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GOETHE
BENEDETTO CROCE

WITH AX INTHODUCTIO.V

11Y

DOUGLAS AINSLIE
AM)
A
I

OKTRAIT

METIIUF:N & co. LTD.

36

ESSEX STREET LONDON

W.C.

This Ti an station First ]*itblishedin

L
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;
"<

RINTlil) IN

GREAT BRITAIN

INTRODUCTION
CROCE
criticism are,
I

S philosophy and

becoming known both on the North American continent and among our His philosophy was the first side of selves. his genius which I was able to offer the English-speaking world, and the first to
believe,

BENEDETTO

every year to wider circles,

appear of the four volumes,

English edition,

now

in its second

was the

Aesthetic.

of this treatise will find its principles

Readers under
;

lying the whole of Croce s criticism

alone

among
his

great philosophers theories by applying them to

to

he

has

proved
life

and

literature.

critical essays is that for

in reading his Croce the aesthetic or artistic faculty is one of the eternal forms of the human spirit, distinct, but not separate,

The main thing

remember

alike

from the ethical and economic

activities,

which, with the logical, complete the entire

circle of the

human

spirit.

There

is

no

fifth

viii

GOETHE

added to them, and all problems presented by any form of life are therefore to
activity to be

be resolved either into one of these or a combination of them. The aesthetic activity, which might also be loosely termed artistic creation, is not an exclusive appanage of

we all possess it to a greater or less degree otherwise it would be im possible for the public to enjoy or in any way understand poem or picture, music or statuary.
poets and artists
;
;

The
is,

point, therefore, is that aesthetic capacity in philosophical language, quantitative, not

qualitative, as has hitherto often been believed. There is no attribute of the creator in art
differentiating

men.
is

He

is

altogether from his fellowsimply a richer man, richer, that

him

to say, in those gifts which alone really count in life. The very great poets are
of

supreme examples
riches
;

endowment
are

in aesthetic

their intuitions

wider,

deeper,

and above all more frequent, than those of lesser men. Was Goethe a very great poet ? Croce considers this to have certainly been so others, on the contrary, and among ourselves my friend Sir George Douglas, have taken up
;

rather

less

enthusiastic

attitude

to

the

presiding genius of Weimar, while, of course,

INTRODUCTION

ix

admitting the great value of some of his production. Earlier writers in Great Britain, such as Carl vie, who published an English
Lehrjahre in 1824 and followed it up with a couple of articles in the Foreign Review, afterwards
of

version

Wilhelm

Meisters

much, on the other hand, to Goethe upon a pinnacle. He was one of the and therefore, for Carlyle, heroes," above that criticism which later and better equipped minds have been able to bring to bear upon the poetry and life of the author
reprinted, did
set
"

of

Faust.
for

Carlyle

immense

prestige

was,

indeed,

exaggerated a whole, which

many years responsible for the admiration for Goethe s work as

lias

reigned in our country.

as Croce here points out with admirable clarity, is frankly bad or inferior,
of
it,

Much

and

taken as representative, obscures our appreciation of his best work. Yet who does not admire Goethe ? Those
if

only

who do

not

know him

Goethe is, he is one

of course, far of the

at his best. For more than a German

;

very few great European

poets of the modern world. My wish would have been to deal myself with the translation of Croce s illuminative

work, as with those on Shakespeare, Dante,

x
Ariosto,

GOETHE
;

and other poets but my own work has come between, and to delay the essay on Goethe taking its place beside those other great ones, would have been to deprive thousands on both sides of the Atlantic of a new and sure
guide to pure pleasure/ in the Greek sense. Pleasure is a word often on one s lips in
"

reading

Goethe, the

divine amateur,

who

was also a supreme artist in life. Another charming characteristic of Goethe which should win to his side the most ardent francophils, is surely that intrepid detachment of his, a detachment which did not flinch
even before the Napoleonic invasion of his country and led him to refuse to speak ill of the French, even when they were in occupation of Germany. Certainly, with Einstein and those illustrious few others among the German professors, he would have refused to sign the ill-famed manifesto of hatred for the Allies. Goethe, in fact, never lost his balance, and this detachment was not indifference, but always the nice adjustment of immense opposing forces, the domination
of the material,
i.e. life

and

art.

has especial as he drew so Italians,

tion

Goethe

interest

for

many

much

of his inspira

from

Italy,

and

in

Benedetto Croce he

INTRODUCTION
;

xi

has an admirer as firm as any of his out-andout partisans, yet also a critic for Croce the student of Hegel is also the author of What
Living and What is Dead of Hegel, and never hesitates to point out where, with Goethe, inspiration fails or takes a false route dies in fact as often it did though it must also be admitted that he usually
is

returned to the right route of his

own
;

accord.

The wanderings

Goethe belong properly to biography, not to this volume for, as

of

Croce points out, he does not here treat in detail the many other sides of Goethe s personality, save in so far as they affect the
consideration of his poetical work. the Italian sources of much of

Thus

of

Goethe s he merely says that no one else inspiration,

ever reaped such a harvest as he did, in that land of enchantment to poets of all nations.

Of formal philosophy, too, he says little, beyond pointing out that Goethe does not there excel, but is rather full of wisdom, the wisdom of life, always at work with all his faculties, never separating feeling and thought
or working

upon

externals, as
I

way.
of

On

every page,
will

the pedant s believe, the readers

is

this

book

find

coin

of

thought to
of thought,

repay them

fifty-fold

its

price

xii

GOETHE

to

my
s.

mind,
"

Goethe

deeper and greater than Enemies as steps in the de

velopment

of

complete

self-conquest

one

should explore the exploitable and calmly worship the Inexplorable there is nothing exact in mathematics but their own exact ness what poets really do rather than what

they fancy they

do,"

and

so on

such phrases

as these open vistas indeed, and when Croce begins to deal with the works in detail, we

have the

feeling of a very clear mirror held

;

up before a magnificent forest the boles of mighty oaks, there

of picturesque

where, amid

is

much

tangle

underwood, not without, here and there, an admixture of aconite, adders, and stinging nettles, vast expanses of loose For Croce strife and verdant boggy danger. does not scruple to put his finger at once upon the weak or shady spots as when he Goethe s error here says calmly of Faust in attempting to answer with a poetical lay
"

work the question as to the value of human life. Despite his many adventures, Goethe was able to preserve until the end that state of robust wisdom, which got the better of
his taste for doubtful female

company

(where,

Croce admits, he found some of his most valuable material). He always upheld
as

INTRODUCTION

xiii

the importance and superiority of marriage as an ethical spiritual force superior to any

other tie between the sexes, and one of the most remarkable of Goethe s view-points seems to be that of the pure idea of morality as connected with the most lofty womanliness and becoming the full affirmation of human
"

liberty."

What may be
Goethe
for
s

the by-products of genius are here set in a clear light

called
;

Goethe, even when embarking upon some literary adventure that ends in the sands, cannot help showering pearls of wisdom by
the way, as in the Wanderjahrc so severely

blamed by Lewes, and not

for

to be

compared
Wahlvcr-

balanced perfection with

the

wandtschaftcn. None of the great works are omitted in Croce s rapid review of the poetry, which of

course also includes the prose, as all readers of the .Esthetic will necessarily assume. Croce
is

never

dull,

of apprehension,

though sometimes a when he assumes

trifle

hard

his readers

are as well posted as himself in the literature of the period, and synthesizes in a few words

what they would perhaps grasp more easily in an expanded form. But he always presumes
that his readers arc thoroughly well-informed

xiv

GOETHE
all

on

the ordinary matters concerning the

problems which he discusses. He starts where the teacher or lecturer on literary history
leaves
off.

And what

intrepidity,

what

fresh

ness of view, to gladden the soul, as when speaking of the far-famed problems of the
obscurities

and

difficulties of

the Second Part

of Faust, Croce runs a pen right through them all, with the remark The Second Part of Faust is best considered not as deep philo sophy but as a poetical libretto, somewhat in the manner of Metastasio That is the true Croce, the painstaking, the laborious, the
"

"

erudite,

who
for

ground

and tunnels patiently under some pages and then blows up a

toils
!

century of accumulated false criticism with one irresistible dynamic phrase Nothing to equal this has been said, since he described the Divine Comedy as the novel
of the thirteenth century,

ploying it, had not yet been invented. One may be sure with Croce that when he makes statements
of this sort, he is

and Dante as em because the form of prose fiction

always able and ready to

support them with elaborate quotations and proofs, as when convicting the modern school
of

French criticism

preparation, he

of insufficient philosophical illustrates this by blowing

INTRODUCTION

xv

Saint-Bcuvc, Brunetiere, and Lemaitrc out of the water in three articles, where he compares

them with De
the Alps.
I

Sanctis, so little

known beyond

Unlike battleships, however, they

settle again.

consider that the reading of Croce and a

of his views

knowledge

on philosophy and

literature is essential to a

modern education

that aims at something above the ordinary

curriculum of petrified common-place. Even where there is dissent, a priceless stimulus to

work and aspiration on the higher planes will have been obtained, and the great truth realized, that it is only by toil and sincerity and honesty in the literary sense, that the
highest reputation can be achieved in poetry, philosophy, or criticism. For with Croce are
the failures as well as the achievements of

genius

world s history systematically revealed by one who has seen and understood. Croce has com
for

the

first

time

in

the

philosophy to a house. Croce lives in this He house and uses it. that like other houses which men says build for themselves, his makes no claim to exist eternally. No house is eternal, yet men will always build houses, which are convenient for the time, and may often serve

pared

his

xvi

GOETHE
The same may be

to indicate the sort of structure likely to be

useful to their successors.

said of this

and

of those other literary criti

cisms by our author (which are applied philo sophy) they will serve the purpose of
;

housing thought for some time a few centuries perhaps and certainly afford useful indica tions for the thoughts as yet unborn, which are to take their place. To criticize Goethe is to criticize the eternal spirit of life in one
of its

And may

in the case of Croce

most splendid modern manifestations. and of Goethe one say with truth that mountain calls to
I

mountain.
In conclusion
able
of of

wish to say that this very

and sympathetic translation is the work Miss Emily Anderson, formerly Professor

German

Literature in University College,

Galway.

DOUGLAS AINSLIE
THE ATHEN^UM
PALL MALL, S.W.
1923

PREFACE
judgment

may

be

WHATEVER
so

passed on the absence of political passion in Goethe, which has been

frequently

remarked on, censured, and

ways,
all
I

emphasized

in various
I

may

be per

mitted to say that

fortunate that

it singularly the sublime poets, among perennial sources of deep consolation, there should yet be one who, possessing a know

consider

ledge of human nature in all its aspects, such as no other poets ever possessed, nevertheless

keeps his mind above and beyond political

sympathies and the inevitable quarrels of

The poet Carducci, as is well known, could not enjoy this good fortune. For when trembling for the fate of his country and
nations.

surrounded
turned
"

to

by furious party struggles he his commentary on Petrarch,

Messer Francesco, a voi per pace io vegno even in the Canzoniere voices seemed
."

"Sir

Francis,

come

to

you

for peace.

..."

xvii

xviii

GOETHE

draw him back to the scenes from which he was endeavouring to escape and to renew the agony which he had tried, if only for a
to

re-read

war I Goethe s works and gained deeper consolation and greater courage from him than I could have gained perhaps in equal measure from any other poet. This inspired

short time, to assuage. During the sad days of the world

me

with

desire

to

write

down

certain

critical

ideas

which

suggested

themselves

works and again during my which had always led me to a true under standing of them. Such is the origin of the following pages, which are addressed especially to Italian readers, but which, on account of the method which they pursue, may be
reading of his

welcome to those readers

literature."
"

in general a certain repugnance for the usual

who
"

feel

Goethe

This literature, like our

is

own

abundant more than the latter, on the one hand it amuses itself with trifles and futile curiosities, on the other hand, as it is not
literature,"

Dante

to excess,

but, even

governed by clear ideas, it endeavours to solve problems which are incorrectly set, it

PREFACE

xix

confuses artistic consideration with psycho

logy or practice, complicates what is simple, and strangely exaggerates and disturbs the
proportions of the truth.
in poetry, as in

But
else,

think that

everything

one must go
it is

straight to the substantial, contemplating

with an unprejudiced mind, which

only

also the
;

way

to

admire rightly and sincerely

as,

moreover, Goethe himself recommended when he warned us in one of his epigrammatical that the True can be found sayings
"

simply,"
"

although there are

many

to

whom

it is

just the Simple which signifies

nothing."

CONTENTS
CHAPTER

PREFACE
I.

MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE

POETICAL AND ARTISTIC LIFE

II.

III.

WF.RTHKR
\\ A(,NI:R

IV.

THE PEDANT.
"

...... .......40*
PAGE

xvii
i

17

29

V. VI.

THE FIRST PART OE

FAUST
"

"

53

THE SECOND PART OE FAUST TRAGEDY OF G KETCH EN

.
"

I."

THE
.

65 %

VII.

Tin-;

SYSTEMATIC FORM OF FAUST I AND THE DOUBLE FORM OF WILHELM MEISTER

" " "

-79
.

VIII.

FRAGMENTS AND HYMNS

101

IX.

HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL DRAMAS

107
121
-

X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.

HELENA
"HERMANN

LYRICS

......
UND
DOROTHEA"
.
"
"

129
141

THE
THE
"

"

WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN

157
K>8

XIV.

"

WANDERJAHRE "...
II

-XV.
XVI.

FAUST

iy<S

CONCLUSION
INDEX

....

i<j8

205

GOETHE

GOETHE
MOi<AL

AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE

research
is

wont

to

occupy

itself

in

far

greater

detail

any other poet and not without just reason though it is to be regretted that in his case, more perhaps
;

with Goethe than BIOGRAPHICAL with

than

in the case of other writers, this

stifles

research crushes and

sideration.

pure
if

artistic

kind of con

He who

said that

not been a great poet in have been a great artist in life, made a state ment which cannot be defended in the strict
sense

Goethe had verse, he would yet

the word, as it is impossible to imagine the life he lived without the poetry which he produced. Nevertheless, the author of the statement has traced in a rather
of

picturesque
life

manner the

relation of

Goethe

to his poetry, a relation which is like that of a whole to one of its parts, a very conspicu-

GOETHE
of

ous part.

number
consist

For is it not true that the greater volumes of Goethe s works (even
"

omitting his letters and his

of

conversations

")

reminiscences,

accounts of his travels, volumes contain other autobiographical matter interspersed or concealed, to which critics are still endeavouring to discover the

annals, diaries, and that several

Does not this autobiographical element enfold and cover on all sides like some rank vegetation those works of his which are more exclusively his poetical works ? As he was an artist in life, so he can teach
keys
?

us

He does not teach, how to live. as a moralist who sets us an ideal and ever, furnishes us with precepts, but he teaches us directly by his own life of which the obser
how
vations and the

maxims which he wrote and

illustration

enunciated
theoretical

form the

and the

compendium.

He

does not teach

this or that particular technical method, or, if you like, he teaches these as well, but,
first

of
in

all,

he teaches us about the

life

of

man

its

shows us

He essentially human aspect. in his own life how to by examples

own

solve general problems problems which arise in the great world of affairs, problems which

appear in the narrow round

of

one

MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE

existence, problems of constancy, of change, of passion, of will, of practice and theory, of different ages and of the duty which belongs

and so forth. His own biography with his works, offer us a complete together and classic course in noble humanity, per
to each age,

exempla
in these

et

prcecepta.

It is

a treasure which

days deserves to be used to a much extent by educators and by autogreater didacts themselves. It is true that a certain literature now in
fashion, which shows a preference for what is colossal and mysterious, and which flatters

more

especially the egotist and the volup tuary, has begun to recommend the imitatio
Goethii, describing its

own model

as a super

human and inhuman

good and
its

being, placed

beyond

evil,

and delighting

in this repre

sentation of Goethe,

which merely reflects For the personality of follies. Wolfgang Goethe consists of calm virtue, earnest and justice, wisdom, goodness balance, good sense, sanity, and, in a word, all those qualities which are generally laughed at as being Other masters, bourgeois." not Goethe, can teach one how to certainly shirk the modest duties of life, how to become cunning and inhuman, how to become sensual

own

"

GOETHE
bestial.

and even
"

He was deep
critics of

but not

abysmal/ to-day would wish to consider him. He was a man of His words were genius, but not diabolical. clear, and kindly. In order to impress simple, his teaching on the minds of those whom he cared for, he liked to clothe it in humble For instance, wishing to warn us not verse.
as
to
lose

some

ourselves
:

in

abstract

universality,

he simply said
Wills!

du dich am Ganzen erquicken, So musst du das Ganze im Kleinsten erblicken. 1

or, for instance, these lines written in the year of his death to several young writers who sent him their poetical compositions
:

Jiingling, merke dir in Zeiten, sich Geist und Sinn erhoht,

Wo

Dass die Muse zu begleiten, Doch zu leiten nicht versteht. 2

And

To be above

what, in substance, did he teach ? all, whatever else one may be,

thoroughly and wholly human, ever working with all one s faculties in harmony, never separating feeling and thought, never work1
"

If
"

you wish to enjoy the Whole, you must discover

in the smallest part." in those moments

the
2

Whole

Youth, remember
guide."

feeling soar, that the

when mind and Muse can accompany but is not an

unerring

MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE

;

a task ing on externals or as a pedant which, in the turbulent years of youth and fascinated by eccentric minds like Hamann,

Goethe
material
clearer

may have
or

fanciful

conceived in a somewhat sense, but which he

immediately deepened, and therefore made

and corrected, rendering concrete its mystical and ineffable totality by determining more closely. And, on the one hand, it he realized in himself and advised others to
seek true totality in the particular, in one s
particular
tion,"

one

self-limita mastery in and, on the other hand, not to shut heart to passions and affections, but

"

work,

not to become their prey, and to develop in oneself ever more and more fully the element
of activity, training oneself not to desire and to dream, but to will and to act. He knew

that

passions,
for

uncalled

and especially love, come and assert themselves. He

never thought of combating or eradicating

these passions

by

ascetic abstention, or of

suppressing feeling by over-developing the rational part of his nature but he endea
;

voured to reconcile both elements and, when

feeling

and imagination threatened him and

finally gained the upper hand, he used to free himself by representing these phases in

6
:

GOETHE

works of art a method to which each one can have recourse, even if he is not expressly a poet by profession or a great poet like Goethe, because this method is really nothing but the faculty of objectifying our mental
contemplating them, of giving an account of them to our selves, and of thus opening a way to medita tion and liberation. Even after he had
ourselves,

conditions

to

of

thorough knowledge and mastery of himself, even in his maturity, Goethe did not close his heart to the thrills of love, but he never allowed them to check his activity sometimes even he treated
attained
to

them

as a sort of fever,

the cessations of
;

which one should take advantage of so that in an epigram he exhorts himself to get on quickly with the work in hand before Love should awake again. As he was armed against natural impulse, he was not seriously its enemy. But he was the sworn enemy of all abstract theories which take upon and themselves to regulate human affairs here also he succeeded and advised others
:

never to force themselves to follow a pre conceived plan, but to value spontaneity and to desire to be rather the spectator than the master of one s own talent ("das inwoh-

MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE

and

7
")/

nende Talent ganz als Natur zu betrachtcn to allow it to turn to poetry, to science, to criticism, to this or that material and species of poetry, whatever represents the
needs and the objective and real necessities of denn es ist Drang, und various moments 2 a variety of movements so ist s Pflicht which, provided they are not the result of an
("

")

amateurish
severer logic

fancy,

will

embody

much

and coherence than those which one sometimes presumes to impose on it from without. Goethe accepted nothing
from without.
inexperience

He
and
;

refused to continue to

play the part of a discontented rebel once

youthful
neither
of

definitely passed to play the part

could

ferment were he agree

a cursing, instigating prophet or of a national, warlike seer, since, never having engaged in social and political
struggles, but only in inner

he

could
of

not
his

participate

moral conflicts, with the whole

weight
national

personality in the rise of units against the world power of

;

Napoleon
"

for,

though he loved
he
could

his native

country of Germany,
1

not

bring

To

regard the talent which one possesses as nothing

it

but
2

nature."
"

For since the impulse to do

it."

exists,

it is

one

duty

to

do

GOETHE

himself to hate the French, and, seated in his study in Weimar, he did not feel in the

compose war songs which, as he said, camp and to the sound of the drum. And because fanatics are rarely spontaneous and generally intellectualistic, he
to

mood

should be written in

abhorred fanatics of

all

kinds, sentimentalists
"super

and

"

enthusiasts,"

worshippers of the

man,"

mystics, catholicizers, down to the Romanticists. He never lost his serenity of

judgment, and he preferred indulgence, not weak, indifferent indulgence, but that other kind of indulgence, strong and sure, which understands deeply because it has experience

and

remedy and does not make itself heard he even came to consider those who opposed him and hated him as a necessary element and a favourable means for his own development. To observe oneself, to examine oneself, never to pause, to prefer the work to the achievement, sich
prescribes,
if

possible, a
;

"

ilberwinden,"

this ever to conquer oneself he desired and achieved. And to be oneself

;

and not to resemble anyone else, but to resemble (he in his peculiar way as others in dem their peculiar way) the Highest, Hochsten," that is to say, Reason and Truth.
"

He was

not less a master in literary

life,

MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE

passing here too from a youthful fiery asser and feeling tion of the rights of genius not and from rebellion against rules,"
"

"

"

"

"

indeed to the restoration of external rules and to an aversion for feeling and genius cin since he always claimed to have been
"

Befreier,"

to cultivate art

a liberator, who had taught men von innen heraus" from the
"

heart
"

but

to

Bcsonnenhcit."

study, to meditation, to In his early days like the

other Stunner und

Dr anger he had been an

literature,

opponent
like

of

French

intellectualistic

and ironical, an old lady. But he soon learned to

;

which was aged and correct

appreciate the clearness of Voltaire s prose and the value of schools and discipline and

he lashed his

own Germans
"

severely,

who

would not

"

learn art

and who were wont

to justify every unseemliness they wrote by He also saying that they had "lived" it.

abandoned very quickly the illuministic dream that society could ever reach a period of art and of life generally, in which the right path would be opened up once for all. For
he observed that the path does indeed open out as the result of effort, but, like the waves to a ship, closes immediately afterwards. thus To give poetical form to reality
"

10

GOETHE
a
friend
of
his,

Merck,

had defined the

tendency which Goethe showed clearly from and he remained true to this his youth
;

saying.

The other saying that

"

"

all

true

is merely a poetry is occasional poetry variant of the former. But the indispensable artistic content, drawn from personal life, must be such as it really presented itself, and not vanity, that is to say, self-complacency, Hence he reproved without sound basis.

those who made experiments in order to supply themselves with material for poetry, and, after publishing Werther, he was surprised that youths should wertherize and should

wish to draw from poetry and put into life what he had drawn from life and put into poetry. For this and similar reasons he was a severe critic of the Romantic movement, and to the separation of the two types of art which then obtained he added as a marginal note the qualification that the classical was diseased." and the romantic healthy What displeased him in the botch-work of the Romanticists was the absence of form and character and the indulging of the ego and he saw in their humourism the acute mani
"
" "

"

"

festation of disease, because

"

humour"

remarked very

rightly)

is

an element

(he of genius,

MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE

11

but can never be a substitute for it, and its predominance marks the decay of art, which This is it corrodes and eventually destroys. a value which a diagnosis and a criticism of
is

not simply historical and transitory, but

inasmuch as it defines which are perpetually spiritual presenting themselves, and existed then as they do now. And in Goethe s time, as in our time, holds good the criticism he made of a certain Romantic drama which he called
theoretical
lasting,

and

attitudes

"

parts which have no substance and those which would require substance are, on the contrary, lack and his feeling inclined to lose ing in it in face of the faultless verse, which courage had become very common in Germany,

with

pathological product, as in excessive insistence the

it

are treated

"

where, he said, poetical culture is so widely diffused that there is no longer anyone who
"

writes

bad

verse."

Hatred

for

foreign

elements or nationalism in poetry seemed to him stupid, or at most antiquated, and his

famous idea
literature, of

of

Wdtlitcratur,

of

universal

which he announced the coming, meant opposition to every nationalistic only

idea, the assertion of the supernationality of poetry, whereby it seemed to him that it

12

GOETHE

would henceforth be possible for every free to seek everywhere its own kindred souls and to receive from all sides stimulus and examples, and also warnings not to enter paths which have been tried already and which lead nowhere. His judgments on contempo rary poets (contemporaries of Goethe in his old age) are almost all substantial and defini it may suffice for us to remember that tive after having received and read the Promessi
soul
;

sposi immediately after its publication,

he

book was the mature work of Manzoni, in which there appeared in its fulness that inner world which in the he tragedies had not had room to develop
perceived that
"

this

"

even noted the

fault,

the only fault of this

work, namely, the unduly large place to history, by which he thought that, to the unfortunate tendency of the Manzoni allowed himself sometimes

given

owing
time, to be

overwhelmed, as Schiller by philosophy. Manzoni, in truth, so allowed himself to be dominated by it that he quenched in himself
this

the poet for the historian and the moralist too Goethe had foreseen to a certain
;

extent,

when he had censured the division which the author made of the characters of and ideal." his tragedies into historical
" "

"

MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE

On Goethe
s

13

aesthetic

many

dissertations

have been written which are mistaken, because they search not for what Goethe thought, but for what he did not think. Thus, seeing that he did not solve or deal with problems of a certain kind, such as
those which are usually considered to belong to the philosophy of art or to aesthetic, the

conclusion

is

drawn that he was not a

philo

sopher of art.

Whereas, on the contrary, it should have been said that he wasa philosopher of those problems of art which offered them selves in the first place to him as an artist, and that here, as in moral life, he is able to provide a great wealth of suitable observa
tions

and

of efficacious instruction.

He was

not a philosopher in the scholastic sense, but he was indeed a philosopher in the real sense,
in his meditations

on the problems of science and nature. With regard to other problems, which we might term metaphysical or religious, he adopted an attitude of reserve, or rather
took
little

interest in them, holding to the

"

one should explore the explorable and calmly worship the Inexplorable." It may be (or rather it is certain) that in his idea of a science of nature which in the various species of phenomena should search
that

maxim

14
for the primitive

GOETHE
is

phenomenon (Urphanomen), an idea which can be thought and seen at the same time, he was wrong and did little honour to either science or poetry, as was the case, moreover, with all contemporary
which
"

natural

philosophers."

It

certainly is) his bitter criticism of

that he was

may be (and much mistaken

it

in

Newton, and

in reject
;

ing the use of mathematics in physical sciences

another mistake which he shared with other It may be (and idealists, his contemporaries.
is true, as it is the opinion of that his theory of colours is neither experts) true nor false, but physically indifferent, a
it

probably

sort

of
is

mythology

which

of light and darkness, useless for calculation and explains

nothing in a scientific sense. On the other hand, he made real and original discoveries
in

anatomy and botany, fields of research in which observation and intuition render good
It
is

service.

also

not

less

true that he,

emerging from a century intoxicated with mathematics, understood and had the courage to assert that mathematics do not lead to the knowledge of reality, and that in them there is nothing exact but their own exact in which French tongue ness, a sort of becomes clearer and at the same everything
"

"

MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE

its

15

time poorer, and in which everything drowns

own being and

its

own

character.

and
idea,

of great philosophical

importance

Original is the

which he often suggested, that truths

their capacity for that sterile truths for

are to be recognized

by

promoting life, and this very reason are not truths an idea which we interpret and justify in the sense
;

every truth has reference to a vital set and therefore problem, historically, in life if it does not operates operate, it is a that the problem was non-existent and sign
that
;

the pretended truth mere subtilty, tautology, or verbalism. Further, worthy of notice is that other frequent thought of his that truth
is

individual and, although it is such, or rather because it is such, is true. Glimmers and presentiments which are slight and vague

perhaps, but which foreshadow doctrines which arose later spontaneously, from intrinsic
necessity, and which are now shaping them selves and becoming consolidated in modern

philosophy. This splendid moral and mental develop ment, apart from and above poetry, confers
distinct

renders him when compared with original other poets of the same rank, in whom life

on Goethe the stamp which

and

16

GOETHE

and thought are merged in poetry wholly and without residue, and if anything does remain
mediocre importance, as it generally consists of an entirely personal matter or sentiments and ideas common to But although, as has already their times. been stated, one can thus explain the pre dominance of biographical treatment in Goethe literature, yet literary history is never exempted from its duty, which is to resist such a tendency and to restrain its onrush and weight, in order to prevent itself from being drawn away from purely artistic It consideration, which is its proper task.
outside,
it

is

of

must, it is true, ever direct its gaze to the whole personality of Goethe, but with the sole object of understanding how this person ality prepares in the various periods the
various forms of his art, or how it interferes with the latter, and sometimes disturbs and
spoils
it.

