The most important work of his old age is the Second Part of “Faust.” Some portions of it had been written even before the appearance of the First Part; but the work belongs in the main to his latest period. He finished it before his last birthday, and told Eckermann that, this task being done, he would regard the rest of his life as “a pure gift.”
“Faust,” therefore, had accompanied him during the entire course of his literary career. In it he had represented all the various phases of evolution through which his thought and character had passed.
As a work of art, the Second Part is far inferior to the First. It lacks the unity which is to some extent given to the First Part by Faust’s relation to Gretchen; and it contains a multitude of symbolical ideas, the meaning of which it is hard to unravel. We miss, too, the fire and glow of the scenes conceived in Goethe’s early days, when “Faust” served as the direct imaginative expression of his own tumultuous thoughts and longings. Nevertheless, there are individual passages, especially in the scenes relating to Helen of Troy, full of splendid power; and the idea in which all is summed up is in every way worthy even of the grandest of the original elements of Goethe’s scheme. Before dying, Faust feels that a moment might come to which, with all his heart, he could say, “Oh, stay! thou art so fair!” But it is a moment which Mephistopheles, the representative of the evil in his nature, could never have secured for him. It is a moment of pure delight springing from the contemplation of the results of disinterested labour in the service of humanity.
This was Goethe’s last word to the world; the expression of his deepest and most settled conviction. To make selfish joy, as Faust had done, the supreme object of existence—that way lie perpetual evil and misery; to sacrifice self, to bring the will into harmony with ideal law, in all things to think and act in a spirit of love and brotherhood, as Faust, after fierce struggle, learns to do—in that, and in that alone, can man find a life truly fitted to his nature and capable of satisfying his deepest, inmost wants. The idea with which Goethe seeks to solve the problem of “Faust” is the old, yet ever new, doctrine—“He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”
For many years Goethe enjoyed excellent health, and from day to day his work went on without serious interruption. The end—described simply and graphically in Düntzer’s “Goethes Leben”—came somewhat suddenly, when he was in his eighty-third year. On Thursday, March 15, 1832, when the young Grand Duchess paid him her usual weekly visit, he had much to say about a drawing which a friend had sent him from Pompeii. It was a sketch of an ancient design in mosaics, representing a scene in the life of Alexander the Great. The Grand Duchess saw in her friend no sign of an approaching illness, nor was Goethe, when he retired to his room in the evening, conscious of any physical change. During the night, however, he could not sleep, and next morning it was obvious that he had lost much of his usual vigour. Between the 19th and the 20th of March, about midnight, he had severe pains in the chest and suffered from an attack of breathlessness. Even these symptoms did not alarm him, and on the 20th he had strength enough to sign an official paper securing that aid should be granted to a lady whose talents as an artist had excited his admiration. But life was gradually ebbing away. On the morning of the 22nd of March, he sat in his armchair, holding the hand of his daughter-in-law, Ottilie, in his own, and conversing with her brightly. As he talked, his words came with increasing difficulty, and at last he wholly lost the power of speech. He made signs in the air, and, when his arm dropped, moved his fingers as if writing on his knee. Shortly before midday, leaning back in a corner of his chair, he softly passed away.
If we look back upon the course of Goethe’s long life, it is impossible not to be struck with admiration when we think of the extraordinary range of his activity. There are few departments of intellectual life into which he did not penetrate, and in everything which, as a thinker and writer, he undertook, he displayed the highest order of mental power. As a man of science, he ranks among the foremost investigators of his age. He had no sooner begun to reflect seriously on scientific problems than he placed himself in what proved to be the central current of modern thought. The supreme idea of the nineteenth century is the idea of evolution, and the position of those inquirers who immediately preceded Darwin is necessarily determined by the answer which must be given to the questions—Were they, in their observations and speculations, guided by aims which in the main accord with Darwin’s principle? Were they among the forerunners who prepared the way for the doctrine in which all that was best and most vital in pre-Darwinian scientific thought is summed up? In regard to Goethe, these questions must be answered emphatically in the affirmative. His discoveries, resulting almost equally from the exercise of his perceptive and imaginative faculties, were on the lines which led directly to the theory of evolution. It is only, indeed, since the law of evolution was detected, that the world has recognized the full meaning and importance of his contributions to scientific progress.
