The Brown Book

April 1873

Overview

Wagner defines German culture through the capacity to understand things in one's own language. He also identifies features of ancient Greek life that he considers fundamentally alien to modern understanding.

Content

April 1873:

On: What is German?

We must understand a thing in our language if we want to understand it properly. (barbaros — un-German. Luther.) That is the sense of a German culture. What we cannot ever or in any language understand about the Greek way, is what wholly separates us from it, e.g. their love — in — paederasty.