Reading Goethe

Reading Goethe Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture Reading Goethe A Critical Introduction to the Literary Work Martin Swales and Erika Swales Camden House Rochester, New York Copyright © 2002 Martin Swales and Erika Swales All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation, no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. First published 2002 by Camden House Revised and reprinted in paperback 2007 Camden House is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA www.camden-house.com and of Boydell & Brewer Limited www.boydellandbrewer.com PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK Cloth ISBN-10: 1–57113–095–0 Paperback ISBN-13: 978–1–57113–358–8 Paperback ISBN-10: 1–57113–358–5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Swales, Martin. Reading Goethe: a critical introduction to the literary work / Martin and Erika Swales. p. cm. — (Studies in German literature, linguistics, and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–57113–095–0 (alk. paper) 1. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749–1832 — Criticism and interpretation. I. Swales, Erika, 1937– II. Title. III. Studies in German literature, linguistics, and culture (Unnumbered) PT2177.S94 2001 831'.6—dc21 2001037384 A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library This publication is printed on acid-free paper Printed in the United States of America Contents Preface vii Abbreviations x 1: Introduction 1 2: Poetry 22 3: Narrative Fiction 64 4: Drama 95 5: Faust 135 6: Goethe’s Discursive Writings 160 7: Conclusion 179 Notes 183 Works Consulted and Works for Further Reading 187 Index 199 Preface HIS BOOK IS MODEST IN SCOPE, size, and intention. Its aim is to offer T English-speaking readers a short, critical, and by that token lively introduction to Goethe’s literary achievement. We firmly believe that, for all the interest of his autobiographical, scientific, and journalistic writing, of his letters and indeed of his life, it is through the literary work that Goethe most richly and urgently speaks to us today. This is not to say that every item of his oeuvre is worthy of reverent attention. On the contrary: Many of his literary productions are flawed. But equally we are convinced that his finest works truly repay detailed study. And it is a measure of his creativity that they occur in all three major literary genres — poetry, drama, and prose narrative. It may be helpful to highlight three interrelated aspects of that literary output at the outset: they are factors that explain why Goethe’s works “travel” well, so to speak. One aspect has to do with his mastery of the German language. As we know, for English speakers, the German language poses particular difficulties. It is an inflected language, and it makes weighty demands in terms of structure and word order. But it is precisely these structures which, as we shall see, Goethe exploits to unforgettable expressive effect. This capacity is one all-important part of the revelation that he can offer us: what, on occasion, can seem an irritating linguistic property of German becomes experientially immediate in his hands. This is generally true, of course, of all the great writers of the German literary tradition. But it is particularly true of Goethe: On the one hand, he con- stantly draws on the ability of the German language to sustain a flexible and sophisticated discourse of philosophical abstraction and speculation; on the other hand, he capitalizes on colloquial registers, and stays close, even in written from, to the language in its everyday condition. This aspect points back to the legacy left by Luther’s great Bible translation. Goethe can make the vernacular sing in a way that few other German or indeed European poets can. He puts us immediately in touch with the expressive force and range of the German language. The second strand derives from the first, and it concerns his feel for the specifically lyrical potential of the German language. Goethe is one of Europe’s greatest poets, yet sometimes it seems difficult to identify precisely what makes his poetry so miraculous. Compared with other masters of the European lyric, he seems less idiosyncratic, less identifiable in terms viii ♦ PREFACE of stylistic and thematic characteristics. Yet if there is a definition of Goethe’s lyric genius, it is perhaps the following: time and again, he is able to express a moment that is weighty both experientially and cogni- tively, to capture a mood where feeling and reflection come into quick- ened and quickening interplay. Goethe’s finest poetry touches a nerve that is both visceral and mental. This ability may well explain why his works have so frequently attracted the attention of great composers. Goethe’s own sense of — and taste in — music may, admittedly, have been mediocre. Of course, it does not follow that great creative writers will, by virtue of their talents, be able to