The Autobiography of Goethe

SEVENTH BOOK

About the condition of German literature at that time so much has been written, and that so sufficiently, that every one who takes any interest in it can be completely informed; the judgments of it are now pretty well agreed; and what at present I intend to say piece-meal and disconnectedly concerning it, relates not so much to how it was constituted in itself, as to how it stood towards me. I will therefore first speak of those things by which the public is particularly excited; of those two hereditary foes of all comfortable life, and of all cheerful, self-sufficient, living poetry: – I mean, satire and criticism.

In quiet times every one will live after his own fashion; the citizen will carry on his trade or his business, and enjoy the fruits of it afterwards; thus will the author too willingly compose something, publish his labours, and since he thinks he has done something good and useful, hope for praise, if not reward. In this tranquillity the citizen is disturbed by the satirist, the author by the critic, and peaceful society is thus put into a disagreeable agitation.

The literary epoch in which I was born was developed out of the preceding one by opposition. Germany, so long inundated by foreign people, interpenetrated by other nations, directed to foreign languages in learned and diplomatic transactions, could not possibly cultivate her own. Together with so many new ideas, innumerable strange words were obtruded necessarily and unnecessarily upon her, and even for objects already known, people were induced to make use of foreign expressions and turns of language. The German, having run wild for nearly two hundred years in an unhappy tumultuary state, went to school to the French to learn manners, and to the Romans in order to express himself properly. But this was to be done in the mother-tongue, when the literal application of those idioms, and their half-Germanization, made both the social and business style ridiculous. Besides this, they adopted without moderation the similes of the southern languages, and employed them most extravagantly. Just so they transferred the stately deportment of the prince-like citizens of Rome to the learned German small-town officers, and were at home nowhere, least of all with themselves.

But as in this epoch works of genius had already appeared, the German sense of freedom and joy also began to stir itself. This, accompanied by a genuine earnestness, insisted that men should write purely and naturally, without the intermixture of foreign words, and as common intelligible sense dictated. By these praiseworthy endeavours, however, the doors and gates were thrown open to an extended national insipidity, nay, the dike was dug through by which the great deluge was shortly to rush in. Meanwhile, a stiff pedantry long stood its ground in all the four faculties, until at last, much later, it fled for refuge from one of them into another.

Men of parts, children of nature looking freely about them, had therefore two objects on which they could exercise themselves, against which they could labour, and, as the matter was of no great importance, give a vent to their petulance; these were: a language disfigured by foreign words, forms, and turns of speech on the one hand, and the worthlessness of such writings as had been careful to keep themselves free from those faults on the other, though it occurred to nobody, that while they were battling against one evil, the other was called on for assistance.

Liskow.

Liskow, a daring young man, first ventured to attack by name a shallow, silly writer, whose awkward demeanour soon gave him an opportunity to proceed still more severely. He then went further, and constantly aimed his scorn at particular persons and objects, whom he despised and sought to render despicable, nay, even persecuted them with passionate hatred. But his career was short; for he soon died, and was gradually forgotten as a restless, irregular youth. The talent and character shown in what he did, although he had accomplished little, may have seemed valuable to his countrymen: for the Germans have always shown a peculiar pious kindliness to talents of good promise, when prematurely cut off. Suffice it to say, that Liskow was very early praised and recommended to us as an excellent satirist, who could have attained a rank even above the universally-beloved Rabener. Here, indeed, we saw ourselves no better off than before: for we could discover nothing in his writings, except that he had found the silly, silly, which seemed to us quite a matter of course.

Rabener, well educated, grown up under good scholastic instruction, of a cheerful, and by no means passionate or malicious disposition, took up general satire. His censure of the so-called vices and follies springs from the clear views of a quiet common sense, and from a fixed moral conception of what the world ought to be. His denunciation of faults and failings is harmless and cheerful; and in order to excuse even the slight boldness of his writings, it is supposed that the improving of fools by ridicule is no fruitless undertaking.

Rabener's personal character will not easily appear again. As an able, punctual man of business, he does his duty, and thus gains the good opinion of his fellow-townsmen and the confidence of his superiors: along with which, he gives himself up to the enjoyment of a pleasant contempt for all that immediately surrounds him. Pedantic literati, vain youngsters, every sort of narrowness and conceit, he banters rather than satirizes, and even his banter expresses no contempt. Just in the same way does he jest about his own condition, his misfortune, his life, and his death.

There is little of the æsthetic in the manner in which this writer treats his subjects. In external forms he is indeed varied enough, but throughout he makes too much use of direct irony, namely, in praising the blameworthy and blaming the praiseworthy, whereas this figure of speech should be used but extremely seldom; for, in the long run, it becomes annoying to clear-sighted men, perplexes the weak, while indeed it pleases the great middle class, who, without any special expense of mind, can fancy themselves more knowing than others. But all that he brings before us, and however he does it, alike bears witness to his rectitude, cheerfulness, and equanimity, so that we always feel prepossessed in his favour. The unbounded applause of his own times was a consequence of such moral excellencies.

Rabener.

