Goethe's literary essays

(1811-14)

So much has been written about the condition of German literature at that time,[12] and to such good purpose, that every one who takes any interest in it can obtain full information; the opinions with regard to it, too, are fairly unanimous; so that anything I say about it here, in my fragmentary and desultory fashion, is not so much an analysis of its characteristics as of its relation to me. I will therefore first speak of those branches which especially react upon the public, those two hereditary foes of all easy-going life, and of all cheerful, self-sufficient, living poetry:—I mean, satire and criticism.

In quiet times every one desires to live after his own fashion; the citizen wishes to carry on his trade or his business, and then enjoy himself; so, too, the author likes to produce something, see his work published, and, in the consciousness of having done something good and useful, looks, if not for remuneration, at any rate for praise. From this state of tranquillity the citizen is roused by the satirist, the author by the critic, and so it comes that peaceful society is rudely disturbed.

The literary epoch in which I was born developed out of the preceding one by opposition. Germany, so long inundated by foreign people, pervaded by other nations, employing foreign languages in learned and diplomatic transactions, could not possibly cultivate her own. Together with so many new ideas, innumerable strange words were obtruded necessarily and unnecessarily upon her, and even for objects already known people were induced to make use of foreign expressions and turns of language. The Germans, brutalized by nearly two centuries of misery and confusion, took lessons from the French in manners and from the Latins in the art of expression. This art ought to have been cultivated in German, since the use of French and Latin idioms, and their partial translation into German, made both their social and business style ridiculous. Besides this, they recklessly adopted figures of speech belonging to the southern languages, and employed them most extravagantly. In the same way the stately ceremoniousness of prince-like Roman citizens had been transferred to the educated circles in German provincial towns. As a result, they nowhere felt themselves at home, least of all in their own houses.

But in this epoch works of genius had already appeared, and the German independence of mind and enjoyment of life began to assert themselves. This cheerful spirit, combined with an honest sincerity, led to the demand for purity and naturalness in writing, without the intermixture of foreign words, and in accordance with the dictates of plain common sense. By these praiseworthy endeavors, however, the flood-gates were thrown open to a prolix national insipidity, nay, the dam was broken down, and an inundation was bound to follow. However, a stiff pedantry continued for some time to hold sway in the four learned professions, and eventually, at a much later date, fled for refuge first to one and then to another.

Men of parts, children of nature looking freely about them, had therefore two objects on which they could exercise their faculties, against which they could direct their energies, and, as the matter was of no great importance, vent their mischievousness; these were, on the one hand, a language disfigured by foreign words, forms, and turns of speech; and on the other, the worthlessness of such writings as had been careful to avoid those faults; but it never occurred to any one that each evil was being combated by fostering the other.

Liscow, a daring young man, first ventured to attack by name a shallow, silly writer, whose foolish behavior soon gave him an opportunity for yet more drastic treatment. He then sought other subjects, invariably directing his satire against particular objects and persons, whom he despised and sought to render despicable; indeed, he pursued them with passionate hatred. But his career was short; for he died early, and was remembered only as a restless, irregular youth. The talent and character shown in what he did, in spite of the smallness of his production, may well have seemed valuable to his countrymen: for the Germans have always shown a peculiar piety towards the promise of genius prematurely cut off. Suffice it to say that in our early youth Liscow was praised and commended to us as an excellent satirist, who might justly claim preference even before the universally beloved Rabener. But we did not gain much from him; for the only thing we discovered from his works was that he considered the absurd absurd, and this seemed to us a matter of course.

Rabener, well educated, grown up under good school discipline, of a cheerful and by no means passionate or malicious disposition, turned to general satire. His censure of so-called vices and follies is the outcome of clear-sighted and unimpassioned common sense, and of a definite moral conception as to what the world ought to be. His denunciation of faults and failings is harmless and cheerful; and in order to excuse even the slight daring of his writings, he assumes that the attempt to improve fools by ridicule is not in vain.

Rabener’s personal character was such as we do not often meet. A thorough and strict man of business, he did his duty, and so gained the good opinion of his fellow-townsmen and the confidence of his superiors; at the same time, by way of relaxation, he indulged in a genial contempt for all that immediately surrounded him. Learned pedants, vain youngsters, every sort of narrowness and conceit, he made fun of rather than satirized, and even his satire expressed no scorn. Just in the same way he jested about his own condition, his unhappiness, his life, and his death.