As a writer on art, Goethe was less original than as a man of science. But here also he was on the track that has been followed by the greatest of his successors. Greek architecture and sculpture Winckelmann had made in part intelligible; and, having absorbed his teaching, Goethe, as the result of his own observations in Italy, had many a luminous suggestion to offer as to masterpieces of ancient art, and as to the general processes of development with which they were related. In his study of modern art it was to the painters and sculptors whose technical skill was used in the service of high imaginative ideas that he instinctively turned; and no writer of his day sought more earnestly to show how little can be achieved in art if it is divorced from serious and noble thought. He felt, too, as only a few of the world’s intellectual guides have yet felt, how great is the place which properly belongs to art as one of the influences capable of giving dignity and refinement both to individual and to social life.
Great, however, as were Goethe’s achievements in the criticism of art and in science, they are of almost slight importance in comparison with his work as an imaginative writer. As a writer of romance, as a dramatist, as a lyrical poet, he towers high above all other men of letters whom Germany has produced. In the literature of his country he takes the rank which in that of Greece belongs to Homer, in that of Italy to Dante, in that of England to Shakespeare. Almost every element of human life is touched in his creations, yet he has told us that his writings are to be regarded as parts of one great “confession.” However remote they may seem to be from his own experience, they are directly or indirectly rooted in the facts of his personal history. To this is due one of the most distinctive qualities of his work both in verse and in prose—the extraordinary vitality of his ideas; the vividness with which all that he depicts is made to pass before us, as if it were a part of the outward and visible world. He cannot, however, be truly described as a realist, if by a realist is meant one who seeks to do no more than represent exactly what he himself has seen or felt. In taking reality as the basis of ideal structures, Goethe severed from it associations which were only of temporary or accidental interest. He brought it into new relations, touched it with the transforming power of the imagination, and gave to individual facts universal significance. Hence the greatest of his works are as fresh to-day as when he wrote them; and they could lose their living power only if human nature itself were radically changed.
As a critic of literature, he had the sanity of judgment and the intuitive insight which mark all poets of the highest genius. He has never, perhaps, been surpassed in his power of detecting the signs of a genuinely creative capacity; and this power, remarkable even in his youth, did not desert him in old age. He was constantly on the outlook for new intellectual forces, and, when they appeared, seldom failed to divine the direction in which they were moving, and the nature of the results they were likely to accomplish. Byron, Scott, Manzoni, Victor Hugo, Carlyle—all were hailed by Goethe as, in different ways, potent representatives of the later periods of the era to which he himself belonged. It did not occur to him to think of them as rivals. He thought only of his good fortune in having lived to see them carry on the movement of European literature.
When a writer achieves world-wide fame, we cannot resist the impulse to ask what he has to tell us as to the great, enduring spiritual problems of existence. We have seen how deeply Goethe, in youth, was influenced by Spinoza; and during the whole of his mature life his conception of the universe in some respects closely resembled that of the teacher whom he had so profoundly revered. Atheism was not only repugnant to his feeling, but seemed to him the last development of human folly. To him the world was but the manifestation of Divine energy; he thought of it as “the living garment of the Deity.” So far, his idea of the ultimate nature of things was simply Spinoza’s idea; but, when he had fought his way to an independent conviction, he differed widely from Spinoza in his mode of conceiving the Reality which reveals itself in the phenomenal order. The God in whom Goethe believed was not simply “Substance.” The enduring types or patterns to which, in his interpretation of Nature, he attributed such vast importance, imply the existence of something more and deeper than abstract force. They are Divine ideas, and would be unintelligible apart from Mind or Reason. That the word Reason, when applied to the creative energy of the universe, expresses absolute truth, Goethe nowhere says; but he held that man cannot but form far himself some representation of the Unknowable Power, and that to represent it as Reason is the least inadequate way in which we can catch some glimpse of its unutterable splendour.
The notion that the world was formed for man seemed to Goethe the offspring of extravagant self-conceit. Yet he had no mean estimate of the greatness of the human spirit. He recognized in it powers capable of indefinite growth and expansion, and did not doubt that there is an invisible realm in which, after it has fulfilled its mission in the present world, it passes to new and higher destinies. It appeared to him, however, strange and most unreasonable that men should miss what is great and worthy in this life by dreaming vaguely about a life to come. He conceived that the truest preparation for whatever may be in store for us in other states of existence must be the wise cultivation of the faculties with which we are endowed; and among these faculties he gave the highest place to the impulses which bring men into intimate and helpful association with their fellows.