appreciate other forms of su- preme creativity. But even so, it is difficult not to be surprised and disap- pointed that Goethe was impervious to Schubert’s genius — even to the point of failing to acknowledge settings of his poems which the composer sent him. Yet, although blinkered in the matter of music, Goethe pro- duced poetry that spoke with incomparable force to a whole range of German composers: Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Wolf, Brahms, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Pfitzner, Alban Berg, and many others. And this has meant that his poetry travels like no other: it is famil- iar worldwide to music lovers who have no knowledge of German literature, but to whom Goethe texts seem somehow to be the natural vehicle for the human voice at its most thoughtful and passionate. The third facet concerns his ability to make both the specific universal and the universal specific. This, too, may apply to all great writers; but in the case of Goethe it is again particularly evident. As we have already noted, his creativity was wonderfully at home in his own language. He was also richly and complexly engaged by his own time and his own culture. He was fully aware of the critical energies liberated by the Enlightenment; he was touched by the emotional release generated by the culture of Emp- findsamkeit or sentimentalism, and by the turmoil of Romantic art and thinking. He was a secular spirit who could also respond to the appeal of fervent inwardness as expressed in the religious ardor of Pietism. He was the product of two German towns — of Frankfurt am Main, with the lively civic and bourgeois culture of the Free Cities of the Holy Roman Empire, and of Weimar, where he played a very full part in court life. Yet, for all the “Germanness” of these, and other, formative experiences, Goethe was remarkably open to energies and impulses from the wider world. It is no coincidence that he coined the term “Weltliteratur”: he had a lively sense of both European and Eastern cultures. He esteemed specificity but he abhorred narrowness. And that understanding allowed, and allows, him to travel. It is because he was so thoughtfully, fluidly, in touch with his own world — both historically and linguistically, geographically and culturally — that he did and does speak to other ages and cultures. PREFACE ♦ ix This study is dedicated to the task of understanding and explicating that particular transferable specificity. It is also dedicated to the genera- tions of students who have studied Goethe with us at our two universities. On many occasions, their comments, questions and insights have helped us to see more clearly what we were, or ought to have been, trying to say. Additionally, our debt to fellow Goethe scholars is great, particularly to colleagues within Anglo-Saxon German Studies who have contributed to our thinking by both the written and the spoken word: Jeremy Adler, Nick Boyle, Barker Fairley, Robin Harrison, Bill Larrett, Barry Nisbet, Jim Reed, Roger Stephenson, and John Williams. Moreover, we are espe- cially grateful to the editors of and contributors to the Goethe Handbuch. Secondary literature on Goethe has become well-nigh overwhelming. The Handbuch performs the inestimable service of helping one to find one’s bearings within the current climate of critical discussion. It is a fine tribute to Germany’s greatest writer. Wherever possible, sources for quotations from Goethe’s works have been given in the most readily accessible form. That is to say: poetry and verse dramas are cited by means of line numbers. Letters are identified by the recipient and date, conversations with Eckermann by the date, Maximen und Reflexionen by MUR, followed by the Hecker number. Prose works are identified by page numbers, which refer to the Hamburger Ausgabe (HA), but also to the Frankfurter Ausgabe (FA), the Münchner Ausgabe (MA), and the Weimarer Ausgabe (WA). Three previously published papers have fed into the argument of this study: Erika Swales, “Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, ‘Urworte. Orphisch,’” in Landmarks in German Poetry, ed. Peter Hutchinson (Oxford and Bern: Lang, 2000), 57–71; Martin Swales, “‘Das Bild, o König, soll uns nicht entzweien’: Image and Image-making in Goethe,” PEGS, 66 (1996): 42–52; “Goethe’s Prose Fiction,” in The Cambridge Companion to Goethe, ed. Lesley Sharpe (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001), 129–46. In each case we are grateful to the editors for allowing the borrowing to occur. E. S. M. S. August 2001 Abbreviations DVjS Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte GLL German Life and Letters GR Germanic Review MLR Modern Language Review NGS New German Studies OGS Oxford German Studies PEGS Publications of the English Goethe Society WW Wirkendes Wort Note: The translations provided for quotations from Goethe are in every case our own.

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