There is little of the æsthetic in the manner in which this writer treats his subjects. In external form he is indeed varied enough, but throughout he makes too much use of direct irony, that is, in praising the blameworthy and blaming the praiseworthy, whereas this rhetorical device should be adopted extremely sparingly; for, in the long run, it becomes annoying to the clear-sighted, perplexes the foolish, but appeals, it is true, to the great majority, who without special intellectual effort imagine themselves cleverer than other people. But all that he presents to us, whatever its form, bears witness to his rectitude, cheerfulness, and equanimity, so that we are always favorably impressed. The unbounded admiration of his own times was a consequence of these moral excellencies.

It was natural that people should try to discover originals for his general descriptions and should succeed; and consequently he was attacked on this score by certain individuals: his over-long apologies denying that his satire was personal, prove the annoyance to which he was subjected. Some of his letters do honor to him both as a man and an author. The confidential epistle in which he describes the siege of Dresden and the loss of his house, his effects, his writings, and his wigs, without having his equanimity in the least shaken or his cheerfulness clouded, is most estimable, although his contemporaries and fellow-citizens could not forgive him his happy temperament. The letter in which he speaks of the decay of his strength and of his approaching death is in the highest degree worthy of respect, and Rabener deserves to be honored as a saint by all happy sensible people, who cheerfully accept their earthly lot.

I tear myself away from him reluctantly, and merely add this remark: his satire refers throughout to the middle classes; he lets us see here and there that he is also acquainted with the upper classes, but does not hold it advisable to discuss them. It may be said that he had no successor; it would be impossible to point to any one at all equal, or even similar to him.

Let us turn to criticism; and first of all to the theoretic attempts. It is not going too far to say that idealism had at that time fled from the world to religion; it was hardly discoverable even in ethics; of a supreme principle in art no one had a notion. They put Gottsched’s Critical Art of Poetry into our hands; it was useful and instructive enough, for it gave us historical information about the various kinds of poetry, as well as about rhythm and its different movements; poetic genius was taken for granted! But besides this the poet was to have education, and even learning, he should possess taste, and other things of the same nature. Finally, we were referred to Horace’s Art of Poetry; we gazed at single golden maxims of this invaluable work with veneration, but did not know in the least what to do with it as a whole, or how to use it.

The Swiss came to the front as Gottsched’s antagonists; hence they must intend to do something different, to accomplish something better: accordingly we heard that they were, in fact, superior. Breitinger’s Critical Art of Poetry was now studied. Here we entered a wider field, or, properly speaking, only a greater labyrinth, which was the more wearisome, as an able man in whom we had confidence drove us about in it. Let a brief review justify these words.

As yet no one had been able to discover the essential principle of poetry; it was too spiritual and too evanescent. Painting, an art which one could keep within sight, and follow step by step with the external senses, seemed more adapted to such an end; the English and French had already theorized about the arts of painting and sculpture, and it was thought possible to explain the nature of poetry by drawing a comparison from these arts. Painting presented images to the eyes, poetry to the imagination; poetical images, therefore, were the first thing to be taken into consideration. Similes came first, then descriptions and whatever it was possible to represent to the external senses came under discussion.

Images, then! But whence should these images be taken except from nature? The painter obviously imitated nature; why not the poet also? But nature, just as she is, cannot be imitated: she contains so much that is insignificant and unsuitable, that a selection must be made; but what determines the choice? what is important must be selected; but what is important?

The answer to this question the Swiss probably took a long time to consider: for they arrived at an idea which is indeed strange, but pretty, even amusing; for they said what is new is always most important: and after they had considered this for a while, they discovered that the marvelous is always newer than anything else.

Apparently they now had the essentials of poetry before them, but it had further to be taken into consideration that the marvelous may be barren and without human interest. This human interest which is indispensable must be moral, and would then obviously tend to the improvement of man; hence that poem would fulfil its ultimate aim which in addition to its merits possessed utility. It was the fulfilment of all these demands which constituted the test they wished to apply to the various kinds of poetry, and that species which imitated nature, and furthermore was marvelous, and at the same time moral in purpose and effect, they placed first and highest. And after much deliberation this great preëminence was finally ascribed, with the utmost conviction, to Æsop’s fables!

