The complete sentence from which the Schopenhauer quote was taken,
runs as follows: "If the whole world as idea is only the visibility
of will, the work of art is to render this visibility more distinct.
It is the camera obscura which shows the objects more purely, and
enables us to survey them and comprehend them better. It is the play within
the play, the stage upon the stage in 'Hamlet.'" (WWI vol. 1, book
III § 52, p. 345) The fable of the Ondt and the Gracehoper may be
regarded as such a play in a play. Structurally, the tale of the Ondt and
the Gracehoper is a miniature version of the Viconian cycle of Finnegans
Wake as a whole. It consists of three parts and a coda, as Sam Slote
has pointed out in an unpublished paper: the expositio or the description
of the two protagonists (FW 414.22 - 416.08), the Gracehoper's exile (FW
416.08 - 417.02), his rearrival (FW 417.03 - 418.09), and finally the ricorso,
i.e. the Gracehoper's song (FW 418.11 - 419.08). The fable's structure
also reflects the activities of the Gracehoper who "tossed himself in the
vico (...) and the next time he makes the aquinatance of the Ondt (...)
it shall be motylucky if he will beheld not a world of differents." (FW
417.03-10)
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