II

POETICAL AND ARTISTIC LIFE

1C

fact of cardinal

importance for
transition
"
"

Til
is

the artistic development of Goethe

precisely
his

ethical

from the restless, rebellious, and titanic frame of mind which manifested itself in the
early works, in Werther, Gotz, Faust, in the fragments of Prometheus, and the Ewiger

Jude
frame

to that calm, sober, and harmonious of mind, which he preserved thence

forth constantly and which expressed itself in almost all the later works. This transition

was frequently mentioned and defined by Goethe himself, as, for instance, in the four synthetic little lines in the Divan :
Damon isch-genialen
Dunn
I)u hast gt tollt zu dcincr Zeit mit \vildcn jungcn Scluiren
;

sachte schlosscst du von Jahr zu Jahrvn Dich nalier an die Weisen, Gottlich-Mildcn. 1
"In your time you rioted madly with wild, youthful Then companions, seixed with a demon-like frenzy. gently, from year to year, you drew nearer to the Wise,
1

the Divinely
2

Calm."
I

18

GOETHE
" "

Here
"

gently

(sachte)

and
are

"

from year to
;

introduced but correspond to the truth accidentally, since one must guard oneself from conceiving the relation between the two periods as a leap over an abyss, which suddenly opened up before him. Goethe had not taken a

year

and

"

nearer

"

not

very active part in the Sturm und Drang, at

any
was

rate,

in

no violent

spirit

of

political,

social,

or religious revolt. His main desire for liberation from abstract ideas and
life.

coldness, for the fulness of

His chief

sympathies were with the sublime figures of history and legend, with the heroes of thought,
of passion,

and

of will.

And

"

mad

"

(toll)

he could well

call himself

with the smiling

good-nature of an old man who recalls his but mad he never was, not in the youth
;

smallest degree.

He who

tries to find
s life

this first period of

Goethe

and

during art a

Goethe who
will

is

a fanatic or beside himself,

not find him, but will find, on the contrary, much more wisdom than he would have ex

pected after hearing this retrospective judg ment. Werther represents not a malady, but the recovery from a malady, a vaccination
fever rather than a fever after real infection
in Faust,
;

even in Faust

I,

one notices

much

POETICAL AND ARTISTIC LIFE

;

19

criticism and irony even in Gotz there is reason and well-balanced moral judgment, not to mention the profound wisdom to be
clear in its ideas
of

found in Egmont, which is just as correct and on political life as on that

In short, the transition was not a radical conversion or the repudia
tion of a former self, but rather the
of this

the affections.

maturing through experiences which were necessary for its development. Whether this transition was calm or
former
self
it

sudden,

was,
of

fundamentally
indirectly,

however, primarily and an ethical, and only

of a literary character; since those who are exclusively men of letters only believe that it is possible to disconnect the

two processes, to divide the spirit into parts, and to form an empty literary problem which, inasmuch as it is empty, cannot be even Nor was it due to external causes, literary. whatever the poet himself may have some
times said about the effect of his journey to Italy, where so many others have gone, but

where no one else has reaped the harvest and Greece are that Goethe did Italy not in Goethe s case the Italy and Greece of reality and history, but mere symbols of a fact which could phases of his inner life
"

"

"

"

20

GOETHE

be demonstrated in detail and exhaustively, but it is of no use to delay over this question, since it is quite evident to any sagacious mind. Further, a symbol and nothing more is used to is the word classicality," which first phase of distinguish the second from the has Goethe s poetical work classicality
"
" "

no meaning here
rate
"

unless

it

is

no true meaning at any mentally translated by

"

ethical

harmony

or

"

wisdom."

In the

aesthetic sense of the

word, as that of artistic

perfection, complete adjustment of language to sentiment, perfect fusion of matter and

form, the Goethe of the

all

first

period

is

not at

than the Goethe of the second. One might even assert (and for my part I should not hesitate to assert) that perhaps he never afterwards attained the
less

classical

scenes of Faust I
of poetry

pure classicality of the greater part of the or of some dramatical,

lyrical fragments written in his youth, pages

which can be compared only with the tragedies of Sophocles, the Dante episodes, and the most sublime passages in Shake
speare
"

dramas.
"
" "

Thus maturing, when the evolution from the titanic to the wise was complete, Goethe s poetry had necessarily to undergo a

POETICAL AND ARTISTIC LIFE

change
;

ill

it

had

to

be dominated by the
"

varied moral experience, by the wisdom," the balance and harmony which his mind by

had reached.
in

And

this did

happen
in

in effect,

Iphigenie

Wahlverwandtschaften, the second The visionary and Mcister and Faust II. tragical Goethe of the first period has dis

Elegicn to the

and

in

and Tasso, Hermann und Dorothea, down

the

Romische

appeared, and,

when he sometimes seems

to

reappear, as in the vision of the return of Helen to her conjugal home, it is merely the
case of a poetical motive of his youth, of which, moreover, he has endeavoured to chasten

emotion, restraining it and making it yield to the allegories and quibbles This contrast between the first of Faust II.
the

quivering

and second form of Goethe s poetry has been strongly felt and the one form has had its but more often partisans against the other the first against the second, and young Goethe again became the example and the stimulus to a small and artificial Sturm und Drang which the brothers Hart and other critics and minor poets in Germany en
;
"

"

deavoured to represent about thirty years ago. The second period has been often called
cold

and

lifeless,

and, in short, only slightly

22
;

GOETHE

but whoever does not persist in poetical stifling or restraining spontaneous impressions in deference to some peculiar and narrow,

though high, ideal of art, will never bring himself to maintain that the poetry in the works of Goethe in his maturity has ceased
to be poetry, since the wings of poetry, of a poetry which is doubtless different from the
earlier poetry,

touch and caress him in what

ever direction he turns in his poetical com positions. In Goethe s case it never happened
that his poetical vision merged in philosophical
thinking, rather, as

we have already suggested,

he introduced and preserved his poetical vision in philosophical thinking and natural for this reason he even wished, science
;

when
more
never

dealing with colours, to proceed in a concrete and intuitive manner than is

lets itself

suitable for this kind of research.

Poetry be overcome by and merged in philosophy save in poetically weak tem peraments, intrinsically reflective, and only extrinsically imaginative, such as Schiller was, with whom Goethe on this point always contrasted himself. In a letter of 1802 when writing to Schiller on the subject of conversa tions which he had had with Schelling, Goethe

added

"In

me

philosophy destroys poetry

POETICAL AND ARTISTIC LIFE

. .
.

23

never can conduct myself in a purely speculative manner, but immediately I must seek, for every proposition, an
I

and

intuition
nature."

and thus
all

return

forthwith to

Therefore
in

that one can claim as true,

this

Goethe which poetry has certainly become wisdom, but wisdom, in her turn, has become poetry. Goethe never ceases to feel and to express, but he feels and expresses at the same time his own moral harmony, which is the motive in which all other motives, lesser motives, Nor would it be correct, speaking merge. generally, to describe the second phase as didactic and ironical, although he composed
in in
it much didactic and ironical verse, and much playful verse, as befits the sage," who cannot always conceive everything with the same seriousness or always keep the bow bent. One must only regret that following
"

respect, is the different tone of s work in his second spiritual phase,

path he went too far, particularly in his old age (in the relative sense in which one can speak of old age in the case of a mind which
this

was perpetually alert), and exaggerated a tendency which showed itself as early as the re-elaboration of the Urfaust and the Urmcistcr

24

GOETHE
in

symbols and allegories and concealed intentions, which obscure especially the Wanderjahre and Faust II, in many passages of which we find not a Goethe who

and delighted

is

pre-eminently wise and pre-eminently a poet, but rather a Goethe who is not a very wise poet. However, one can determine the

greater or lesser degree of power in these as in all his other works only by examining

each work separately, and, in general, with regard to this part, there is no further
criticism to

make.
that the con

One should add, however,

and
is

sideration of the relations between his moral

intellectual life

and

his artistic

life,

which

so important for the understanding of the

of

development
supplies

Goethe
is

art,

for

the

principal

historical

which it and heruseless,

meneutical criterion,
service to criticism
futile,

able to render another

by showing how
in the case of

and mistaken,
is

many

of

the search for the unity and the unifying poetical motive, in which critics of small intelligence still persist, who are not
his works,

very sure in their feeling for

rate,

art,

and, at any
in

are
to

inclined

to

delight

enigmas and
better

riddles, since

apparent they have nothing

"

do.

This continual

sick

iiber-

POETICAL AND ARTISTIC LIFE

en,"

25

wind this rapid conquest of himself, which was the rhythm and the law of Goethe s life, was the reason why he could not cherish for long a poetical motive which required many
itself into

years of exclusive devotion in order to convert an accomplished form. If one thinks of other artists, inspired all their life long by a

dominating feeling and fascinated by a single image, one can see the difference, com pared with them, of Goethe, who was not restless or inconstant, but ever strebend," with a firm tread from height to height rising and ever surpassing his former self of a short time ago. From this point of view one
single
"

should say that in him

extent,
it

life,

to

certain

consumed

art or frequently prevented

growing and becoming mature. Examples abound, not only the very con spicuous example of Faust, not only that of the completed Faust in two parts, not only that of the first part, but even that of the Urfaust, where one can already observe more than one spiritual phase and more than one

from

Now Goethe, instead of remain fragments, or un letting fragments finished what no longer admitted of being finished, endeavoured several times (and this is perhaps one of the few traces which are to
poetical

motive.

26

GOETHE

be found in him of a habit which is not infrequent in the nation to which he belongs)
in fancy to give a fictitious finish and a ficti tious unity to his fragments and to his various

discordant motives
istic

this difficult intellectual-

labour is apparent in his greatest work and in other works, too, in the last form in which he handed them down to posterity. This is an intellectual process which is very
different

from that of other artists, who, proceeding from an intellectual plan, en deavour to colour it and often colour with for Goethe s great fire corpses and skeletons intellectual process sometimes lent to a group of very living creatures a mechanical or dead appearance and it was therefore an intellec tual process which was not inherent, but Hence we superadded and posthumous. understand why he frequently did not know what answer to make to questions addressed to him by friends and disciples, who asked him for explanations, and why he got out of
;

his

difficulty

by means

of

epigrammatical

sayings, which were true and peculiar subter

fuges and, perhaps, ironical remarks, not so much against himself (since he could not but

know how matters

really

had unravelled

themselves), as against those simple-minded

POETICAL AND ARTISTIC LIFE

for inquirers incalculable
;
" "

27

example,

that
"

able."

It

and Mcister would now seem time

author
to

was incommensur
Faust
to

cease
false

following indications

the

through

those

and

abandon

superstitious search for a cases where, in the light of

resolutely the unity, in those

common

sense,
"

no unity exists. When I read, for instance, the in one of the best studies of Goethe that of the tragedy of Faust is to be found unity
in

the person and the development of the poet, and is therefore more lively, original,

and comprehensive than any plan which may have been devised and decided on beforehand," I know not what to be surprised at most, whether at the misunderstanding which leads the writer to hover between a preconceived plan and the unity of the poetical motive, or
at his claim to place the poetical unity in the unity of real life and practice, or, finally, at his

persevering acquiescence in that fiction of a unity which Goethe introduced into one or
other of his works, perhaps in the illusion to which he himself succumbed now and then
to the extent of believing that he
really obtained

had thus

the unity, which in reality was lacking. The excellent rule, that in poets one must look, not for what they wished to

28

GOETHE

do or asserted that they were doing, but only what they did do poetically, is doubly valid and useful in the case of Goethe so innumerable are the fresh pages and the eternal creations which in their constructions
for
;

are merely artificially held together.

Ill

WERTHER

VACCINATION
"

fever rather than

we have called the a real malady JL .A. fever which gave rise to Werther and now we shall add that this fever is extremely like one of those processes which
;

/\

take place unconsciously in the elaboration of a poetical motive, when the poet seems anxiously to be seeking satisfaction for his needs and desires, and instead is seeking

nothing

else

but art

or, at least, principally

and substantially, only art. This explains the childishness which makes us smile and
almost feel embarrassed when we- read the account of, and the documents concerning, the relations of young Goethe with Charlotte
excellent, patient Kestner.

Buff and with her betrothed and husband, These are matters

which have

and anecdote-writers biographers in truth emphasized in much too

29

gossiping a fashion, usually misunderstanding

80

GOETHE

their psychological meaning and yielding to the bad advice of immersing again and drown

ing the work of art in biographical material, by exaggerating and perverting the legitimate

which Goethe s person arouses and has also aroused in us. Bio generally graphical genesis, which is sometimes useful
ethical interest

to take into consideration in

so far as

it

explains certain artistic discordances which are practical residue in the aesthetic organism,

appears incongruous and strange when applied to works in which personal experiences have become completely fused in the artistic idea, as is the case with Werther, where the artistic transformation took place so perfectly as to force Goethe even to displease the friends whom he had used as models, who noticed in the ideal characters of the novel traits

unbecoming
it

to their real selves

and

felt

as

were offended.
If

the critics sin

by

their excessive

tion to biographical detail, Goethe s

poraries,

who welcomed

devo contem Werther with an

approval so enthusiastic as to reach almost

the point of fanaticism, who hailed in it the defence of passion and of nature, the protest
against social rules, prejudices, and conven tions, and even the reasonings in favour of

\VERTHER
suicide,

31

some
by
it

of

to

who \vertherized in practice and whom, as is well known, were incited make away with themselves, treated
in another
it

way, in a material way, conform to their own sentiments making and needs and perplexities and despair. was not Werther "unhappy Werther an ideal for the poet as he was for his con temporaries. Goethe immortalizes in Werther
this

book

neither the right to passion nor nature versus society, nor suicide, nor the other ideas we

have just mentioned

that

is

to

say,

he

does not depict them as mental conditions which, at that moment, predominate in him. But he depicts the sorrows," as the title
"

expresses

it,

the sufferings and, finally, the

;

death of young Werther and just because he looks upon Werther s fate as sorrow, barren sorrow, and its unfolding calculated to lead not to the joy and delight of feeling
oneself superior to and rising high above others, but to self-destruction, the book is

liberation

Goethe s the book

Certainly in case a moral catharsis too, but in

or

catharsis.

it

is

an

artistic catharsis, effected

solely by the power of art. Therefore, Goethe does not introduce even polemical remarks against the above-men-

32

GOETHE

tioned ideas, in the manner which Lessing and others at that time would have antiartistically desired.

Liberation

is

achieved

by making

plain the motives

of the pathological process, mount to curbing its power

and the course which is tanta

of

expanding
self-

and

to taking

away from

it

the halo of

complacency and pride, with which it sur rounded itself, and the illusion of being in itself something beautiful, exquisite, and
almost divine. The hero of the novel
is

being unfitted for life, succeeds in carving out his

finding
his

not a hero, but a in which he never

own
in

object, in

own end
habits,

or

mission.

He

has

numerous
stage, all

but

all

their

initial

too weak, easily deviated, incapable of becoming co-ordinated and subordinated

one to another, and, in some such harmonious

order, of

becoming deeper and eventually true and peculiar activities. He has a gift for
meditation, but his meditation
is

saltatory,

inconstant,

who
ing

superficial, like that of one does not take a real delight in convert

and

his

experiences into
in fixing his

a serious

mental
it

problem and
steadfastness.
art,

mind on

with

He

has a tendency to worship

signifies a sort of frenzy

but for him art

WERTIIER
and
ecstasy.

33

Hence, passionately fond of if he likes Ossian, Charlotte, he answers very impatiently Like her Someone asked me the other day how I liked Ossian and his art becomes

when someone asks him

!

"

"

"

"

lost

in

the

inexpressible,

and,

instead

of

dominating nature, he allows himself to be overcome by her, and wrecks himself in He reluctantly under vague imaginings. takes practical activity and abandons it after the first small difficulties he decides to go to the war (a decision sometimes taken by desperate people), but allows himself to be dissuaded immediately from doing so.
;

He

happiness of love and but, as he does not desire all family life this seriously, he begins to fall in love among
thinks
of

the

the
in

many women with whom he comes contact, just with the one woman he
.

cannot marry, whom he must respect, whom he is not allowed to even desire and woo, As he is very quick in feeling and in observ
ing his
in words,

and

feelings and in expressing them flies in fancy to scenes of peace innocence, and, reading Homer, inter

own

he

prets

sights of country life, whither he lias retired for a time and he

;

him with the

elevates these sights to the

3

Homeric scenes

34

GOETHE

of the Odyssey, as in the wonderful pages of the well, the village girl who carries water,

and other similar pictures. Young Werther would have become a great idyllic poet, if he had known how to console himself with art. But the idyllic with him is the clear sign of disease and weakness, the refuge from the command to accomplish some effort. He loves children and patriarchal life and rough and simple work, not like a man who wishes to beget sons and support a family and cultivate the soil, but just because they are distant, inoffensive, and restful things for him who shirks efforts and
endeavours to avoid the struggles into which he should have been obliged to enter, towards men and things, on account of his actual
condition.

He

is

moved and weeps and

direct, violent,

becomes excited at the

and

furious manifestations of passion, of bound less love which knows no barriers, unreasoned

and unreasonable, innocent in its fury he worships them as he worships disorderly and chaotic genius, worshipping therein his
;

own

self,

inclined to the

same outbursts and

His feeling dissipation of the soul s energy. for nature is nothing but this thirst for
emotions,

extended to the

life

of

nature,

WERTHER
trees
;

35

and rivers, mountains and valleys, dawns and sunsets spectacles to which he unbosoms himself and gives himself en
tirely, becoming a part of nature, as he already had become, in another way, by his tearful

participation in unrestrained passion.

One may even defend what has sometimes been censured in Wcrthcr, the so-called double motivation of the catastrophe, whereby frus trated ambition and wounded self-love are added to the despair he suffers through his love but not for the reason adduced by
;

some critics who say that this is exactly what occurred in the case of young Jerusalem, whose history served in part as a model for Goethe (a reason which would be outside the
but for another reason, an intrinsic reason, which is that a man like Werther had yet to strive to save himself from his destructive passion by some kind
sphere of aesthetic)
;

then to become quickly satiated with and acquire a distaste for the latter, and again surrender more bitterly and hope The readers lessly to destructive forces.
of activity,

who would have wished

and

for a single

motiva

tion, the lovers of love, the lovers of Charlotte

of Werther in love, regarded and regard But it is Wcrthcr as a sublime IOTC story.

36

GOETHE
;

not Romeo and Juliet or some It is, on the con similarly inspired work. a book of malady and this love is trary, not so
it is
;

an aspect or an acute manifestation of the malady. If Werther had not shot himself
after
his last conversation with Charlotte, he would certainly have made away with

some other incident. Werther himself is diseased, the Although description which Goethe gives of him is
himself after

not diseased.
the word
"

On the contrary, in
"

the passages

where the hero defends and

justifies himself,

malady

is

the word which he

;

his justifica himself utters as a diagnosis tion is that he considers himself diseased.

To the

friend who, after Werther has con fided in him, puts before him two alternatives

win Charlotte or leave her he Dear friend, that is well said and easily said. But can you ask an unfortu nate man who is gradually but surely dying of a slow disease, to put an end to his suffering The famous defence by a dagger s thrust ? of suicide, which confutes Albert s contrary opinion, this defence which is so powerful inasmuch as it exhibits suicide as a necessary process, which does not criticise itself by placing itself outside itself and its real coneither

answers

"

"

WERTHER
ditions, is altogether

37

dominated by the com parison between the development of the You see, fever." suicidal longing and a
"

Albert, that

and

is it

the history of so many people not the case of a disease ? Nature

is

can find no exit from the labyrinth of con fused and contradictory forces and a man
diseased, he sometimes breaks forth into puerile ideas and reason
die."

must

As he

is

ings or into self-interested arguments. When his mother and his friends urge him to take
idler,

and to accept some office, and passionate as he is, day-dreamer, he smiles and asks But am I too not
part in social activity
"

active

now

And

after all is

it

not

all

the
"

same whether I count peas or lentils ? The prince at whose court he takes an official appointment, esteems him, and Werthcr com "He values my intelligence and plains talents more than this heart, which is my nevertheless my only pride, which alone is
:

the source of

all,

of all strength, all bliss,

I

and

all

misery.

What

know, anyone can

know; but

He

is

my heart belongs to me alone." so utterly ignorant of the value of

"

tenacity of will and of the importance of going straight to one s goal that he is sur
prised
:

What

Whilst others with their

38
little

GOETHE
strength and talent strut before me,

smugly contented with themselves,

despair of

am
?

to

my

strength, of

my
it

gifts

Great
didst

God, who hast given me thou not retain the half

self-confidence

all this,

why
"

and give me and self-satisfaction ? But

of

on

another
"

occasion
It
is

he

has declined to a sort of restless lassitude. I cannot be idle and yet I can accomplish nothing. I have no imagina
feeling for distaste for books.
tion,

perfectly active strength

:

terrible,

analyses himself William. My

no

nature,

and

have a
"

everything
diary,

fails
I

us."

When we fail ourselves, And elsewhere My

:

which

have neglected
I

for

some time,
I

turned up again to-day.

see

am
by

astonished to
step,
I

have have pass clearly understood my own condition and yet have acted like a child, how clearly I understand it now and yet there is not the faintest indication of an improvement." But the character of Charlotte, wonderful in her goodness, straightforwardness and pity, suf fices to prove that the book is not a lyric of madness, but is inspired at most by com
consciously, step
this
!

how

come

to

How

passion for a disease.

Compassion

hence

it

is

the work of one

WERTHER
who knows,
of

39

one who understands, and who, without being Werther, discerns Werther completely, and, without raving with him, This is its feels his heart throb with his.

charm

the perfect fusion of the directness of feeling and the mediation of reason, the
:

union of the fulness of passion with the transparency of this tumult. Werther, which,
according to the aesthetic terminology which came into existence a few years after its

appearance, would have been called and was called sentimental poetry, is, at the same
time,

naive

poetry.

IV

WAGNER THE PEDANT

CONFESS

that

cherish

certain

I and

tender feeling for Wagner, the famulus, Dr. Faust s assistant. I like his sincere

boundless faith in knowledge, his honest ideal of a serious student, his simple straight forwardness, his unaffected modesty, the
reverence which he shows and the gratitude which he constantly cherishes towards his
I am touched by his tastes, great master. which are those of a peaceful elucidator of

parchments, his repugnance for the multi tude, for noise and barrel-organs, for walks and excursions, how he prefers to retire to his closet in the evening with his books and inkstand to read and meditate and make notes. I feel disarmed by his small weak nesses, which culminate^ in his longing to deserve one day the admiration of society, lauded as a scholar, consulted as a sage. And I have not the heart to reproach him
4

WAGNER THE PEDANT

for
this

41

judgment and these reasonings of which are all uttered with phrases and his, sayings borrowed from average opinion, for how can he be blamed for what is the very reason of his li ving and working ?
though
very irritating (al not his fault) to anyone who is in a spiritual condition opposed to his, just as the sight of placid and satisfied health is
Certainly
it is

Wagner

is

intolerable

to one who is suffering from nerves, or the spectacle of prosaic happiness to one who is struggling amid the storms and of passion. Intolerable he is to Faust, who, in certain moments, has even a sort of fear of him, a fear of this face, of And Faust only speaks to him this voice.

hurricanes

with impatience, repugnance, and sarcasm. One cannot really call dialogues the con
versations into which Faust enters with him, since Wagner never understands him and

Faust does not hope to be able to make

himself understood

by

sucli a hearer.

But

the one only wants to vent his ill-humour

against universal falsehood and against himself, and the other is all eagerness to increase

the treasure of learning and advice which he has already gained from his master. He drinks in Faust
s

words open-mouthed, with

42

GOETHE

devotion, although not one of the ideas which they express penetrates his brain with any
effect, for it

by
his

his

own

dashes against the barrier formed wise sayings. Faust continues

feverish

monologue, in which Wagner

takes a part only to the extent of uncon

sciously throwing in remarks totally different in spirit, which form so many more pricks and goads to his passionate, struggling,

trembling master, whose haughty, contemp tuous answers again seem to his pupil nothing but a discourse "so learned (so gelehrf); and, as it is so, he does not become perplexed,

but admires

However evident is Faust s disdain, sar casm, and contempt, Wagner does not notice
so far and is not capable of noticing it he from suspecting that his own virtuous ideal of knowledge and spiritual meditation so completely does has its ridiculous side
it,
;

is

his reverence for the great man, side Providence has placed him,

at

whose

make him

sink
to

and drown the self-love which ought make him susceptible to these stings.
well,

And you do

poor Wagner, in your

!

affectionate devotion, to listen with deference and not to feel wounded

simple dignity and

For Faust

is,

after

all,

only a philosopher

and

WAGNER THE PEDANT

a

48

man, and

his

intellectual.

But

cruelty to be careful

you is purely what you do,

;

when you

resolve to take a wife

lest,

if

you do not happen to choose one of those timid silent creatures, such as Gian Paolo frequently places beside his erudite maniacs, but there fall to your lot as a companion a
Faust in petticoats, a female Titan, a valkyr, you receive no longer merely biting philo sophical lashes, but find yourself the object
(and this you hardly deserve) of aversion, as will be precisely the hatred, and nausea
:

lot of a colleague of yours,

devoted to

histori

cal

research,

brilliant idea

Tesman, who will have of marrying Hedda Gabler

the
1
I

have frequently compared the pair, and Wagner, with the pair, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. But in reality
Critics

Faust
there

is

nothing of
little of

Don Quixote

in

Faust

and very
If,
it

Sancho Panza in Wagner. the comparison must be made, however,

is

Wagner who resembles Don Quixote,

is

and, in a certain sense, he

1

the

Don Quixote
dear Assessor.

Hedela
: :

Tesman

is

a specialist,

my

Brack

Undeniably.

Hedda And specialists are not at all with, not in the long run at any rate.
Hrack
:

amusing to travel
?

Hedda

Not even the specialist one happens to love Faugh don t use that sickening word (Ibsen, Uedda Gabler, II, j.)
!

44

GOETHE
neither

of the old knowledge.

is

more nor

less

For Wagner s ideal than the humanistic

ideal, joined to the Baconian, i.e. the admiring study of ancient histories in order to deduce

from them prudential maxims and rules, political and moral, and the search for the
laws of nature in order to turn them to social An ideal which just in Goethe s time utility. was beginning to lose ground, corroded by
scepticism regarding naturalistic and abstract methods and by scorn for dry learning and pragmatic reflections, and was substituted
or

was beginning

to be substituted

by the

revival of the Augustinian desire to re dire in se ipsum, to overhaul the soul and intellect

man, by the new feeling for the religious mystery of history, by the new rebellious and heroical ethics. Wagner has not the
of
slightest suspicion of the current of

that

is

stirring

around him and that

of his master.

thought is over

whelming the breast

He

is

the faithful slave of the knowledge which is henceforth antiquated. The greatest pos
sessions he

dreams
of

codices

and

of are a library rich in parchments, a closet with many

curiosities

nature

and instruments

for

observations and experiments, a medical art which will kill patients by all the rules

WAGNER THE PEDANT

written

45

down
in
skill

appearance
acquired
rhetorical

books, and, for liis own the world, as a professor, in the use of persuasion and
in

actio. The insatiable longings, the giddy dreams of the superman are worries which, thank Heaven, he has never ex
;
"

although (as he says goodhe too has had his queer hours naturedly) just as Don Quixote had a little of the world
perienced
"

around him in his servant and niece. would almost say that the enjoyment which is always renewed when one reaches those pages of Faust where Wagner comes on the scene, is only equal to the irritation which makes his master writhe at this point.
of reality
I

O Tod

icli kcnn s das ist mcin Famulus Ks \vird mcin schonstcs Gliick zu nichtc Duss diusc Fiillc clcr Gcsichte D.r trocknc Schlcichcr storcn muss l
! !
\

person
is

enters

pathetic, and

the stage, who is his entrance is worthy of

sym
him
!

Faust
his

still

burning and quivering

dialogue with
the

after

brief

excited

Earth

Spirit,

gone. voices and in his simplicity has thought that

Oil death I know it- tis my assistant my fairest That this plenitude of visions happiness is destroyed should be disturbed by this humdrum poke
1
"

quickly summoned and as quickly Wagner, who has heard the sound of

."