Strange as such a deduction may now appear, it had the most decided influence on the best minds. That Gellert and subsequently Lichtwer devoted themselves to this department of literature, that even Lessing attempted to do work in it, that so many others applied their talents to it, speaks for the faith they put in this species of poetry. Theory and practice always act upon each other; one can see from men’s works what opinions they hold; and, from their opinions, it is possible to predict what they will do.

Yet we must not dismiss our Swiss theory without doing it justice. Bodmer, with all the pains he took, remained in theory and practice a child all his life. Breitinger was an able, learned, sagacious man, who, after making a careful survey, recognized all the requirements to be fulfilled by a poem; in fact, it can be shown that he was dimly conscious of the deficiencies of his method. Noteworthy, for instance, is his query, whether a certain descriptive poem by König, on the Review Camp of Augustus the Second, is properly speaking a poem; and the answer to it displays good sense. But it may serve for his complete justification that, after starting on a wrong track and nearly completing his circle, he yet discovers the main issue, and at the end of his book, as a kind of supplement, feels it incumbent on him to urge the representation of manners, character, passions, in short the inner man—which surely constitutes the chief theme of poetry.

It may well be imagined into what perplexity young minds were thrown by such maxims torn from their contexts, half-understood laws, and random dogmas. We clung to examples, and there, too, were no better off: the foreign as well as the classical ones were too remote from us; behind the best native ones always lurked a distinct individuality, the good points of which we could not arrogate to ourselves, and into the faults of which we could not but be afraid of falling. For any one conscious of productive power it was a desperate condition.

When one considers carefully what was wanting in German poetry, it was a significant theme, especially of national import; there was never any lack of gifted writers. It is only necessary to mention Günther, who may be called a poet in the full sense of the word. A decided genius, endowed with sensuousness, imagination, memory, the gifts of conception and representation, productive in the highest degree, possessing rhythmic fluency, ingenious, witty, and at the same time well-informed;—he possessed, in short, all the requisites for creating by his poetry a second life out of the actual commonplace life around him. We admire the great facility with which, in his occasional poems, he ennobles all situations by appealing to the emotions, and embellishes them with suitable sentiments, images, and historical and fabulous traditions. The roughness and wildness in them belong to his time, his mode of life, and especially to his character, or, if you will, his want of character. He did not know how to curb himself, and so his life, like his poetry, proved ineffectual.

By his vacillating conduct, Günther had trifled away the good fortune of being appointed at the Court of Augustus the Second, where, with their love of magnificence, they desired to find a laureate who would impart warmth and grace to their festivities, and immortalize a transitory pomp. Von König was more self-controlled and more fortunate; he filled this post with dignity and success.

In all sovereign states the material for poetry begins with the highest social ranks, and the Review Camp at Mühlberg was, perhaps, the first worthy subject of provincial, if not of national importance which presented itself to a poet. Two kings saluting one another in the presence of a great host, their whole court and military state around them, well-appointed troops, a sham-fight, fêtes of all kinds,—here was plenty to captivate the senses, and matter enough and to spare for descriptive poetry.

This subject, indeed, suffered from an inner defect, in that it was only pomp and show, from which no real action could result. None except the very highest were involved, and even if this had not been the case, the poet could not render any one conspicuous lest he should offend the others. He had to consult the Court and State Calendar, and the delineation of the persons was therefore not particularly exciting; nay, even his contemporaries reproached him with having described the horses better than the men. But should not the fact that he showed his art as soon as a fitting subject presented itself redound to his credit? The main difficulty, too, seems soon to have become apparent to him—for the poem never advanced beyond the first canto.

