Goethe's literary essays

(1772)

I

Lyrical Poems, by J. C. Blum. Berlin, 1772

We no longer feel certain whether it is wise for young poets to read the ancients early. Our unimaginative mode of life stifles genius, unless the singers of freer times kindle it and open to it an atmosphere at least ideally more free; but these very singers also breathe into the soul so exotic a spirit that the very best poet, with the most fortunate genius, can soon merely support himself in his flight through his imagination, and can no longer give expression to that glowing inspiration which alone makes true poetry. Why are the poems of the old skalds, of the Celts and the old Greeks, even of the Orientals, so strong, so fiery, so great? Nature drives them to singing as it does the bird in the air. As for us (for we cannot deceive ourselves) we are driven to the lyre by an artificial and stimulated feeling, which we owe to our admiration for the ancients, and to our delight in them; and for this reason our best songs, with few exceptions, are merely imitative copies.

These remarks have been suggested by the lyrical poems of Herr Blum. This poet is certainly not without talent, and yet how seldom does he seem to be able to stand on his own feet when his Horace is not before his eyes. The latter illumines the way for him, like Hero’s torch; the moment he must go alone, he sinks. Space does not permit us to prove our point here, but we ask every reader who knows his Horace whether the poet does not grow tired and cold whenever Horace and King David do not lend him thoughts, feelings, expressions, situations, and in the case of the former even his mythology, all of which, we must feel, are seldom used except when the imagination creates with a cold heart. The well-known Horatian dialogue, Donec gratus eram, Kleist has translated much better; but the “Lamentation of David and Jonathan” we have never seen better versified than here. We wish the writer an unspoilt maiden, days of complete leisure, and the pure spirit of poetry without the spirit of mere authorship. The very best of poets degenerates when in composing he thinks of the public, and is filled with a yearning for fame, especially newspaper fame, rather than completely absorbed by his subject.

II

Cymbelline, a Tragedy, Based on a Shakespearian Theme [by J. G. Sulzer]. Danzig, 1772.

The author, obliged by a severe illness to avoid all fatiguing work,—so we are informed in the Preface,—amused himself with the study of Shakespeare’s works. We could have told him in advance that this was no reading for a convalescent; whoever wishes to share in the life that glows through Shakespeare’s plays must himself be sound in body and mind. At all events, our author, moved by a cool, weak, critical modesty, regretted that so many “incongruités” should mar the “many just sentiments” and “some beauties” (as the eminent Dr. Johnson likewise remarks) that are to be found in this play. So he resolved to separate the dross from the gold (that is vox populi critici in regard to Shakespeare since time immemorial), and to attempt nothing less than this: what Sophocles would approximately have done if he had tried to make a play out of the same material. So he travestied—no, not travestied, for then something of the appearance of the original would remain—parodied—no, not that either, for then something could be guessed by the very contrast—what then? what word will express the poverty that is here, compared with the infinite riches of Shakespeare!

Shakespeare, who felt the spirit of several centuries in his breast, through whose soul the life of whole centuries was stirring!—and here—comedians in silk and buckram, and daubed scene-painting! The scene a wood; in front a thick copse, through which one enters a grotto; in the background a large pasteboard rock, on which ladies and gentlemen sit, lie, are stabbed, etc.

That is the way Sophocles would have handled this theme! It is bad enough to take Shakespeare’s play, whose very essence is the life of history, and reduce it to the Sophoclean unity which aims merely at presenting action; but to model it on the “Treatise on Tragedy” in the first part of the old Leipziger Bibliothek![9] We are certain that every one, not merely readers of Shakespeare, will cast it aside with contempt.