The Autobiography of Goethe

Fellow-boarders at Leipzig.

As long as Schlosser remained in Leipzig, I dined daily with him, and became acquainted with a very pleasant set of boarders. Some Livonians, and the son of Hermann (chief court-preacher in Dresden), afterwards burgermaster in Leipzig, and their tutor, Hofrath Pfeil, author of the Count von P., a continuation of Gellert's Swedish Countess; Zachariæ, a brother of the poet; and Krebel, editor of geographical and genealogical manuals; all these were polite, cheerful, and friendly men. Zachariä was the most quiet; Pfeil, an elegant man, who had something almost diplomatic about him, yet without affectation, and with great good-humour; Krebel, a genuine Falstaff, tall, corpulent, fair, with prominent, merry eyes, as bright as the sky, always happy and in good spirits. These persons all treated me in the most handsome manner, partly on Schlosser's account – partly, too, on account of my own frank good-humour and obliging disposition; and it needed no great persuasion to make me partake of their table in future. In fact, I remained with them after Schlosser's departure, deserted Ludwig's table, and found myself so much the better off in this society, which was limited to a certain number, as I was very well pleased with the daughter of the family, a very neat, pretty girl, and had opportunities to exchange friendly glances with her, – a comfort which I had neither sought nor found by accident since the mischance with Gretchen. I spent the dinner-hours with my friends cheerfully and profitably. Krebel, indeed, loved me, and continued to teaze me and stimulate me in moderation; Pfeil, on the contrary, showed his earnest affection for me by trying to guide and settle my judgment upon many points.

During this intercourse, I perceived through conversation, through examples, and through my own reflections, that the first step in delivering ourselves from the wishy-washy, long-winded, empty epoch, could be taken only by definiteness, precision, and brevity. In the style which had hitherto prevailed, one could not distinguish the commonplace from what was better, since all were brought down to a level with each other. 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 epigrammatical in his poems, terse in Minna, laconic in Emilia Galotti, – it was not till afterwards 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, becomes condensed and precise to a wonderful degree, 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 compressed, as also in his tragedies. By his emulation of the ancients, especially Tacitus, he sees himself constantly forced into narrower limits, by which he at last becomes obscure and unpalatable. Gerstenberg, a fine but eccentric talent, also distinguishes himself; his merit is appreciated, but on the whole he gives little pleasure. Gleim, diffuse and easy by nature, is scarcely once concise in his war-songs. Ramler is properly more a critic than a poet. He begins to collect what the Germans have accomplished in lyric poetry. He now finds that scarcely one poem fully satisfies him; he must leave out, arrange, and alter, that the things may have some shape or other. By this means he makes 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 interests itself sooner for a faulty individuality than for that which is produced or amended according to a universal law of taste. Rhythm lay yet in the cradle, and no one knew of a method to shorten its childhood. Poetical prose came into the ascendant. Gessner and Klopstock excited many imitators: others, again, still demanded an intelligible metre, and translated this prose into rhythm. But even these gave nobody satisfaction; for they were obliged to omit and add, and the prose original always passed for the better of the two. But the more, with all this, conciseness is aimed at, the more does a judgment become possible, since that which is important, being more closely compressed, allows a certain comparison at last. It happened, also, at the same time, that many kinds of truly poetical forms arose; for as they tried to represent only what was necessary in the objects they wished to imitate, they were forced to do justice to every one of these; and in this manner, though no one did it consciously, the modes of representation multiplied themselves, among which, indeed, were some which were really caricatures, while many an attempt proved unsuccessful.

Wieland.

Without question, Wieland possessed the finest natural gifts of all. He had early cultivated himself thoroughly in those ideal regions where youth so readily lingers; but when, by what is called experience, by the events of the world and women, these were rendered distasteful to him, he threw himself on the side of the actual, and pleased himself and others with the contest of the two worlds, where, in light skirmishing between jest and earnest, his talent displayed itself most beautifully. How many of his brilliant productions fall into the time of my academic years! Musarion had the most effect upon me, and I can yet remember the place and the very spot where I got sight of the first proof-sheet, which Oeser gave me. Here it was that I believed I saw antiquity again living and fresh. Everything that is plastic in Wieland's genius here showed itself in its highest perfection; and when that Phanias-Timon, condemned to an unhappy insipidity, finally reconciles himself to his mistress and to the world, one can well, with him, live through the misanthropical epoch. For the rest, we willingly conceded to these works a cheerful aversion from those exalted sentiments, which, by reason of their easy misapplication to life, are often open to the suspicion of dreaminess. We pardoned the author for prosecuting with ridicule what we held as true and reverend, the more readily, as he thereby gave us to understand that it caused him continual trouble.