46
his

GOETHE
master was declaiming a Greek tragedy,

evinces the desire to profit

somewhat

in the

art of declaiming. Like this entrance, each smallest stroke in the two conversations

which he has with Faust

of

is

a marvel of

inspired naturalness, perfect fusion of the serious with the comic. The figure of
will

the pedant was not new in literature. All remember the satirical sketches which

Erasmus

drew

of

the

rusty

scholastic

reasoners, Italian sixteenth century

of the Ciceronian humanists,

comedy

the polemical philosophy of Bruno and Galileo of the old, But those descrip fanatical Aristotelians.
tions were satire, or rather criticism in its

negative aspect, elaborated with witty elo quence, or, at most, caricatures and not

Poetry is sometimes approached, but not reached or captured, as in the Polina Jove, who from his nius of Bruno, who is looks on and considers lofty observatory
poetry.
"

the

life

of other

men, subject to so many

errors, calamities, miseries, useless fatigues/ he alone is happy, he alone lives the and
"

celestial life,

when he contemplates his divinity

in the mirror of
"

an anthology, a dictionary, a Calepino, a lexicon, a Cornucopia, a Nizzolio Goethe, however, like every true

WAGNER THE PEDANT

47

poet, will not hear either of satire or of eulogy, either of deepest black or of glaring white.

He loves only the play of light and shade, he knows only humanity, poor or sumptuous as it may be and the pedant, ridiculed by the polemical writers of the sixteenth century, this pedant, to whom the writers of comedy, in their fury to weight his patient back with
;

ended by attributing qualities paederast and a thief, becomes in his imagination an idyllic creature, rich in virtues, sometimes even interesting and touching. What do we mean by persons good and bad, virtuous and vicious, wise and foolish ? Such people are mere abstrac
all

sorts of abuse, often

the

of

tions, since these terms,

taken thus separately,

are abstract
aesthetic

and however much writers on are wont to maintain that perfectly

;

good and virtuous personages are not poetical, one must point out and add that neither are the perfectly vicious and wicked not on
;

account of the artistic demerit of virtue or vice, but because this perfection in the one
or the other antithetical one-sidedness, which
it

is

an abstraction.
of the

desired to represent, is a dead thing, After all, who can say which

two

is

right,

Faust or Wagner

Who

can say that

the

twofold spiritual narrow-

48
ness of the one

GOETHE
of
life

doubt
stifles

knowledge which stifles the knowledge and knowledge which is utterly wrong, and that the

his

twofold opposite boundlessness of the other, mad desperate attempt to unite and exhaust in a single action criticism and life,
is

knowledge and voluptuousness,

right
?

completely

The Wagner

of Goethe, the

human

pedant, suits so excellently, in his peculiar way, the modern feeling for the unity of
opposites, for undivided humanity, that he has had a long, varied, and honest progeny, to

whom
tives,

belong,

among
is

the latest representa

some

of the delicate characters

which

Anatole France

wont

to delineate with a

light hand, for example, Sylvestre

membre de
himself
to

Bonnard, who, before he resigns protecting good girls and to

Institut,

giving them

in

marriage,
"

also

elucidates

magnanimous ardour," parchments, with a from his modest toil the coming expecting and of something mysterious, vague, sublime/ Our friend Wagner is so sentimental and
"

there

is

his breast that his tone, his master,

such a sweet vein of tenderness in when he talks with

not lyrical in the sense of the sublime lyrics that rise and
lyrical
;

becomes

WAGNER THE PEDANT

lyrical poetry,

49

soar from the lips of Faust, but just idyllic

now

satisfied,

now

plaintive

Wie anders tragen uns die Geistesfreuden Von Buch zu Buch, von Blatt zu Blatt Da warden Winternachte hold und schon,
!

Kin

selig

Und
So

ach

Lcben vvarmet alle Glieder, cntrollst du gar ein wiirdig Pergamcn,

1 ganze Himmel zu dir nicder.

steigt dor

or

Wie schwer
Durch
die

sind nicht die Mittel zu erwerben,

!

Und

eh Muss wohl ein armer Teufel stcrben. 2

man zu den Quellen steigt man nur den halben Weg erreicht,

And, above all, he takes delight in wooing and enjoying the symbols of glory, the glory
of the scholar
:

Welch

ein Gefiihl musst du, o grosser Mann, Bei der Verehrung dieser Menge haben O gliicklich, wer von seinen Gaben Solch cincn Vortheil ziehcn kann Der Vater zeigt dich seinem Knaben,
! !

Ein jedcr fragt und drangt und eilt, Die Ficdcl stockt, der Tanzer weilt. Du gehst, in Reihen stehen sie, Die Miitzen flicgcn in die Hoh
:

How differently the pleasures of the mind carry us from book to book, from page to page Then winter nights become cheerful and beautiful, blissful delight warms if you unroll a precious every limb, and ah parchment, all heaven descends upon your soul."
"

1 How difficult it is to procure the means of reaching the original sources and before he has gone half-way, perchance the poor devil lias to die."
"

50

GOETHE
Als

Und wenig fehlt, so beugten kam das Venerabile. 1

read
these

sich die Knie,

When we
we seem

harmonious

lines

to see the partly enraptured, partly grieved expression of one who is experiencing

a mystical joy and feels himself filled with a noble envy, the ecstatic expression with

which Wagner must have pronounced them we seem to hear in the apostrophe, in the
;

exclamation, in the pompous description, the rise and fall of his voice, so well trained in the rhetoric of delivery.

The dog,

too, plays a part in this idyll, the

poodle, which has followed Faust, and in which the famulus does not notice anything extraordinary. But, since his master seems
to interest himself in
it,

he cannot for his

part refuse

it

little

friendly consideration.

homage of an aphorism, the caress of a compliment, and ennobles it to a certain extent by taking it into their
So he
offers it the

own

family, into the academic world Dem Hunde, wenn er gut gezogen,

Wird
1
"

selbst ein weiser

Mann gewogen.
!

What a feeling you must experience, oh great man, How happy is he who at the reverence of this crowd The father can derive such an advantage from his gifts shows you to his son, each one asks and presses forward and hastens, the fiddle ceases, the dance is stopped. You pass, they stand in rows, caps are raised, and they almost bow the knee to you, as they would to the sacred host."
!

WAGNER THE PEDANT

Ja deine Gunst verdient cr ganz und gar, Er dcr Studcnten trcfflichcr Scolar.
1

51

Wagner, who
first

is

so individualized

and so
the

vivid a character in the two scenes of the

part,

even

amid

the

allegories,

fancies,

and the extravaganzas

of the

second

part, in the Homunculus scenes, does not lose With reference entirely his artistic vitality. to these scenes commentators have made

many
slight

subtle

remarks,

which are

of

very

neces importance, just because, to have recourse to hermeneutical subsary tilties, it is a sign that these representations do not speak for themselves and that their
if it is

idea

(assuming that they have an idea) does not coincide with the form. Neverthe

less,

Doctor Wagner," who Wagner, now has become famous, an exceptionally brilliant university light, surrounded by a dense
;<

throng of students, provided in his turn with a famulus, called Nicodemus, has not become proud as a result of the reputation he has won. He still reveres the memory of his old master and patron, who disappeared

suddenly
to

in

a.

manner
study
lie

him,

whose

incomprehensible has preserved

If a dog is well trained, even a sage will be kindly disposed towards him. Yes, he quite deserves your favour, he, the apt pupil of the students."

52

GOETHE
with Faust
s

intact

fur

robe

still

hanging

on the
for

nail, and whose return he ever hopes and awaits. He (says Nicodemus) never

admits even in

jest that his

name could cloud

"

that of Faust, the sublime man modesty is the virtue which he has chosen." And
:

when, after
ing
to

distilling

Homunculus and hear

"
"

himself

called

Daddy
his
little

prettily,

he

sees

(Vdterchen) creature turn

Mephistopheles,

straightway

familiar with the latter,

become and announce his

"
"

imminent departure for the Pharsalian Plains with the two companions the And I ?
:

poor

man

cries out anxiously, feeling himself

"

deserted.
science

Why, you/

the
"

little

son of

answers mockingly, must remain have very important things to you do ... and you will reach your great Farewell To which Wagner goal. but deeply moved replies, resigned
here, as
"

wolil! Das driickt das Herz mir nieder. Ich fiirchte schon ich seh dich niemals wieder. 1

Leb

Even amid the lifelessness of the allegories, we see his eyes dim with human tears.
1 But the word chills my heart. Farewell already that I shall never see you again."
"

feel

THE FIRST PART OF FAUST

the Faust of poetry, is the Faust we have just seen forming such The a contrast to simple Wagner. other Faust, the Faust of the whole poem, is

FAUST,

more than a concept of the intellect, In worked out, moreover, inconsistently.

little

the Faust of poetry is the Faust whom Goethe carried in his mind if we between the years 1769 and 1775 it in literature, we must wish to determine reckon approximately (with the exception of a few slight contaminations) the Faust of the introductory scenes, lament on the
point of time,
;

vanity of knowledge, conjuring of the spirit, dialogue with Wagner, despair and attempted suicide, Easter walk, return to his study or the Faust of the scenes written during
;

the above-mentioned period and which arc to be found in the Urfuust ; or scenes written

down

at a later period, but conceived

53

much

54
earlier

GOETHE
and resumed
in the spirit of the first

conception. This is the Faust in dealing with whom one rightly recalls Werther and, indeed,
;

like

Werther, he

searching for
find in his

and dissatisfied, something which he does not

is

restless

life, driven to despair, and, if not like Werther, to suicide, almost to suicide
;

assuaged and temporarily encouraged whatever brings him back to the sweet by remembrances of childhood and innocence (the sound of the Easter chimes;, by the sight of the habits of the people (the walk
he
is

outside the city gate), and here, among simple like Werther, folk, he feels himself a man
;

he is extremely sensitive to the sights of nature (the moon, who visits his vigil But with her tender beam, the sunset). Faust represents a different tendency of
too,

Wertherism, namely, that tendency which we might call heroic. Faust is not a youth who has tried everything and has achieved He is a mature scholar who has nothing. the whole range of the knowledge covered of his time, even in its most abstruse and hidden parts, and his dissatisfaction, his lack of adaptability have suddenly sprung from
a

long confidence

and a long adaptation.

THE FIRST PART OF FAUST

They have sprung from the
break out in
for learning,

55

and they the form of doubt and distaste doubt as to truth and doubt
latter
itself,

as to the efficacy of truth Is that theoretical truth.

of
is

merely
called

which
?

is knowledge knowledge one ever to reach through knowledge the^ intimate meaning of things, which is soj, intangible ? And above and beyond know

true

And how

ledge

is

there not the longing for full

life ?

Does not the deepest aspiration of man tend precisely to something which is both knowing and living, substantial and finished know ledge, a substantial life which finds its own
satisfaction
?

a doubt, an anxious search, not at all a certainty, nor a direction which he has

His

is

discovered, nor the beginning of a new life. Hence, two souls dwell within him, and the

one wishes to separate itself from the other. His condition is painful, tortured, it is the
condition of a sick man.

But how much

more noble Werther

!

malady than that of higher and raises its Werther would victim to a higher plane. have been content with a country life and a kind female hand to caress him, or at least he imagined he would have been. But Faust
is

his

It

rises

56

GOETHE
the

summons

Earth

strength of his resembles it. In Faust the

Spirit with all the resolute will and feels he

crisis of

modern

thought shaken

is

very clearly reflected, when, having

began
listic
;

traditional religious beliefs, it to perceive the emptiness of rationa philosophy, which had taken their
off

there is also reflected in Faust an place eternal moment of the human spirit, the

moment
It is

which thought criticizes and overcomes its own abstractions.

in

itself

unnecessary to point out the develop motive in the above-mentioned scenes, of which there is hardly a line which has not become proverbial and which all can go through in their minds without even opening the book. Our concern here is

ment

of this

show where the true poetry of Goethe lies, which, when it has been indicated and
to

limited

requires ments to feel the beauty of Faust s address to the moon, the sad friend who bathes him

by dismissing extraneous thoughts, Do we need comrlittle comment.

in her pallid rays, as he bends over his parch ments amid the skeletons and the phials in. his study, and the poetical flight of his quivering sigh for living nature ? Or the spell of the sound of the Easter chimes,

THE FIRST PART OF FAUST

which arrests
his

57

as he raises the poison to his lips, awakening and instilling in his heart a calm sweetness and a peaceful tender

hand

ness

And

meadows
to their

of the

the merry scattering through the crowd, who, while attending

for

own amusement, make way

and

greet with reverence and gratitude the old doc tor, entirely unaware of the lack of confidence and despair that is raging in the head and the

heart of the venerable scholar

All these are

immortal and popular pages of modern poetry. We shall ask ourselves rather whether
Goethe, when composing them, had overtome the state of mind which he embodies
in Faust.

In doing this

it is

evident that

we

cannot interpret them according to the idea of salvation through activity, which appears in the finished poem and which is chrono In the pages with which we logically later. are now dealing it is not even suggested that
it

existed in the

mind

of the poet.

Further,

shall not puzzle over the various appari tions and later understandings between the

we

Earth Spirit and Faust, which Goethe may have planned and of which some traces seem to remain (soliloquy Erhabcner Geist. but which, in any case, were not elaborated and never assumed any definite
"

."),

58

GOETHE

shape. And later, by a few decades, seems to be the word of warning which Mephis-

topheles utters in a short soliloquy, against the fatal contempt, by which Faust is allow
ing himself to be overcome, for "reason" the highest attributes and knowledge,"
"
"

so that not even this idea, which man would have thrown an entirely different light on the longings and efforts of Faust, works as present and effectual in the mind
"

of

the poet. Goethe, when he presented Faust in the manner in which he presents him in these early scenes, had not yet become a conscious critic of Faustism," but rather and for this part, too, his with it agreed true and effective criticism (if it may be
of
"

called criticism) is entirely poetical, similar to that which we have already noticed in

the case of Werther and Wagner, consisting, namely, in the very sincerity and fulness of

In Faust, too, Goethe an agitation and an anguish, and not sings of of an ideal, or rather, he produces and removes the ideal at the same time by means
the representation.
of this agonized representation.

As anguish, and therefore uncertainty, the thought of Faust is stronger in negation than in affirmation, his impulse is surer in

THE FIRST PART OF FAUST

59

Hence his con abhorrence than in love. temptuous attitude towards the ideas and
questions

which interest the famulus.

negation that becomes merry and playful in another fragment of the first period, in the
dialogue between Mephistopheles and the student, where nothing is said which Faust could not have endorsed criticism of school
logic,

of long-winded metaphysics and the ology, of dead naturalistic science, of quack medical science, of dusty jurisprudence which

theorises

which would have been impossible for Faust, whose mind is not so free nor his heart so light as to be able to amuse himself with jests and mockery. There

of right but is said in a manner

name

over ancient iniquities under the all, on the other hand,

who speaks here is Mephis topheles. But who is Mephistopheles ? Not even in this case shall we pause to search
fore the person

which he symbolizes in the whole poem and the inevitable contradictions between the symbol and the representations
for

the

idea

nor shall we enter into the discussion, equally conceptual, as to whether in the first period he was conceived as a sprightly spirit, sent by the Earth Spirit, and not as a devil, such
as he

becomes

later

but we shall observe

60

GOETHE

Mephistopheles too in each episode, since it is evident that in the different inspiration of the various episodes, since he fulfils a different purpose, he is really a different character. Nay more, in the first period the more uncertain Goethe was as to the symbol and the precise role of Faust and Mephistopheles, the more inclined was he to portray them in the scenes that he was composing with capricious inspiration or with inspired caprice, without a plan, without any arrangement, with full liberty to treat each scene as he liked and to put into it the Faust and the Mephistopheles which hap

pened to please him at the moment. Here, in the scene with the student, Mephistopheles is, as we have pointed out, merely a good-

humoured Faust,
academical
"

faculties,"

the professors habits, the various

up in the various knowing all about and the students and their
well

branches

of

teaching,

and the methods by which they try in vain to cover their own weak spots. A young
novice presents himself with his simple wishes little like Wagner Ich wunschte recht zu werden a little too like Faust gelehrt
a
("

."),

himself

("

Es

ist

Man

sieht nichts

ein gar beschrankter Grimes, keinen Baum

Raum,
.

.
."),

THE FIRST PART OF FAUST

I
;

61

and Mephistophcles is highly amused he is amused at the undue confidence of this youth, and the docile and attentive way in which he listens to him and, in the form of preliminary recommendation and ironical
;

he satirizes the pretentious mechanical learning of the schools. These satirical sayings
praise,
all become proverbial, for instance, the collegium logicum, the analysis that drives the spirit out of nature and deals only with

have also

the separate parts, to which fchlt leider nur das geistige Band," the alles reducircn
"

"

!
"

and the
In the
is

"

gchorig
first

classificiren,"

and so

forth.

part of

Faust

I,

however, there

yet another source of inspiration which

must be mentioned.
"

Goethe succeeded in Faust the expression of his own making titanism amidst the delight which that
"

legendary figure and, in general, the habits and customs of old Germany in the time of the Renaissance and the Reformation awakened
in him, a delight which he felt in common with other youths, his contemporaries, and

which had already directed him to the study of Gothic architecture and to the dramatizing of the history of Goetz von Berlichingen. Hence the supreme pleasure he took in
thinking out the scenes of Auerbach
s cellar

62

GOETHE

and the witches kitchen, a pleasure which still later and much less happily inspired him to add the witches revel or Walpurgison account of which Wieland aptly nacht
;

quoted, with reference to Goethe, the name of Breughel, of Breughel of the devils." Let the commentators who are so fond of allegorizing search for profound meanings in these scenes. Anyone who reads them with an unprejudiced mind only finds an imagination dealing in archaisms, wherein the early romanticism of the Sturm und Drang anticipated certain aspects of the Romantic movement. One also notices a certain irony which permeates it, not satire
"

or mockery, which since the subject

would have been is a past which

foolish,
is

now

remote, but just a slightly ironical attitude towards himself for taking pleasure in such One can subjects, a smiling complacency. see this attitude distinctly in a small and very beautiful scene of only four lines, which is to be found in the Urfaust, after the scene, Auerbach s cellar, and before Faust s meeting with Gretchen. The stage direction indi cates a country road, with a cross at the side of the road, to the right on a hill an ancient castle and, in the distance, a peasant s hut.

Faust and Mephistopheles cross the road

THE FIRST PART OF FAUST

Faust.

(53

Was Was

giebt s, Mcphisto, hast du Eil ? schlagst vorm Kreuz die Augen nicder

Mephistophelcs.
Ich weiss cs wohl, cs
Allein genug, mir
ist

cin Vorurtheil,

ist s

einmal zuwider. 1

This

certainly not a poetry that one can place in the same category as the powerful
is

and

lyrical poetry of Faust, struggling to conquer himself with the ardent longing for the unattainable and

tumultuous

who

is

the infinite but in its way it is still poetry. Even the personage of Faust was at first tinged by it, as one notices in the initial soliloquy, not only in its metre in the manner of Hans Sachs and in the stilistic movement in the manner of popular drama, but even
;

in certain touches

which suited very well the hero of the legend but no longer suited rough the modern titanic figure. For example
:

Audi hab ich wcdcr Gut noch Geld, Noch Ehr und Herrlichkeit der Welt Ks mochte kein Hund so langer lebcn

Drum hab
1
:

ich inicli der

Magie ergeben.

2
. . .

Faust What is it, Mephisto, are you in a hurry ? do you lower your eyes before the cross ? 1 know that it is a prejudice. Hut Mephistophelcs let it suffice to say that I dislike it. 2 have neither possessions nor money, nor liesides worldly honour, nor rank. Xot even a dog would wish to live longer like this Therefore 1 have devoted myself to magic

Why

"

."

64

GOETHE

But immediately afterwards, as if he were throwing off a cumbersome cloak which has been weighing him down, and were standing
up with breast uncovered, Faust freer and more varied movement O
rises to a
:

sahst du, voller Mondenschein.

1
.

is loosened and he cries out and passionately without any further forcibly

His tongue

archaic stylization

fragst du noch, warum dein Herz Sich bang in deinem Busen klemmt ? Warum ein unerklartcr Schmerz

Und

Dir alle Lebensregung

hemmt

Statt der lebendigen Natur, Da Gott die Menschen schuf hinein,

Umgibt

in Rauch und Moder nur Dich Thiergeripp und Todtenbein. 2

is

In the great scenes of the tragedy archaism abandoned. All that remains of it is a

thin veil, which, by adding the semblance of something distant and mysterious, increases
their effect.
for

Oh full-orbed moon, would that thou wert gazing the last time on my agony 2 And dost thou still ask why thy heart feels heavy in thy breast ? Why a mysterious sorrow checks all vital movement ? Instead of living Nature, into which God sent his creatures, you are only surrounded by animal skeletons and dead men s bones in their dust and mould."
1
"

."

"

VI

THE SECOND PART OF FAUST THE TRAGEDY OF GRETCHEN

in

ACHAISM belongs
also

completely abandoned the tragedy of Gretchen (which

is

to

the

first

period of

Fausf).

is to be found amongst its folds, as, for instance, the allusions of Mephistopheles to the time when Faust used to supply his students with definitions on matters about which he knew which con Doctor nothing, and to the
"

Whatever small residuum

"

tinued to cleave to him, although his youth had been restored, would be unsuitable and would
destroy the harmony of the new work of art, if it were not quite incidental and external, a
jest

out of place, as

it

were.

Certainly the

marvellous remains

in the artifices of

Mephis

topheles to procure jewels and to bring Faust to Gretchen s room or to kill Valentine or to

put the prison guards to sleep and so forth

5

65

66

GOETHE

but this marvellous serves to simplify and hasten the external and material develop ment of the action and to fix the attention and the heart-throb on the very delicate internal development, the drama of the
souls.

The case of girls who were seduced and became mothers, and who in order to conceal their fault killed the fruit of their bodies and were condemned to death by the law then in force, was at that time, during the renewal which was taking place in ethical feeling and in the corresponding new legislative require
ments, the subject of human compassion and serious thought. Schiller wrote a rather forcible lyric on the subject, entitled precisely Die Kinder morderin." Leopold Wagner, a
"

friend of Goethe, not without the incentive of the conversations which he had had with his

and not without borrowing from the fancies which the latter was weaving round the theme, drew a drama from it with the same title (Die Kinder morderiri), which is not a mediocre work and which may even to-day be read in several passages with emotion. Goethe himself in his thesis for the doctorate had
friend,

treated the question as to whether those guilty of this crime deserved the penalty of death.

THE SECOND PART OF FAUST

Several

07

time por tray the punishment meted out to the child murderess, and whoever looks at these engrav ings with their figures of young girls tied
of that

German engravings

some

blindfold to the chair, feels a shudder as at horrible sacrifice, in which unconscious

victims are being offered up in order to appease the insidious spirit of evil.
In the Gretchen tragedy, however, there is not a trace of a social thesis or a legislative

demand. There merely predominates a sin cere and high ethical and, at the same time,
poetical inspiration. If the character of Gret chen has become so dear to us, if all welcome

her as an enchantingly innocent and good creature, if Goethe, in the allegories of Faust II
,

transfers her to the Choruses of the Blest,

it is

precisely on account of the moral significance

assumes, and not on account of the materiality of her fate. We must contemplate her with the eye of the Goethe who created her, and not with the eye of Mephistopheles, as
she

Carducci happens to do once, when, in one of his fits of ill humour and polemical spite, he
describes her as the
herself to the first
"

foolish girl

man who comes

gives along, then

who

strangles her new-born child, and then walks into Paradise." Gretchen is not so on the
;

68

GOETHE
we
sec

contrary,

the

affirmation

and the

triumph
first
all

of idealism in a creature

who

is

at

entirely instinctive

and

natural.

In this

her poetry consists.

Sympathy, tenderness,

compassion, horror succeed one another and become intertwined in the mind of the reader who follows her fate. But the that prevails and combines all these feeling not harsh necessity, feelings is the necessity but spiritual and noble necessity of moral conversion and elevation. Gretchen is all instinct. Living with her widowed mother, she looks after the upbring ing of her little sister, she attends to the household affairs, which her mother who is so
fear, reproach,

so accurat," directs and watches particular, over. Guided by her good heart, she does not
little sister

"

spare herself fatigue and trouble, she loves her who gives her so much worry, and

on the whole she

is

content with this modest

home life. But sometimes she suffers from it and murmurs against it as against a tyranny, as her way of living and her work is the result,
not of a free and conscious determination, but of the conditions in which she finds herself, of her constraint in her mother s presence, of the
fact that she is unable to do otherwise. Even her religious practices, her confession to the

THE SECOND PART OF FAUST

priest,

f,9

have this somewhat external character. Her mother and her confessor have taught her a certain childish stubbornness and have armed her with a certain amount of dignity a stubbornness and dignity, which prompt her, as if by a spontaneous and instinctive
;

impulse or as the result of a lesson she has learnt, to cut short and turn her back on the first words that Faust burns to say to her in
the street.

But

it is

a stubbornness

and a dig

external, so much nity entirely superficial so that she acts differently from what she thinks and returns home, her fancy filled with

and

him who has spoken to her and solicited her, and in thought she worships his form and lingers over it trembling as over some sweet
mystery. In her young blood burns the desire for expansion, for enjoyment, to please and to be pleased, to love and to be loved. Her
lonely songs call up episodes of boundless love, as that of the King of Thule. When she finds
in her little

room the

casket, put there

by

Faust, she adorns herself with these jewels, she looks at herself in the glass, she laments
that they are not hers, even if it were only the ear-rings, she sighs at her own poverty and at the poor figure she must make compared with

wealthy and ostentatious

girls

and

reluc-

TO

GOETHE
;

tantly she sees her mother take them away from her in order to offer them to the Madonna

and when she again finds a fresh gift, she no longer shows it to her mother, but to her neighbour Martha, and she immediately takes the latter s advice to keep it hidden, and to enjoy it in secret and little by little to display,

now one bit, now another, in order not to let it be noticed by her mother and other people. Thus she advances towards perdition, merely on account of the natural longing to be admired,
wooed and loved, and
every

woman

desires to be

to appear beautiful, as and she goes to

;

her ruin, yielding more to herself than to the entreaties of her lover and to the bad advice of
others
;

first,

talks of love

and

jests

and

kisses,

then giving herself to her lover, then removing in part the obstacle of her mother s vigilance, finally, her open dishonour and the shame which covers her, the disappearance of her
lover, the death

which

she,

almost distracted,

deals to her child, prison

and condemnation.

The path of love, however, is for her at the same time the path of sorrow, and along this
path her conscience, which slumbered at first, because its place was taken by constraint and mechanical obedience, and which is over whelmed later by the outbreak of amorous

THE SECOND PART OF FAUST

;

71

the outer passion, awakes and forms itself law gradually becomes an inner law. Love, which she dreamed of as full and undis

turbed joy, not only quickly takes away her Mcine Ruh ist kin peace of mind but renews and stimulates her religious feel ing, which she formerly believed to possess Hence she in the practices of her worship. Faust about matters of anxiously questions
. .
("

."),

and she suspects she feels, is coldly and

faith,

his

companion, who,

This

first

moral

scoffingly irreligious. recognition of herself appears

especially in the wonderful scene at the well, where she is talking to Lieschen, who is telling

her of the

now

friend Barbelchen,

evidently bad conduct of their who was always so bold

Lieschen judges the unhappy girl cruelly, delighting in the shame which has come upon her and contrasting her own careful and much praised virtue. Lieschen is Gretchen herself before her love and her guilt
;

and haughty.

just so she, too, at one time, power of seduction, who

who knew not the knew nothing of

superiority.

struggles
lightly,

and sorrows, judged and condemned

boasting of her

own

Now

every blow dealt to Barbelchen from the sharp which Gretchen vainly to^nge of Lieschen,
tries to

parry or to mitigate,

is

wound

in her

72

GOETHE
heart
: ;

own
sad

and she remains pensive and

1
.
.

