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Indiana University Studies 
In view of these data, we are inclined to believe that the 
phrase was perfectly well known from the very outset. The 
fact that it was not more widely used in literature during the 
early period we would explain by the following assumption. 
The prevailing attitude toward Storm and Stress from 1780 
until well into the nineteenth century was a satirical one, as 
we shall see. Now since the designation “Sturm und Drang” 
conveys no necessarily satirical or derogatory impression, it 
was often avoided in favor of such derisive terms as “Periode 
der Originalgenies” or “Kraftgenies,” or the like. Used spas- 
modically by Knigge, Kastner, Iffland, Schlegel, Bouterwek, 
Koberstein, Tieck, Gervinus, and others, and orally perhaps 
much more often (cf. Tieck’s “der stehende Beiname”), it 
gradually made headway and, with a decreasingly deprecia- 
tory and more detached attitude toward the movement, finally 
became standard. 
One more point in Hildebrand’s Worterbuch article de- 
serves to be discussed. It is his reference to the fact that in 
Goethe, just as in Horn and Menzel, the name “Sturm und 
Drang” does not yet appear. 
Goethe very early in life shows the influence of the so- 
called Geniekultus. Weissenfels 44 sees in Goethe, even during 
the Leipzig period, signs of both phases of Storm and Stress, 
namely “Kraftgenie” and “Originalgenie.” Indeed, the fol- 
lowing passage to his sister Cornelia in a letter from Leipzig 
of May 11, 1767, reveals this clearly: 45 
Man lasse doch mich gehen; habe ich Genie, so werde ich Poete 
werden, und wenn mich kein Mensch verbessert; habe ich keins, so 
helfen alle Critiken nichts. 
With Gotz von Berlichingen of course he became the pro- 
tagonist of the movement and with Werther he fortified his 
leadership. But he had outlived the period soon after his 
settlement in Weimar, as more than one of his satirical skits 
at the expense of his erstwhile companions shows. The fol- 
lowing passages from Dichtung und Wahrheit, finally, tell us 
how far the aging Goethe had left Storm and Stress behind. 
3. Teil, 11. Buch: 46 
Alles dieses und manches andere, recht und toricht, wahr und 
halbwahr, das auf uns einwirkte, trug noch mehr bei, die Be- 
44 Op. cit., p. 58. 
45 Weimar ed., IV. Abteilung, 1. Band, p. 89. 
40 Weimar ed. 28, pp. 67-68. 