The conduct of life he made a subject of profound reflection, and no modern writer illuminates it with a light at once so clear and so steady. It is for this reason that a quite peculiar relation springs up between Goethe and those who feel the power and the charm of his genius. They go back again and again to his works, his letters, his “Conversations,” and never fail to find in them some fruitful word that brings with it fresh hope and courage. His wise and noble sayings are the more inspiring because they almost invariably suggest deeper meanings than they directly utter. The mind, in appropriating them, is placed in contact, not with abstract dogmas, but with life itself, and is stimulated to the free exercise of its own energies.
Goethe had an almost unequalled opportunity of developing his powers, and apprehended vividly the full extent of the obligation it imposed. His life, therefore, has the note of greatness which distinguishes his writings. It was a life of lofty aim and strenuous endeavour, and left a mark, wide, deep, and abiding, on the thought and aspiration of mankind.
The End.
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, V, W, X.
A.
“Alexis und Dora,” 146
Anson, Lord, his “Voyage Round the World,” 16
Arnim, Bettina von, 159
“Aufgeregten, Die,” 132
B.
Ballads, by Goethe, 147;
by Schiller, 147
Basedow, 80
Beaumarchais, Memoirs of, 68
“Belinden, An,” 84
Behrisch, 27
Böhme, Professor, 25
Bologna, 107, 111
Boswell, 34, 175
Breitkopf, 27, 34
Brentano, Maximiliane, 59
Brion, Frederika, Goethe’s love for, 41;
his parting from, 43;
her influence on Goethe, 45;
her relation to Maria in “Goetz,” 57;
to Maria in “Clavigo,” 69;
to Gretchen in “Faust,” 75;
Goethe visits, in 1779, 99;
in “Dichtung und Wahrheit,” 42, 167
Buff, Charlotte, 51, 58, 60, 66
C.
Carlyle, 176, 178, 185
Cellini, Benvenuto, 148
“Claudine von Villa Bella,” 69, 114
“Clavigo,” 68
Clodius, 31
Cuvier, 177
D.
“Dichtung und Wahrheit,” 167
Dresden, Goethe studies the picture gallery at, 28
E.
Eckermann, 130, 174, 175, 176, 180
“Egmont,” 114, 120
Emmendingen, 59, 83, 99
Ernesti, 24
“Erwin und Elmire,” 69, 114
F.
Fahlmer, Johanna, 80, 99
“Faust,” in its earliest form, 72-78;
Goethe works at, in Rome, 114;
“Faust: A Fragment,” published in 1790, 127;
continued, 153;
the First Part, published in 1808, 161-166;
the Second Part, 180
Fichte, 150
Frankfort, Goethe’s knowledge of, 14
“Frankfurter Gelehrten Anzeigen,” the, 49
G.
“Geheimnisse, Die,” 103
Gellert, 24
Goethe, Catharine Elizabeth, Goethe’s mother, 12, 16, 18, 33, 160
Goethe, Christiane, Goethe’s wife, 117, 131, 154, 156, 157, 160, 169
Goethe, Cornelia, Goethe’s sister, 13, 17, 32, 48, 59, 83, 99
Goethe, Frederick George, Goethe’s grandfather, 11
Goethe, Johann Kaspar, Goethe’s father, 12, 14, 17, 19, 22, 90, 99
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, his birth, 11;
childhood and boyhood, 11-23;
at Leipsic, 24-32;
returns, as an invalid, from Leipsic to Frankfort, 32;
spends a year and a half at Frankfort, 32-34;
at Strasburg, 34-46;
influenced by Herder, 37;
his love for Frederika Brion, 41;
becomes an advocate at Frankfort, 47;
gives dramatic form to the history of Goetz von Berlichingen, 48, 54;
goes to Wetzlar, 50;
his love for Charlotte Buff, 51-52;
returns to Frankfort from Wetzlar, 53;
“Die Leiden des jungen Werthers,” 60;
“Clavigo,” 68;
“Stella,” 69;
poetic fragments, 70;
“Faust” in its earliest form, 72;
studies Spinoza, 78;
his friendship with Lavater, Basedow, Johanna Fahlmer, Frederick Jacobi, and the Counts Stolberg, 80-82;
his love for Lili Schönemann, 82-84;
quits Frankfort for Weimar, 85;
the first eleven years of his life at Weimar, 86-105;
his friendship with Charlotte von Stein, 91;