How miserably criticism then received such labours may be seen from the first volumes of the Universal German Library. Of the Comic Tales there is honourable mention; but there is no trace of any insight into the character of the kind of poetry. The reviewer, like every one at that time, had formed his taste on examples. He never takes it into consideration that, in a judgment of such parodistical works, one must first of all have before one's eyes the original noble, beautiful object, in order to see whether the parodist has really gotten from it a weak and comical side, whether he has borrowed anything from it, or, under the appearance of such an imitation, has perhaps given us an excellent invention of his own. Of all this there is not a notion, but the poems are praised and blamed by passages. The reviewer, as he himself confesses, has marked so much that pleased him, that he cannot quote it all in print. When they even meet the highly meritorious translation of Shakspeare with the exclamation: "By rights, a man like Shakspeare should not have been translated at all!" it will be understood, without further remark, how infinitely the Universal German Library was behindhand in matters of taste, and that young people, animated by true feeling, had to look about them for other guiding stars. The material which, in this manner, more or less determined the form, the Germans sought everywhere. They had handled few national subjects, or none at all. Schlegel's Hermann only showed the way. The idyllic tendency extended itself without end. The want of distinctive character with Gessner, with all his great gracefulness and childlike heartiness, made every one think that he could do something of the same kind. Just in the same manner, out of the more generally human, some snatch those poems which should have portrayed a foreign nationality, as, for instance, the Jewish pastoral poems, those on the patriarchs altogether, and whatever else related to the Old Testament. Bodmer's Noachide was a perfect symbol of the watery deluge that swelled high around the German Parnassus, and which abated but slowly. The leading-strings of Anacreon likewise allowed innumerable mediocre geniuses to reel about at large. The precision of Horace compelled the Germans, though but slowly, to conform to him. Comic heroic poems, mostly after the model of Pope's Rape of the Lock, did not serve to bring in a better time.

Yet I must here mention a delusion, which operated as seriously as it must be ridiculous when one examines it more closely. The Germans had now sufficient historical knowledge of all the kinds of poetry in which the different nations had distinguished themselves. This pigeon-hole work, which, properly speaking, totally destroys the inner conception of poetry, had been already pretty completely hammered together by Gottsched in his Critical Art of Poetry, and it had been shown at the same time that German poets, too, had already known how to fill up all the rubrics with excellent works. And thus it ever went on. Each year the collection was more considerable, but every year one work pushed another out of 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 weighed themselves by comparisons from without, whilst the mass of poetical works always increased, so that at last there could be a comparison from within.

Popular Philosophy.

Now, though matters of taste stood on a very uncertain footing, there could be no dispute but that, within the Protestant part of Germany and of Switzerland, what is generally called common-sense began to bestir itself briskly at that epoch. The scholastic philosophy – which always has the merit of propounding according to received axioms, in a favourite order, and under fixed rubrics, everything about which man can at all inquire, – had, by the frequent darkness and apparent uselessness of its subject-matter, by its unseasonable application of a method in itself respectable, and by its too great extension over so many subjects, made itself foreign to the mass, unpalatable, and at last superfluous. Many a one became convinced that nature had endowed him with as great a portion of good and straightforward sense as, perchance, he required to form such a clear notion of objects that he could manage them and turn them to his own profit, and that of others, without laboriously troubling himself about the most universal problems, and inquiring how the most remote things which do not particularly affect us may hang together. Men made the trial, opened their eyes, looked straight before them, observant, industrious, active, and believed that when one judges and acts correctly in one's own circle, one may well presume to speak of other things also, which lie at a greater distance.

In accordance with such a notion, every one was now entitled, not only to philosophize, but also by degrees to consider himself a philosopher. Philosophy, therefore, was more or less sound and practised common sense, which ventured lo enter upon the universal, and to decide upon inner and outer experiences. A clear-sighted acuteness and an especial moderation, while the middle path and fairness to all opinions was held to be right, procured respect and confidence for writings and oral statements of the sort, and thus at last philosophers were found in all the faculties, nay, in all classes and trades.

In this way the theologians could not help inclining to what is called natural religion, and when the discussion was how far the light of nature may suffice to advance us in the knowledge of God and the improving and ennobling of ourselves, they commonly ventured to decide in its favour without much scruple. According to the same principle of moderation, they then granted equal rights to all positive religions, by which they all became alike indifferent and uncertain. For the rest, they let everything stand, and since the Bible is so full of matter, that, more than any other book, it offers material for reflection and opportunity for meditation on human affairs, it could still, as before, be always laid as the foundation of all sermons and other religious treatises.