Wie konnt

Wenn

ich sonst so tapfer schmalen, that ein armes Magdlein fehlen

!

grasps and understands and, though she does not justify, she does not condemn, and there comes to her
she, too,
;

Now

has sinned

now she

lips the

excuse that
Doch
Gott
!

it

was
!

irresistible

alles

war

so gut

was dazu mich trieb, ach, war so lieb

2
!

almost like compassion for herself, for her own weakness, compassion which does not banish the sense of sin. They are the same words as Dante, a judge but with a human
It is

heart,

utters after hearing the tale of Francesca da Rimini and bowing his head for a long time Quanti dolci pensier, quanto
"

desio (war so gut, war so lieb), Meno costoro al 3 doloroso passo (dazu mich trieb)." Through the stages of this path of guilt and
!

sorrow

her prayer to the Mater dolorosa, her terrified presence at the death of her brother

who
1
"

curses her, her torture of remorse at the

How

bitterly used I once to

"

blame
sin,

her,

when
!

a poor

girl
2

went astray But ah what drove me to

!
"

God knows

was so

good, so sweet
3
"

"

What

sweet thoughts, what desires, led them to

"

their sad fate

THE SECOND PART OF FAUST

sound of the organ and her expectation
to

73

in the Cathedral, prison

of the executioner

who

is

drag her to the scaffold

Gretchen, instead

becoming corrupt, vile and bestial, becomes And when her lover purified and ennobled.
of

enters the prison to take her

away with him

attachment of a

and save

her, she still in the

love which she yet cherishes, after a first instinctive bound for the liberty and the life

which are so suddenly opened up to her again, hesitates and refuses to follow him, as she feels that she no longer belongs, that she can no and when she longer belong to the world
;

catches a glimpse of Mephistopheles at the door, her detachment becomes resolute and

Gretchen is no longer of the earth, she can no longer be the prey of wickedness she has already surrendered to the judgment
sudden.
;

of

God

Gericht Gottes

Dir hab ich mich iibergeben

is

This last scene

the meaning of the whole. light indulgence, not morbid compassion, but effective redemption by the redeeming of

Not

a soul, rather by the birth of a soul, \vhere formerly there was only instinct and sense.

Faust in this tragedy is a secondary person age, rather an instrument of the real action

74

GOETHE

than an actor. He represents youthful cupid ity, which hastens to satisfy itself, overturning
everything in
it is

its

blind violence.

He loves and

true, but sensually and whimsi adores, cally, without any regard for the moral personality, which he does not recognize as he only knows a loved person, the giver of

voluptuousness,

beautiful

form,

glad

countenance and sweet prattle. He is neither good nor bad, he uses the least honest means to attain his object, without pausing to have scruples, as the only thing he sees before him is this object. When he hears of the ruin which has come upon Gretchen on his account, he flies to save her, but to save her body not her soul and, whilst Gretchen struggles and torments herself and rises spiritually, he remains ever below. If he is saved later, it will be through the agency of Gretchen, through the last words she says to him, which are certainly words of love, but which imply something more than love. The tragedy is the
;

tragedy of Gretchen, not of Faust. The latter is here a rather vulgar being, vulgar in the manner in which he approaches Gretchen the first time when she comes out of the church, vulgar in the artifices he uses, in the seduction

accomplished by mqans of

gifts of jewels

and

THE SECOND PART OF FAUST

>

the deeds of go-betweens and procuresses, vulgar in his furious passion for this sweet
creature.

He
or

is

not a clever and interesting

even a youth deceived like attractive on account of the artGretchen, lessness of her error, but rather, one would say, one of the many youths or dissolute fellows, who do not know what to do with themselves and play with fire or rather with the most sacred duties and with the most delicate affections, with the honour and the The sublime Faust of titanic life of others. strivings is quite forgotten in the new char
acter,
"

Don Juan

sufficient to call

and hardly the identity him to mind.

of the

name

is

We

might

call

him Heinrich," as poor Gretchen called him, some kind of Heinrich or Franz. And such he is and had to be for the greater unifying force
of the tragedy
is

which he causes, but of which he

not the protagonist.,

Mephistopheles exercises another function which is really the contrast he forms to the latter, all instinct and heart Gretchen and inexperience, the former, devoid of all
;

instinct

and spontaneity, all intellect and skill. Whether he is, in his civil condition, devil or

cobold, he himself knows, and, as it seems, the commentators know. But, since poets know

76

GOETHE

nothing about the psychology of devils and cobolds and only know of the sentiments and the aspects of the human heart, the Mephistopheles of poetry is, in this part of Faust, nothing but the expression of the soul that
loves and reveres nothing, and, as it considers nothing to be evil and admires nothing as good, it treats affections and dreams as
indifferent material,

dependent solely on the union of cause and effect, laughing at the beginning, middle and end of a love affair, which he knows and has foreseen, laughing at
the process of seduction, knowing \vell what hohe Intuition" will be, in the end of the
"

which Faust, the lover, delights finding quite natural, and a matter not to be astonished or
;

distressed at, that given certain causes, the

resulting
effects

should

follow,

deception,

poisoning, murder, desertion, prison, the gal lows. As this attitude of a moral superiority

and

indifferent

behaviour

is
is

cynicism/ Mephistopheles Gretchen has such repug nance and horror for him, because she herself, even in her sin, is illusion, rosy illusion, over
tion of cynicism.

usually called the personifica

which passes coldly, threatening to dispel

this eye in the
"so

it,

with its glance Thus, spottisch." Gretchen tragedy, Mephistopheles,

THE SECOND PART OF FAUST

whose
figure, in the scene of the

77

pact and in

other scenes, vacillates uncertainly between the devil of tradition and the metaphysical idea, is human in his inhumanity, and deter

mined and concrete and gestures.

in all his actions, sayings

Just as concrete are the other characters that take part in it the neighbour Martha, whom Mephistopheles describes to perfection
;

cin
("

Wcib wie anscrlcscn

1

Zum

Kupplcr-

und
and

Zigeitnerwcsen"),

a gossip insensible to

anything but her own pleasure, convenience

and so daring and tenacious in the latter that even Mephistopheles pursuing fears for a moment that he will find himself
interest,

caught and bound in her very \vell-woven and

net Lieschen, jealous, spiteful and Valen vindictive in her moralizing chatter so proud of his sister, who wishes to tine, once
solid
; ;

have

revenge and die like a man. Even the personages, whom we do not see, are present and alive before us, as, for instance, Gretchcn s
his

mother, the priest for his church, or

who

takes
s

away

the jewels

Martha

death the good woman since he was, after all, a husband worthy of her.
1
"

husband, whose cannot but lament,

That is a woman who seems lilted by nature for the business of a gipsy go-between."

78

GOETHE
of

Gretchen is one of those poet which combine ease with strength, perfection with spontaneity, born in an ecstasy of imagination which made the
ical

The tragedy

miracles,

poet see everything in

placed on
his lips

profound reality and always the right word, and only the right word.
its

VII

THE SYSTEMATIC FORM OF FAUST I AND THE DOUBLE FORM OF \V1LHELM MEISTER.
Fan si, which was between the years 1797 systematized and 1801, and appeared in a definite
the First Part of

IN

arrangement in the edition of 1808, there is nothing more, beyond the various poems which we have chosen from it and given
prominence to
great poetry.
;

nothing more, at least, of There are, it is true, certain

bits of soldering, as, for instance, the scene of the pact, where the incongruence between

later

the lines composed earlier and those added and the wavering between two diverse

and opposite conceptions

;

of

Faust have been

the Faust who sought full justly noticed ness of life in the sublimity of joy and torment, longing to experience in his own life the
pcccata mundi which are the world itself, in a word, the Faust of the Sturm und Drang ;

and the other Faust,

"

of the reflective

and

"

seeks pure pleasure, period, fullness of joy, the blessed moment, bringing
79

wise

who now

80

GOETHE
will

and

eventually find

izising

practical activity. fantasies of

only in fruitful There are, too, the archait

St.

Walpurgis

night,

interrupted by insignificant, literary illusions, over which it is not necessary to linger, and the Prologue in the Theatre, and the

Prologue in Heaven. The first of these, the Prologue in the Theatre, very subtle, and, in the exclamations of the poet,"
"

likewise
hors

enthusiastic

and

pathetic,

is

an

d ceuvre and belongs to the series of those outbursts of theatre poets, who some

make the theatre itself and the adver which their activity meets with there sity the subject of a play (for instance, Goldoni
times
in the Teatro Comico, or abate Casti in
la

Prima

nmsica

in the

poi Sakunlala, which

le

parole, or ancient Kalidasa

Goethe

may have
in

had

in mind).

The second, the Prologue

Heaven, is the jest of a great artist, but not more than a jest, quite out of harmony with the drama which follows and which was, in the first period, planned to be serious
;

a scene in Paradise with the angels, God and the devil, where there is not even an
archaic
colouring,

but

degage

manner,

slightly in the style of Voltaire.

tion,

on the other hand,

is

The dedica moving and tender

THE SYSTEMATIC FORM OF FAUST

in
its

81

melancholy, owing to the return to the past, which Goethe accomplishes in imagination, when he opens again his old manuscript of more than twenty years ago,
his youthful feelings and fancies and tries to resume them in order to continue and complete their representation, he quite changed in a world quite changed, without the friends and kindred spirits of former times, who since have died or have drifted elsewhere or have changed too. The dedication expresses in sublime lyrical accents Goethe s trembling when he sets about the re-elaboration of Faust. But his letters and other documents bear witness to

re-reads

the great difficulty he experienced in

this

work

how sometimes he seemed

to

have

recovered or found the leading thread, how more often he lost confidence in himself and discontinued his work, and how even he
himself considered that the fragment would have to remain a fragment. An Abschicd
"
"

which he had planned to add to his arrange ment, which he did not add, and which was published posthumously with the sketches of scenes which were not worked out and lines which were not added, confirms the feeling, which lie experienced, of helplessness in face

82
of

GOETHE
;

and it does not an irrevocable past but rather a sigh of express satisfaction, relief at having in some way put the finishing twuch to a task which had become dis
tasteful
;

Am
Das

Ende bin

ich nun des Trauerspieles ich zuletzt mit Bangigkeit vollfiihrt,

Nicht mehr vom Drange menschlichen Gewiihles, Nicht von der Macht der Dunkelheit geriihrt.

Wer schildert gern den Wirrwarr des Gefiihles, Wenn ihn der Weg zur Klarheit aufgefiihrt ? Und so geschlossen sei der Barbareien
Beschrankter Kreis mit seinen Zaubereien. 1

not necessary to answer the objection which is wont to be made to the

Therefore
it is

analytical process we are pursuing, namely, that in this way one disorganizes and destroys
fact

the organism created by the poet since the is precisely the opposite that is to say, that the poet, by a reflective method, has
; ;

fashioned

mechanism,

shutting

in

and

forcing into it several diverse living organisms, to which the critic, by that process, restores
their former liberty, without destroying any1 I am now at the end of the tragedy, which I have finished latterly with trembling, no longer stirred by the pressure of human tumult, no longer by the power of
"

mystery. For who would gladly depict confused emotions, when he has already attained to clearness of vision ? And so let me close the narrow circle of barbarous inventions with its magic and witchcraft
"

THE SYSTEMATIC FORM OF FAUST

83

thing, since that cannot be destroyed which in effect does not exist and which is a mere

supposition, nay even a presumption. Nevertheless, the theme which Goethe strove to carry out in this re-elaboration of

Faust deserves to be carefully thought over, as it is of great importance for the under standing of some currents of modern literary history, because it was the model for an artistic error which was repeated innumerable
times later, strengthened as it was by the example and the authority of the poet of Faust. Goethe intended to answer

with

as to the value, or rather the aim, of human life. This question was to be heard in all the philosophy of that time, which laboured to set itself and to solve this problem in a manner conformable to

poetical work the question^

modern consciousness. Even the philoso phers seemed to invoke the aid or the accompaniment of a poet, who would trans
late

the

solution
;

of

this

problem

into

concrete images and this all the more as those philosophers were themselves partly
poets, proceeded from poetry, were inclined to return to poetry, and liked to describe
their

own systems

as dramatic or epic poems,

84

GOETHE

not only Schelling and later Schopenhauer, but even Hegel with his Logos, which creates the world of nature, and then is found again in that of the spirit, and is sublimated by thinking itself, with entire self-conscious ness absolute consciousness, in philosophy. Schelling was one of the first to recognize in Faust the true poem of humanity, created the by the Germans. Hegel called it
"

provided tragedy/ such as did not exist till then in any dramatic work. Others placed similar hopes in it and, when it came
philosophical
of

absolute

with a

"vastity

content"

to light systematized, they celebrated it in the same far from legitimate, but just as

fortunate and popular, manner, which has become a commonplace. Yet we see clearly

what was concealed from the eyes of those expectant admirers and is concealed still that the above-mentioned problem was speculative and not poetical, capable of
;

being solved by philosophy, or rather criti Hence we cism, but not by imagination. perceive the absurdity into which those

attempts had to drift and perish, as indeed Goethe sometimes does, and more so his imitators, who no longer benefited by what
there

was

of freshness, to

say the

least,

and

THE SYSTEMATIC FORM OE FAUST

85

of life in the illusion of the first attempt, nor possessed the wealth of thought and the

mastery of art of that very happy genius. Whoever in our days attempts to plan

poems

or

dramas

in

the

style

of

Faust,

should be immediately looked upon as lost in the eyes of people who understand such matters, since there are always die-hards In and Philistines who think otherwise.

time the example of Dante used to be recalled for these poems, and a comparison drawn between Faust and the Commedia. Here we find Schelling, one of the first, who

Goethe

called

it

"even

poetical
of

more of a comedy and, in sense, more divine than the

of

work

Dante,"

merable

critics

and, after Schelling, innu our day. But without

adding that, as regards this element of his poem, Dante found himself in historical and psychological circumstances different from and more favourable than those of Goethe, chance willed it that just the new criticism, which was arising from the new tendency
1

of aesthetic
1

and

of philosophy in general, led

Theodor Vischcr recognises this (Gocthcs Faust, Xeue Bfitrdgf, Stuttgart, 1875. pp. 133, 368-9) probably also as a result of the conversations which he had had on this subject with DC Sanctis in Xiirich (see the latter s Lettcre
;

ad Zitngo, Napoli,

iyi.|,

pp. 20-30).

86
to a

GOETHE

judgment of Dante s poem which differed totally from the former general judgment of it and of Faust, namely, to an elimination of the moral, allegorical and anagogical meanings in favour solely of the literary meaning, and to a treatment of it, no longer in the light of a philosophical and theological system, but as a work of passion, as a dramatic or lyrical work. Hence we might say that what Goethe and
the endless train of his followers were striving after, when they imitated and emulated

Dante,

was the very thing that

set aside as
"

criticism

was preparing to Dante s poem;

secondary in
world,"

intentional

as

De

Sanctis called

it later.

In Wilhelm Meister too, or rather in the Lehrjahre, one had suspected for a long time
a process of retouching in an abstract and systematic sense, similar to that to which

Faust I had been subjected, as differences style and beauty between the first and last books, extraneous wedges and numer ous incoherences and inconsistencies were
in

noticed

and

in

the case of Meister, too,

Providence has ordained that the first sketch of the work should have been found. Just as for some decades we have been in possession of an Urfaust, for some years we have now

THE SYSTEMATIC FORM OF FAUST

87

been in possession of an Urmeister, entitled Wilhclm Meisters Theatralische Send if ng, 1 which has come to confirm by proof the results already obtained by internal criticism.
the Theatralische Sendung ? Not the affirmation of life sought in art, of the

What was
of

idea

art

as

interpretations as are indulged in to-day; but for him who believes, as we do, only in the "letter" of poetical works, it was nothing but a book
in

religion, according to of a fanciful nature,

the

such

in

which the author wished to impersonate a man, who from his childhood has had
for theatrical recitations

an inclination

and

compositions, the work of founding a national German theatre. This book is, therefore,
the

imaginary biography of the supposed

" "

theatrical founder, of the man to whom this mission has been entrusted, of Meister, and
it

tells

what
his

his

family
for

life

was, the
theatre,

first

signs
little

of

taste
in

manifested
a

itself

which a puppet-show which

the

Wilhelm
the

set acting, his frequenting as

public theatre and actors the love affairs and adventures companies, which are intertwined with this life, how he

youth

1 The manuscript found in Zurich in the possession of the descendants of a female friend of Goethe was published

by H. Mayn^

(Cotta, Stuttgart

and

Berlin, 1911).

88

GOETHE

himself becomes an actor and a theatrical

manager, the discussions which he happens to have on his own art, the interpretations which he propounds of the works to be staged. But, having reached a certain point which hardly seems the beginning of the
let

mission/ Goethe discontinued his tale and the manuscript lie untouched for several Perhaps the interest which he took years.
"

in

the

so-called

national

German

theatre

which was to be founded had vanished or waned. It is certain, at any rate, that the book* could not be continued and completed, because the undertaking itself was wrong. whether it be a literary, A mission,"
"

scientific,

and cannot be on imaginary data. One can represented understand the Memorie of Carlo Goldoni, who fulfilled the mission of reforming and modernizing Italian comedy, and even those of his rival and opponent, the odd conjurer of fairies and restorer of Harlequins, Carlo But one cannot understand the Gozzi. reminiscences of a Wilhelm Meister, who is a mere name and whose works are a mere assertion, or at most plans of works which are said to have been written or about to
something

political historically real

or

mission,"

is

THE SYSTEMATIC FORM OF FAUST

be
written,

89

but

which

in

reality

never

existed.

And what
Lehrjahre,

are,

on the other hand, the

the years of apprenticeship, the experiences of Wilhelm Meister, the form in

which Goethe, fourteen years later, recast A book and continued his manuscript ? guided by a thought superadded to it and that is to say (as entirely different from it it itself tends to show), that sometimes a man tries his hand at something for which he lacks the true and deep natural disposition, although he believes he possesses it, and in
:

the

course

of

his

failures,

through
"

false

steps,

is brought to an inestimable good, or he has the the Lehrjahre concludes) (as as Saul, the son of Kish, same experience who went out to find his father s asses and

found a
set

kingdom."

Thus
the

Meister,

out

to

found

theatre,

having undergoes

varied sentimental

meets
finally

many

and moral experiences, different people and passes

of art
life.

from a vague unsuitable ideal

In
is

to active practical

its idea, therefore,

the book

pedagogical novel, which

in terms, because,

may seem a contradiction

although novels were
at

that
in

time
fact

many

written,

pedagogical these were

90

GOETHE

pedagogy and not poetry, and were of value for their ideas and not for their artistic form, which was altogether disconnected and pre tentious, whereas Goethe, who was an artist,
art, with a pedagogical use for this purpose artistic idea, pages written originally with another inten

wished to produce

and

to

tion

which he no longer clung to an endeavour in which he could not have succeeded altogether, even if it had supplied him, as it could not do, with a new poetical motive. His purpose, moreover, a novel with
:

a pedagogical thesis (like his other plan, a poem based on a philosophical system), is

importance for the history of litera because it was widely welcomed and ture, imitated by artists, German and otherwise,
of great

and was represented, moreover, by some works remarkable, not so much for their thesis and their general plan, as for individual The last work of this kind, entitled parts. Jean Christophe, was produced on French soil by a writer whose imagination delights
in

Germany

cut Having and rearranged the manuscript of the up Theatralische Sendung in order to adjust it to the new plan. The first result was that

of the classical period. adopted this idea, Goethe

THE SYSTEMATIC FORM OF FAUST

the
scenes and received

91

the
a

figures
false

created

which he had light from the

and the little actress, Marianne, for instance, became a creature extraordinary in her affliction and her repen
reflection of this idea,

tance,

who

dies
;

of

grief,

when

bearing

Wilhelm a son

and Mignon was surrounded

history, as

by a romantic early

born of the

incestuous love of an Italian and a monk, who turns out to be the old wandering

Where the pages already written transformation, they were given a slightly ironical touch, and the long story of Wilhelm s childhood and of his taste for
Harper.
resisted

puppet-shows is put into the mouth of Wilhelm himself during one of his nights of love spent with Marianne, who falls asleep
during the monotonous relation of this tedious story. The first books having been condensed (and, in spite of this, they seemed even to the first readers and critics, who were unable to find a reason for the error, out of all propor
tion
to

the

theatrical

remainder, matters), the

and

too

full

of

continuation

was
of

developed
popular

in a totally different

way and with

manner
secret

inventions and expedients in the

novels,

namely,

societies, recognitions, adorations of

mysterious sublime

92
ladies

GOETHE
and
so

forth

all

symbolism.

And

since the

aiming at moral same personages

appear, transferred into other social circles and amidst new circumstances, it has the appearance of the work of a continuator, of

a rhapsode, sometimes even, one might say, of some Giovanni Rosini who is continuing the inspired tale of an Alessandro Manzoni. In
the middle of the story we find the Con fessions of a beautiful soul," an autobiography
"

which has no connection with the novel, into which it is dragged in the manner of a shopkeeper, who shoves in his goods wherever he can find a place for them a method which Goethe unfortunately used and abused in later works, conspicuously in the WanderThe recomposition and jahre of Meister. continuation were therefore laborious and wearisome, and the author experienced on
;

this occasion, too, the feeling of in

wandering

know

labyrinth/ from which he did not if he would ever emerge, in spite of the
"

thread handed to him by the idea." But one must not think that this was all to the disadvantage of art, not only because Goethe,
"

returning to his pages and changing their

youthful style, rendered them more solid, even if sometimes less rich and spontaneous,

THE SYSTEMATIC FORM OF FAUST

93

but also because, by shortening some parts, he developed others and especially brought
certain
in

which the Scnditng were only mentioned and

characters

more

into

play

described.

So that the relation of the Sendung to the Lehrjahrc cannot be regarded as that of a
sketch to a finished work (such, for instance, as that of the Sposi promcssi to the Promcssi sposi\ but as another relation, a much more complicated one, that of a study to a iinal
version, which

makes

essential alterations in
it

the

study,

partly
it.

improving
fortune,

and partly What we have called good

spoiling

namely,
is

the
to

discovery

of

the

Vrmeister, enjoyed without some fatigue and embarrassment, because we are obliged to contemplate two similar and yet different artistic creations, each with its

not

be

peculiar
"

merits

a large field open minute criticism, which should penetrate patiently and lovingly into details and proceed to show the lludiuition of the artistic motives in the first and second versions. Here, however, where we are only touching on main points, we must limit ourselves to

placed, as it distant and

and defects, and we are were, between two pasturages

"

moving

for

94

GOETHE

saying that, setting aside and in a place of honour the critical digressions, famous among

which

many sound and exquisite moral observations, and omit ting all the part which is more or less romantic, however symbolical and allegorical it may pretend to be, and refusing to enter into
is

that on Hamlet, and the

of subtle conceptual exegeses, the substance both of the first and of the second Meister is to be sought, not so

the

game

artistic

and which are outlined spiritually superior world, in the first books and developed in the last, and which are either shadowy or exaggerated,
in the personages of the socially

much

as in the personages of the theatrical world, of doubtful society and of the poorer classes, of

the
to

"

low company
for
is

"

in

which Meister happens

"

move
This

some
"

time.

low company in which Goethe, too, took pleasure in his youth, if not in reality, at least in feeling and imagina tion, and from which he drew his Gretchens and his Clarchens, as he now drew his Mariannes and his Philines. Women who are precisely the moral antithesis of Charlotte, surrounded by sense, ensnared by sense, and
the
in the case of

whom

it

is

well to recall the

psychological

interpretation

which

Goethe

he sensuality of this naive loving, which in madness, tearing off the veil of chastity, reveals its real nature an
notes
the
lustful
:

THE SYSTEMATIC FORM OF FAUST I gives of the character of Ophelia, in whom

95

interpretation which, is of moral rather

like

that

of

Hamlet,

than

critical-literary

importance, and helps us to understand more perhaps the mind of Goethe than that of

Yet Gretchen dashed into Shakespeare. crime and tragedy, and saved herself by atoning for it, and Clarchen was conceived
as adoring Egmont and bravely inciting the people to arms, killing herself for love, so that she deserved to be transfigured into a saint or a goddess of Liberty. The women
in Meister are

much

affections, in their faults,

smaller, poorer in their and in their sorrows,

not tragedy, but sometimes sometimes the modest dramc bour comedy, geois and larmoyant. They deserve indulgence,

and

deserve

too,

because they are

made

thus, they will

ever be thus, they have no forces within them selves which could enter into violent conflict

and they are not capable of true conversion. What can we expect from poor Marianne, who already has a past full of fickleness and compromises, and who from her throne of
boards, from the stage of the
little

provincial

96

GOETHE

theatre, throws loving glances at inexperi enced Wilhelm, just as at all other men, since

amusement ? Wilhelm falls in love with her, and founds on this love his whole life, his present and his future. Marianne gives herself to him, repays him with love, at least what she understands by love, since she knows no other form of it. The most she can do now is, seeing herself treated as an honest woman and worshipped, to deceive herself with regard to herself, following and accepting
this is her habit, her function, her

with pleasure the image offered to her, to experience in her heart her regret at being what she is, and to lull in deception her lover whom she esteems and respects. When the latter, after having told her the story of his own innocent childhood and adolescence,
spent in the ecstasy of a dream of art, says to her And now tell me the story of your
"

life,"

Marianne

is

silent,

averts

the

con

versation, feels inwardly a little ashamed, and is seized with an indescribable feeling
of discomfort. She is not at all unconscious, as she immediately afterwards comes face to face with it, of the danger to which she is exposing
herself

and Wilhelm by these clandestine

during the absence of her other

relations

THE SYSTEMATIC FORM OF FAUST

lover,

I 97

who has

certain rights over her

but

away its shadow and immediately afterwards becomes cheerful at

she hastens to chase the thought that she has still fourteen days more freedom, an eternity as judged by her then, when the end of this time draws near
;

and with
in

it the danger, she settles her affairs another way, surrendering herself to the expert hands of old Barbara, who will guide her safely through the rocks of her two love

affairs.

Of course, Wilhelm, when the decep

revealed, sees his fine castle in the air crumble to pieces, like (in the words of Goethe)
tion
"

is

catches

a machine for producing fireworks, which fire before the time and crackles and
"

and it becomes roars in disorderly fashion a disease with him. But his suffering is not in proportion to the guilt of Marianne,
;

although

it

experience,

indeed to his own lack of and it is not surprising that,

is

even after

he never hates Marianne, but tender feeling for her, and although he does not seek her, always
this,

preserves a certain

desires to see her again.

What can we

expect, too, from fair Philine,

capricious, graceful, provoking, wanton, ready to give, ready to demand and to accept, ready
to

extricate
7

herself

from

an embarrassing

98

GOETHE
many
showing
herself as she
if
is,

situation without too

in
in assuming,

scruples, candid but clever too

necessary, the modest air of an innocent maiden and a good girl ? Of

state (which are, as

the two aspects of the feminine in its natural we know, the woman-

mother

and

the

woman-sexual),

Philine

develops only one, the latter, and represents sexuality in its free state, unadulterated and

wherefore Laertes, whose life untempered has been broken by the faithlessness of a She woman, cannot help admiring her. is but decorous in her beha anything viour/ he says, "but she is no hypocrite. And for this reason I like her and am her
;
"

friend, because for

she represents in its unadulterated state that sex that I have so

me

much

reason to hate.

She

is

the true Eve,

;

the ancient mother of the female sex

they
it."

are all like her, only they will not admit There is only one passage in the later books

where she
a lively creation.

mentioned again, and comment of the poet on

is

it is

like

his

own

Philine, alas,
!

is

to be a mother.

She could not have had a severer punishment meted out to her than for the author to suddenly bring into play
a humiliation
in her person the other aspect of the feminine.

What

THE SYSTEMATIC FORM OF FAUST

!

99

But the child (adds the speaker who relates the event) will laugh immediately Marianne, who in the ardour, the tender ness of her capricious love for Wilhelm,
reveals her good heart, and Philine, a butterfly that flutters from flower to flower and is at

bottom harmless, are in their way attractive and lovable. Rigid virtue has no power over them and cannot condemn them. Their attraction ceases only when we meet with
other idols of the imagination, other beings lovable in a different way, women beautiful, aristocratic and elegant, like the unknown

Amazon
of dress

and not armed

or the Countess, who, in the charm seemed to have stepped, jewels,

"

Minerva from the head of Jove, but in all her adornment light-footed from some flower." When Wilhelm sees Philine dancing round ladies like these,
like

kissing

their

hand,

and winning

their good-will,

conversing with them he feels as if

something were being profaned by the con tact of this impure creature with the others (here, too, he is perhaps misled by his
imagination)

who

are so superlatively pure.

More popular, but in reality less artistically real and perfect than Marianne and Philine, is Mignon, whom Wilhelm also met in low
"

100

GOETHE
a troupe of rope dancers dark-haired girl, daughter of the
in
;

company/
Mignon,

nobody knows whom, come from far, nobody knows how, bearing on her countenance, in her mixed language, in her dress, in her superstitious religiousness, the remembrance of and, in her actions and songs, home
sickness for

country Mignon, who has never been caressed, who has always been ill-treated and beaten, and who turns to Wilhelm, who has defended her and taken her under his protection, loving him with a love, silent, jealous and uncon scious, with a love which is both gratitude and need for a protector. But Mignon, so
;

the land of the sun, for the where the orange-trees blossom

enchanting when she appears, owing to the very nature of the inspiration which had
created her, had to appear and disappear, like the other magnificent figure of the old

and it was perhaps an error of art Harper to have dragged both characters through the whole novel, and a still more serious error to have revealed their complicated early
;

history, which, in spite of its complications and strangeness, diminishes instead of in

creasing the feeling of

wonder and vague

expectation which surrounds these figures.

