3

INTERPRETATION AND ELABORATION

Palinurus / Misenus

- the bluffer and the fool -

MY SPECULATIVE APPROACH

For me, the significance of Palinurus lies in the fact that the Aeneas' helmsman embodies the cultural-historical type who justifies both the con­sequences of his personal ambitions as well as the social develop­ments of which he is a part.

This interpre­tation is partly based on the commentaries I already quoted, of the English writer Cyril Connolly and classical scholar W.F. Jackson Knight, together with my admiration for the empathic power of the Aeneid.

In my interpretation of Palinurus for Palinuro, I have aimed in both form and content at the deepest inner quali­ties of man and the world.

Miseno, on the other hand, is concerned more with the realm of reality - our reality. 

The way in which Virgil makes Misenus act is so different from that of Palinurus, that he has come to repre­sent for me the type who does not try to justify his every action, and all their disastrous consequen­ces.

The relationship between Palinurus and Misenus is that of protagonist and antago­nist.

The twin concepts of protagonist/antagonist served me as a guideline. Not only in the sense of opposing characters but also as figu­res which supple­ment each other. In this way there is a complemen­tary mutual connection between Palinuro and Miseno, which not only emerges in the content but also in the form.

Victor Poeschl has pointed out in his book Die Dichtkunst Virgils - Bild und Symbol in der Aeneis that in all parts of the oeuvre light is overshadowed and in the darkness light breaks through, which can be traced back to the classical endeavour to achieve a harmonic balance between opposites.

This endeavour has been an important criterion for me in the making of both installations.

But mind you: is Palinurus as his own captain or helmsman of his soul actually still guiltless?

This question was not yet actually in 1989 – 1990, the years of making Palinuro and Miseno, but started to be asked ten years later and to be answered a further ten, fifteen years later in my closet drama The C of Scylla.

video > THE BLUFFER AND THE FOOL