But over this work, as well as over the whole body of profane writers, was impending a singular fate, which, in the lapse of time, was not to be averted. Hitherto it had been received as a matter of implicit faith, that this book of books was composed in one spirit; that it was even inspired, and, as it were, dictated by the Divine Spirit. Yet already for a long time the discrepancies of the different parts of it had been now cavilled at, now apologized for, by believers and unbelievers. English, French, and Germans had attacked the Bible with more or less violence, acuteness, audacity, and wantonness; and just as often had it been taken under the protection of earnest, sound-thinking men of each nation. As for myself, I loved and valued it: for almost to it alone did I owe my moral culture, and the events, the doctrines, the symbols, the similes, had all impressed themselves deeply upon me, and had influenced me in one way or another. These unjust, scoffing, and perverting attacks, therefore, disgusted me; but people had already gone so far as very willingly to admit, partly as a main ground for the defence of many passages, that God had accommodated himself to the modes of thought and power of comprehension in men; that even those moved by the Spirit had not on that account been able to renounce their character, their individuality, and that Amos, a cow-herd, did not wield the language of Isaiah, who is said to have been a prince.

State of Theology.

Out of such views and convictions, especially with a constantly increasing knowledge of languages, was very naturally developed that kind of study by which it was attempted to examine more accurately the oriental localities, nationalities, natural products, and phenomena, and in this manner to make present to one's-self that ancient time. Michaelis employed the whole strength of his talents and his knowledge on this side. Descriptions of travels became a powerful help in explaining the Holy Scriptures, and later travellers, furnished with numerous questions, were made, by the answers to them, to bear witness for the prophets and apostles.

But whilst they were on all sides busied to bring the Holy Scriptures to a natural intuition, and to render peculiar modes of thought and representation in them more universally comprehensible, that by this historico-critical aspect many an objection might be removed, many offensive things effaced, and many a shallow scoffing be made ineffective, there appeared in some men just the opposite disposition, since these chose the darkest, most mysterious writings as the subject of their meditations, and wished, if not to elucidate them, yet to confirm them through internal evidence, by means of conjectures, calculations, and other ingenious and strange combinations, and so far as they contained prophecies, to prove them by the results, and thus to justify a faith in what was next to be expected.

The venerable Bengel had procured a decided reception for his labours on the Revelations of St. John, from the fact that he was known as an intelligent, upright, God-fearing, blameless man. Deep minds are compelled to live in the past as well as in the future. The ordinary movements of the world can be of no importance to them, if they do not, in the course of ages up to the present, revere prophecies which have been revealed, and in the immediate, as well as in the most remote futurity, predictions still veiled. Hence arises a connexion that is wanting in history, which seems to give us only an accidental wavering backwards and forwards in a necessarily limited circle. Doctor Crusius was one of those whom the prophetic part of Scripture suited more than any other, since it brings into action the two most opposite qualities of human nature, the affections, and the acuteness of the intellect. Many young men had devoted themselves to this doctrine, and already formed a respectable body, which attracted the more attention, as Ernesti with his friends threatened, not to illuminate, but completely to disperse the obscurity in which these delighted. Hence arose controversies, hatred, persecution and much that was unpleasant. I attached myself to the lucid party, and sought to appropriate to myself their principles and advantages, although I ventured to forebode, that by this extremely praiseworthy, intelligent method of interpretation, the poetic contents of the writings must at last be lost along with the prophetical.

But those who devoted themselves to German literature and the belles lettres were more nearly concerned with the efforts of such men, who, as Jerusalem, Zollikofer, and Spalding, tried, by means of a good and pure style in their sermons and treatises, to gain even among persons of a certain degree of sense and taste, applause and attachment for religion, and for the moral philosophy which is so closely related to it. A pleasing manner of writing began to be everywhere necessary; and since such a manner must, above all, be comprehensible, so did writers arise, on many sides, who undertook to write about their studies and their professions clearly, perspicuously, and impressively, and as well for the adepts as for the multitude.

After the example of Tissot, a foreigner, the physicians also now began to labour zealously for the general cultivation Haller, Unzer, Zimmerman had a very great influence, and whatever may be said against them in detail, especially the last, they produced a very great effect in their time. And mention should be made of this in history, but particularly in biography: for a man remains of consequence, not so far as he leaves something behind him, but so far as he acts and enjoys, and rouses others to action and enjoyment.