As a result of discussions, examples, and my own reflection, I came to see that the first step towards escape from the wishy-washy, long-winded, empty epoch could be taken only by definiteness, precision, and brevity. In the style which had hitherto prevailed, it was impossible to distinguish the commonplace from what was better, since a uniform insipidity prevailed on all hands. Authors had already tried to escape from this widespread disease, with more or less success. Haller and Ramler were inclined to compression by nature; Lessing and Wieland were led to it by reflection. The former became by degrees quite epigrammatic in his poems, terse in Minna, laconic in Emilia Galotti,—it was not till later that he returned to that serene naïveté which becomes him so well in Nathan. Wieland, who had been occasionally prolix in Agathon, Don Sylvio, and the Comic Tales, became wonderfully condensed and precise, as well as exceedingly graceful, in Musarion and Idris. Klopstock, in the first cantos of the Messiah, is not without diffuseness; in his Odes and other minor poems he appears concise, as also in his tragedies. By his emulation of the ancients, especially Tacitus, he was constantly forced into narrower limits, so that at last he became obscure and unpleasing. Gerstenberg, a rare but eccentric genius, also concentrated his powers; one feels his merit, but on the whole he gives little pleasure. Gleim, by nature diffuse and easy-going, was scarcely once concise in his war-songs. Ramler was properly more of a critic than a poet. He began to collect what the Germans had accomplished in lyric poetry. He discovered that scarcely one poem entirely satisfied him; he was obliged to omit, rearrange, and alter, so that the things might assume some sort of form. By this means he made himself almost as many enemies as there are poets and amateurs, since every one, properly speaking, recognizes himself only in his defects; and the public takes greater interest in a faulty individuality than in what is produced or amended in accordance with a universal law of taste. Rhythm was still in its cradle, and no one knew of a method to shorten its childhood. Poetical prose was gaining ground. Gessner and Klopstock found many imitators; others, again, still put in a plea for metre, and translated this prose into intelligible rhythms. But even these emended versions gave nobody satisfaction; for they were obliged to omit and add, and the prose original always passed for the better of the two. But in all these attempts, the greater the conciseness aimed at, the more possible is it to criticize them, since whatever is significant when presented in a condensed form, in the end admits of definite comparison. Another result was the simultaneous appearance of a number of truly poetical forms; for while attempting to reproduce solely whatever was essential in any one subject, it was necessary to do justice to every subject chosen for treatment, and hence, though none did it consciously, the modes of representation were multiplied; though some were grotesque enough, and many an experiment proved unsuccessful.

Without question, Wieland possessed the finest natural gifts of all. He had developed early in those ideal regions in which youth loves to linger; but when so-called experience, contact with the world and women, spoilt his delight in those realms, he turned to the actual, and derived pleasure for himself and others from the conflict between the two worlds, where, in light encounters, half in earnest, half in jest, his talent found fullest scope. How many of his brilliant productions appeared during my student days! Musarion had the greatest effect upon me, and I can yet remember the place and the very spot where I looked at the first proof-sheet, which Oeser showed me. It was here that I seemed to see antiquity living anew before me. Everything that is plastic in Wieland’s genius showed itself here in the highest perfection; and since the Timon-like hero Phanias, after being condemned to unhappy abstinence, is finally reconciled to his mistress and to the world, we may be content to live through the misanthropic epoch with him. For the rest, we were not sorry to recognize in these works a cheerful aversion to exalted sentiments, which are apt to be wrongly applied to life, and then frequently fall under the suspicion of fanaticism. We pardoned the author for pursuing with ridicule what we held to be true and venerable, the more readily, as he thereby showed that he was unable to disregard it.

What a miserable reception was accorded such efforts by the criticism of the time may be seen from the first volumes of the Universal German Library. Honorable mention is made there of the Comic Tales, but there is no trace of any insight into the character of the literary species. The reviewer, like every one at that time, had formed his taste on examples. He never takes into consideration that in criticizing such parodistical works, it is necessary first of all to have the noble, beautiful original before one’s eyes, in order to see whether the parodist has really discovered in it a weak and comical side, whether he has borrowed anything from it, or whether, under the pretense of imitation, he has given us an excellent invention of his own. Of all this there is not a word, but isolated passages in the poems are praised or blamed. The reviewer, as he himself confesses, has marked so much that pleased him, that he cannot quote it all in print. When they go so far as to greet the exceedingly meritorious translation of Shakespeare with the exclamation: “By rights, a man like Shakespeare should not have been translated at all!” it will be understood, without further remark, how immeasurably the Universal German Library was behindhand in matters of taste, and that young people, animated by true feelings, had to look about them for other guiding stars.

