My Animals & Flowers

Translated into English for the first time,My AnimalsandFlowersbring forth Theodor Lessing’s visionary philosophy of need in an idiosyncratic series of musings on the natural world, which range from light-hearted to darkly shadowed.Full of imagination, wit, and insight into the nature and history of living species, they demonstrate Lessing’s brilliant ability to combine biological observation with social, psychological, political, historical, educational, and above all, philosophical thoughts. Grimly pessimistic about human society, Lessing found both a mirror and a refuge in the world of animals and flowers. In observing nature and attributing all type of human characteristics to animals and plants, he exposes the fusing of nature and culture, and – in dialogue with the natural world – confronts a whole cluster of political questions from the question of equality for women and marital fidelity to the pollution of cities and man’s destruction of the environment. Much of this work, sketching out the implications of an atomic age for example, has proved uncannily prophetic. To read this book is to enter into a curious and deeply sensitive world, in which to peer down at a colony of ants is to be reminded of ‘giant nations, each in conflict with the others’, and to catch a glimpse of bright poppies in a cornfield is to be submerged in a chain of thoughts from St Augustine to David Hume. Amongst the autobiographical reflections, Lessing weaves in critical observations of Western civilization, and critique of human culture as a destructive and disfiguring influence in the natural world. Ultimately, his philosophy of need shows how civilization comes at the expense of nature, ringing true with the climate of our times. Lessing uses a series of animals, (birds, dogs and wolves, donkeys, cats, hyenas, chickens and roosters, turkeys, horses, ants, white mice and dormice, sparrows, swallows, crows, jays, songbirds, storks, ants, spiders, flies, bees and wasps, kid goats, fleas, worms and insects, frogs, barbels, big cats) as reflections on his philosophy and theory of anthropomorphism. His opinions of these species run the gamut from analytical, sarcastic to loving, but always with penetrating human insights. Hyenas are inherently ugly, but they have no control over their ugliness. Horses reflect unwilling domestication, wolves are wild dogs, and the tame and wild donkey are a summary of his Theory of the Original State. Bees reflect clever politicians and wasps tragedy and heroism. Turkeys (one of the most moving essays) are wild birds bred into pathetic parodies of themselves, now only fit for large-scale human consumption. The chicken coop is an emblem for the process of embourgeoisement. A chapter on trees provides a very German interpretation of various species. Trees and forests are integral parts of the German psyche. The last essay Lessing wrote just before his murder, on the barbel, reflects a fish that turns bright when irritated and then dies, used by the Romans as entertainment during their feasts. This volume continues the anthropomorphism begun in My Animals. Much use is made of poetry written by both the author himself, and Rilke, Schiller, Rückert, Dehmel, Uhland, and Hölderlin. The book is redolent with symbolism. ‘Snowdrops’ evokes the magical transience of youth. The chapter on the complex role of roses begins with lines by Rilke, who penned the immortal words Rose, oh reiner Widerspruch (rose, oh pure contradiction), and ends with the Michael Praetorius Christmas hymn es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen (lo, how a rose e'er blooming). Lessing describes the frozen winter desolation of the German Northern Plains and wonders why he still lives there. He vents his anger at being dismissed from his Hanover teaching post, but his two Fleiβiege Lieschen (busy lizzies) teach him that human battles are transitory, and soon forgotten, The chapter on balsam trees bled for their sap is deeply symbolic of a society that uses people and then discards them when they are bled dry. Lessing travels to Moravia to meet a priest, and a hermit who lives alone in the woods. His description of them leaves no doubt of his affinity for people isolated from (and perhaps misunderstood by) the rest of the world. He uses the asteriscus flower to portray the history of the Jews through the millennia. He uses wheat and grapes to comments on the Eucharist, and the passion vine to explain how he recovered from his daughter's death, expanding it to understanding of the Passion and Death of Christ. The plant electricity findings of an almost forgotten scientist, Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, are analyzed, as are the significance of time-lapse photography of plant growth, and the life-enhancing effect of small German private garden plots. The last chapter, ‘stones,’ finds Lessing so alienated that his only refuge is stones.