development of his character at Weimar, 93;
his official duties, 95-97;
his scientific discoveries, 100, 101, 128, 129, 183;
his visit to Italy, 106-115;
informal marriage, 118;
“Egmont,” 120;
“Iphigenie,” 122;
“Torquato Tasso,” 123;
“Faust: A Fragment,” 127;
becomes director of the Weimar Theatre, 131;
his feeling about the French Revolution, 132;
at Valmy, 133;
his friendship with Schiller, 134-155;
the “Xenien,” 138;
“Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre,” 138;
“Hermann und Dorothea,” 143;
ballads, 147;
lyrics, 147;
“Winckelmann und sein Jahrhundert,” 148;
“Die Natürliche Tochter,” 152;
his formal marriage, 157;
his relation to Bettina von Arnim, 159;
his mother’s death, 160;
his interviews with Napoleon, 161;
the First Part of “Faust,” 161;
“Die Wahlverwandtschaften,” 166;
“Dichtung und Wahrheit,” 167;
the “West-Oestlicher Divan,” 168;
his feeling about the War of Liberation, 168;
becomes First Minister of State, 169;
death of his wife, 169;
marriage of his son August, 170;
his relation to Wilhelmine Herzlieb and Marianne von Willemer, 171, 172;
his love for Ulrica von Levezow, 172;
the fiftieth anniversary of his arrival at Weimar, 173;
death of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Weimar, and of Goethe’s son, 174;
Eckermann’s “Conversations with Goethe,” 175;
visited by Heine, 175;
gift from his English admirers, 176;
ideas about the State and society, 176-178;
“Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre,” 178;
“Kunst und Alterthum,” 179;
his letters, 180;
the Second Part of “Faust,” 180;
his death, 182;
general view of his work, 183
Goethe, Julius August Walther, Goethe’s son, 129, 158, 170, 174
Goetz von Berlichingen, his autobiography, 48;
his history dramatized, 49;
the drama in its second form, 54;
reception of the play, 57
Goldsmith, his “Vicar of Wakefield,” 40, 41
“Götter, Helden, and Wieland,” 70
Gottsched, 31
Gretchen, Goethe’s first love, 21, 42, 167
Gretchen, in “Faust,” 75, 163
“Gross-Cophta,” 132
Göschen, 105
H.
“Harzreise im Winter,” 103
Heine, Heinrich, 175
Herder, Goethe meets, 37;
his character, 37;
his influence on Goethe, 39;
his criticism of the “Geschichte Gottfriedens von Berlichingen,” 54;
settles at Weimar, 89;
Goethe’s relations with, 90, 150
“Hermann und Dorothea,” 143-146
Herzlieb, Wilhelmine, 171, 172
“Hexenküche, Die,” written at Rome, 115
Homer, 40, 43, 184
Horn, Goethe’s friend, 25
Hubertusburg, Treaty of, 19
I.
Ilmenau, mines at, 96, 100, 117
“Ilmenau,” poem, 103
Intermaxilliary bone, Goethe’s discovery of, in human jaw, 101
“Iphigenie,” in its prose form, 102;
transformed to a poetical drama, 111;
criticism of, 122
“Italienische Reise,” the, 106
Italy, Goethe’s visit to, 106-115
J.
Jacobi, Frederick, 81, 104
Jena, Battle of, 156
Jerusalem, suicide of, 60
Joseph II., his coronation, 21
K.
Kanne, 31, 34
Kant, 135, 138, 150
Kestner, 52, 58, 66
Klettenberg, Fräulein von, her influence on Goethe, 33;
her death, 84;
the original of the “fair soul” in “Wilhelm Meister,” 143
Klopstock, his “Messiah,” 16;
writes to Goethe, 86
“Kunst und Alterthum,” 179
L.
Laroche, Frau von, 53, 59;
Maximiliane, 53
“Laune des Verliebten, Die,” 30
Lavater, 80
Leipsic, Goethe goes to, 22;
his life at, 24-32
Lessing, 29, 30, 138
Letters, Goethe’s, 180
Levezow, Ulrica von, 172
Liberation, War of, 168
“Lili’s Park,” 84
Loder, Professor, 101
Lyrics, Goethe’s, 147
M.
“Mahomet,” fragment of original drama, 70;
Voltaire’s, translated, 152
Mainz, 84, 133
Marie Antoinette, 36
Mephistopheles, in the original “Faust,” 76
Merck, 49, 53, 54, 57, 98
Metamorphosis of Plants, 128
Meyer, 110, 131, 154
Michael Angelo, 109
Mignon, 142
Mineralogy, Goethe’s study of, 100
“Mitschuldigen, Die,” 30
N.
