House and Home: Cultural Contexts, Ontological Roles by Thomas Barrie

House and Home: Cultural Contexts, Ontological Roles by Thomas Barrie

Author:Thomas Barrie [Barrie, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781317366492
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2017-03-15T16:00:00+00:00


FIGURE 6.1 Diogenes, John William Waterhouse

I will briefly present a range of examples to explain these themes, before turning to two case studies: Martin Heidegger’s Black Forest hut and Henry David Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond. Heidegger and Thoreau’s writings are particularly expressive examples of how simple dwellings were positioned as a means to materialize, express, and embody important aspects of their philosophies. Subsequently, in their cases, the cultural and ontological roles of the domestic are expanded to include philosophical and spiritual issues.

Diogenes of Sinope’s purported domestic barrel outside the temple provocatively illustrates an essential dwelling that represents spiritual priorities and clarity of purpose.2 The world’s religions include many examples of this type – from the hermitages of the Desert Fathers to the cells of anchorites, Muhammad’s cave on Mt. Hira to Taoist mountain huts, and Bodhidharma’s cave dwelling. The ascetic hut achieved particular prominence in Hinduism and early Buddhism as a collective symbol of tenuous existence and the means of liberation from it.3 In Western culture, the solitary retreat was more individual, and has enjoyed a privileged position as a productive setting for the personal reflections of writers and philosophers. Bachelard described the “hut dream” as a solitary abode in the country, and its inhabitants occupying a propitious ontological setting.

The hermit is alone before God. His hut, therefore, is just the opposite of the monastery. And there radiates about this centralized solitude a universe of meditation and prayer, a universe outside the universe. The hut can receive none of the riches of this world. It possesses the felicity of intense poverty; indeed it is one of the glories of poverty; as destitution increases it gives us access to absolute refuge.4

Goethe’s popular poem, “The Wanderer’s Nightsong,” penned on the wall of a gamekeeper’s mountain hut where the Romantic writer spent the night, similarly celebrates the virtues of a thoughtful individual in solitude. These brief examples are complementary contexts for the hopes, presumptions, and experiences of those who have built or occupied rustic huts. The following examples illustrate how, to greater or lesser degrees, the rustic hut served, or was portrayed as, a simple shelter in service of an essential life, an antidote to the deficiencies of contemporary culture, a place deeply embedded in its natural surroundings, a means to realize reflective endeavors, a medium to materialize philosophical positions, and a setting where spiritual insights were possible.5



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