The jurists, accustomed from their youth upwards to an abstruse style, which, in all legal papers, from the petty court of the Immediate Knight up to the Imperial Diet at Ratisbon, was still maintained in all its quaintness, could not easily elevate themselves to a certain freedom, the less so as the subjects of which they had to treat were most intimately connected with the external form, and consequently also with the style. Yet the younger Von Moser had already shown himself an independent and original writer, and Putter, by the clearness of his delivery, had also brought clearness into his subject, and the style in which he was to treat it. All that proceeded from his school was distinguished by this. And even the philosophers, in order to be popular, now found themselves compelled to write clearly and intelligibly. Mendelsohn and Garve appeared, and excited universal interest and admiration.

With the cultivation of the German language and style in every department, the capacity for forming a judgment also increased, and we admire the reviews then published of works upon religious and moral, as well as medical subjects; while, on the contrary, we remark that the judgments of poems, and of whatever else may relate to the belles lettres, will be found, if not pitiful, at least very feeble. This holds good of the Literary Epistles (Literaturbriefen), and of the Universal German Library, as well as of the Library of the Belles Lettres, notable instances of which could easily be produced.

The "Image-Hunt."

No matter in how motley a manner all this might be confused, still for every one who contemplated producing anything from himself, who would not merely take the words and phrases out of the mouths of his predecessors, there was nothing further left but, early and late, to look about him for some subject-matter which he might determine to use. Here, too, we were much led astray. People were constantly repeating a saying of Kleist, which we had to hear often enough. He had sportively, ingeniously, and truly replied to those who took him to task on account of his frequent lonely walks: "that he was not idle at such times, – he was going to the image hunt." This simile was very suitable for a nobleman and soldier, who by it placed himself in contrast with the men of his rank, who did not neglect going out, with their guns on their shoulders, hare-hunting and patridge-shooting, as often as an opportunity presented itself. Hence we find in Kleist's poems many such individual images, happily seized, although not always happily elaborated, which in a kindly manner remind us of nature. But now they also recommended us, quite seriously, to go out on the image-hunt, which did not at last leave us wholly without fruit, although Apel's Garden, the kitchen-gardens, the Rosenthal, Golis, Raschwitz and Konnewitz, would be the oddest ground to beat up poetical game in. And yet I was often induced by that motive to contrive that my walk should be solitary, and, because many objects neither beautiful nor sublime met the eye of the beholder, and in the truly splendid Rosenthal, the gnats, in the best season of the year, allowed no tender thoughts to arise, so, did I, by unwearied, persevering endeavour, become extremely attentive to the small life of nature, (I would use this word after the analogy of "still life,") and since the pretty events which one perceives within this circle represent but little in themselves, so I accustomed myself to see in them a significance, which inclined now towards the symbolical, now towards the allegorical side, accordingly as intuition, feeling, or reflection had the preponderance. I will relate one incident, in place of many.

I was, after the fashion of humanity, in love with my name, and, as young uneducated people commonly do, I wrote it down everywhere. Once I had carved it very handsomely and accurately on the smooth bark of a linden-tree of moderate age. The following autumn, when my affection for Annette was in its fullest bloom, I took the trouble to cut hers above it. Towards the end of the winter, in the meantime, like a capricious lover, I had wantonly sought many opportunities to teaze her and cause her vexation; in the spring I chanced to visit the spot, and the sap, which was rising strongly in the trees, had welled out through the incisions which formed her name, and which were not yet crusted over, and moistened with innocent vegetable tears the already hardened traces of my own. Thus to see her here weeping over me, – me, who had so often called up her tears by my ill-conduct, filled me with confusion. At the remembrance of my injustice and of her love, even the tears came into my eyes, I hastened to implore pardon of her, doubly and trebly, and I turned this incident into an idyl25, which I never could read to myself without affection, or to others without emotion.

While I now, like a shepherd on the Pleisse, was absorbed childishly enough in such tender subjects, and always chose only such as I could easily recall into my bosom, provision from a greater and more important side had long been made for German poets.

The first true and really vital material of the higher order came into German poetry through Frederick the Great and the deeds of the Seven Years' War. All national poetry must be shallow or become shallow which does not rest on that which is most universally human, – upon the events of nations and their shepherds, when both stand for one man. Kings are to be represented in war and danger, where, by that very means, they appear as the first, because they determine and share the fate of the very least, and thus become much more interesting than the gods themselves, who, when they have once determined the fates, withdraw from all participation in them. In this view of the subject, every nation, if it would be worth anything at all, must possess an epopee, to which the precise form of the epic poem is not necessary.

Gleim-Ramler.

The war-songs started by Gleim maintain so high a rank among German poems, because they arose with and in the achievements which are their subject, and because, moreover, their felicitous form, just as if a fellow-combatant had produced them in the loftiest moments, makes us feel the most complete effectiveness.