Goethe's literary essays

(Literarischer Sansculottismus)

(1795)

Those who consider it an absolute duty to connect definite concepts with the words which they employ in speaking and writing will very rarely use the expressions, “classical author” and “classical work.”

What are the conditions that produce a classical national author? He must, in the first place, be born in a great commonwealth, which after a series of great and historic events has become a happy and unified nation. He must find in his countrymen loftiness of disposition, depth of feeling, and vigor and consistency of action. He must be thoroughly pervaded with the national spirit, and through his innate genius feel capable of sympathizing with the past as well as the present. He must find his nation in a high state of civilization, so that he will have no difficulty in obtaining for himself a high degree of culture. He must find much material already collected and ready for his use, and a large number of more or less perfect attempts made by his predecessors. And finally, there must be such a happy conjuncture of outer and inner circumstances that he will not have to pay dearly for his mistakes, but that in the prime of his life he may be able to see the possibilities of a great theme and to develop it according to some uniform plan into a well-arranged and well-constructed literary work.

If any one, who is endowed with clearness of vision and fairness of mind, contrasts these conditions under which alone a classic writer, especially a classic prose-writer, is possible, with the conditions under which the best Germans of this century have worked, he will respect and admire what they have succeeded in doing, and notice with tactful regret in what they have failed.

An important piece of writing, like an important speech, can only be the outgrowth of actual life. The author no more than the man of action can fashion the conditions under which he is born and under which he acts. Each one, even the greatest genius, suffers in some respects from the social and political conditions of his age, just as in other respects he benefits by them. And only from a real nation can a national writer of the highest order be expected. It is unfair, however, to reproach the German nation because, though closely held together by its geographical position, it is divided politically. We do not wish for Germany those political revolutions which might prepare the way for classical works.

And so any criticism which approaches the question from such a false point of view is most unfair. The critic must look at our conditions, as they were and as they now are; he must consider the individual circumstances under which German writers obtained their training, and he will easily find the correct point of view. There is nowhere in Germany a common centre of social culture, where men of letters might gather together and perfect themselves, each one in his particular field, in conformity with the same standard. Born in the most widely scattered portions of the land, educated in the most diverse ways, left almost entirely to themselves or to impressions derived from the most varied environments, carried away by a special liking for this or that example of German or foreign literature, the German men of letters are forced, without any guidance, to indulge in all sorts of experiments, even in botch-work, in order to try their powers. Only gradually and after considerable reflection do they realize what they ought to do. Practice alone teaches them what they can do. Again and again the bad taste of a large public, which devours the bad and the good with equal pleasure, leads them into doubt. Then again an acquaintance with the educated though widely scattered population of the great empire encourages them, and the common labors and endeavors of their contemporaries fortify them. Such are the conditions under which German writers finally reach man’s estate. Then concern for their own support, concern for a family, force them to look about in the world at large, and often with the most depressing feeling, to do work for which they have no respect themselves, in order to earn a livelihood, so that they can devote themselves to that kind of work with which alone their cultured minds would occupy themselves. What German author of note will not recognize himself in this picture, and will not confess with modest regret that he often enough sighed for an opportunity to subordinate sooner the peculiarities of his original genius to a general national culture, which unfortunately did not exist?

For foreign customs and literatures, irrespective of the many advantages they have contributed to the advancement of the higher classes, have prevented the Germans from developing sooner as Germans.

And now let us look at the work of German poets and prose-writers of recognized ability. With what care and what devotion did they not follow in their labors an enlightened conviction! It is, for example, not saying too much, when we maintain that a capable and industrious literary critic, through a comparison of all the editions of our Wieland,—a man of whom we may proudly boast in spite of the snarling of all our literary parasites,—could develop the whole theory of good taste simply from the successive corrections of this author, who has so indefatigably worked toward his own improvement. We hope that every librarian will take pains to have such a collection made, while it is still possible, and then the next century will know how to make grateful use of it.

In the future we may perhaps be bold enough to lay before the public a history of the development of our foremost writers, as it is shown in their works. We do not expect any confessions, but if they would only themselves impart to us, as far as they see fit, those facts which contributed most to their development, and those which stood most in the way of it, the influence of the good they have done would become still more far-reaching.

For if we consider what superficial critics take least notice of,—the good fortune which young men of talent enjoy nowadays in being able to develop earlier, and to attain sooner a pure style appropriate to the subject at hand,—to whom do they owe it but to their predecessors in the last half of this century, each of whom in his own way has trained himself with unceasing endeavor amidst all sorts of hindrances? Through this circumstance a sort of invisible school has sprung up, and the young man who now enters it gets into a much larger and brighter circle than the earlier author, who had to roam through it first himself in the faint light of dawn, in order to help widen it gradually and as it were only by chance. The pseudo-critic, who would light the way for us with his little lamp, comes much too late; the day has dawned, and we shall not close our shutters again.

Men do not give vent to their ill humor in good society; and he must be in a very bad humor, who at this present moment, when almost everybody writes well, denies that Germany has writers of the first order. One does not need to go far to find an agreeable novel, a clever sketch, a clearly written essay on this or that subject. What proof do not our critical papers, journals, and compends furnish of a uniformly good style? The Germans show a more and more thorough mastery of facts, and the arrangement of the material steadily gains in clearness. A dignified philosophy, in spite of all the opposition of wavering opinions, makes them more and more acquainted with their intellectual powers, and facilitates the use of them. The numerous examples of style, the preliminary labors and endeavors of so many men, enable a young man now sooner to present with clearness and grace and in an appropriate manner what he has received from without and developed within himself. Thus a healthy and fair-minded German sees the writers of his nation at a fair stage of development, and is convinced that the public, too, will not let itself be misled by an ill-humored criticaster. Such a one ought to be barred from society, from which every one should be excluded whose destructive work might only make productive writers disheartened, the sympathetic public listless, and the onlookers distrustful and indifferent.