Goethe’s Literary Essays | Project Gutenberg

Everywhere we hear and read of the progress of the human race, of the broader view of international and human relations. Since it is not my office here to define or qualify these broad generalities, I shall merely acquaint my friends with my conviction that there is being formed a universal world-literature, in which an honorable rôle is reserved for us Germans. All the nations review our work; they praise, censure, accept, and reject, imitate and misrepresent us, open or close their hearts to us. All this we must accept with equanimity, since this attitude, taken as a whole, is of great value to us.

We experience the same thing from our own countrymen, and why should the nations agree among themselves if fellow-citizens do not understand how to unite and coöperate with each other? In a literary sense we have a good start of the other nations; they will always be learning to prize us more, even if they only show it by borrowing from us without thanks, and making use of us without giving recognition of the fact.

As the military and physical strength of a nation develops from its internal unity and cohesion, so must its æsthetic and ethical strength grow gradually from a similar unanimity of feeling and ideas. This, however, can only be accomplished with time. I look back as a coöperator in this work over many years and reflect how a German literature has been brought together out of heterogeneous, if not conflicting, elements,—a literature which for that reason is only peculiarly one in the sense that it is composed in one language,—which, however, out of a variety of wholly different talents and abilities, minds and actions, criticisms and undertakings, gradually draws out to the light of day the true inner soul of a people.

My sanguine suggestion that our present active epoch with its increasing communication between the nations might soon hope for a world-literature has been taken up by chance by our neighbors of the west, who indeed can accomplish great things in this same direction. They express themselves on the subject in the following manner:

“Every nation indeed, when its turn comes, feels that tension which, like the attractive power of physical bodies, draws one towards the other, and eventually will unite in one universal sympathy all the races of which humanity consists. The endeavor of scholars to understand one another and compare one another’s work is by no means new; the Latin language in former times has provided an admirable vehicle for this purpose. But however they labored and strove, the barriers by which peoples were separated began to divide them also, and hurt their intellectual intercourse. The instrument of which they made use could only satisfy a certain range and course of ideas, so that they touched each other only through the intellect, instead of directly through the feelings and through poetry. Travel, the study of languages, periodical literature, have taken the place of that universal language, and establish many intimate and harmonious relations which it could never cultivate. Even the nations that devote themselves chiefly to trade and industry are most concerned with this exchange of ideas. England, whose home activity is so tremendous, whose life is so busy, that it seems as if it would be able to study nothing but itself, at the present time is showing a symptom of this need and desire to broaden its connection with the outside world and widen its horizon. Its Reviews, with which we are already familiar, are not enough for them; two new periodicals, devoted especially to foreign literature, and coöperating together towards that end, are to appear regularly.”

Of the first of these English journals, The Foreign Quarterly Review, there are already two volumes in our hands; the third we expect directly, and we shall in the course of these pages often refer to the views of important men who are giving proof, with so much insight and industry, of their interest in foreign literature.

But first of all we must confess that it made us smile to see, at the end of the old year, more than thirty literary almanacs (Taschenbücher), already noticed in an English journal,—not indeed reviewed, but at least referred to with some characteristic comments. It is pleasant that our productions of this sort meet with approval and find a market over there, since we are also obliged to buy their similar works for good money. Little by little we shall discover, I suppose, whether the balance of this trade turns out to our advantage.

But these trivial considerations must give place to more serious ones. Left to itself every literature will exhaust its vitality, if it is not refreshed by the interest and contributions of a foreign one. What naturalist does not take pleasure in the wonderful things that he sees produced by reflection in a mirror? Now what a mirror in the field of ideas and morals means, every one has experienced in himself, and once his attention is aroused, he will understand how much of his education he owes to it.

The Edinburgh Review, as well as the current Foreign and Foreign Quarterly Reviews, we can only mention briefly here.

These journals, as they win an ever wider public, will contribute in the most effective way towards that universal world-literature for which we are hoping. Only, we repeat, the idea is not that the nations shall think alike, but that they shall learn how to understand each other, and, if they do not care to love one another, at least that they will learn to tolerate one another. Several societies now exist for the purpose of making the British Isles acquainted with the continent, and are working effectively and with a practical unanimity of opinion. We continentals can learn from them the intellectual background of the time across the channel, what they are thinking and what their judgments about things are. On the whole, we acknowledge gladly that they go about the work with intense seriousness, with industry and tolerance and general good-will. The result for us will be that we shall be compelled to think again of our own recent literature, which we have in some measure already put to one side, and to consider and examine it anew. Especially worthy of notice is their profitable method of starting with any considerable author, and going over the whole field in which he worked.

The methods and manner of these critics deserve our consideration in many ways. Although varying on many points, yet there is an agreement in criticism upon the main issues, which seems to indicate, if not a coterie, yet a number of contemporary critics who have come to a similar attitude and point of view. Worthy of our admiration are the honest and sincere application, the careful labors, which they devote to surveying our complex artistic and literary world, and to looking over it with a just and fair attitude and vision. We shall hope often to be able to return to them and their work.

If a world-literature, such as is inevitable with the ever-increasing facility of communication, is to be formed in the near future, we must expect from it nothing more and nothing different from what it can and does accomplish.

The wide world, extensive as it is, is only an expanded fatherland, and will, if looked at aright, be able to give us no more than what our home soil can endow us with also. What pleases the crowd spreads itself over a limitless field, and, as we already see, meets approval in all countries and regions. The serious and intellectual meets with less success, but those who are devoted to higher and more profitable things will learn to know each other more quickly and more intimately. For there are everywhere in the world such men, to whom the truth and the progress of humanity are of interest and concern. But the road which they pursue, the pace which they keep, is not to everybody’s liking; the particularly aggressive wish to advance faster, and so turn aside, and prevent the furthering of that which they could promote. The serious-minded must therefore form a quiet, almost secret, company, since it would be futile to set themselves against the current of the day; rather must they manfully strive to maintain their position till the flood has past. Their principal consolation, and indeed encouragement, such men must find in the fact that truth is serviceable. If they can discover this relation, and exhibit its meaning and influence in a vital way, they will not fail to produce a powerful effect, indeed one that will extend over a range of years.

