I) Events appear to us in space and time.

II) The world of objects I perceive depends for its existence--as an organized, perceived system--on my consciousness.

III) Schopenhauer regards the body as objectified Will.        

IV) Aesthetic contemplation, has "two inseparable constituent parts":
1) "the knowledge of the object, not as individual thing but as Platonic Idea . . . as the enduring form of this whole species of things"; and
2) "the self-consciousness of the knowing person, not as individual, but as pure will-less subject of knowledge."

V) The artist reproduces Ideas grasped through aesthetic contemplation; knowledge of the Ideas--of the realm beyond the principium individuationis--is the source of art, and the goal of art is to communicate this knowledge.

VI) In the case of the beautiful, pure knowledge has gained the upper hand without a struggle.

VII) In the case of the sublime that state of pure knowledge is only attained by a conscious and forcible breaking away from the relations of the same object to the will . . . by a free and conscious transcending of the will."

VIII) Lyric poetry is that in which "the poet only perceives vividly his own state and describes it."

IX) In the ballad form "the poet still expresses to some extent his own state through the tone and proportion of the whole."

X) In tragic poetry it is "incumbent on the poet not only to present to us significant characters truly and faithfully . . . [but] he must place them in those situations in which their peculiar qualities will fully unfold themselves."

XI) Tragedy is for Schopenhauer the highest poetical art: it presents the terrible side of life, the pain and evil, the want and suffering.

XII) This knowledge produces a quieting effect on the will, so that resignation takes place.

XIII) This is not suicide; rather it is like the middle way of the Buddha--a renunciation of fear and desire which allows one to become united with the eternal.

*

        Schopenhauer follows Kant in declaring that events appear to us in space and time (the a priori forms of sensibility in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason). The first sentence of Schopenhauer's two volume work declares: "The world is my idea [or "representation"--depending on how the individual translator has chosen to render the word Vorstellung). This means that the world of objects I perceive depends for its existence--as an organized, perceived system--on my consciousness. For Schopenhauer, the subject (conscious mind) becomes aware of object initially through a perception of its own body. Schopenhauer regards the body--as well as all other objects in the realm of the principle of sufficient reason (causation) and the principium individuationis (the principle of individuation, or separation in the phenomenal world)--as objectified Will. Will is what Schopenhauer equates with the Kantian ding an sich (thing-in-itself) and the Platonic Idea: it is the ultimate noumenal essence behind phenomenal reality.
        Will, as the universal principle behind the realm of causation, can be perceived by transcending the world of events by looking at things as they are in themselves. This is achieved through aesthetic contemplation, which has "two inseparable constituent parts": 1) "the knowledge of the object, not as individual thing but as Platonic Idea . . . as the enduring form of this whole species of things"; and 2) "the self-consciousness of the knowing person, not as individual, but as pure will-less subject of knowledge." In the state of aesthetic contemplation, a man loses himself in the object by giving up his separateness, his subjectivity, and becoming one with the object of his perception.
        The artist reproduces Ideas grasped through aesthetic contemplation; knowledge of the Ideas--of the realm beyond the principium individuationis--is the source of art, and the goal of art is to communicate this knowledge.
        "All willing arises from want, therefore from deficiency, and therefore from suffering." Art--through aesthetic contemplation--can help us transcend the world of willing and desiring:
"when some external cause or inward disposition lifts us suddenly out of the endless stream of willing . . . all at once the peace which we were always seeking, but which always fled from us on the former path of the desires, comes to us of its own accord, and it is well with us."
        Schopenhauer--like Kant--distinguishes between the effect of aesthetic contemplation of the beautiful and the sublime:
"what distinguishes the sense of the sublime from that of the beautiful is this: in the case of the beautiful, pure knowledge has gained the upper hand without a struggle . . . . in the case of the sublime that state of pure knowledge is only attained by a conscious and forcible breaking away from the relations of the same object to the will . . . by a free and conscious transcending of the will."
        Schopenhauer goes on to discuss the difference between tragic and lyric poetry. Lyric poetry is that in which "the poet only perceives vividly his own state and describes it." In the ballad form "the poet still expresses to some extent his own state through the tone and proportion of the whole." This expression of the poet's own state disappears in epic and dramatic poetry.
        In tragic poetry it is "incumbent on the poet not only to present to us significant characters truly and faithfully . . . [but] he must place them in those situations in which their peculiar qualities will fully unfold themselves." He uses the example of water: in order to know its nature fully, water must be seen in all its possible states of being. It is the same with dramatic characters--the spectator/reader must see these characters in as wide as possible a range of dramatic situations in order to truly know that character.
        Tragedy is for Schopenhauer the highest poetical art: it presents the terrible side of life, the pain and evil, the want and suffering. Tragedy presents the war of Will with itself. This knowledge produces a quieting effect on the will, so that resignation takes place--not a surrender of the things of life, but of the will to live. This is not suicide; rather it is like the middle way of the Buddha--a renunciation of fear and desire which allows one to become united with the eternal.