VIII

FRAGMENTS AND HYMNS

another figure, not of German legend, but of ancient classical mythology, formed for the Goethe for some time a symbol in youthful which he lived, namely, Prometheus. But he never finished the drama which he began
addition
to

Faust,

IX

there

on the subject of this hero, and of which remains the fragment of two short

acts or sketches of acts.

finish
it ?

Why

did he not

Perhaps in the very tendency of

these scenes one can see the difficulty and the hindrance to the finishing of the work, that

between Goethe the and Goethe the critic of rebellion. Prometheus refuses peremptorily and proudly to have anything more to do with the gods, to share with them his own rule, or to recog nize that he holds it from them, since they are powerless to place in his hand heaven and earth and to divide him from himself, being
is

to say, the dualism

rebel

102

GOETHE
He
proceeds

like himself vassals of Destiny.

which Minerva, her own will from that of the separating and to found other gods, breathes life human society on earth, work, property,
to

form

his

own

statues, into

justice, marriage.

But who are these gods What do he is rebelling ? against ? of human Shadows they signify for Goethe ? One does not fight against shadows thought and one does not engage in a struggle or in a dramatic contest with shadows, as if they were solid persons. Beings which represent

whom

a positive power, which Prometheus opposes but cannot oppose perpetually and with which he must eventually come to terms ? Jove says to Mercury, who informs him, as if to rouse him to vengeance and punishment, of the high treason of Minerva and of the

swarming, jubilant human race which is moving about on the earth, that men exist and

must

exist, that

they increase the number of

it

his servants,

and that

is

well for

them

if

they follow his paternal guidance, but woe to them if they resist his royal arm. As the
faithful

messenger would hasten to carry back to the new creatures these kindly words,
:

Jove says wisely and good-naturedly with

smiling gentleness

FRAGMENTS AND HYMNS

In neugcborner Jugendwonne Noch nicht Wiihnt ihrc Scele sich gottcrgleich. Sic werdcn dich nicht horen, bis sie dcin Bcdurfen. Ubcrlass sie ihrem Leben 1
!
!

103

There was a danger that, when developing this motive, the trembling for Prometheus might turn into reverence for Jove, for wisdom and harmony and perhaps for this
;

reason the drama came to a standstill and never got beyond the fragments which we possess, in which we find, among others, the
line

passage of the

first

sensation of death

on earth
die

Pandora seeing her daughter Mira

and of the representation of death as a supreme rebullition of life and palingenesis, as it is expressed by Prometheus.

sketch which he abandoned Goethe took a short and powerful lyric, which is his real youthful Prometheus, not the Prometheus who was to be controlled by Jove and become reconciled to the latter, but the Prometheus who maintains the uselessness of the gods and the power, fullness
the

From

and autonomy
Wer
Von
1
"

of

human

life

half mir
?

Wider dcr Titancn Ubermuth \Vcr rettcte vom Todc mich,

Sklavcrei
?

Hast du nicht allos selbst vollendet, Not yet In the new-born joy of youth their soul feels itself divine. They will not hear you until they neecj you. Leave them to their life
!
"

104

GOETHE
Heilig gliihend

Herz

Und

gliihtest

jung und gut,

? 1

Betrogen, Rettungsdank Dem Schlafenden da droben

Of another drama also which was never finished, Mahomet, there remain plans and some fragments truly remarkable is the which the prophet sings, magnificent song
;

in its lyrical flight, celebrating the increase, the spread and the triumph of his doctrine

in the future,

under the image of the brook which gushes out from the rock, and through the flowering fields, never stopping and welcoming many other streamlets, widens
out to a regal river and flows into the ocean. To the same grandiose inspiration we must
attribute various other lyrics of the same period, as the Wandrer, Wandrers Sturmlied,

Ganymcd, An Schwager Kronos, Seefahrt, and the compositions entitled Kunstlers Erdenw alien and Kunstlers Apotheose where the
;

scenes

Satyros and several other small experiments allow free passage to the vein
of
of satire,
"

which we have already admired

in

1 Who helped me against the overweening pride of the Titans ? Who saved me from death, from slavery ? Hast not thou accomplished all thyself, sacred burn And in thy youth and goodness, thojugh ing heart ? deceived, didst not thou render thanks for thy salvation

to

him above who slumbers

FRAGMENTS AND HYMNS

105

Goethe, and the fragment of the Ewigcr Jude, his delight in archaic forms, which we have likewise noted in Faust, and which also suggested to him Hans Sachscns poetische But in the Scnditng and other pieces.
archaic tone, which
playful,

now

grotesque, now satirical, there are in the Ewigcr

is

now

Jndc passages

of deep poetry, especially in the imagined return of Christ to earth three thousand years after his death on the cross, where are powerfully expressed the painful

voluptuousness and the voluptuous pain of

human

passions Wic man zu cincm Madchen flicgt, Das king an unserm Blutc sog
:

Und

cndlich treulos uns bctrog

Kr fiihlt im vollcn Himmelsflug Dor irdischen Atmosphare Zug,

Fiihlt,

wie das rcinste Gliick der Welt

Schon cine Ahnung von

Weh

cnthalt.

.*

and the opposition and combination which human affairs present of order and error, purity and impurity, good and evil
:

()

\\Vlt

voll

wunderbarer Wirrung,

Voll Gcist der Ordnung, triiger Irnmg,

Du

Kettenring von

Wonn* und Wehe,

selbst

I)u Mutter, die

mich

zum Grab

gebar,

has long sucked our heart s blood and has finally deceived us faithlessly. In full celestial flight he feels drawn to the atmosphere of earth. He feels how the purest joy of earth already con tains a foreboding of sorrow."
flics

As one

to a maiden,

who

106
Die

GOETHE
ich, obgleich ich bei

der Schopfung war,

nicht sonderbar verstehc. Die Dumpfheit deines Sinnes, in der du schwebtest, Daraus du dich nach meinem Tage drangst, Die schlangenkreisige Begier, in der du bebtest, Von ihr dich zu befreien strebtest, Und dann, befreit, dich wieder neu umschlangst Das rief mich heraus meinem Sternesaal. .*
,

Im Ganzen doch

"

Oh

world

full

of strange

confusion,

full

of

the

spirit of order, of idle disorder, chain of bliss

and woe, thou

who borest me to be brought to the grave, world, which I understand very little, although I was present at thy creation. The dullness of thy sense, in which thou didst hover and from which thou didst press forward to my light, the serpent-like desire, which made thee tremble and from which thou didst strive to free thyself, and then, when freed, didst encoil thyself afresh this it was which called me hither from my starry home. ..."
mother,
of
;

IX

HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL DRAMAS

with so far were motives and crea tions of sublime poetry, such as had not been heard in Europe for a long time, not since Tasso, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and
the

AL

the works which

we have

dealt

two great French writers

With

of tragedy. Goctz von Bcrlichingen, however, Goethe

" "

attempted another species of works, which one might term rather than pleasing
dealing with Goetz, too, it is necessary to set aside the prejudices handed down to us by the passionate utterances of
poetical.
s contemporaries, who saw in his drama a fresh affirmation of the unrcstrainable German spirit of liberty and truth and a protest against princes and princelings;

When

Goethe

prejudice

which

still

lives

on

in

the

exaggerated praises of extremely simple drama. Goctz is very different from the Rdubcr of Schiller. Goethe
stupid
this
107

nationalistic

108

GOETHE
thrill

could not breathe into his work the

of political passion

and rebellion which he always lacked even when he was young and
enthusiastic.
this small

He

read the autobiography of

feudatory and soldier who lived in the time of the Reformation, became fascinated by the events and customs
described in
it,

them by a

set himself to reproduce process of condensation and

and

dramatization, following the method used by Shakespeare in the latter s historical English dramas. A curiosity for history and a delight
in

literature

which

needed

something

of

general

human

interest to concentrate on, a

subject which would ensure a vivid reprcsscntation of the events and customs of the

times
itself

this something, this subject offered

the writer as the everyday strife between good and evil, the struggle between
to

honesty and dishonesty, nobility and malice.

Goetz, brave, courageous, loyal and patri archal, is a sympathetic figure of old, half-

barbarous Germany,
a figure of
all

it is

true,
is

times.

He

but still more surrounded by

his wife, firm and figures : of heart, his kind-hearted sister, solid strong

sympathetic
friends,

such as Sickingen, enthusiastic and devoted soldiers such as Georg and Lerse.

HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL DRAMAS

109

Against him are the mirthful and basely cunning bishop, devilish Adelaide, the low officials, the low soldiers of the princes and the Kmpire. Sometimes with him, sometimes
against him, are the weak spirits who the good and follow the bad, causing
to others

know harm

and ruin to themselves, such as As a background we have the Weislingen. currents and struggles of that period, the introduction of Roman law and the rise of the new jurists in Germany, represented by Olearius. Fra Martino represents the monks,

We of the idle life of monasteries. have, further, the court of a bishop prince, ignorant and material, very like those prelates whom Erasmus satirized the revolt of the
weary
;

the mysterious popular tribunal peasants Thus we of the holy Vehme and so forth.
;

by a writer happily gifted and possessing acute and profound intelligence the usual directions for what became later that is to say, the the historical romance representation of events and customs and
see carried out
;

well

It is the furnishing of sympathetic types. known that Walter Scott, the founder, or

rather the great popularizer of this literary

species,

began precisely by translating (joctz. But since this delight in history is not in

110
itself

GOETHE
poetry, real poetry, in the true sense is rare in this drama, and only
is

of the word,

accustomed to mistake for true poetry something else which attracts his interest can find much poetry in it. Moreover, the present judgment, which many will find too severe, is unconsciously foreshadowed in the common remark that in Goetz there is neither
a complicated action nor a real catastrophe, that it is not a but a dramatic tragedy
" " "

he who

spectacle,"

or a

"

dramatized

biography."

Egmont

species. this drama is

belongs to the same literary But the moral characterization in

much more

varied and complex

than the mere antithesis between good and bad, which appears in the preceding drama.
is

In Egmont, too, the historical representation lively and clear, in the emotions and humours of the Flemish people, individualized accord

ing to their diverse temperaments and con ditions, in those of the native lords, similarly
individualized, in the figure of

Egmont and

Orange, and in the personages of the opposite camp, the Regent, her Italian secretary, the

Duke

of

Alba and the Spaniards who carry

out his wishes.

political
affairs

Goethe, although he lacked could fathom political passion, with great clear-sightedness for this
;

HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL DRAMAS

111

reason he took no definite side, he gladly agreed to half-way solutions, his \vas the

standpoint of the honest citizen,

who

desires

that quiescent matters should not be stirred up, or, if stirred up, that they should return

quickly to their quiescent state.

The per
;

sonages of this
the

drama

are

all

in the right

and the lords, people, Spaniards, Margaret of Parma and her secretary Machiavell, the Duke of Alba and
the

Flemish

the Prince of Orange, each consistent with his own character and with the part allotted
to
is

him by
least
in

historical fate.

Perhaps he who
the

the

right
insists

is

hero

himself,

Egmont, who
situations

on

with a light entangling knots with good nature, magnani

treating difficult heart and on dis

mity and plain speech. But he, too, is so lovable that, judged by his own standard, he is nevertheless right and, if he lived in less bitter times, if he were allowed to go his own
way, he would extricate himself and all his The Duke companions very successfully. of Alba, who, partly as a result of Goethe s drama, has figured since in so many dramas and mediocre Tendenzdramen as a monstrous tyrant, we can understand and respect, when as presented in Goethe s objective manner
;

112

GOETHE

when, for instance, Margaret of Parma describes him, in the royal council, contrasting
moderate, prudent and clement But there sits the hollow-eyed with his brazen forehead and deep Toledan,
its
"

him with members

fiery

glance,

muttering between his teeth

about women s softness, and that women can ride trained horses very well, but are themselves poor horse-breakers. Egmont is rather an historical and psychological One might say that study than a poem. the weakest parts of the drama are just those parts (carried out, it is true, with consummate artistic mastery) in which figure characters which are distinctly lyrical,
. .

."

Clarchen,

the little sweetheart of great Ferdinand, son of the Duke of Alba, Egmont, who admires and loves Egmont, and is obliged to co-operate in and witness the ruin of his beloved hero. The scene which awakens

the greatest doubts

dream
with

in prison,

Egmont s Liberty appearing to him

is

the final scene,

Clarchen.

Clarchen con slightly unnatural, structed," not born, both rather illustrating and exemplifying in the daughter of the people and in the son of the enemy some
features
of

the

and Ferdinand are

"

aspects of the

charm which Egmont could

HISTORICAL AXD ETHICAL DRAMAS

exercise.
historical,
"

113

If

the remaining personages are

these

two must truly be called

namely, in a detractive

theatrical
sense.
call
it

parts,"

That both have called forth and still forth tears is no argument, or, if it is one,
" "

goes to prove their theatrical quality. Since did not constitute a history serious problem for the mind of Goethe,
either in its
of historical thinking, or rather historical thinking of modern times

meaning

has always been noticed by critics of Goethe, and in vain some critics, like Rosenkranz, have endeavoured to prove the
(this

contrary), or in its other meaning of active, or at least sentimental, participation in as, history in the making, which is politics
;

inoreuver, into Goetz

historicity

had been introduced

less

and Egmont as a merely decorative

element of a world more or

human

it is
it

not surprising that Goethe abandoned all his other dramas. He abandoned

in

it

to

the extent of showing a distaste for historical names, even proper names, so that in the

fragment of the Naturliche Tochtcr, the subject of which is drawn from contemporary French history, time and place disappear, the person ages are denoted by common names, such as
king, duke, count, priest, governor, magistrate,

114

GOETHE

and so forth. But already in Torquato Tasso, where all the names are still historical names,
history has dissolved into thin air, as it were, and does not even form the decorative back

This fact has given rise to the ground. wrong judgment, especially on the part of Italian readers, that this drama is a poor creation whereas, one should rather assert in Tasso, wherever the decoration is that
;

least,

the prominence given to thought and passion is all the greater. But those readers who have accused it of coldness are not
entirely

wrong.
:

It

is

similar

in

tenor to

psychological study of a character or a situation, but not the complete possession on the part of the poet of this

Egmont

the

character

or

situation,

towards

which he

adopts a serene, inquiring and critical attitude. Goethe s Torquato has been compared to But in Werther we have that Werther.

combination of sympathizing with passion and dominating it at the same time, which is the peculiar province of poetry, whereas in Tasso the inspiring muse should be the
understanding, discerning and critical mind, which, it is true, fulfils a high function, but for this very reason can never fulfil the In the function of an inspiring muse.

HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL DRAMAS

115

character of Torquato, the poet is not wor shipped as an overbearing, boundless genius, dashing against and uprooting the dykes of
practical
life,

or

beating

against

them,

wounding himself and perishing as a man. Such a worship of the poet became afterwards characteristic of the Romantic movement, and was reflected in innumerable novels, dramas and pictures. Possibly this motive was Goethe s first motive we seem to trace But as it in the first scenes of the drama. was usual with Goethe, this corresponding The mental state was rapidly overcome. first motive was toned down in the following scenes and throughout the rest of the drama,
;

not,

however,

without

leaving

certain

inconsistency and discord. Torquato Tasso appears in the course of this drama, as he does in biography, as a diseased man diseased, it is true, as a reaction from his own extreme vitality as a poet, yet diseased. And thus he is represented with fine psycho
:

logical analysis, or rather psychopathological All who come in touch with him analysis.

regard him and treat him as such and vainly endeavour to cure him. Duke Alphonso, a man of moderation, grave Antonio Montecatino (who at first appears to be wrong and then turns out to be right, and excessively

116
so),

GOETHE

the knowing and not entirely disinterested Leonora Sanvitale, Princess Eleonora herself, who loves him and does not succeed in calming the tempests of his emotions, not even in curbing their external and visible excesses.

Among
is

his

other peculiarities, one characteristic hallucination of persecution which

Goethe depicts with great realism, studying its beginning, its temporary subsiding and its more violent outbreak, as Tasso becomes

more and more suspicious of his surroundings. The result is a work which can be praised to excess or blamed to excess according as it is considered from the one or the other point of view, namely, as a work of psychological
description or as a poetical work.
in Torquato Tasso

much more

easily

Certainly than the

actions

the

and passions can one call to mind moral characters and the sayings in which they express themselves, as
:

Es or

bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille,

Sich ein Charakter in

:

dem Strom

der Welt

x
;

Der Massige wird

Von Menschen,
Weil
1
"

ofters kalt genannt die sich warm vor andern glauben,

iiberfallt. 2

sie die
is

Hitze fliegend

A A

talent

formed

in
is

calm surroundings, a character

often called
cold

in the torrent of the

2
"

world."

moderate
fire

man

who think themselves

a passing
inspires

by

people,

warmer

than others, because

them."

HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL DRAMAS

or Antonio

117

s praise of Ariosto s poetry, or Princess Eleonora s description of the heart sich of women and of their sense of what
"

zicmt."

These are delicate thoughts,

is

deli

cately expressed.

There
analysis
this

far

more powerful emotion

reflection,

in

Iphigenie, which also consists of psychological

and moral
is

and which
still

for
less

very reason

not Greek and

primitive, certainly, although on the surface it may appear to be, not more so than

The Racine s Phcdrc or Alfieri s Mirra. emotion centres in the person of Iphigenie, who is the embodiment of moral purity and
truthfulness
virtue
of
this

and who triumphs solely by purity and truthfulness.

Iphigenie, priestess of Artemis, but in reality a Christian nun and saint, who herself puts

an end to the long criminal fate which has burdened her family, the race of the Atridae,
restores peace of

mind

to her brother,

who has

been tormented by the Furies, and opens up

before

him a new

life.

This she achieves,

not by external or magical means, such as the stealing of the image entrusted to her and
other
efficacy

similar

methods,

but

by

spiritual

and inner

purification.

Thus she

cannot follow to the end the path traced for

118

GOETHE

the man who is entirely to his profession as a warrior and given up She is arrested or held back by politician.

her by Pylades,

a sense of contradiction, as it were, which develops in her mind between the means and

her dramatic struggle a in her heart. An inner terrible conflict arises

the end.
voice

This

is

holds

her

back
:

but

the

voice

of

Pylades,

who

incites her, is

very authoritative

and speaks seriously

Das Leben

Und andern

lehrt uns, weniger mit uns du lernst es auch. strenge zu sein

;

So wunderbar 1st dies Geschlecht gebildet, So vielfach ist s verschlungen und verkniipft Dass keiner in sich selbst, noch mit den andern Sich rein und unverworren halten kann. Auch sind wir nicht bestellt uns selbst zu richten Zu wandeln und auf seinen Weg zu sehen
1st eines

Denn

Menschen erste nachste Pflicht selten schatzt er recht was er gethan,

;

Und was
If
is

er thut, weiss er fast nie

zu schatzen. 1

she

is

not carried

away by
is

because her inner voice

1
"

these words, it not a superficial

Life teaches us to be less severe with ourselves and you will learn it too. This human race is so strangely formed, so variously intertwined and joined

with others

and with out inconsistency in himself and with regard to others. Nor are we allowed to judge ourselves the first and most important duty of a man is to go forward and watch his own path for seldom does he judge rightly what he has done and what he is doing, he can hardly ever judge."
together, that no one can preserve himself pure
: ;

HISTORICAL AND ETHICAL DRAMAS

:

119

rcasoner and resists arguments, even those which she might attempt herself
Ich untcrsuchc nicht, ich
fiihle nur.
1

And

Iphigenie finds in the categorical im

perative of truthfulness, which implies at the same time justice to others, the strength
to

convince

others

and

to

obtain

their

voluntary and complete consent, thus com pleting her work of salvation without staining
or an injustice. eternal feminine," which the Iphigenie appears moreover in Princess Eleonora in
it

with a

lie

"

is

Tasso, and reappears finally in the words the which form the conclusion of Faust II is not effeminacy or mere feminine, which womanliness, but pure morality, which has
:

decisive

value
liberty.

in

the

full

affirmation

of of

human
"

Instead

of

the

idea

sister,"

her, she

such as interpreters attribute to might with greater justice be called,

theologically, the Virgin Mary, co-redemptress of man, to whom merely his robust will,
its own particular aim, is not a sufficient or unerring guide. Yet, however much, when we think of her, we may be

which pursues

reminded

of this
1
"

and other matters, Goethe

I

question not,

only

feel."

120

GOETHE
:

is not an idea or a type, but a one of those sweet creatures who person have accumulated an infinite amount of moral energy, partly because, having touched death, they have received the Eternal into

Iphigenie

their

hearts forever,

world, to the material

and are dead to the and superficial world

:

Selbst gerettet,

war

Ich nun ein Schatten mir, und frische Lust Des Lebens bluht in mir nicht wieder auf. 1

Their lack of joy and

life is

alone capable of

bringing back both joy and life to a languish ing and disheartened world.
1
"

Even when

saved,

and the fresh joy

of life will

seemed to myself a shadow, never again blossom within me."

HELENA
figures of myth and ancient art, when they become a reality in our

minds, continue there their life even apart from the settings of the original tales and dramas they become deeper and enrich themselves with our broader, they thoughts, emotions and impressions, without
:

THE

losing their primitive traits.

It is

a spiritual

process different, not essentially but in a certain degree, from that process whereby

we use ancient names and some the personages and some actions
delighting in changing
of

features of

to express our feelings, altering their real features and

them freely, preserving them only an evanescent contour, sufficient for our artistic purpose. Goethe, who had adopted the latter method in Faust, Prome theus, and in the fragments of i\\eEwigcr Judc and Mahomet, attempted the first method in Achillets, which was never finished, and

122

GOETHE

in 1800 he wrote the lines of Helena.

This second method presupposes a keen historical sense, which grasps the essential quality of ancient poetry and endeavours to fathom the spirit of its various forms and under
;

the

influence

of

the

growth

of

historical

study during the following periods, many artists turned to it and derived various
inspiration from
here, too,
it.

among
of

the

Goethe, however, was first, or rather the first.

is

The Helena
Helen
for
"

Goethe

indeed the

"

fatal

whom

of the ancients, the peerless beauty the heroes of Greece and Asia

fought ten years, sacrificing their bodies as if for a sacred hecatomb the Helen whom Greeks and Trojans alike worshipped, as a
;

portent, as it were, and for whom they were the willing to risk and lose their lives
;

Helen before
the

whom bowed
gates,

the old

men
to

of

Scsean

doing

honour

the

divine gift of beauty which her whole form embodied the Helen who was finally brought
;

back, after countless struggles and vicissi tudes, to the royal palace of Sparta, like some image that had been carried off and re

conquered. At the same

conception
of

time,

however,
which,

she

is

a
it

Goethe,

although

HELENA
the ancient myth,
is

123
of

seems to have been drawn from the heart

conception Beauty, enchantment, intoxication, perdition Beauty, the very presence of which causes a trembling, a
of

new and modern,

Iphigenie.
It

intrinsically like Goethe s

something

is

desire for joy, a desire for death, innocently guilty in this effect which it produces, yet

seized
is

awaiting punishment, which will put an end to its tempestuous, devastating career. This Beauty, on account of the power it displays, is heroic this sense of guilt, combined with of the necessity which transcends the sense

not

by the sense guilty, and

of the guilt of
it

which

it

kno\vs not

what

it,

is

bears

In the tragic. the fatal gift

human

individual,

who
fatal

and awaits the

punishment, a cosmic mystery is being ful filled. Hence nothing individual or personal is mingled with the emotion of the individual, but individuality itself is raised to the height
of this

mystery and becomes impassable and

Greek tragedy we are reading, when Helen before us, who, arriving at the

heroic.
Is it a

we

see

royal palace of Sparta, begins to speak as if in a dream, recalling her own fate ? This

appearance

is

introduced and maintained, in

124
spite of the

GOETHE
German
had
his

verse

a proof that the

full

poet really
antiquity

mind

of

classical

when commencing his song, which expresses and suggests so many things which no ancient poet could have either expressed or suggested, since they had not yet accumu
lated in his conscience.
Bewundert
viel

und

Vom
This

Strande

komm

viel gescholten ich. . . . l

Helena

Helen,

blamed,
the

comes

greatly admired and greatly to us moderns from the

fulness of our memories,

classical

from the wealth of world which constitutes the

history.

And with her, who colossal adventures, we, before the royal palace of Sparta, return that moment in thought to her father s house,
basis of our

own

comes back from such

her childhood, her marriage, to distant as she murmurs to things, since which
to
herself
:

geschehen, was die Menschen weit und breit So gern erzahlen, aber der nicht gerne hort Von dem die Sage wachsend sich zum Marchen spann. 2
1st viel

It
1

is
"

a Helen,

who

is

already conscious of

Greatly admired and greatly blamed Helen, from the I come. 3 Much has happened which men far and wide love to talk of, but which he does not care to hear who has seen
shore
. .
."
"

his legend

growing around him and weaving itself into a

tale."

HELENA

125

belonging to legend, to a legend which causes her sadness, rather than pride. Her human mission ilesh suffers while fulfilling the
assigned to her. Her consort and king has made her precede him from the shore with her handmaidens,
the Trojan captives. She hesitates uncer she has a presentiment of something tainly
;

She grave and cruel which is to happen. knows not whether she returns as a consort

and queen or as something conquered, as a prisoner, as a victim destined to avenge the long sorrows sustained by the Greeks. She only knows that her fame and her fate have
to proceed through the double vicissitude of glory and malediction, of triumph and con

demnation, such as
of

is

the sad accompaniment

Beauty
blichen

Derm Ruf und

Schicksal bestimmten fiirwahr die Unstcr-

Zweideutig mir, der Schongestalt bedenkliche Hogleitcr, die an dieser Schwelle mir sogar Mit d iister drohender Gegenwart zur Seite stehn. 1

The king seldom glanced

at her during their he never spoke a kind word to her, voyage, as if he were pondering on the sentence to
1
"

For in truth the Immortals allotted to me ambiguously fame and fate, the dangerous companions of beauty, and even on this threshold they stand beside me with their
dark, threatening
presence."

126

GOETHE
;

be meted out to her and, land, he ordered her to prepare a sacrifice. This but does not disturb her

when they reached precede him and

sets her thinking, or agitate her, for

she puts everything into the hands of the gods, who alone allot what mortals bear. Yet she hesitates when entering her old home,

which in memory she has so often revisited and longed for and despaired of ever seeing and now she stands before it and her again feet no longer carry her willingly up the steep steps, down which she skipped gaily as a
:

child.
terrified

When
at

she

enters

the

hall,

she

is

the emptiness which she feels around her and at noticing a mysterious

female form, crouching near the hearth and she draw s back irresolute. She is terrified, yet she knows that she, daughter of Jove,
:

must not

fear.

But she

also

knows that

fear
:

can sometimes shake even the breast of heroes

Und

Der Tochter Zeus geziemet nicht gemeine Furcht

fliichtig-leise

Schreckenshand beriihrt

sie

nicht

Doch das Entsetzen, das dem Schoss der alten Nacht Von Urbeginn entsteigend, vielgestaltet noch Wie gliihende Wolken, aus des Berges Feuerschlund,
Herauf sich walzt,
1
"

erschiittert

auch des Helden Brust. 1

the daughter of Jove,

Vulgar fear does not

befit

and the light, passing hand of terror does not touch her. But the horror which, rising from the womb of ancient
night,

assumes many shapes like fiery clouds bursting forth from the jaws of a volcano, shakes even the breast of a hero.

HELENA

127

The old woman s form, seated and motionless, whom Helen at first takes to be the stewardess, of whom the king has told her and to whom
she imparts orders which are taken no notice of, is a Phorkyas, who engages in a bitter contest of words with Helen s handmaidens
;

recapitulates in questioning fashion to Helen, who has held herself aloof from
this quarrel, reproving them, mistress as she is of both parties, the latter s terrible past,
all

and she

the
to

men whom

she has fascinated,

;

all

the

men
she
for

whom
will

tells

she has belonged her that the sacrifice

and

finally

now being

prepared

have her

for its victim, that

her are the tripod, sharpened axe.

the bowl and the

At ment
there,

this point, however, the powerful frag of poetry, written in 1800 and subse

quently retouched and extended here and

is

followed by the symbolical transition

from Helen to Faust, from the Greek world to the mediaeval and Teutonic world, with the union of both and the Phorkyas
;

reveals herself as Mephistopheles.