Naples, 112
Napoleon, Goethe’s interviews with, 161
“Natürliche Tochter, Die,” 152
“Neue Liebe, Neues Leben,” 84
Newton, Goethe’s rejection of his theory of colours, 130
Nicolai, 67
Niederbronn, 36, 37, 50
O.
Oeser, influence of, on Goethe, 27;
Frederika, 28, 32
Ossian, 40, 43
Osteology, Goethe’s discoveries in 100, 101, 129, 179
Ottilie, Goethe’s daughter-in-law, 170, 182
P.
Paoli, General, 34
Percy’s “Reliques,” 40
Pindar, 51
“Prometheus,” 70
“Propyläen, Die,” 148
R.
“Rameaus Neffe,” 149
Raphael, 107, 109, 111
“Reineke Fuchs,” 133
Revolution, the French, 132
Robinson Crusoe, 16
Romantic School, the, 151
Rome, Goethe in, 107-112; 113-115
Römer, the, 15
“Römische Elegien,” 119
Rousseau, 38, 39, 60, 66, 112, 124
Ruskin, 178
S.
Salzmann, 35, 49
Schelling, 151
Schiller, publication of the “Robbers,” 103;
goes to Weimar, 134;
his first meeting with Goethe, 135,
settles at Jena, 135;
his marriage, 135;
asks Goethe to write for the Horen, 136;
his friendship with Goethe, 136;
unites with Goethe in writing the “Xenien,” 138;
his ballads, 147;
“Wallenstein,” 149;
settles at Weimar, 149;
his later plays, 152;
his death, 154
Schlegel, the brothers, 151
Schlosser, 25, 59, 99, 160
Schönemann, Lili, 82-84, 99, 167
Schönkopf, Annette, 26, 31, 34, 42, 167
Schröter, Corona, 93, 102
Scott, Sir Walter, 176
Sculpture, Goethe’s study of ancient, 109, 120
Shakespeare, 29, 39, 47, 55, 184
Sicily, Goethe in, 113
Sixtine Chapel, the, 109, 114
Soret, 177
Southey, 176
Spinoza, 78, 186
St. Gotthard, 83
St. Hilaire, Geoffrey, 177
St. Peter’s, 109
Staël, Madame de, 151
Stein, Charlotte von, 91, 99, 104, 106, 113, 117, 119
“Stella,” 69
Stilling, Jung, 35
Stock, 28
Stolberg, the Counts, 82, 83
Strasburg, Goethe’s life at, 34-46;
later visits to, 83, 99
Switzerland, Goethe’s first visit to, 83;
his second, 98;
his third, 148
T.
Textor, Johann Wolfgang, 12, 17
Tischbein, 110, 112
Thorane, Count, 18
“Torquato Tasso,” prose fragment, 103;
poetical drama, 124
Types, doctrine of, 101, 128, 129, 186
V.
Valmy, 133
Venice, 107, 129
Vesuvius, 112
Voss, his “Luise,” 143
W.
“Wahlverwandtschaften, Die,” 166
“Wanderer, The,” 50
“Wanderers Sturmlied,” 50
Wandering Jew, the, 70
Weimar, state of, when Goethe arrived there, 86;
the great period in history of, 150;
plundered, 156
Weimar, Duke of, invites Goethe to visit him, 84;
Goethe’s relations with, 86, 87;
Goethe becomes a member of his Privy Council, 91;
gives Goethe a house in the Park, 91;
Goethe goes with him to Berlin and Switzerland, 98;
relieves Goethe of many official duties, 116;
gives Goethe a house in Weimar, 131;
Goethe accompanies him in Champagne, 133;
he is made a Grand Duke, 169;
influenced by Fräulein Jagemann, 171;
the fiftieth anniversary of his accession, 173;
his death, 174
Weimar, Duchess of, 87, 119, 157, 174;
Duchess Dowager of, 88, 129
“Werther, Die Leiden des jungen,” origin of, 60;
the tale, 61;
characteristics of, 63;
reception of, 66
“West-Oestlicher Divan,” 168
Wetzlar, Goethe goes to, 50;
leaves, 53
Wieland, his influence on Goethe, 29;
Goethe writes a farce on, 70;
Goethe’s relations with, at Weimar, 88, 150
Willemer, Marianne von, 172
“Wilhelm Meister,” “Lehrjahre,” begun, 103;
“Lehrjahre,” completed, 138;
“Wanderjahre,” 178
Winckelmann, his death, 30;
at Rome Goethe is helped by his writings, 108, 120, 184;
Goethe’s book about, 148
Wordsworth, 176
X.
“Xenien,” 138