Since it is often profitable to present to the reader not one’s bald thought, but rather to awaken and stimulate his own thinking, it may be useful to recall the above observation which I had occasion to write down some time ago.

The question whether this or that occupation to which a man devotes himself is useful recurs often enough in the course of time, and must come before us especially at this time when it is no longer permitted to any one to live quietly according to his tastes, satisfied, moderate, and without demands upon him. The external world is so importunate and exciting that each one of us is threatened with being carried away in the whirlpool. In order to satisfy his own needs, each one sees himself compelled to attend almost instantaneously to the requirements of others; and the question naturally arises whether he has any skill or readiness to satisfy these pressing duties. There seems to be nothing left to us to say than that only the purest and strictest egoism can save us; but this must be a self-conscious resolution, thoroughly felt and calmly expressed.

Let each one ask himself for what he is best fitted, and let him cultivate this most ardently and wisely in himself and for himself; let him consider himself successively as apprentice, as journeyman, as older journeyman, and finally, but with the greatest of circumspection, as master.

If he can, with discriminating modesty, increase his demands on the external world only with the growth of his own capabilities, thus insinuating himself into the world’s good graces by being useful, then he will attain his purpose step by step, and if he succeeds in reaching the highest level, will be able to influence men and things with ease.

Life, if he studies it closely, will teach him the opportunities and the hindrances which present or intrude themselves upon him; but this much the man of practical wisdom will always have before his eyes:—To tire oneself out for the sake of the favor of to-day brings no profit for to-morrow or after.

Every nation has peculiarities by which it is distinguished from the others, and it is by these distinguishing traits that nations are also attracted to and repelled from one another. The external expressions of these inner idiosyncrasies appear to the others in most cases strikingly disagreeable, or, if endurable, merely amusing. This is why, too, we always respect a nation less than it deserves. The inner traits, on the other hand, are not known or recognized, by foreigners or even by the nation itself; for the inner nature of a whole nation, as well as the individual man, works all unconsciously. At the end we wonder, we are astounded, at what appears.

These secrets I do not pretend to know, much less to have the cleverness to express them if I did. Only this much will I say,—that, so far as my insight goes, the characteristic intellectual and spiritual activity of the French is now at its height again, and for that reason will exercise soon again a great influence on the civilized world. I would gladly say more, but it leads too far; one has to be so detailed in order to be understood, and to make acceptable what one has to say.

It was not merely permissible but highly admirable that a society of Germans was formed for the special purpose of studying German poetry; since these persons, as cultured men acquainted with the other fields of German literature and politics both generally and in detail, were well qualified to select and judge works of belles-lettres and use them as a basis for intellectual, as well as pleasurable and stimulating, conversation.

Some one may say that the best literature of a nation cannot be discovered or recognized, unless one brings home to one’s mind the whole complex of its circumstances and social conditions. Something of all this can be obtained from the papers, which give us enough detailed information of public affairs. But this is not enough; we must add to it what foreigners in their critical journals and reviews are accustomed to say about themselves and about other nations, particularly the Germans,—their ideas and opinions, their interest in and reception of our productions. If one wishes, for instance, to acquaint oneself with modern French literature, one should study the lectures which have been given for the last two years and are now appearing in print,—lectures such as Guizot’s Cours d’histoire moderne, Villemain’s Cours de littérature française, and Cousin’s Cours de l’histoire de la philosophie. The significance they have both at home and for us comes out thus in the clearest fashion. Still more effective and interesting are perhaps the frequent numbers and volumes of Le Globe, La Revue française, and the daily, Le Temps. None of these can be spared, if we are to keep vividly before our eyes both sides of these great movements in France and all the subsidiary currents that spring from them.

French poetry, like French literature, is not distinct in spirit from the life and passions of the nation as a whole. In recent times it appears naturally always as the “Opposition,” and summons every genius to make the most of his talent in resisting the “powers that be,” which since they are endowed with force do not need to be intellectual or spiritual.

If we follow this verse, which reveals so much, we see deep down into the soul of the nation, and from the way in which they judge us, more or less favorably, we can at the same time learn to judge ourselves. And it can do no harm to have some one make us think about ourselves.

Whoever follows the course proposed above will very quickly become completely informed of all public affairs and semi-public affairs. In our present admirably managed book-trade it is possible to obtain books speedily, instead of waiting, as has often been my experience, until the author takes occasion to send his work as a gift, so that I have often read the book long before I received it from him.

From all this it is evident that it is no light task to keep in touch with all the literature of the present day. Of the English, as well as the Italian, I shall have to speak again more particularly, for there is much more to be said.

There has been talk for some time of a general world-literature, and indeed not without justice. For the nations, after they had been shaken into confusion and mutual conflict by the terrible wars, could not return to their settled and independent life again without noticing that they had learned many foreign ideas and ways, which they had unconsciously adopted, and had come to feel here and there previously unrecognized spiritual and intellectual needs. Out of this arose the feeling of neighborly relations, and, instead of shutting themselves up as before, they gradually came to desire the adoption of some sort of more or less free spiritual intercourse.

This movement, it is true, has lasted only a short time, but still long enough to start considerable speculation, and to acquire from it, as one must always from any kind of foreign trade, both profit and enjoyment.

GOETHE’S THEORY OF A WORLD LITERATURE