The poetry

becomes gradually more

of the allegorizing

superficial on account on the one hand, and of the This is operatic scenography on the other. not the place to deal with this part of the

128

GOETHE
of later date, is utterly

poem which, being

foreign
to

the

first

poetical

composition

which treats

of the reappearance of Helen. It belongs to Faust II.

XI

HERMAXN UXD DOROTHEA

WE
in

have seen how thoroughly Goethe imbibed and assimilated But ancient art and literature. Hermann und Dorothea, which his com

patriots never

weary
the

of

acclaiming as the

introduction

of

Homeric element into

German

poetry, the raising of the latter to Hellenic art and, as it were, the con pure summation of the marriage of Helen and

Faust, Goethe adopts towards classic art another attitude, a more genial one. He classical forms as they are and, contemplates
forms, as mere forms, are empty, he amuses himself with embellishing them with a new content. This does not
since
classical

imply that Hermann nnd Dorothea is not, within its own limits, a charming poem, but merely that it is necessary to resign oneself
to this fact
in reality.
9 129

and

to consider the

poem

as

it is

130

GOETHE
of

this poem was exag time it appeared on gerated account of the great task that had just been accomplished at that time in Germany in the matter of Greek sculpture by the work

The importance
from

the

of

Winckelmann and

his

school,

of

the

great work, closely connected with this, on the poetry of Homer, and of the rather
fantastic

and deduced from

arbitrary
these,

aesthetic

canons

which had engendered

the expectation of some Olympian or divine art, which was to be rediscovered in modern

times by the efforts of

German

genius.

The

solemn document expressing this expectation and the consequent over-estimation of Goethe s poem is the very long and in many respects very beautiful treatise, entitled Uber Hermann und Dorothea, of Wilhelm von Humboldt, who thought he could prove that this
appropriates to itself composition the general nature of Poetry and of Art in a purer fashion than one could easily find in and he praised its any other *vork of art Homeric objectivity," and he dis entirely covered in it similarity of style with the style of the figurative arts/ and he hailed it as the only work which deserved to be placed side by side with those of the
artistic
"
"

"

"

VXD DOROTHEA
"

131

Yet the fact that Goethe s and guide in this conception and predecessor in this style was a philologist and translator of Homer, namely, Voss in his Luise, ought to have sufficed to put him on the right path of judgment and remove the veil which inter posed itself between his vision and the
ancients."

work. In addition to the enthusiasm of philolo

gists

and men

of

letters

there

was on

this

occasion the enthusiasm of good people, of the honest bourgeois, of mothers, girls and old maids, schoolmasters (and this is the

which German critics main formed in this poem between the dcutsches Hcrz and the antikc Kunst /), who all found in it what they deeply desired and admired a display of very honest sentiments and good works, love which immediately becomes a bethrothal, the anxiety

famous

alliance

tain has been

of parents for the happiness of their children, the obedience of children which does not

exclude independence when

is right,

on what finally agrees substantially with the wish of the parents, virtue which is unfortunate and rewarded, and a rich collec tion of remarks and maxims of the kind one That s true accepts with the remark
it

fixes

and

132

GOETHE
much effort of meditation and without

without

having to overcome the surprise of the apparent paradox. It is the luck which Hegel once said philosophers have not and preachers have in abundance, that the latter satisfy and rouse to edification immediately, because they repeat things of which their hearers are already convinced and with which they are As I write I am reminded of an familiar.

German lady, who taught me when a boy and who made me read Hermann und From time to time her eyes Dorothea. were dim with tears and she sighed with Good things, after all, which compassion.
old

one can joke about, but the respectability and of which we do not intend to question. Neither Goethe nor Voss, however, made any real innovation by clothing the material of domestic life in hexameters with Homeric turns and touches because for a long time (since the Renaissance and even much earlier) these exercises had been in vogue, adorning

worth

the humble everyday affairs and tales of modern times with the garb of Cicero and
Virgil according to the subject in question. Even now, such is the decay of the Latin

language,

certain

people

take

delight

in

similar productions.

Hermann und Dorothea

HERMAXX

U\1J

DOROTHEA

1.33

was translated into Latin, an effort which would not have been possible in the case of Faust or \Vcrther. This rendering, which was of a kind pleased Goethe repayment, to whom his mediocre work was immensely, ever dear, because the re-reading of it must indeed have filled him with a certain com
placency, not unaccompanied by a smile. In order to achieve such artistic works as
these,
shall

not

a subject should be selected which too deeply engage thought and

feeling,

shall not express itself in emotional or direct form. Hence the tale of

and which

Hermann und Dorothea

and
simple
story

is

the most obvious

An honest possible. his parents wish marriageable youth, to see married, going out to see a crowd of

whom

war refugees pass along the high road, falls in love with a good and beautiful marriageable girl, who is amongst them, and, after a short hesitation on the part of the parents on
account of this adventure, marries her with their consent and to the satisfaction of all. It is a tale of which, from the very first touches, one can foresee not only the end, but even the course. The typical element
"

in

the action and in the characters, which seems to paralyse to ^uch an extent certain

134
critics

GOETHE
(who are not
it

all

poor

critics,

since

we

find Scherer

among

their number),

who

favourably with the individual and realistic element in the youthful works of Goethe, is here not even the expression of a calm soul and a philosophic mind, but is
contrast

rather the
so intent

mark

of the poet s relative lack

of interest in these incidents

is

and characters,

he on the phrase, the rhythm and the metre, by which chiefly he desires to obtain his peculiar artistic effect. In the works of his youth, we find a very

Homeric element, the eternal Homer, which is also fresh and direct poetry and there it is also to be found in its idyllic form, as anyone will admit who remembers a few pages of Werther. And whoever recalls some other German books of the same period,
different kind of
;

autobiography of Jung Stilling, especially the passage where he relates his childhood and the story of his
example,
family, will see

for

the

would

have

what Hermann und Dorothea been, if Goethe had felt it

In Jung Stilling, too, one reads directly. about domestic occurrences, betrothals and

weddings, described
to

and rustic nuptial feasts are and the manner sometimes seems approach that of Voss and Goethe
; :

HERMANN VXD DOROTHEA

;

135

After they had all eaten and drunk their fill, sensible conversations were begun. But William and his bride wished to be alone and to talk therefore, they went further into the forest. With the distance from the others their love grew. Ah, if there did not exist the needs of life, if there were no cold, frost, or rain, what could this pair have lacked as far as earthly bliss was concerned ? The two old fathers, who in the meantime had sat down together with a jug of beer, began a serious conversation.

In

Jung

Stilling too there is a

Dorothea,

Dortchen, an honest maiden married to an honest youth but how differently she
;

She marries and dies some months before her death she young begins to decline, she knows not why, and has a presentiment of her death and confides in her husband
touches our hearts
;
! :

Oh
what

no,

am

discontented. yes, I love all

I feel.

not out of humour, dearest I am not love you, I love our parents and sisters,
!

men and women.

But

want

to tell

When

you

out, the leaves on as if it doesn t touch me, I then feel as if I were in a world to whicli I do not belong. But as soon as I see a yellow leaf, a faded flower or dried grass, then tears

see in spring how everything opens the trees, the flowers and grasses, I feel
I

burst forth
I

and

I
it

can

express
all

Formerly

this

happy, so utterly happy that I am never joyful over it. used to sadden me and I never felt
feel so

and yet

happier than in spring.

And when some time after her death her widowed husband with his little son, returning to a spot where in happier days they had

136

GOETHE

excursion into the country with Dorothea, find the little knife which she had lost there and searched for in vain, what distressing lamentations After this, having had a good weep, we too enjoy the learned and pleasant play of Goethe s hexameters and become enraptured with Humboldt over the little pictures which
!

made an

the artist draws

Als ich
Fiel mir ein
gefiiget,

nun meines Weges

Wagen

ins

die neue Strasse hinanfuhr, Auge, von tiichtigen Baumen

Von

zwei Ochsen gezogen, den grossten und starksten des Auslands Nebenher aber ging mit starken Schritten ein Madchen, Lenkte mit langem Stabe die beiden gewaltigen Thiere, Trieb sie an und hielt sie zuriick, sie leitete kliiglich. 1
;
"

One seems

to see (says

Humboldt) one

of

the

tall figures

that one admires sometimes in

the works of the ancients, on carved stones." Yes, and also in outlined engravings, in certain statues and bas-reliefs, in certain paintings, which pleased the art of the period,

according to the academical-imperial good taste, which, thanks to the idealization of

1 Now when proceeding along my path I reached the new high road, I noticed a waggon, made of firm planks, drawn by two oxen, the largest and strongest of foreign Beside them a maiden walked with firm tread, breed.
"

now

with a long staff she guided the two powerful animals, urging them on, now holding them back, she led them

wisely."

HERMANN UND DOROTHEA

"

137

into quite things seen with the eye, carry us as Humboldt expresses it, strange regions," or rather, as we express it, into the regions
of beautiful literature (here
"
"

"

"

beauty

and

ideality
literature) (this also
;

are equivalent in meaning to and we not only happen to forget

is

Humboldt

remark) that

"

the

long staff which serves as a goad and a guide is no longer customary with us," but we a great many other things, which are forget

perhaps of greater consequence. We too admire, for they are truly admirable,
the impulses of feeling for instance, the of the mother who would earnest entreaties
;

induce her son to confide in her

Mutter, sagt er betroffen, ihr iiberrascht mich

Und eilig

Trocknet er ab die Thranen, der Jiingling edlen Gefiihles. Wie ? du weinest, mein Sohn ? versetzte die Mutter
betroffen
;

Darum kenn
erfahren
!

ich

dich nicht

ich

habe das niemals

Sag was beklemmt dir das Herz ? was treibt dich, einsam zu sitzen Unter dem Birnbaum liier ? Was bringt dir Thranen ins

Auge
1

you surprise me And youth of noble feeling, What ? You are weeping, my son ? answered his mother in astonishment. This is very unlike you It is the first time I have seen this Say, what is it that oppresses your heart ? What makes you sit here alone under the pear tree ? What brings tears to your eyes ?
"Mother

he said, astonished,

hastily he wiped

away his tears,

this

"

138

GOETHE
first

Or when Dorothea tells of her who left to fight for the cause who perished in the massacres

husband,

of liberty in France

and
:

Als ihn die Lust, in neuern veranderten Wegen zu wirken, Trieb, nach Paris zu gehen, dahin, wo er Kerker und

Tod fand
Lebe
sich

gliicklich, sagt er.

Ich gehe

denn

alles

bewegt

Jetzt auf Erden einmal, es scheint sich alles zu trennen. Grundgesetze losen sich auf den festesten Staaten, Und es lost der Besitz sich los vom alten Besitzer, Freund sich los von Freund so lost sich Liebe von
;

Liebe Also sprach er

. .

und

nie erschien der Edle mir wieder. 1

At the same time we cannot but notice that

all this is stylized.

admire the calm epic fulness/ the epic narration/ which the above-mentioned critics commend as some virtue which the genius of Goethe bestowed on German culture. The mother is seeking Hermann, does not
"
"

We

find

him

that he
1
"

is

in his usual spots, in the garden

:

and says

to herself

When the desire to develop his activity in modern and different spheres drove him to go to Paris, where he met with imprisonment and death Live in happiness, he said. I must go for now everything on earth seems to move at once, everything seems to be dissolved. Funda mental laws are disappearing in the most firmly constituted states and posessions are being torn from the hands of
:

Friend leaves friend thus love the ancient possessor. must separate itself from love. Thus he spake and I have never seen my noble lover since."
;
.
.

HERMANN UND DOROTHEA

Da
Licss
die
Stiille

139

durchschritt sie behende die langcn doppelten Hofe,

zuriick

und

die

wohlgezimmerten

Scheunen, Trat in den Garten, der weit bis an die Mauern des Stadtchens
Keichte,
schritt

hindurcli

und

freute

sich

jeglichen

Wachstums,
Stellte die Stiitzen zurecht, auf

denen beladen die Aste

Ruhten des Apfelbaums, wie des Birnbaums lastende

Nahm
Denn

Zweige,
gk-ich einige
;

Raupen vom

kriiftig

strotzenden

Kohl
bens.

vveg ein geschaftiges

1

Weib thut

keine Schritte verge-

But we do not deceive ourselves with the that this fulness and attention to detail, this epithetizing are anything more
belief

than a rather happy jest. There is a jesting tone, too, in the invoca tion to the Muses, which almost seems to belong to the mock-heroic, or to remind us of the Giorno of Parini
:

Musen, die ihr so gern die herzliche Lie be begiinstigt,

Auf dem \Vege bisher den trefflichen Jiingling geleitet, An die Brust ihm das Madchen noch vor der Verlobung
gedriickt habt
1
:

"Then quickly she hastened through the two long courtyards, past the stables and the well-built granaries, stepped into the garden, which reached to the walls of the little town, walked down the centre of the garden and rejoiced at the growth of every plant, fixed the stakes more firmly, on which rested heavy-laden the branches of the apple trees and the pear-trees, removed also some for a busy woman caterpillars from the sturdy cabbages takes no step in vain."
;

140
Helfet

GOETHE
auch ferner den Bund des lieblichen Paares
die
iiber

vollenden, Teilet die Wolken sogleich,

!

ihr

Gliick sich

heraufziehn Aber saget vor allem, was jetzt im Hause geschiehet. 1

In short, in

Hermann und Dorothea we

Goethe at
his greatest,

must not try

to find

although in this work doubtless a great poet amuses himself with the small and the minute

and shows his greatness even amusement.

1
"

in

this

self-

Muses, who gladly favour heartfelt love, who have hitherto accompanied on his path our excellent hero, have pressed to his heart his maiden even before the betrothal help to complete the bond of union of this loving pair, disperse forthwith the clouds which are gathering over their happiness But tell us first of all what is happening
;
!

in the

house."

XII
LYRICS
S lyrics are not, of course, as critics believe, who are still en tangled in the mesh of rhetorical
"

GOETHE
ideas,

of Goethe, since poetry the latter coincides with his whole poetical

"

the

lyric

work and even

powerful accents

in
is

its

strongest

and most

to be found in the novels

and dramas which we have already dealt with and in the other works which we shall mention. Neither are they his minor works, in the sense which this term sometimes
assumes, of secondary works.
trary, as

On

the con

we know, they
"

are to be placed
"
"

among
works
"

his

positions.
of

most inspired and perfect com minor and So that lyrics

they
a

may

be called solely for the

s

purpose

publisher

or

bookseller s

classification,

on account of their brevity, and multiplicity, which induces one variety, to collect them in separate series and subMi

142
series.

GOETHE

In reality, however, they form one with the greater works, with which they are closely connected as anticipations, explana
tions

We
to

and continuations. have already had occasion

"

to allude

the lyrics of the

"

titanic

period,

in

writing which Goethe usually employed

metre which would now be termed free, a metre without external regularity and devoid of tradition and models, though he sometimes imagined in the case of a few of these lyrics that he had had Pindar and the Pindaric fury in mind, a Pindar, however, whom he followed unconsciously and from afar. These poems in free metre apart from their singular
force

and beauty are worthy of notice, because they show, in the first place, how

free verse, which the spokesmen of modernism (cold intellectualists despite their disorderly measures) recommend and would wish to see

adopted as the usual form, suitable for all mental states and for all petty emotions, was used by Goethe, who was a true and a great poet, only at one period of his life, very
very special sources of inspira He was, moreover, very careful not to reduce it to a manner, and, just as he had used them formerly, so he again used, with
rarely, tion.

and

for

LYRICS
a master

143

s hand, restrained traditional metres. Since the lyrics of this series, in spite of their apparent freedom, follow a rigid law in the rhythm which is adopted, in the variations

which they undergo,

resolve themselves

in the inequalities which in the total equality, in

the proportion of the parts, they show, in the second place, that the poet did not have recourse to such a form (as contemporary

poets usually do) for the sake of convenience or from laziness, or because it is excessively

easy to use, but in obedience to an inner

and to an exquisite feeling for art. one of these lyrics will serve to prove this, Any for example, one which is as short as it is
necessity

admirable, An Schwa gcr Kronos, composed on a journey, when Goethe was driving

through

hilly

country

in a

heavy mail-coach,
slowly

now

rapidly descending,

now ascending

Whereupon, in the feeling and the fancy of this dreaming traveller poet, the driver is changed into Kronos, the god of Time, the journey becomes that of life, the quick descent becomes youth s race towards the tumult of the world, the wearisome ascent becomes the struggles that human work demands, the prospect, which opens out on the height, becomes the pleasures of

and wearily.

144
art

GOETHE

and meditation, the refreshing draught, by the maiden on the threshold, becomes love and pleasure. Then suddenly
offered

again the descent towards the setting sun, towards his destination, symbolizes the j ourney towards death, towards a death desired without old age and decay, in full fervour

and zest, which makes one willingly accept and undertake the leap into the dark abyss,
the journey to Orcus, not reluctantly, with no repugnance, since, although it is the last
act, it is

an act

of

life,

end, but at the

same

a necessary stage, the time the fulfilment of

living, without which the preceding acts would have neither meaning nor beginning. Here poetry does not need rhyme or regular verses to enclose the emotion in a perfect
circle.

Just as the feeling for rhythm and for rhythmical unity is very strong in these free mention lyrics, so the colour of the images (we distinct things, whereas they these as two
are in reality one) never offends us by shrill ness, accumulation or exaggeration, which are

the favourite sins of the Romanticists and, worse still, of the Impressionists and Deca dents of to-day, who are all out of harmony,

out of sympathy, out of tune.

The

sober,

LYRICS
terse

145

and

realistic

details

do not remain

material, they assume an inner, sentimental value, and, at the same time, with their
fresh

decisiveness they prevent the feeling

itself

from expressing
of this

confusedly and losing

itself in indefiniteness.

The pervading quality sublime and truly aesthetic calm does not lack playful touches, such as, to keep to the lyric which we have taken as an example, the figure of Orcus, who, on hearing the sound of the postillion arriving and the pawing of the horses, comes forward to welcome the new arrivals. He comes forward like a host (WirtJi) with the friendly (frenndlich\ professional smile with which a host greets his customers. The same ealm, which here and
there

permits a slightly ironical tone, forms one of the charms of Goethe s ballads, a species

which with Schiller became subtle, artificial, anecdotical tales, without an inner poetical motive, and with the Romanticists endeavoured to introduce the
of compositions

mysterious, the terrible, the extravagant, the astonishing that impresses the multitude, merely babbled in the impossible effort,

and

finally called forth the parodies

they deserved.

which But Goethe treated some of

146

GOETHE
and legendary
tales in

these popular fancies

open fun, with good-natured roguishness (as Wirkung in die Feme or Ritter Kurts others with a gnomic or a Brautfahrf)
;

satirical

purpose

(as

the

Schatzgraber,
;

the

Wandelnde Glocke, the Zauberlehrling) and even those in which he felt the attraction of the dread and the mysterious (as the Fischer or the Erlkonig) he treated musically, refining and spiritualizing the material element in order to make it imply something deeply and universally human. Even where he is seized by an ethical emotion, such as the redemption
of the courtesan

by the power

of love, as in

Der Gott und

he
the
tries,

die Bajadere,

one notices that

nevertheless, to avoid the solemness, anguish, and the torture, and not to

enter too

much

into the problem of passion.

Therefore he

the story partly seriously, as can be noticed in the almost partly lightly,
tells

comical bit of dialogue in the first meeting between the inexperienced god and the

bayadera

Griiss dich,

Jungfrau

Dank

der Ehre
.

Wart, ich

komme

gleich hinaus.

which seems the fabula docet of a beast fable, this purpose of Goethe can be felt, especially in the metre and the
also at the end,

and

LYRICS
rhythm which he
uses, a

147

purpose achieved without disturbing the humanity, the tender ness which yet transpires from the tale, which is so lightly and merrily versified. Even where the accent is tragic, where Goethe strikes one of the deepest chords of his
naturalistic

and

anti-ascetic

belief,
is

in

the

Brant
of
all

von

Korinth

these

ballads),

(which the tragic

the

queen element

rises

gradually from a tranquil and detailed narrative, which finally ends in an outburst

Herder, who despair and indignation. fostered the taste for pseudopopular romantic
of

found and must have found these masterpieces of Goethe frivolous and lacking
ballads,

Goethe usually adopted, on the one hand, popular models, i.e. simple elementary songs which the people fashion or love to repeat and to appropriate, and, on
the other hand, especially in the poems of his earlier years, the erotic, melodious ditties

in morality. In his love songs

somewhat pastoral and arcadian. Love songs they are, but they do not sing of the pathos of love, such as one finds in the love songs of other poets and in the novels and tragedies of Goethe himself, but rather of love such as he was wont to
of the eighteenth century,

148
feel

GOETHE

it, as an emotion which he experienced with joy, with delight, not without trembling and palpitation and pangs, but in reality

One might call holding himself above it. in Goethe s case not love-passion but the game of love. Hence those popular forms and the light society verse, which had been
it

used already to a certain extent to express the game of love, and had become almost a game themselves, came naturally to him.

Even

in

these Lieder

(which

is

the

name

under which they have become famous) Goethe overcomes entirely all that was trite

and conventional in the erotic poetry of his time and all that is insipid in the imitation of popular songs. For he always chooses the rhythmical movements from an emotion which he has experienced, from some impulses which he has detected in his own heart, and he thus bestows on these small compositions Life and grace, delicacy, and sweetness.
literature are completely fused in them, not

because life passes over into literature, but because literature comes to life again, or
rather yields to life. Even in his earliest poems, where the taste of the time prevails in certain epigrammatical endings, what skies

and

fields,

and dawns, and

nights,

and moon-

LYRICS
lights,

149
!

of zephyrs One of the Die schone Nacht, closes with the charming thought that he would willingly give a thousand such beautiful nights for one which his beloved would give him. But the chief beauty is not this desire, is not the enjoyment of his beloved, but the enjoyment

and breath

earliest,

of the beautiful night itself

Wandle mit verhulltem Schritte Durch den oden finstern Wald Luna bricht durch Busch und Kichen,
:

Zephyr meldet ihren Lauf,

Und
Ilir

die Birken streun mit

siissten

Neigcn
auf.
1
.

den

Weihrauch

The same may be

;

said of the other Lied,

lover,

where the moon appears with her

Endymion yet, before being translated into the fashionable mythology of the time, the

moon

is

here just

impressionable soul,
Srhwester von

the moon, seen by an by a tender heart

:
!

Um
1

dem ersten Licht, Bild der Ziirtlichkeit in Trailer Nebel schwimmt mit Silberschauer dein reizendes Gcsicht. 2

with silent steps through the dark, "... wander Luna breaks through bushes and oakdeserted forest trees, Zephyr heralds her course, and the birches bowing offer her sweet incense." 1 Sister of the first light, tenderness clothed in mourn A quivering silvery mist ttoats round thy dear ing
;
"

countenance."

150

GOETHE
to Lida

The few poems

to

form a contrast

these love poems, which are emotional,

pleasant, trembling, caressing in spirit, but This difference not powerfully affecting.

was noticed by the poet himself, when, during

he expressed pleasure that a critic should have noticed that in the former there was more tenderness than in all the Whether they were composed or others." not for Frau von Stein, or whether they do
his last years,
"

or do not allude to the reality and the peculiar circumstances of that love (which is of little or no consequence to us), lyrics such as Warum gabst du ims ... or Der Becker or

Lida have a singularly impassioned accent, which nevertheless does not disturb even here the harmony of the form, nor sully its purity. The first of these voices in a manner both deep and delicate
the

poem

entitled

An

the torture of love in intellectual and refined beings, who discern and wish to discern and understand each the feeling of the other.

Der Becker, song

religious

of
for

joy,

of

gratitude,

of

worship

the

woman

finally yields to her lover who desired her, is like an artistic goblet which the poet chisels for her and offers her, with

who

admired, has long

scenes of pagan deities,

which serve as a

LYRICS

151

foundation for the triumph of this woman and this love. An Lida extols her image, which always accompanies him in the tumult
of
life,

likening

it

to the eternal stars,

which

shine constant through the variable light of In these poems, as in the aurora borealis.

poems of this small series, the expres sion is more immediate and direct, without the complacency and the delicate coquetting and toying with literary form, of which there
all

the

is

a trace in the Lieder.

Goethe returned, however, to a similar complacency in the Romische Elegien, for which, what was elsewhere supplied to him by pastoral and popular poetry, was offered
to

triumviri him by the poetry of the and Propertius) and of (Catullus, Tibullus, and here, too, the other Latin erotic poets
"

"

in the

most spontaneous fashion, by the very quality of the love which he sings of, by the pictures of Rome and of his Roman sojourn, which filled his imagination, and which,
forming a background for his love, gave it an appearance at once exotic and ancient, and let him enjoy it with a particular sense of voluptuousness. The metre and the Latin movements have in the Romische Elegien
(as in other elegies

and

epistles

and

in the

152

GOETHE

much closer connection with the than in Hermann u-nd Dorothea. So subject that the Elegien should not properly be at most reckoned as humanistic poetry resemble the hendecasyllabic Baiae and they
epigrams) a
;

the other songs of Pontano,

similar fashion

who

in a rather

combined

his ardent

volup

tuousness, his capacity for enjoyment with the voluptuousness of ancient forms, with the enjoyment of the measures of the Roman

love poets.
Froh empfind
begeistert,

ich

mich nun auf klassischem Boden

. . .

Vor- und Mitwelt spricht lauter und reizender mir Amor schiiret die Lamp indess und denket der Zeiten, Da er den namlichen Dienst seinen Triumvirn gethan. 1

The theme

of the

Romische Elegien

is

the

physical joy of love, of physical love, which in the calm of satisfied senses contemplates

the world with gladness, human creatures with indulgence and sympathy and first

among them

the beloved

woman from whom

he demands neither the spirituality of kinship of soul, nor virtues to admire and revere, but the freshness of youth, beauty in its
soil, past and and more sweetly. Meanwhile Amor blows the lamp into flame and thinks of the times when he performed the same service for his
1
"

I feel

myself

filled

present speak to

me more

with joy on classic

clearly

triumvirs."

LYRIC S

153

splendour and joyous health, and that con descending and playful chatter that one can have with children. Sometimes he even
poetises in her arms, as she sleeps, as he feels her close to him like some splendid animal
:

Oftmals hab ich auch schon in ihrcn Armen gcdichtet Und des Hexameters Mass leise init fingernder Hand Ihr auf den Riicken gezahlt. Sie atniet in lieblichem

Schlummer,

Und

es durchgliihet ihr Brust. 1

Hauch mir

bis ins Tiefste die

This kind of poetry, in order to merit the of poetry, must preserve a kind of immodesty, unconscious of being immodest,

name

innocent,
in

the peculiar quality of him who such moments neither sees nor feels any thing else in the world but his closed circle of happiness. In this Goethe succeeds extra

ordinarily well.

The maxims of wisdom which appear in some Licdcr and in some ballads, occupy the first place in another large number of Goethe s lyrics, in the lyrics which we might call "didactic," eliminating from this word all trace of censure and removing from it the
aesthetic
"

contradiction

which

it

seems

to

Often have I poetised in her arms and with fingering hand have gently counted out the hexameter s measure on her back. She breathes in sweet slumber, and her breath
1

penetrates deep clown into

my

breast."

154

GOETHE
There
is,

contain.

it

is

true,
is

a species of

which contradictory and repugnant for when the mind has raised itself by means of reflexion, speculation and criticism to grasp a truth in its ideal and
didactic lyric or poetry
;

systematic relations, it forces itself in vain to express this truth again in a confused and
fanciful form, which is henceforth unsuited to it. Hence the dualism of the symbol and

the concept symbolized, of the thought and the form, metrical or otherwise determined, attached to it from outside. This does not
to say that this truth, if worked out critically, does not proceed in its own way
it

mean

from vital emotions, since, if it were not so, would be merely cold pedantry and servile but from the emotional inci scholasticism
;

dent the spirit has then raised itself to the other emotion and passion of contemplating the real and the true for their own sake and
;

this

demands
lyric,

its

peculiar

peculiar expression, its such as one finds in the

concretely

pages of the great are so poetical in their philosophers, which The would-be philosophers severe prose.
abstract

and would-be poets, on the other hand, combining two weaknesses, compose symbo lical and didactic poetry, sensu deteriori.