The subject-matter which in this manner more or less determined the form was sought by the Germans in the most varied quarters. They had handled few national subjects, or none at all. Schlegel’s Hermann only pointed the way. The idyllic tendency had immense vogue. The want of distinctive character in Gessner, with all his gracefulness and childlike sincerity, made every one think himself capable of the like. In the same manner, those poems which were intended to portray a foreign nationality were founded merely on a common humanity, as, for instance, the Jewish Pastoral Poems, all those on patriarchal subjects, and any others based on the Old Testament. Bodmer’s Noachide was a perfect type of the watery deluge that swelled high around the German Parnassus, and abated but slowly. Anacreontic dallyings likewise made it possible for numberless mediocre writers to meander aimlessly in a vague prolixity. The precision of Horace compelled the Germans, though but slowly, to conform to him. Neither did the burlesques, modeled, for the most part, on Pope’s Rape of the Lock, succeed in inaugurating better times.

Yet I must here mention a delusion, which was taken as seriously as it appears ridiculous on closer inspection. The Germans had now an adequate historical knowledge of all the kinds of poetry in which the various nations had excelled. This assignment of poetry to its respective pigeon-holes—a process in reality fatal to its true spirit—had been accomplished with approximate completeness by Gottsched in his Critical Art of Poetry, and at the same time he had shown that in all the divisions were to be found excellent works by German poets. And so it went on. Every year the collection became more considerable, but every year one work ousted some other from the place in which it had hitherto shone. We now possessed, if not Homers, yet Virgils and Miltons; if not a Pindar, yet a Horace; of Theocrituses there was no lack; and thus they soothed themselves by comparisons from abroad, whilst the mass of poetical works constantly increased, so that at last it was possible to make comparisons at home.

With the cultivation of the German language and style in every department, the power of criticism also increased; but while the reviews then published of works upon religious and ethical as well as medical subjects were admirable, the critiques of poems, and of whatever else relates to belles lettres, will be found, if not pitiful, at least very feeble. This holds good of the Literary Epistles and the Universal German Library, as well as of the Library of Belles Lettres, and might easily be verified by notable instances.

However great the confusion of these varied efforts, the only thing to be done by any one who contemplated producing anything original, and was not content to take the words and phrases out of the mouths of his predecessors, was to search unremittingly for some subject-matter for treatment. Here, too, we were greatly misled. People were constantly repeating a saying of Kleist’s, who had replied playfully, with humor and truth, to those who took him to task on account of his frequently lonely walks: “that he was not idle at such times—he was hunting for images.” This simile was very suitable for a nobleman and soldier, for in it he contrasted himself with men of his own rank, who never missed an opportunity of going out, with their guns on their shoulders, to shoot hares and partridges. Accordingly we find in Kleist’s poems many such individual images, happily seized, although not always happily elaborated, which remind us pleasantly of nature. But now we, too, were admonished quite seriously to go out hunting for images, and in the end to some slight purpose, although Apel’s Garden, the Cake Gardens, the Rosental, Gohlis, Raschwitz and Konnewitz, were the oddest ground in which to beat up poetical game. And yet I was often induced from this motive to contrive that my walk should be solitary. But few either beautiful or sublime objects met the eye of the beholder, and in the truly splendid Rosental the gnats in summer made all gentle thoughts impossible, so by dint of unwearied, persevering endeavor, I became extremely attentive to the small life of nature (I should like to use this word after the analogy of “still life”). Since the charming little incidents to be observed within this circle are but unimportant in themselves, I accustomed myself to see in them a significance, tending now towards the symbolical and now towards the allegorical, according as intuition, feeling, or reflection predominated.

Whilst I was playing the part of shepherd on the Pleisse, and was childishly absorbed in such tender subjects, always choosing such only as I could easily recapture and lock in my heart, greater and more important themes had long before been provided for German poets.

