276 



GOETHE 



hexameter version of the old Low German beast- 

 epic, Reynard the Fox (printed 1794), he satirises 

 the lusts and greeds of men under the disguise 

 of beasts, and glances at the special vices of the 

 .Revolution days. In 1792 Goethe accompanied 

 the duke on the disastrous campaign against the 

 French ; he heard the cannonade of Valmy, and 

 went under fire in order to study his own sensa- 

 tions. Next year he was present at the siege of 

 Mainz, and watched the French garrison march out. 

 He has recorded his experiences and observations 

 in an admirable narrative. 



It is possible that at this time Goethe might 

 have grown discouraged and bitter were it not for 

 the friendship formed with Schiller in 1794. This 

 friendship and its fruits fill the memorable years 

 from that date to 1805, the year of Schiller's death. 

 Together they worked in the Horen, a review de- 

 signed to^elevate the literary standard in Germany. 

 Together" in the Xenien (1796) they discharged 

 their epigrams against their foes, the literary Phil- 

 istines. Schiller's sympathy encouraged Goethe 

 to set to work once more on Wilhelm Meisters 

 Lehrjuhre, but the later books (1796) of the novel 

 are written on a diminished scale as compared with 

 the^earlier. It may be said more than any other 

 work of Goethe to exhibit his criticism on life. 

 The charming epic-idyl, Hermann und Dorothea, 

 in which Goethe s feeling for what is best in Ger- 

 man life and character is happily united with his 

 artistic Hellenism, belongs to 1796-97. Then, as 

 it were in noble rivalry with Schiller, he wrote 

 several of his finest ballads-. He had also found 

 time to translate from the Italian the autobio- 

 graphy of Benvenuto Cellini. His third and last 

 visit to Switzerland (August-November 1797) 

 interrupted the flow of his creative activity, and 

 the works undertaken after his return were of less 

 happy conception. The literary and artistic 'periodi- 

 cal, Die Propylden .( 1798 ), was ill supported, and 

 did not live long. Next year he planned his epic, 

 Achilleis, but it did not advance beyond one can to. 

 His productive power slackening, he occupied 

 himself in part with translating and adapting 

 Voltaire's Mahomet ( 1799 ) and Tancrede ( 1800 ), and 

 at a somewhat later date he translated Diderot's 

 dialogue, Le Neveu de Rameau, from a manuscript. 

 His drama, Die natiirliche Tochter, founded on 

 a French memoir, was designed as one part of a 

 trilogy which should embody his mature views and 

 feelings, but in a wholly impersonal form, on the 

 events in France. It contains much admirable 

 writing, but has a certain abstract air and a 

 superficial coldness which prevented it from be- 

 coming popular. In 1801 Goethe was seriously ill, 

 and painful attacks recurred from time to time. 

 The death of Schiller in 1805 occurred while he 

 himself was ailing, and it affected him with pro- 

 found sorrow. 



National disaster followed hard upon this grievous 

 loss. In October 1806 the battle of Jena was fought, 

 and next day Napoleon entered Weimar. Two 

 years later, at the Congress of Erfurt, Goethe and 

 Napoleon met. ' Voilk un homme ! ' exclaimed 

 Napoleon ; and in his turn Goethe recognised in 

 the emperor a ' demonic ' power created to rule 

 the world. He has been blamed for lack of patriot- 

 ism ; but in a thoughtful kind of patriotism he was 

 not deficient ; his age and habits of mind forbade 

 patriotism of a passionate, demonstrative nature. 



In 1808-9 was written the novel, Die Wahlver- 

 ivandtschaften (Elective Affinities). It contrasts 

 characters of self-control with characters of impulse, 

 is disinterestedly just to both, insists on the duty 

 of renunciation, and shows the tragic consequences 

 of infidelity of heart in married life. Some traits 

 of the character of the heroine Ottilie are taken 

 from Minna Herzlieb, the adopted daughter of the 



Jena bookseller Frommann, a beautiful girl, who 

 might have grown too dear to Goethe if he had not 

 checked the feeling. A little later Goethe pub- 

 lished his two volumes on light and colour, Zur 

 Farbenlehre ; and these were speedily followed by 

 the first part of his autobiography Dichtung und 

 Wahrheit (1811), the continuation of which occu- 

 pied him from time to time during several subse- 

 quent years. It is a work of the deepest interest 

 to students of .Goethe's life and character, but its 

 details of fact are not always exact, and its record 

 of past feelings must be controlled by Goethe's 

 letters written at the dates of which he treats. 



The translation by Von Hammer of the Divan of 

 the Persian poet Hafiz interested Goethe, and was 

 an imaginative refuge from the political troubles 

 of 1813-14. He was moved to creation of poems in 

 a kindred spirit, and wrote (chiefly in 1814-15) the 

 lyrical pieces published in 1819 under the title West- 

 ostlicher Divan. Part of their inspiration came 

 from a Saint- Martin's summer of friendship that 

 felt for Marianne von Willemer, the young wife of 

 a Frankfort banker, and the Suleika of the Divan. 

 The poems are full of the sunny wisdom of a bright 

 old age, which can play without self-deception at 

 some of the passions of youth. A grief, real and 

 deep, came to Goethe in his sixty-seventh year in 

 the death of his 'wife. The Goethe house would 

 have been desolate, but that in the summer of 

 1817 his son August brought a bright and sweet- 

 tempered wife to dwell there, Ottilie von Pogwisch, 

 and in due time Goethe had three grandchildren 

 in whose happy childhood the old man found much 

 gladness. 



In his elder years Goethe still continued active. 

 In 1821 was published Wilhelm Meisters Wander - 

 jahre, a continuation of the Lehrjahre, but includ- 

 ing many short tales that hang loosely together. 

 Here Goethe sets forth an ideal of education, and 

 inculcates the duty of reverence, helpful human 

 toil, and brotherhood. The book was recast, and 

 in this second form was finished February 1829. 

 From time to time during more than half his life 

 he had worked at the second part of Faust; 

 it occupied him much during the closing years. 

 By August 1831 it was at length complete. The 

 hero Faust, leaving behind his first unhappy pas- 

 sion, advances through all forms of culture state- 

 craft, science, art, war to the final and simple 

 wisdom of disinterested service rendered to his 

 fellow-men. Such a spirit cannot fall into the 



S>wer of Mephistopheles, the demon of negation, 

 is soul is received into Paradise and is purified by 

 love. 



Goethe's interest in science and art was un- 

 diminished by age. He had grown into sympathy 

 with medieval art partly through the influence of 

 his young friend Sulpiz Boisser^e ; a universal 

 eclecticism is, however, the characteristic of his 

 mind in its latest development. He is best seen 

 during these years in his Conversations with Ecker- 

 mann. Sorrows came fast towards the end ; his 

 older friends, all but Knebel, disappeared one by 

 one. In 1828 died the grand-duke ; next year, the 

 Duchess Luise. Goethe's grief was deep ; but he 

 was even more violently shaken by the loss of his 

 son August, who died at Rome, October 1830. 

 Tended by his loving daughter-in-law, honoured 

 and reverenced by those around him, Goethe lived 

 until the spring of 1832. On March 22 of that 

 year, after a short illness, he died peacefully in his 

 arm-chair. His body lies near that of Schiller in 

 the ducal vault at Weimar. 



Goethe was a man of noble bodily presence both 

 in youth and age. His influence has affected every 

 civilised people, and seems still on the increase. 

 His teaching lias been styled the creed of culture ; 

 it is rather the creed of self-development with a 