LYRICS
But
if,

155
rises

instead

of

mind which

to

speculation, criticism and system, one thinks of the case of a mind in firm possession of

which reacts convictions, of the varied spectacle contemplation

ideas

and

in of

human passions, promptly re-establishing the balance that the latter seems to disturb, and
reproduces this emotion, illuminating it at the same time with the interpretation of reason, one can easily understand how a didactic composition can be produced which has nevertheless lyrical value, namely, a
reflection

which unites with beauty. Such was the case with Goethe, and this is what he meant when he said (however exact or inexact the formula may sound) that his Hence his didactic intuitive." thinking was lyrics are lively and stirred, outlined and
"

coloured.
Guttliche,

Proofs of this are the

hymns Das
Meine

Grenzcn

dcr

Menschheit,

Gottin,

Antiker
Vier

the Episteln, the Epigramme, those Form sick ntihcrnd, those of the the

Jahreszeitcn,

Xenien
or

and

the

Zahme Xcnicn, and very many

and
shorter

other

poems

poems,

gnomic

satirical.

Further, the philosophical lyrics (belonging to the cycle Gott und Welt) offer some conclusions

from philosophy which more immediately

stir

156

GOETHE
life.

the soul and more closely concern practical

conduct and

last great lyrical harvest which Goethe reaped was the Divan, in which didactic or

The

hortatory poetry is reintroduced as well as the graceful poetry of love (in the book

no longer clinging to Graeco-Roman forms, popular but clothed in Oriental garb, in accordance with another historical and literary interest, which had taken shape at that time in the mind of Europe, and which the productive and versatile Goethe this time, too, not so much accepted and followed, as he himself
of

Suleika),

both

national

or

created and furthered.

is

But

his last

profound

the Elegie, entitled Marienbader lyrical cry Elcgie, composed at the age of seventy-four

the hopeless reblossoming of love in the heart of an old man to which he added the
following year a significant preface addressed to the form of Werther, to the much
"

lamented

shade,"

appear before him, like Fate.

which did not fear to some ever-threatening

XIII

TH K

\\

A II L VERWA XDTSCHA FT EN

life of research and meditation, it is not possible to treat his works, as is rightly done in the case of other artists, as a series

mental

ON

account of the fact that Goethe various passed rapidly through enriched by an active spiritual phases,

developing from a single fundamental motive which passes through various degrees or which appears now under one, now under another
aspect.

Even

as regards the period of his

maturity one can generally say only what has been said already, i.e., that he preserved
himself in a condition of robust wisdom, a

wisdom which, however, dominates little by little new mental states, varying with that powerful and manifold vitality. For about the year 1807 his mind was
gripped (owing to circumstances which do not interest us and upon which we shall let
biographers enlarge,

who
57

are frequently as

158
indiscreet
their

GOETHE

and vulgar as they are fantastic in conjectures) by the feeling of the devastating power of passionate love, no longer viewed as overthrowing and dragging
along with it every obstacle in its mad onrush, but as contrasted with a resisting force, spiritually higher, i.e. the ethical institution
of

marriage.

feeling

of

dissension

and

struggle, which was termed

of the
"right

later the

of love/

called forth

problem innumer

able problem novels

its

and problem

plays, left

legislation and, taken up by coarse democratic minds, which reason in an empty manner, assumes the form of admirable

mark on

put into practice, would very probably bring society back to that bestial state/ of which Vico speaks, from which it raised itself, thanks to weddings,
solutions which,
"

if

tribunals,

and

altars.

Goethe,

who was

man

of heart

and

serious intellect, did not

side sentimentally with love against marriage, But he could as many Romanticists did.
all consider that the contest was such could be fought out in a formal manner with chivalrous weapons and end quickly with the easy victory of the worthier com

not at

that

it

He felt it rather as a terrible and pro human struggle, which not even the foundly
batant.

THK WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN

159
;

choicest souls can be certain of being spared and, if they sin against the moral law, the victory of the latter is ruthless, involving

the sacrifice, the unhappiness and the death And since the moral law is a universal law, placed in the centre of the
of the individual.

that it controls and governs, its manifestation in this struggle appeared to him to be what the believer terms the hand of God," and others but what chance," the poet considers is but the symbol of the
"
"

world

power

of this law,

which bends and turns

its

the course of events to

own

purpose.

and Eduard are the married whom Goethe introduces to us as couple peaceful and happy in the quiet of the country.
Charlotte

Youthful lovers, separated by fortune, they have recently married, when Charlotte be came a widow. But, of the two, the woman
has the greater foresight she knows or feels that virtue, however excellent and solid it may be, must be helped by prudence or, as the Evangelist says, whoever loves danger
;

Hence, against the advice perishes therein. of her husband, she hesitates to invite to
their house her

husband

friend, the Captain.

will prevails,

and her But Eduard s the guests arrive and immedi-

young

niece, Ottilie,

160

GOETHE
love,

ately

that

insidious

passion, appears and begins

its

and destructive work. Eduard

immediately falls in love with Ottilie. The morning after her arrival he says to his wife with great enthusiasm She is a Enter very pleasant, entertaining girl." retorts Charlotte with a smile. taining ? she hasn t yet opened her mouth!" Why,
"

"

"

"

Eduard replies, trying to recollect, Really ? that s very strange Gradually Eduard and Ottilie meet, seek one another, confide in one another, amuse one another, share
" " "
"

one another

interests,

and become bound

on the

by common

likes

and

dislikes, whilst,

other hand, something similar takes place and between Charlotte and the Captain between the two new couples who are thus
;

being formed there is even a tone of slight, veiled, unconscious hostility.

Goethe compares what follows

in

these

cases with the chemical process, which brings

together the combination of two substances with that of two others, thus producing a

new double combination,

the two
the
"

in

which one

of

first

substances unites with one of

two second and the other with the remaining one. Hence the title of the novel It was against this elective affinities."
:

THE WAHLVERWANDTSCIIAFTEN
comparison and the thought that
that
early
it

161

censors

rose

up,

accusing

suggests the

poet of materialism, mechanism and immoral fatalism. Whereas it is just this, that in love
attractions arise apart from any deliberation or will and, viewed from the moral observa
tory,

appear to be extraneous, adverse forces,

and hence natural and mechanical, just as Goethe considers them to be, not, therefore,
to morality, but rather in with the logic of the latter. conformity The severance and recombination of the
in

opposition

two couples proceeds

their

soon
first

irresistibly and speedily bodies remain pure, but their hearts become entirely diverted from their
;

directions

and turn
Ottilie,

in different directions.

Eduard
;

loves

Charlotte

loves

the

and, intoxicated by their love, one Captain night Eduard enters Charlotte s room and

they embrace one another madly, thus mitting a double spiritual adultery.

com And

when

"

at

daybreak
it

breast of his wife,

Eduard awoke on the seemed to him that the

;

day was dawning full of foreboding, that the sun was shedding its light on a crime he crept away gently from her side and, strange to say, she found herself alone when she awoke." At table both eye Ottilie and the

162

GOETHE
"

Captain furtively, with a feeling of shame for love is of that nature and repentance, that it believes that it alone has rights and
all
it proves Charlotte and the Captain, having exchanged their first kiss and felt the abyss beneath them, have had the strength of mind to leave one another and to resist

other rights disappear before The situation becomes such that

it."

to be intolerable.

the attraction which drives them together. But Ottilie is indeed devoured by passion and jealously and proudly shuts her heart to her friend and relative. Eduard thinks that

he can never and under no condition renounce her. All that he is able to do is to go away for a time, return to the army which he had
formerly belonged to, and expose himself to the dangers of war, as if to seek there the

God. What he accepts, there fore, is nothing but a temporary absence. But the very safety in which he comes out of danger brings him back more resolutely to the passion which Ottilie, for her part,

judgment

of

in her silent heart.

has preserved intact and cherished jealously Meanwhile Charlotte has birth to a son, the child of the double given

who adultery, her own and Eduard s child, has the large eyes of Ottilie and whose face

THE

WAHU ERWA^ DTSCHAFTEX

r 7
:

163

bears traces of the features of the Captain. Eduard had spoken clearly to his wife they

had made a great mistake

in

attempting to

revive at a certain age the desires and hopes of youth, forgetting that man experiences a

complete change every ten years and that therefore one must ever look forward and never backward. So now he tells the Captain that he is willing to divorce Charlotte, and But when suggests a new double marriage. Ottilie sees Eduard again out of doors in
the country, whilst she is carrying in her arms the child which has been entrusted to

on her return crossing the lake in a boat, child escapes from her arms and is drowned. The death of this child which should never have been born, this death of which Ottilie has been the unwilling cause, marks the For although Charlotte now catastrophe. withdraws her refusal and is ready to consent
her,

the

marriage, Ottilie recovers from the blindness of her passion and decides that she can never and ought

to a divorce

and a

fresh

never to
is

call Eduard hers, and that happiness not to be her lot since she has not been

worthy
its

of

it.

She has

left its

path, has broken

it

law, she has even lost consciousness of

164
(as

GOETHE

she says herself), and a hostile demon, who has now taken possession of her, prevents her from regaining her inner harmony. She

runs away, therefore, to give herself up to the duties of governess and teacher, which
out by those who have and have renounced the joy of living. But she is found again and brought back to her home and here, in the company of Eduard and Charlotte, she moves about dumb, in a self-imposed silence, so that Eduard feels that she is now far from him, that she has, as it were, raised herself above
are

best

carried

suffered greatly

him. And preserving her vow of silence, she allows herself to die from abstinence. Eduard, whom she has forced to live, does
not dare to disobey her, but the effort costs

him

great sacrifice, resignation is impossible and, consuming himself in this torment, he, Charlotte and the too, dies soon after.

Captain continue to live separated. This is a dramatic incident which takes place among people of noble and pure
feelings,

cultured,

refined,

and

reflective

minds, and who, therefore, play, one might say, with open cards, face to face with their

own

passions, never allowing their imagination to deceive them save in a few crises which

THE WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN

165

they themselves recognize subsequently as such, scarcely ever building up fallacious

arguments

for themselves, excellent reasoners,

who

discuss

among themselves
too,

the disease

which has attacked them

in various forms.

The other

characters,
is

have the same

characteristics.

Among

them

the

same

dramatic incident
fashion or
is

represented in another reflected, as, for instance, the

Baron and the Baroness, both married and illegal lovers, and excellent Mittler, a specialist
on the subject of matrimonial discords, who vainly endeavour to restore the various differences to their former harmony. The

same

characteristic, that of reflectiveness

is

and

reasoning,

noticeable, too, in the episodical

and minor characters, such as the Assistant

where Ottilie has been brought and the young Architect. Pyschological up, remarks and wise moral sayings are ever on
at the school

the lips of all these characters and, since passion does not deaden their habitual
activity and their refined mental occupations, a large portion of the book is devoted to

descriptions of

the work of embellishment

his friends are carrying where they live, and to
;

which Eduard and

out in the country
discussions

on

art

and there

are

even

166

GOETHE

inserted fragments of a diary of Ottilie, which contains Goethe s thoughts on the most

Looking at it from the outside, one might even say that the passion theme is merely a pretext for something else but looking at it from within, one notices how this enlarging on various extraneous
diverse
subjects.
;

is facilitated by the style of this work of art, which rather gains by this somewhat heavy, let us say, German frame

subjects

work.

In

spite

of

this

large

intellectual

element, which characterizes the author and with which he imbues his characters and

stamps their
fully.

The

lives, the story develops power characters, despite their general

common physiognomy, which we have

already

Eduard with described, are individualized. his inability to deny himself a pleasure, his
highest aspiration being
ness, in spite of this, never perpetually young and also

child

happi rough or coarse, something of a for instance, when he hears from

what he

calls

Captain does not admire his musical talent, he is seized with fury feels himself freed from and, nevertheless,
"

Ottilie that his friend the

all

obligations to
her,

the death of

him and lastly, after Ottilie and the promise he has

"

made

he confesses to himself that

"

one

THE WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN
requires

167
"

for martyrdom genius even Ottilie who, in the strange situation in which
;

and remains with regard to never rebels or refuses to carry out Charlotte, her formal duty and is one of those natures
she
enters

they are Charlotte, pru dence personified, who has yet flesh, blood the Captain, who can master and nerves
in erring as
;

which are as thorough

heroic in

making amends
;

himself like a man.

And

last pages, in the narrative of the

although in the death and

Ottilie

of the transfiguration, as it were, of

into a martyr

and

saint, the style

becomes

perhaps slightly sentimental and affected, in the remainder of the work the reader is
continually

struck

by the miracle

of

the

combination of the delicate with the simple, never disturbed but merely varied or some times interrupted by the wealth of ethical
thoughts and psychological remarks.

XIV
THE WANDERJAHRE

^HE
:

Wahlverwandtschaften was the last dramatic creation which Goethe

really lived

into poetry.

through and transmuted In Wilhelm Meisters Wander-

jahre (from which the Wahlverwandtschaften was detached and dealt with separately as it

deserved

to

be)

the

dramatic

beginning to fail, or rather it is once more, but is suppressed and choked before it can burst into flame and burn like fire. The general dramatic situation, which in the Wahlverwandtschaften was encircled by a framework which was perhaps rather heavy, becomes itself in the Wanderjahre the frame

element is still kindled

work

one prefers it, the pretext and, almost all the other dramatic moreover, elements, which are to be found in it, become part of the framework, or rather seem to be
or, if
;

merely the means of making the story move forward. The strange wanderings of this
1

68

THE WANDERJAHRE

160

abstract character, devoid of personal con sistency, whom we met as Wilhelm Meister

and who now becomes in reality an empty name, is, considered from the point of view of art, without motive and accidental. But the same cannot be said of other figures and situations. Lenardo, who has been supplicated by a child in the most piteous manner to save her father and herself and who has determined in his heart, although
in the Lchrjahre,

he has not promised or pledged himself to do as much as he can for her, and who has not succeeded in his intentions, and, perhaps, has not done as much as he ought to have done, and remains with the uncertain remorse of having caused by his deeds and his omissions the ruin of
this effect, to
this little family and this child, is a character and a situation which is highly poetical. The form of this child (he says when confiding to Wilhelm) always comes to my mind again with the forms of my own people, and my greatest fear is that I shall hear that she has perished in the misfortune into which I drove her for my omission seemed to be an act which would contribute to her ruin, an increasing of her sad fate. A thousand times already I have said to myself that this
"

170
feeling is at

GOETHE

bottom only a weakness, that it was only from fear of remorse, not from a nobler feeling, that I had early adopted the
rule of never giving a promise.

And now

the

remorse, which I have fled from, seems to be revenging itself on me by choosing this case instead of a thousand others, in order to torment me. At the same time, the image, the form, which tortures me, is so pleasant,
so lovable, that I love to linger over
it.

And

when
on
too
is

think of

it,

my

hand seems

to

the kiss which she pressed burn me still." Poetical

his anxious search for this being

who

he has lost sight of, has disappeared, in order to assure himself that kindly Provi dence has made amends for his error or to

whom

make amends
and
if

for

it

himself

if it is

necessary

possible for him to do so. Into this remorse, this human compassion,
it

is

still

interest
in

this sense of justice, there has penetrated an which is love, one of the many ways

which man forms ideal images and in which love is born. But the search for the serves later as a nut-brown maiden poor
" "

pretext for joining together the various parts of the book, which refuse to be connected
:

and this passionate search, which is used as a mere expedient, becomes now and then

THE WANDERJAHRE

171

rather pedantic and puerile and even assumes an unconsciously comical touch. Another The tale of the Mann von ftinfzig example. is also a development of the theme Jahrcn of elective affinities." We are introduced
"
"
"

loved by a young girl and betrothed to her, and to a son in love with a widow to whom he desires to be betrothed
to a father
is
;

who

two couples who, having entered into

rela

tions with one another, produce fresh com binations, that of the two young people and

that of the

man
little

and witty

widow

of fifty years with the lively a kind of Wahlver;

wandtschaften which tends to comedy and to a happy solution, as this time there are no
ethical obstacles to the

two new combinations,

they are rather deserving of strong ethical approval. But the author does not seem to
take sufficient interest in the tale, he does not maintain the same level. Consequently having reached a certain point the four characters cease to be the figures in the
picture and become merely decorative factors the general framework. This framework encloses a little of everything psychological and moral observations, social and educa tional Utopias, short stories, tales and
in
:

facetious sayings,

all

with the pretence of

172

GOETHE
drama, a
"

offering a great spiritual of the soul and a

"
"

comedy
of

"

comedy

human

"

society

("

comedy
"

taken in the mediaeval

Dantesque sense). intellectualisms of com Of the several which appear in the works of position Goethe, none is as palpable and as striking
"

as that of the Wanderjahre, in a

manner too

from comprehensible. For it is not easy to understand the psychological process by which the author was led to it, and allowed himself to advance so far therein, and how he was able to justify his action to himself. The excuses which he made to
that
is

far

others are of the usual kind, such as we already know, namely, that if this work was

not

"

aus einem
"

hand,
as in

in einem

life,

was, on the other in this book, that are the necessary and the there
Stuck"

it

"

Sinne,"

accidental, the determined and the irresolute, sometimes success and sometimes failure,

whence there
cannot

results a kind of infinity, which be grasped and expressed in logical

words."

and rational

the jests of a great man.

These are nothing but Lewes, an English

biographer and early critic of Goethe, said, with reference to this work, that an English writer would never have ventured to mystify

THE WANDERJAHRE
the

173

public in this fashion (we know that, among other things, Goethe, seeing that the volumes did not turn out to be the same size
print, ordered his secretary, Eckermann, to take material from some collections of his
in

notes and opinions and to put them together under the title Aus dem Archiv der Makarie,
:

Makarie being one of the characters ) and, German critics have not failed to although protest against these words of Lewes, doubly irreverent towards Goethe and towards his German readers, I do not think the criticism of Lewes is false even as regards the latter. For, particularly in Goethe s time, there was in the mental attitude of German readers something which probably encouraged the author to yield to his syncretistic tendency
!

It was the to indulge his weaknesses. of formless, confused literature, of the period

and

novels of Jean Paul and his imitators, of Humoristen to whom Wilhelm alludes the playfully in one of his letters to Natalie
"

"

(Book

2,

chapter n):
I

"If

after this detailed

I

narrative

have to confess that

have not

yet reached the goal which I have set myself, and that I may only hope to reach it by a How circuitous path, what shall I say At any rate 1 could can I excuse myself
!

174

GOETHE
the following excuse
:

make
is

If

the humourist

allowed to turn everything upside down, if he boldly lets his reader extract from it, understanding it only in part, what is to be

found

in

it,

shall

an

intelligent,

a sensible
in

man

not

be

allowed

to

work

several

different directions in a seemingly eccentric manner, so that one shall find them at length

and collected in a single focus, and learn to see how the most diverse influences surrounding a man can drive him to a decision, which he could not have taken in any other way, either from an inner impulse or from some external cause ?
reflected
})

Nevertheless,
collection
of

the

mind

of

Wanderjahre are a which have come from pages and although we do Goethe
the
;

not wish to exaggerate, as has frequently been done, the importance of his pedagogical Utopia and of his other social or socialistic

Utopias (which are very limited and of slight value speculatively and still more so practi cally on account of the fact that they are Utopias), we cannot sufficiently admire the
treasures of discernment

and wisdom which are poured out in abundance in this work. On almost every page we have occasion to
admire.

Here, for example,

is

one of the

THE WANDERJAHRE
"

175

many moral observations on the relations between man and woman The enthusiasm that one feels for a woman should never be confided to another woman they know one another too well to esteem one another worthy of such exclusive admiration. Men seem to them like buyers in a shop, where the merchant with his goods which he knows has the advantage, and can seize the opportu
: ;

nity of exhibiting them in the best light whereas the buyer steps in with a kind of innocence, he needs the article, he wants and desires it, and he is seldom in a position
;

with the eye of a connoisseur. well what he is selling, the latter does not always know what he is getting. But one cannot change this
to consider
it

The former knows very

peculiarity in human life and and it is as praiseworthy as it

for all desiring

intercourse,
is

necessary,

exchanging

is

and wooing, based on

all

buying and
has

it."

And who

of the Jews, expressed ever, better the efficacy of the Bible, that collection of sacred books, which fit together so
"

when speaking

happily that from the most heterogeneous elements we gain the illusion of a whole
:

complete to satisfy, sufficiently fragmentary to incite, sufficiently

they
sufficiently

are

176

GOETHE
"

barbarous to challenge, sufficiently delicate ? (Book 2, chapter 2). to calm And, the same subject, who has ever concerning before, or better, or more concisely touched
. .

the essential point of all the real difficulties regarding the position of the Jews in modern
society, when, in excluding them from his ideal republic (Book 3, chapter n), Goethe

remarked that one could not

"

grant them a

share in the highest culture, of

which they
"

deny the origin and the tradition ? Even from an artistic point of view, if the great work of art, which the general plan seemed to aim at, is not realized, one discovers, nevertheless, everywhere in it membra disiecta poetae, as in the tale we have already men nut-brown tioned of the maiden, in the with which the book opens, Sand Joseph idyll
"

"

der Zweite, in the delightful tales Wer ist der Verrdter ? and Die ncue Melusine, in the

female figures, as, for example, Hersilie, and also in the character which he conceived poetically, although he afterwards spoiled it
in

All the pages execution, old Makarie. contain a wealth of the most delicate turns, of which we shall give two short examples.

The wild brother

of wise
is

Saturdays Lucinde

Lucinde says of no use at all,

:

"

On
for

THE WAXDERJAHRE
accounts
If
I
;

177

she brings father punctually the household this is a business which I should

have taken

my

share

of,

but

God
I

forbid

know what

a thing costs,

have no

appetite for anything."

allowed himself to

The youth who has be reduced by magic to

diminutive proportions in order to live in the kingdom of diminutive beings, tells the Nevertheless diminutive fairy Melusina I had not forgotten, unfortunately, my former
<(

I detected within myself a standard former greatness, which made me restless and unhappy. Now I grasped for the first time what the philosophers mean by their ideals, with which men are said to be so

condition.
of

tormented.

sometimes
as a

in a

had an dream

ideal of myself and appeared to myself

giant."

12

XV
FAUST
II

m ^A UST II

certainly suffers from being to Faust I as a second part, 1 joined The appearing to form one work.

poetical reader, failing to find the true, inner

continuation which he has been promised, and feeling himself in a \vorld entirely

and almost opposite, cannot but disappointed and inclined to cast it aside in a spirit of condemnation. Hence the bitter opponents whom Faust II has met
different
feel

with, especially in

Germany itself, who have now and then gone the length of openly
even parodying

contemning, deriding and

it.

In order to do

it

one must consider it and judge it by itself, not in relation to and by the standard of the other work from which, moreover, it is separated by an interval of
178

the justice it deserves, as it is, a work apart,

FAUST
more than

II

179

half a century, grande aevi spatium, particularly for a poet.

Goethe, who during his whole life had cherished the thought of a dramatic treat

Faust legend, and, after having put fragments he had already composed in his youth, by arranging them to form a first part, had resumed and then discontinued work on the second and last part, for which he had notes and plans accumulated among his papers, wished during his last years before leaving the world to
of the
in order the

ment

work out
painter

in

some manner

his

plan, like a

who, having left untouched the border of a wall, all of which has been painted in the fire of inspiration, feels offended by
the sight of this empty space and resolves to fill in the blank, though with a very different and hand, merely to get rid of the feeling eye
of incompleteness

and imperfection. Thirty years ago he had not succeeded

in

regaining the inspiration of an earlier period, and still less was he going to succeed now,

had happened in the meantime around him and within himself. So he set about his new work with the ideas and the moral attitude which had since become firmly fixed in his mind and had calmly taken
after all that

180

GOETHE

We possession of his seventy-five years. must look at Goethe as he was at that age* we must not let our glance wander or revert
to the Goethe who composed Faust s soliloquy in his study or the tragedy of Gretchen. The general form, which offered itself

spontaneously for this new dramatization, was that of the operatic libretto," a form
"

in

which Goethe had had considerable practice,

for

we must remember

that

among
last

other

things he was also one of the

poets, the Metastasio, court at Weimar, for
"

Court
little

as, it

were, of the

which he wrote many Singspiele, prologues, allegories and Festlieder. Since the is not an independent libretto poetical work, but rather the foundation of a work which music is to complete, it does not
"

demand, rather it excludes, violent passion and solid poetry (so much so that in taking librettos from real dramas one abridges here and amplifies there, but one always renders
Therefore the new Faust, superficial). begun on this note, excluded what Goethe

them

could no longer give, and welcomed with open arms what, on the other hand, he could still give and, one might even add, could only then give fully.

What was

this

The play

of imagination

FAUST
of

II

181

henceforth master of innumer and situations drawn from reality and from literature, who is glad to make them pass through his mind again, toying with them and the wisdom of the man, experienced in the world and human thought, who has already witnessed so many mental and moral vicissitudes, and without for this reason

an old

artist,

able figures

becoming sceptical or
saved

callous,

has

rather

for himself a strong faith of his own. no longer roused to excessive enthusiasm or to violent contempt. His wisdom is often

He

is

softened

by a

smile.

Even

his

faith

he

expresses discreetly,
jesting tone.

sometimes borrowing a

That such are the contents and the corre sponding form of Faust II from the scene
in the Imperial Court, with the speeches of

the Chancellor, the Treasurer, the Marshal and the War Minister, the appearance of

Mephistopheles as Court Fool and the suc ceeding Carnival, the calling up of Helena before the Court as spectators, the distilling of Homunculus, the classical Walpurgis-night, the union of Helena with Faust, and so
forth,
little
"

to

the easy

manner with which the

immortal part of

angels snatch from Mephistopheles the him," and to the assump-

182

GOETHE
the
Catholic

tion of this immortal part, the soul of Faust,

into

Paradise

will

be easily

by and the book without introducing extraneous And although he may happen to hit ideas. on certain passages which seem to possess, and do in reality possess, greater or diverse intensity, as, for instance, the return of Helena
to the royal palace of Sparta, or the terzine

noticed

any reader

who

reads Goethe

with which Faust greets the sunrise, he will remember that the former was composed at
a much earlier stage in the development of Goethe and was afterwards introduced into Faust II, and that the terzine, according to information supplied to us by Goethe s biographers, were also, if not exactly written down, conceived and drafted several decades In other passages, where great earlier.
lyric poetry are just great touched, the latter are suddenly dropped, as one can notice, for instance, in the moment of great expectation when the

drama

or

is

journey of Faust to the mysterious Mothers announced Goddesses (says Mephisunknown to you mortals and topheles), Thither whom we name reluctantly/ (says the same preceptor) there is no To where none have ever trod, road
"

FAUST
;

II

183

a road to where none will ever tread none have ever prayed to go, nor ever Are you ready ? There will pray to go. You will are no locks there, no bolts. be surrounded by solitudes. Finally a
. .
.

glowing

tripod will indicate to

you that you

are at the very deepest bottom. By its light you will see the Mothers, some sitting, others

standing and walking, as it may be. Forma tion, transformation, the Eternal play of the Eternal mind, surrounded by images of
all

creatures.

They

will

not

see

they
cides

can
to

only see undertake

"

shadows."

you, for Faust de

full

the

journey,

of

your courage, hoping But the journey is neither repre the all." sented nor described. We only hear about in the partly grotesque, partly char it
latan
allusions
is

in

nothing to find

Helen

called

Mephistopheles. When before the Emperor and up

of

and knights and ladies make prosaic and gossiping remarks about her form and
his Court,

that of Paris, Faust, the conjuror, with heroic passion for Beauty
:

is

seized

irh noch Augcn ? Zeigt sich ticf im Sinn Dcr Schonheit Qucllc reichlichstcns crgossen ? Mcin Srhreckonsgang bringt scligstcn Gcwinn, \Vie war die Welt mir nichtig, unerschlossen
!

Hah

184

GOETHE
bist s der ich die

Du

Regung

aller Kraft,
zolle.
1

Den

Inbegriff der Leidenschaft,

,

Dir Neigung, Lieb

Anbetung, Wahnsinn

from the Mephistopheles, prompter s box, calms him, telling him to )J collect himself and not forget his part

Whereupon

"

So

fasst

euch doch und

fallt

nicht aus der Rolle

"

2
!