It was Frederick the Great and the events of the Seven Years’ War which first gave to German literature a real and noble vitality. All national poetry cannot fail to be insipid, or inevitably becomes so, if it is not based on the man who stands first among men, upon the experiences which come to the nations and their leaders, when both stand together as one man. Kings should be represented in the midst of warfare and danger, for there they are made to appear the highest, just because the fate of the lowest depends upon them and is shared by them. In this way they become far more interesting than the gods themselves, who, when they have decided the destinies of men, do not share them. In this sense every nation that wishes to count for anything ought to possess an epic, though not necessarily in the form of an epic poem.

The war-songs first sung by Gleim deserve their high place in German poetry, because they were the outcome of and contemporary with the events they celebrate; and furthermore, because the felicitous form, suggestive of a combatant’s utterance in the thick of the fray, impresses us with its absolute effectiveness.

Ramler sings in different but dignified strains the exploits of his king. All his poems are thoughtful, and fill our minds with great and elevating subjects, and on that account alone possess an indestructible value.

For the significance of the subject treated of is the Alpha and Omega of art. Of course, no one will deny that genius, or cultivated artistic talent, can by its method of treatment make anything out of anything, and render the most refractory subject amenable. But on close inspection the result is rather an artistic feat than a work of art, which latter should be based on a fitting subject, so that in the end the skill, the care, the diligence of the artist’s treatment only brings out the dignity of the subject in greater attractiveness and splendor.

Prussians, and with them Protestant Germany, therefore gained a treasure-trove for their literature, which was lacking to the other party, who have not been able to repair the deficiency by subsequent efforts. In the high idea which they cherished of their King, the Prussian writers first found inspiration, and fostered it all the more zealously because he in whose name they did everything would have nothing whatever to say to them. French civilization had been widely introduced into Prussia at an earlier date by the French colony, and again later by the King’s preference for French culture and French financial methods. The effect of this French influence was to rouse the Germans to antagonism and resistance—a result decidedly beneficial in its operation. Equally fortunate for the development of literature was Frederick’s antipathy to German. They did everything to attract the King’s attention, not indeed to be honored, but only to be noticed by him; yet they did it in German fashion, from inner conviction; they did what they held to be right, and desired and wished that the King should recognize and prize this as right. That did not and could not happen; for how can it be expected that a king, who wishes to live and enjoy himself intellectually, should waste his years waiting to see what he thinks barbarous developed and rendered enjoyable too late? In matters of trade and manufacture, it is true, he pressed upon himself, but especially upon his people, very mediocre substitutes instead of excellent foreign wares; but in this department of life everything is perfected more rapidly, and it does not take a man’s life-time to bring such things to maturity.

But I must here, first of all, make honorable mention of one work, the most genuine product of the Seven Years’ War, altogether North German in its national sentiment; it is the first dramatic work founded upon important events of specific contemporary value, and therefore produced an incalculable effect—Minna von Barnhelm. Lessing, who, unlike Klopstock and Gleim, was fond of laying aside his personal dignity, because he was confident that he could resume it at any moment, delighted in a dissipated, worldly life and the society of taverns, as he always needed some strong external excitement to counterbalance his exuberant intellectual activity; and for this reason also he had joined the suite of General Tauentzien. It is easy to see how this drama was generated betwixt war and peace, hatred and affection. It was this production which successfully opened to the literary and middle-class world, in which poetic art had hitherto moved, a view into a higher, more significant world.

The hostile relations in which Prussians and Saxons had stood towards each other during this war, could not be removed by its termination. The Saxon now felt for the first time the whole bitterness of the wounds which the upstart Prussian had inflicted upon him. Political peace could not immediately reëstablish a peace between their hearts. But the establishment of this peace was represented symbolically in Lessing’s drama. The grace and amiability of the Saxon ladies conquer the worth, the dignity, and the stubbornness of the Prussians, and, in the principal as well as in the subordinate characters, a happy union of bizarre and contradictory elements is artistically represented.

If I have caused my readers some bewilderment by these cursory and desultory remarks on German literature, I have succeeded in giving them a conception of the chaotic condition of my poor brain at a time when, in the conflict of two epochs so important for the national literature, so much that was new crowded in upon me before I could come to terms with the old, so much that was old still maintained its hold upon me, though I already believed I might with good reason renounce it altogether.