Holistic desire and fear of fragmentation in the works of Johannes Semper 

Keywords: gender, body, Henri Bergson, organicism, modern female dancer, World War I

The aesthetic programme of Estonian modernist writer Johannes Semper (1892–1970) is permeated by ideas of holism and organicism. The article explores what could have motivated/reinforced such a value system and how it might have affected Semper’s representations of body and gender.

From the philosophical point of view Semper’s works have been moulded, firstly, by a cognitive strand of German romanticism called organicism, according to which an artistic achievement is also organic, i.e. coming from the living world. Accordingly, an authentic work of art cannot be divided without causing irreparable damage to the whole. Also, it is the opposite of everything artificial. Secondly, Semper was fascinated by Henri Bergson’s philosophy, on which basis he insists on the integrity and organic nature of the literary situation, the form of the works and the bodies of the characters. For Semper, Bergson’s duration, for example, means an interconnection of phenomena, aims and bodies, recurring in Semper’s oeuvre as a chain  motif. He also often applies Bergson’s concept of intuition, believing that the organic intertwining of life and art, body and spirit, content and form can only be perceived intuitively, not analytically.

Semper’s holistic desire and his fear of fragmentation were further enhanced by the material and discursive traumas entailed by the First World War. In literary studies the divisive impact of war is often associated with a compensatory holistic desire, which can also be sensed in Semper’s male characters. Thus the characters, together with Semper as implied author, start on a quest for the organic and integral. Those virtues are mainly seen in the body of a dancing female imaged according to Isadora Duncan. For a male spectator the dancing woman appears as an embodiment of organic fusion, where one becomes both body and spirit as well as the dancer and the dance. The activity seems to have no residue, so complete is the fusion. A similar blending, without residue, is a prerequisite of a high-quality literary whole. At the same time the author uses mention of bodily discharges (secretions and excretions) to develop negative associations for certain characters. Such formal pedantry and intolerance against leaking bodies form a gloomy layer of Semper’s pathos-laden holism, a layer carrying some meanings deeply rooted in gender and the body.

Merlin Kirikal (b. 1986), MA, Tallinn University, doctoral student in Cultural Studies (Narva mnt 25, 10120 Tallinn), merlinkirikal@gmail.com