Faust, in truth, does not

"

forget his part

and, shortly afterwards, ends childishly by throwing himself on the spirit, seized with
jealousy at seeing Paris kiss Helen. Thus it always happens, even in the scenes which

with Faust s activity and redemption, worked out with the usual light ness of the libretto so that one can easily understand the remark of Theodor Vischer that Faust has never really striven (erstrcbf)
are

concerned

"

(erlosf) very easily." has already been said proves how ineffectual are the efforts of those who examine

and

is

redeemed

What

closely and interpret every scene and every detail with the object of discovering therein
1 Have I yet eyes ? Deep within my heart does the fountain of beauty appear to me, flowing fully ? My How journey of horror has its most blessed reward. Tis empty, undiscovered the world was to me thou, to whom I give the impulse of all my strength, the concentration of all my passion, inclination, love, adora
"

tion, madness."
"

Collect yourself

and don

"

forget your part

FAUST

II

185

and making clear the plan and the unity of the work. Of course, there is a certain plan and a certain unity in Faust II, for such there must be in the composition of any work, but it is very extrinsic and general, and can Faust has an be stated in a few words.
experience of public life at the Emperor s Court, and suddenly leaves it in order to follow the ideal of beauty and art (Helena),

an ideal which vanishes, merging into that of a life of activity therefore he co-operates in helping the Emperor to win a battle, and receives from the latter in fee the sea-coast, where he accomplishes a great w ork of
; r

improvement, finding therein full satisfaction for his soul, and, by this means, he saves
himself for Eternity, having conquered But put Mephistopheles to shame.

and
the

elaboration of this simple plot is extremely The true artistic varied and whimsical.

unity lies precisely in the half-jesting tone, the tone which prevails usually and more generally in the various parts.

than the pedantic interpreters do those err who extol this last form of Goethe s
less

Not

poetry as a quintessential, superior poetry of the heights where the image becomes concept

and the

concept

becomes

image.

When

186

GOETHE

poetry becomes superior in this manner, that is to say, superior to itself, it loses rank as
poetry and should be termed rather "inferior poetry/ namely, wanting in poetry and rich in imagination and spirit. So that it is vain to seek in Faust II the poetical depth which is to be found, on the other hand, in the Easter scene or in Gretchen s madness in prison, that
is

and renders again a

to say, the very depth of art, which snatches vital impulse, in which

the infinite vibrates concretely, in which we therefore discover inexhaustible vistas, and

which no concept can ever equal. Neither must we think that there

is,

on

the other hand, great philosophical depth in Faust II, since in its limited species it is and remains poetry, is not and does not

become philosophy, and the ideas therein are not thought out or reasoned out. They are only more or less clearly referred to. Now an idea which is merely referred to and is not
developed or followed up critically is a static This fact idea, dead, vague, indeterminate. explains the innumerable treatises of the

commentators of Goethe, Dante, and all other poets who have composed allegories, since it is impossible to determine what in the poet himself, in creating the image, was not and

FAUST

II

187

could not be determined, even if, apart from the image, it had any determination in his

The only resource is for the poet to commentary on his own works and to state definitely what were his thoughts, such as we have in certain commentaries of Bruno and Campanella on their own works.
mind.
write a

In this case the depth is to be found in the commentary, not in the poetry on which the
idea,

commentary is and not

written, in the idea, the real

in

the symbol. But Goethe not only did not write commentaries on his own works, but even, as we know, eluded the

questions of his friends and disciples regarding the hidden meanings, the secrets which he

had

stowed away in the inventions of Faust II nor, on the other hand, was he
;

"

"

temperamentally
transparent

so

cold
in

as

to

conceive
of

allegories

the

manner

Martianus Capella or some mediaeval author. With regard to this point one may admit that the allegories in Faust, rather than allegories, are often myths which Goethe fashioned with the ambiguity and multi plicity of meanings which is the peculiar
quality of myths.

What

idea underlies the

manufacture

of

paper money, guaranteed by

the treasures hidden in the ground, which

188

GOETHE

Mephistopheles promotes in the Empire, showering happiness on all, from the Emperor to the meanest beggar ? Perhaps a criticism of promissory notes ? That would be foolish. Or the abuse of paper money circulation ? That would not be original. And what idea underlies the marriage of Faust and Helena ? Is it, as it has been stated to be, the union of the Teutonic spirit with that of Greece ? That would be an historical error and, at most, a nationalistic boasting, foreign to Goethe s nature. Is it the invocation of the union of new inspiration with perfection of form, which is considered to be the characteristic of Greek art ? That, too, would hardly be original and, lacking the critical process which justifies and determines it, would be

open to several objections and misconceptions. And the symbolizing of George Byron in Euphorion, the son of Faust and Helena, has this any critical value for the understanding of Byron s poetry ? An Italian reader would
say that this symbol,
if

it

suits

any

poet,

would

suit

much
of

better the restrained

or

and

the sorrow, Leopardi, poet singer of the Sepolcri and the Grazie, than the unbridled, disorderly, miry genius of Byron. All this is said not in censure of Goethe, who
classical

FAUST
was and
free to

II

189

imagine and devise and exaggerate

jest as he pleased, but in censure of those who read hidden meanings into his work and

which this poem does not demand and which does not correspond to the manner in which it took
treat Faust II with a seriousness

shape in the mind of the poet. After having gained some familiarity with Faust II by means of a first reading, which should partake of the nature of a study of
the text, it not to read
is
it

advisable,

when

re-reading

it,

from beginning to end, as one

does in the case of Werther or the story of Gretchen, but to open it here and there, in
order to witness a phantasmagoria, to enjoy a little picture, to smile at a satirical descrip In the tion, to pick out some fine saying.

masquerade Goethe revives the carnival songs of the Italian Renascence and it would be an indication of very bad taste if we were to
;

turn

all

drama

our attention to the so-called grand of humanity," of which Faust is

"

supposed to be the representative, and to the significance of the masquerade in this drama, and were not to pause at each of these masques for example, at the little speech of the
;

of

Punchinelloes, who describe their own ideal life, or at the mother, who is worried about

190

her daughter, for in getting a husband

GOETHE whom she

:

has not succeeded

Madchen, als du kamst an s Licht Schmiickt ich dich im Haubchen,

Warst so

lieblich

von Gesicht,
Leibchen.

Und

so zart

am
als

Dachte dich sogleich

Gleich

dem

als Braut, Reichsten angetraut,

Dachte dich

Weibchen. 1
little

This

is,

moreover, one of those

pictures

of maidens,

which Goethe drew with a happy hand and a sympathetic smile. Another little
is

moral-satirical picture

now

a Baccalaureus,

who

that of the youth, introduces himself

again to Mephistopheles and again finds him, as he found him once before, dressed in Faust s fur robe, and resumes his former discussion with him, but this time with a new mind. Here we find but one of the many
fatherly warnings which Goethe, when slightly exasperated, gave to youths, who in his time,
too,

were convinced that those who have

"

alien Herren," passed the age of thirty, the should turn their attention to dying, since it is with themselves, young people who have just come to life, that the world really begins
:

1 Daughter, when you came to light, I adorned you with a little bonnet, you were so pretty to look at, your I immediately imagined you little form was so tender. as a bride, I straightway betrothed you to the wealthiest wooer, I thought of you already as a little wife. .
"

."

PAlST

II
!

101

Dies ist der Jugend edelstcr Bcruf Die Welt, sie war nicht eh ich sic erschuf Die Sonne fiihrt ich aus dem Meer herauf Mit inir begann der Mond des \Vechsels Lauf. 1
; ;
"

Mr.

Originality,
"

walk

off

in

your magni

ficence
his

says Mephistopheles to him, when back is turned. How bitterly the

!
"

would hurt you, if you only knew that no one can think of anything clever or foolish which has not already been thought
realization
of in the
past."

It

was such people,

in truth,

who annoyed Goethe

intensely with

their

pretences, their requests, their arrogance, and many a time he lost patience with them.

But

after

this

impatient farewell, Mephis

topheles immediately adds that, after all, there is little harm in it, as a few years will

make such boys change their mind and that the must, however absurd it may seem when fermenting, eventually becomes
suffice to

wine.

The monstrous animals

logy reappear
Plains.

of ancient

mytho

to

Faust on the Pharsalian

who has

Now
1
"

are familiar figures to the poet lived so long in the world of poetry. he seems very glad to be able to see

They

them near and

This
;

to touch them, as
!

it

were,

the noblest career of youth The world did not exist before I created it the sun I brought up from the sea. the moon began her course with me. ..."
is
;

192

GOETHE
to

and he says with Faust, pointing

Sphinxes
"

the

Before such as these Oedipus stood once

"

and
"

to the Sirens
"

Before such as these Ulysses crouched in

;

hempen

bands

and and

to the

Ants

"Such

were those who gathered the greatest treasure

:

"

to the Griffins

"Such

were those who guarded

fault."

it

faithfully

and

without

Great forms

Vom
Is it
jest
?

frischen

great memories Geiste fiihl ich mich durchdrungen,

!

Gestalten gross, gross die Erinnerungen. 1

an enjoyment
Both.

of the imagination or a

The nymphs on Peneios

again
" "

sing

him a sweet song and he

these dear images, these
"

dreams

enjoys or these

memories."

Ich wache ja lasst sie walten Die unvergleichlichen Gestalten Wie sie dorthin mein Auge schickt. So wunderbar bin ich durchdrungen Sind s Traume ? Sind s Erinnerungen
! !

"

I feel

imbued with

fresh spirit,
!

how

great the forms,

how
2

Oh let these incomparable eye follows thither, pursue their play. Are they I am filled with such marvellous feelings dreams ? Are they memories ?
"

great the
I

memories."

am

indeed awake

forms, such as

my

"

FAVST

II

193

The centaur Chiron takes him on his back, and he marvels at the personage who by reputation was already an old acquaintance
of his
:

Der grosse Mann, der

Der, sich

zum Ruhm,

edlc Padagog, ein Heldenvolk erzog,

Den schonen

Und

alle die

Kreis der edlen Argonauten des Dichters Welt erbautcn. 1

But Chiron answers with very modern com ments on the poor hopes of pedagogy
:

Das

lassen wir an seinem Ort Selbst Pallas kommt als Mentor nicht zu Ehren Ende treiben sie s nach ihrer Weise fort Als wenn sie nicht erzogen waren. 2
!

Am

Helena reappears in her resplendent beauty, and the scholar," or rather the well-trained philologist, expresses some doubt, and prefers as more reliable what is written in the texts to what he sees with his eyes
"

Ich seh sie deutlich, doch gesteh ich Zu zwcifeln ist, ob sie die rechte sei.

frei,

Die Gegenwart verfiihrt in Ich halte mich vor allem an

1

s
s

Ubertriebne, Geschriebene. 8

"The great man, the noble mentor, who to his glory brought up a race of heroes, the fine company of the Argo nauts and all who fashioned the poet s world." 1 We will pass over this Kven Pallas as a mentor has not won any honour in spite of all our teaching they go their own way, as if they had never been educated." * I see her distinctly, but I must admit that it is doubtful whether she is the real Helen. Seeing with one s eyes induces one to exaggerate. I rely first and foremost on what is written."
"

"

194

GOETHE

The little old couple, whose idyllic happiness Faust disturbs and destroys, are adorned and exalted with the Ovidian names of Philemon and Baucis. With what a little
old

woman

grace, attentive

and

affectionate,

does Baucis receive the greeting of the guest whom she had welcomed once before, anxious now that her husband, who is enjoying a
beneficial sleep, should not
Lieber

be awakened
!

Kommling

Leise

Leise
!

Ruhe

Lass den Gatten ruhn

Langer Schlaf verleiht dem Greise Kurzen Wachens rasches Thun. 1

The scenes

of the Imperial Council, with the

speeches of the Chancellor, the Treasurer, the Marshal, the War Minister, and the other scenes of the battle between the Emperor and the Anti-Emperor, followed by the
of rewards on those who have contributed to the victory and by the arts of the Archbishop who secures a large domain for the Church, are also very graceful, provided they are read as if they were recited by puppets, and that one does not attempt

conferring

in the
"

to find therein a political and social manner of Shakespeare.

! !
!

drama

1 Let my Hush Dear stranger Gently Gently A long sleep enables an old man to be husband rest quick and active during his short waking."
!

FAUST
And what
evil lips of

II

195

witty sayings escape from the

Dreieinig
etc.)
;

Mephistopheles
etc.

und

Piraterie
1

Krieg, Handel sind sic nicht zu

("

trennen,"

and what weighty

maxims
from

are put into the mouth of Faust beginning to end, especially his last

words, which have become famous, spoken when dying, stating what is the highest happiness on earth
:

Auf frciem Grund mit freiem Volkc stchn, 2

and the only way

life:

to deserve freedom

and

Nur der verdicnt

Der

sich Frciheit wie das Lebcn, 3 taglich sic crobcrn muss.

Amidst this wealth and sublime wisdom

for the

of

sparkling cleverness

rises the lyrical

lament

Goethe

death of Euphorion-Byron, for whom showed such admiration, mingled with tender affection. It reminds one partly of the Cinque Maggio of Manzoni, an ode which Goethe translated, an elegy on the death of another great man whom he admired
:

War, commerce and piracy are a trinity, which can not be dissolved. 1 To stand on a free soil with a free people." 8 Only he deserves liberty and life, who must win it every day."
"

."

"

"

196

GOETHE
ranntest unaufhaltsam Frei in s willenlose Netz, So entzweitest du gewaltsam

Doch du

Dich mit

Sitte,

mil Gesetz

Doch zuletzt das hochste Sinnen Gab dem reinen Muth Gewicht,
Wolltest Herrliches gewinnen, Aber es gelang dir nicht.

Wem

gelingt es

Triibe Frage,
sich

Der das Schicksal

Wenn am
Blutend

vermummt,

Tage Volk verstummt. Doch erfrischet neue Lieder,

ungliickseligsten
alles

Steht nicht langer

tief

gebeugt

Denn der Boden zeugt sie Wie von je er sie gezeugt. 1

If

wieder,

we examine thus this last work of Goethe, which we have glanced through a few pages here and there, we shall perchance
of

enjoy

it

in accordance with the spirit of its

author, and experience when reading it the same pleasure as the author must have experienced when composing it, free hence forth from the tumult of passion, free too
1 But you ran unrestrainedly and openly into the passive snare and tore yourself violently from customs and laws ; at last, however, your lofty meditation lent weight to your pure spirit, you longed to gain the most glorious prize, but you failed to do so.
"

Who will gain it ? Hard question, which destiny will not answer, when, on the day of bitterest sorrow, all bleed ing are silent. But bring forth new songs, remain no longer with heads bowed for the earth will produce them again, as it has ever produced them."
;

FAUST
from the strain

II

197

of art, satisfying his caprices

with his imagination and interweaving in the figures which he called up and sketched with a light hand his own thoughts and admonitions. Faust II is not a lamentable document of the senile decay of a genius, but
a crackling of sparks when a great fire dies out, the rich close of a superlatively rich
poetical

and mental

life.

XVI
CONCLUSION
hints given in the course of this

THE

short treatise can be developed and better determined by a critic who

undertakes a closer study of the works of Goethe, or even by the merely intelligent reader who feels the necessity of informing himself fully about what he reads or this examination can be extended to some of Goethe s minor works which we either did not mention or touched on only hastily or certain lines can be drawn with a greater surety of touch or even in a somewhat different direction. But what I think I may affirm is that in the sphere within which I have endeavoured to remain, the criticism of
; ;

Goethe (like that of any other poet and artist) must be limited and operate. Everything
it is useful preparatory work, is academic pastime and, more often, merely confusion or it may still have some value,

else,

unless

198

CONCLUSION

199

but no longer any value as literary criticism. have mentioned here and there biogra phical notices and ideas and opinions of the

We

poet and his time according as it was necessary for us to do so in order to illustrate the
genesis

but it should be poetry clearly understood that if this poetry were to be examined and analysed in order to extract
of
his
;

from
poet, ideas

it

information concerning the

poetical,
social

life of

the

his

and philosophical
;

changes of the time one were to proceed in the if, opposite direction (not from the man and society to poetry, but from the latter to the former), one would be leaving the sphere of literary history, and one would be leaving so true is it that great, Goethe as a poet
spiritual
in

and the
short,

mediocre, and bad poets serve equally well a similar documentary purpose, and it is not
at all certain that, as far as this purpose is concerned, bad poets offer less useful services

than the best ones.

Nevertheless, many readers will consider that the analysis which we have carried out
in this treatise is greatly defective,

because
"

we
"

(as they say) the which Goethe occupies in the position development of literary history." That may
"

have

not

defined

200

GOETHE
;

be

For

in truth I in

but only in the light of critical prejudice. know not what position Goethe
the
it

occupies

development
is

of

literary

history, unless

that of

having been

what he was; and this is the position which we have endeavoured to describe, i.e. that he was just himself, Goethe, and not this or that poet, different from himself. Or does the reader want something else
perhaps
Yes,
?

can guess approximately what is I can guess it, because everyone who makes a mental analysis, sketches certain outlines of ideas, which he discards
I

wanted.

as unsuitable or extraneous, knowing, how ever, that later on he must see them rise up

before

him

in the

form

of censures, objections,

Amongst the sketches which I traced mentally and immediately afterwards discarded mentally, there was a beautiful
or wishes.

picture of Goethe, the initiator of all the literary forms of the nineteenth century, of the systematized poem (Faust), of the auto

biographical-sentimental novel (Werther*), of of educational the novel development

(Meister), of the historical novel and drama (Goetz and Egmonf), of the novel of passionate

and

moral

casuistry

(the

Wahlverwandt-

CONCLUSION

201

schaftcn\ of the Utopian novel (the Wanderjahre), of neo-classical tragedy (Iphigenie), of

neo-Homeric poetry (Hermann und Dorothea),

of the revival of the ancient

myths

(Achille is,

Helena], of the lyric in the manner of the folk-song (the Lieder\ of ballads tragic and

gnomic

(the Brant von Corinth, the ZaiiberIchrling), of poetry with an oriental tinge (the Divan}, of the impassioned lyric in free

(Wandrers Sturmlied, Seefahrt, etc.) even, one might say, of the esoterical lyric, a
series of saltatory impressions

verse

connected by some deep and unexpressed ideal thread (as in the Harzreisc} and even, if one wishes,
;

the initiator of
"

"

free

phrases,"

which the

to-day think they have invented (see any portion of the Campagnc in not to mention all the separate Frankreich} motives which he has created and which have produced and continue to produce a large
Futurists
of
;

progeny,

from Faust and Prometheus to Wagner and Mephistopheles, from Iphigenie, Margarete and Mignon to Marianne and Philine. This picture (to which I should not have failed to add, as an effect of contrast, that aspect of Goethe, which I have already pointed out, which entitles him to be regarded
as the last great representative in the line

202
of
"

GOETHE

Court poets/ who arose in the Renais sance and who were honoured with the names
of Ariosto

and Tasso) I might have placed at the beginning or at the end of my treatment of the various works and as a sort of intro

teenth century.
I

duction to the history of poetry in the nine I might have written in this manner very decorative and lively pages.

might have placed before

my

readers a

brilliant historical-ideal structure,

which

for

would have dazzled and satisfied them, as everything does which seems to make order arise from disorder, the one from the various, the clear-cut from the confused, and all in the most simple and easy manner.
a
at least

moment

Why

did

pleasant

refuse to produce this effect, so for the reader, so flattering for

I
" "

position myself ? Because this assigned to Goethe, as the initiator of modern literature, as the delineator, as it were, of the programme and the prescriber of the subjects which it would execute and develop and which it would still be toiling at, may be agreeable as a play of the imagination, but does not correspond to the truth, this scrupulous truth which must be dearer to us than any

thing

else,

and

after

which alone we must

CONCLUSION
strive,

203

even though we may be allowed to attain it only imperfectly. Every poet is an initiator, but every poet initiates something which ends with him, because the beginning and the end are his own personality. Whoever

comes

after

him

is

either

a poet too,

and

has, therefore, a fresh personality

and passes or he is a new and personal cycle through and in that case may imitate and not a poet,
;

repeat

what has already been discovered, but imitators, as everyone knows, do not count in the history of true poetry. Thus
the initiative which Goethe
is

supposed to

have taken

in

so

many and such varied

spheres of literature, is either to be reduced to the obvious statement that he, like every

man
sense

of genius, called forth

many

imitators,

or, at
:

most, is to be taken in the following that in Goethe s poetry, in his rich,

varied, impressionable

and highly
for

mind were mirrored

the

first

intelligent time in

conspicuous fashion many sides of the modern spirit, which, helped certainly by his example, were afterwards mirrored in other poets and This second statement is true artists too. but forms precisely the subject of also,

extraneous consideration and belongs to the history of culture, since in the history of

204

GOETHE
is

poetry what

of

primary importance
of

is

the

these reflections, the particular individual minds of the poets and the perfec

manner

form attained by diverse and individual methods. It is hardly necessary to add that by attributing to Goethe the fantastic function
tion of
initiator in general of modern thus giving free passage to the work times, of imagination, one is induced to proceed from exaggeration to exaggeration and, in order to form a fine idol, one easily forgets
of

literary

motives in modern literature of which one finds no examples in Goethe s works, and one passes in silence over those which he took from predecessors and contemporaries, who were not always Germans. Therefore I have refused an easy, but not a legitimate enrichment of these brief notes,
the
" "

and I have left them in their poverty, in that poverty which, as everyone knows, is often sister to honesty.

INDEX
An An An
Achilleis, 121, 201. Alfieri his Mirra, 117.
;

Lida, 150, 151.

Der Erlkdnig, 146. Der Fischer, 146. Der Gott und die Bajadcre,
146, 147.

Luna, 149. Schwagcr Kronos, 104, M3-I45-

Die Brant von Konnth, 147,

201.

Antiker
155-

Form

sich ndhcrnd,

Die Grenzcn dcr Mcnschhcit,

155.

Ariosto, 202.

Die schone Nacht, 149. Don Quixote, 43, 45.

Bacon, 44.
Breughel, 62.

Eckermann,

173.

Bruno,

46, 187.

Egntont, 19, 110-114, 200.

Elcgic, Maricnbadcr, 156. Epigramme, 155. ICpistcln, 155. I .rasmus, 46, 109. Livigcr Judc, 17, 105, 106, 121.

Buff, Charlotte, 29. Byron, 188, 195.

Campagne in Frankrcich,
Campanella, 187. Capella, Martianus,
Carducci, 67. Casti, abate, 80.
Catullus, 151.
187,

Faust. 17,

Cervantes, 107.
Cicero, 132.

1 8, 25, 27, 45, 53. 65, /6, 79, 81-86, 105, 121, its 133, 180, 187, 200 Abschied, 81, 82.
;

Faust
Dante, 20, 72, 85, 86,
1

1,

8,

20,
;

178 Hirnmel, 80
53-8(1,

45, 49-51, 1 rolog irn

Vorspu-l auf

86.
Gottliche, 155.

Das

De

Sanctis, 85 note, 86. Decadents, 144.

Zneigwung, Faust II, 21, 24, 51. 52, 67,

;

dcm

Theater,
80, 81.

80

Der Becker, 150-151.

205

119, 121-128, 178-197.

Faustism, 58.

206
Festlieder, 180.

GOETHE
literature, 9.

France, Anatole, 48.

French

Galileo, 46. Ganymed, 104. Gian Paolo, 43.

philosophical lyrics, 155 poetical vision, 22 posi tion in literary history, re-elaboration 199-204 ; of Faust, 81-86, 179, 180 re-elaboration of Wilhclm self-mas Meister, 86-94
;
; ;

tery, 5, 6, 8, 24, 25
; ;

super-

Goethe
; ;

as a liberator, 9, 18 as Court poet, 180, 202 at aesthetic, 13 titude to ancient art and
;
;

teaching, nationality, ii 2-6, 190, 191 theory of titanic colours, 14, 22 period, 17, 18, 20, 61, 101,
"

"

124-129, 130, 191, 193, 194 attitude to French liter ature, 9 ; attitude to his
151,

literature,

152,

two periods in his 142 poetry, 17-23, 79, 81, 101, use of metre, 103, 115
;

142-144,
Gotz

151,

152

Uto

atti 107-114, 122 tude to natural science, 13, 14; attitude to mathema tics, 14, 15 attitude to re attitude to the ligion, 13

tory,

pias, 171, 174, 201.

von Berlichingen, 17, 19, 61, 107-110, 113, 200. Goldoni, 80, 88. Gothic architecture, 61.

Romantic movement,
10,

8,

Gottmid Welt, 155.

Gozzi, Carlo, 88. Grazie, 188.

biographers, 1-3, bal 16, 29, 30, 157, 199 claslads, 145-147, 153
; ;

ii

Greece, 19.

sicality, tors, 62,

20

commenta
;

185-189
;
;

contrast

to Schiller, 22 didactic lyrics, 1 53- 1 56 discoveries

in

Hamann,
Hans Hans

5.

Hamlet, 94, 95.

Sachs, 63.
poctische

anatomy and botany,

;

14

ethical
;

115 17-20, fanatics, 8 imitators, 90 interest in history, 108110, 122-124; 112-114, judgment of contempo rary writers, 12 journey to Italy, 19 lack of unity
;
;

transition, hatred of

Sachsens Scndung, 105.

llarzrcise, 201.

Hegel, 84, 132. Helena, 21, 121-128, 201.

Flerder, 147.

Hermann und

works, 24-28, 185 Licdcr, 147-151, 153, 20 1 love of archaism, 64, 65, 105 lyrical poetry, 141156; personality, 3, 16 ;
;

in his

Dorothea, Ji, 129-140, 152, 201. Homer, 33, 129-132, 134, 201. Humboldt, Wilhelm von, his trea 130, 136, 137
;

tise

Uber Hermann

und

Dorothea, 130.

INDEX
Ibsen, 43. Impressionists, 144. Iphigcnic. 21, 117-120, 201.
Italy, 19.

207
his

Pindar, 142.

Pontano
121.

Prometheus,

17,

Baiac, 152. 101-104,

Properties, 151.

Jean Chnstophe,
Jerusalem, 35.

go.

Racine; his Phedre, 117.

Richter,
Ritter
J. P. F., 173.

Kurts Brautfahrt, 146.

Elegien,
21,

Kalidasa, So. Kestner, 29. Kindermdrderin, die, 66. Kiinstlers Apotheose, 104. Kiinstlers Erdenwallen, 104.

Rum isc he
153-

151the,
10,

Romantic movement,
10, 62, 115.

Romanticists,

the,

8,

M-l. i-15, 158.

Romeo and
Lcopardi, 188.
Lessing, 32. Lewes, G. II., 172, 173.

Juliet, 36.

Koscnkranz, 113. Rosini, Giovanni, 92.

St.

Mahomet, 104, 121. his Cinque Manxoni, 12, 92

;

Augustine, 44. Satyr os, 104.

Schatzgrdber, der, 146. Schelling, 22, 84, 85. Scherer, 134.
Schiller, 14, 22, 66, his ballads, 145

his Maggio, 195 messi sposi, 12, 93 Sposi prumcssi, 93.

;

Pro;

his

Meine
Merck,

107
;

Gottin, 155.
10.

his

Rduber, 107.

Schopenhauer, 84.
Napoleon,
7.

Natiirliche L ochtcr, die, 113.

Scott, Walter, 109. Seefahrt, 104, 201.

Newton,

14.

Sepulcn, 1 88. Shakespeare, 20,

108, 104.

95,

107,

Odyssey, 34. Ossian, 33. Ovid. KJ.|.

Singspiele, 180.

Sophock-s, 20. Stein, Fran von, 150.

Stilling

Jung;

his

auto
9.

Parini
90.

his

Ginrnv.

\
}<>.

Pedagogical novel, the, 89,

biography, 134-136. Sturmcr mid Drdngtr, Sturm and Drang, 18,

bi,
79-|

21,

208
Tasso, 107, 202. Tasso, 21, 114-117, 119.
Tibullus, 151.

GOETHE
War um
150.

gabst du tins
8,

.,

Weimar,

180.

Urfaust, 23, 25, 53, 62, 86. Urmeister, 23, 87, 90, 93.

Weltliteratur, n. Werther, 10, 17, 18, 29-39, 54, 55, 114, 133, 134, 156, 189, 200.

Urphdnomen,

14.

Wertherism, 31, 54. Westostlicher Divan,

201.

17, 156,

Vico, 158. Vier Jahreszeiten, 155. Virgil, 132. Vischer, Theodor, 85 note, 184. Voltaire, 9, 80. his Voss, 131, 132, 134 Luise, 131.
;

Wieland, Wilhelm Meister,

62.

21,

27,

86-100, 200. Wilhelm Meistcrs Lehrjahrc, 86, 89, 93, 169. Wilhelm Mcisters Wanderjahre, 21, 24, 92, 168-177, 201.

\Vinckelmann, 130.

Wirkung
Wagner, Leopold,
Wandelnde Glocke,
Wandrer, WandrcYS
der, 104.

in die

Feme,

146.

66.

die, Wahlverwandtschaften, 21, 158-167, 168, 171, 201.

Xenieu, 155.

die, 146.

Stnrmlied,

104,

Zahme Xcnicn,

155. Zauberlehrling, der, 146, 201,

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