1) Axel's or
(2) Rimbaud's (287 → pdf: 307).
• Axel's Castle at Internet Archive

Notes

1. Symbolism (9)
• A relevant prophet of Symbolism was Edgar Allan Poe, (page 12 → pdf: 32)
• The symbolism of the Divine Comedy is conventional, logical and definite. But the symbols
of the Symbolist school are usually chosen arbitrarily by the poet to stand for special ideas
of his own they are a sort of disguise for these ideas. "The Parnassians, for their part,"wrote
Mallarmé, "take the thing just as it is and put it before us and consequently they arc deficient
in mystery: they deprive the mind of the delicious joy of believing that it is creating. To
name an object is to do away with the three-quarters of the enjoyment of the poem which is
derived from the satisfaction of guessing little by little: to suggest it, to evoke it that is what
charms the imagination;” (page 20 → pdf: 40)

2. W.B. Yeats (26)

• The other self, the antiself or the antithetical self, as one may choose to name it, comes but
to those who are no longer deceived, whose passion is reality. (page 45 → pdf: 65)
• As a young man, Yeats frequented clairvoyants and students of Astrology and Magic;
Madame Blavatsky, the necromantic Theosophist, seems to have made upon him a
considerable impression. (page 47 → pdf: 67)
• Yeats, like Shaw a Protestant for whom the Catholic's mysticism was impossible, has in "A
Vision" made the life of humanity contingent on the movements of the stars. "The day is far
off," he concludes, "when the two halves of man can divine each its own unity in the other
as in a mirror, Sun in Moon, Moon in Sun, and so escape out of the Wheel." (page 60 →
pdf: 80)

3. Paul Valéry (64)

• Action cramps and impoverishes the mind. For by itself the mind is able to deal with an
infinite number of possibilities it is not constrained by the limitations of a field. The mind by
itself is omnipotent. And consequently the method, the theory, of doing anything is more
interesting than the thing done. (page 68 → pdf: 88)
4. T.S. Eliot (93)

5. Marcel Proust (132)

• Proust constructs a moral scheme out of phenomena whose moral values are always shifting.
(Perhaps the narrator's grandmother may be taken as playing for Proust the same role that
the speed of light does for Einstein: the single constant value which makes the rest of the
system possible!) (page 163 → pdf: 183)
• We perceive that "A la Recherche du Temps Perdu” which begins in the darkened room of
sleep, stands alone as a true dream-novel among works of social observation. (page 179 →
pdf: 199)
• Proust's novel kept him up till he had finished it; but when he had finished it, he died.(page
185 → pdf: 205)

6. James Joyce (191)

• Joyce said, in composing his books, to work on the different arts simultaneously. (page 210
→ pdf: 230)
• Joyce has as little respect as Proust for the capacities of the reader's attention; (page 215 →
pdf: 235)
• The author suggests, in connection with Valéry and Eliot, that verse itself as a literary
medium is coming to be used for fewer and fewer and for more and more special purposes,
and that it may be destined to fall into disuse. (page 221 → pdf: 241)
• Joyce's people think and feel exclusively in terms of words, for Joyce himself thinks in
terms of words.(page 225 → pdf: 245)

7. Gertrude Stein (237)

• Les chants de Maldoror (255 → pdf: 275)

8. (conclusion): Axel and Rimbaud (257)

• (Detailed) Biography of Rimbaud's life (269 → pdf: 289)
• Axel (by Auguste de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam) (259 → pdf: 279)
• In the circles of the new Symbolist school, Rimbaud had become a legendary figure, an
attempt having even been made to found a new literary system on a sonnet in which he had
assigned different colors to the vowels. (280 → pdf: 300).
• If actions can be compared with writings, Rimbaud's life seems more satisfactory than the
works of his Symbolist contemporaries, than those even of most of his Symbolist
successors, who stayed at home and stuck to literature (283 → 303).
• Literature, according to Valéry, has become “an art which is based on the abuse of language
that is, it is based on language as a creator of illusions, and not on language as a means of
transmitting realities. Everything which makes a language more precise, everything which
emphasizes its practical character, all the changes which it undergoes in the interests of a
more rapid transmission and an easier diffusion, are contrary to its function as a poetic
instrument." (284 → pdf: 304).
• I agree with Valéry that "the development in Europe, since 1852, of literary works which are
extremely difficult, subtle and refined, which are written in a complicated style, and
which, for that reason, are forbidden to most readers, bears some relation to the increase in
number of literates," and to the consequent "intensive production of mediocre or average
works." (285 → pdf: 305).
• There are, as I have said, in our contemporary society, for writers who are unable to interest
themselves in it either by studying it scientifically, by attempting to reform it or by satirizing
 it, only two alternative courses to follow Axel's or Rimbaud's, (287 → pdf: 307).
• The productions of Eliot, Proust and Joyce, for example, are sometimes veritable literary
museums. (290 → pdf: 310).
• All the exponents of Symholism have insisted that they were attempting to meet a need for a
new language. (294 → pdf: 314)
• Valéry himself had followed Mallarmé in an effort to push to a kind of algebra the classical
language of French poetry; Gertrude Stein has explained that her later writings are intended
to "restore its intrinsic meaning to literature"; and Joyce, in his new novel, has been
attempting to create a tongue which shall go deeper than conscious spoken speech and
follow the processes of the unconscious....(295 → pdf: 315)

Appendices
• Three Versions of a Passage from James Joyce's New Novel (Finnegans Wake) (1925-1928)
(301 → pdf: 321)
• Memoirs of Dadaism by Tristan Tzara (→ Tristan Tzara about Dada) (304 → pdf: 324)

Notes (and translations)

Index
Contents
The rediscovery of a lost symbolism...............................................................................................1
Abstract............................................................................................................................................1
The symbolism in Axel's Castle (1931) by Edmund Wilson..........................................................2
The definition of a new language...........................................................................................2
The naming of symbols..........................................................................................................2
The rediscovery of a lost symbolism......................................................................................3
The Futhark as an alphabet ....................................................................................................3
The strategy in deciphering the keywords for symbolism ....................................................4
The evolution of the personal pronouns in Dutch language...................................................4
Extended forms of integral symbolism............................................................................................5
Color symbolism in literature.................................................................................................5
Colors in religious schooling..................................................................................................6
Colors in (religious) paintings and sculptures........................................................................6
Colors in flags........................................................................................................................6
Colors in divine commands....................................................................................................6
Appendix – Notes to Axel's Castle – Edmund Wilson (1931).........................................................7
Notes...........................................................................................................................................7
1. Symbolism (9)....................................................................................................................7
2. W.B. Yeats (26)...................................................................................................................7
3. Paul Valéry (64)..................................................................................................................7
4. T.S. Eliot (93).....................................................................................................................8
5. Marcel Proust (132)............................................................................................................8
6. James Joyce (191)..............................................................................................................8
7. Gertrude Stein (237)...........................................................................................................8
8. (conclusion): Axel and Rimbaud (257)..............................................................................8
Appendices ............................................................................................................................9
Notes (and translations) .........................................................................................................9
Index ......................................................................................................................................9