That people looked for originals to his general descriptions and found them, was natural; that individuals complained of him, followed from the above; his over-long apologies that his satire is not personal, prove the spite which has been provoked. Some of his letters crown him at once as a man and an author. The confidential epistle in which he describes the siege of Dresden, and how he loses his house, his effects, his writings, and his wigs, without having his equanimity in the least shaken or his cheerfulness clouded, is highly valuable, although his contemporaries and fellow-citizens could not forgive him his happy turn of mind. The letter where he speaks of the decay of his strength and of his approaching death is in the highest degree worthy of respect, and Rabener deserves to be honoured as a saint by all cheerful intelligent men, who cheerfully resign themselves to earthly events.

I tear myself away from him reluctantly, yet I would make this remark: his satire refers throughout to the middle-class; he lets us see here and there that he is also well acquainted with the higher ranks, but does not hold it advisable to come in contact with them. It may be said, that he has had no successor, that no one has been found who could consider himself equal, or even similar to him.

Now for criticism! and first of all for the theoretic attempts. It is not going too far when we say that the ideal had, at that time, escaped out of the world into religion; it scarcely even made its appearance in moral philosophy; of a highest principle of art no one had a notion. They put Gottsched's Critical Art of Poetry into our hands; it was useful and instructive enough, for it gave us a historical information of all the kinds of poetry, as well as of rhythm and its different movements; the poetic genius was presupposed! But besides that the poet was to have acquirements and even learning, he should possess taste, and everything else of that kind. They directed us at last to Horace's Art of Poetry; we gazed at single golden maxims of this invaluable work, but did not know in the least what to do with it as a whole, or how we should use it.

The Swiss stepped forth as Gottsched's antagonists; they must take it into their heads to do something different, to accomplish something better: accordingly we heard that they were, in fact, superior. Breitinger's Critical Art of Poetry was taken in hand. Here we reached a wider field, but, properly speaking, only a greater labyrinth, which was so much the more tiresome, as an able man, in whom we had confidence, was driving us about in it. Let a brief review justify these words.

For poetry in itself they had been able to find no fundamental axiom; it was too spiritual and too volatile. Painting, an art which one could hold fast with one's eyes, and follow step by step with the external senses, seemed more favourable for such an end; the English and French had already theorized about plastic art, and by a comparison drawn from this, it was thought that poetry might be grounded. The former placed images before the eyes, the latter before the fancy; poetical images, therefore, were the first thing which was taken into consideration. People began with comparisons, descriptions followed, and only that was expressed which had always been apparent to the external senses.

Images, then! But where should these images be got except from nature? The painter professedly imitated nature; why not the poet also? But nature, as she lies before us, cannot be imitated: she contains so much that is insignificant and worthless, that one must make a selection; but what determines the choice? one must select that which is important; but what is important?

To answer this question the Swiss may have taken a long time to consider: for they came to a notion, which is indeed singular, but clever, and even comical, inasmuch as they say, the new is always the most important: and after they have considered this for a while, they discover that the marvellous is always newer than everything else.

They had now pretty well collected their poetical requisitions; but they had still to consider that the marvellous might also be empty and without relation to man. But this relation, demanded as necessary, must be a moral one, from which the improvement of mankind should manifestly follow, and thus a poem had reached its utmost aim when, with everything else accomplished, it was useful besides. They now wished to test the different kinds of poetry according to all these requisites; those which imitated nature, besides being marvellous, and at the same time of a moral aim and use, were to rank as the first and highest. And after much deliberation this great preeminence was at last ascribed, with the highest degree of conviction, to Æsop's fables!

Strange as such a deduction may now appear, it had the most decided influence on the best minds. That Gellert and subsequently Lichtwer devoted themselves to this department, that even Lessing attempted to labour in it, that; so many others turned their talents towards it, speaks for the confidence which this species of poetry had gained. Theory and practice always act upon each other; one can see from their works what is the men's opinion; and, from their opinions, predict what they will do.

Bodmer – Breitinger – Guenther.

Yet we must not dismiss our Swiss theory without doing it justice. Bodmer, with all the pains he took, remained theoretically and practically a child all his life. Breitinger was an able, learned, sagacious man, whom when he looked rightly about him, the essentials of a poem did not all escape; nay, it can be shown that he may have dimly felt the deficiencies of his system. Remarkable, for instance, is his query: – "Whether a certain descriptive poem by König, on the Review-camp of Augustus the Second, is properly a poem?" and the answer to it displays good sense. But it may serve for his complete justification that he, starting from a false point, on a circle almost run out already, still struck upon the main principle, and at the end of his book finds himself compelled to recommend as additions, so to speak, the representation of manners, character, passions, in short, the whole inner man; to which, indeed, poetry pre-eminently belongs.

It may well be imagined into what perplexity young minds felt themselves thrown by such dislocated maxims, half-understood laws, and shivered up dogmas. We adhered to examples, and there, too, were no better off; foreigners as well as the ancients stood too far from us, and from the best native poets always peeped out a decided individuality, to the good points of which we could not lay claim, and into the faults of which we could not but be afraid of falling. For him who felt anything productive in himself it was a desperate condition.

When one considers closely what was wanting in the German poetry, it was a material, and that, too, a national one; there was never a lack of talent. Here we make mention only of Guenther, who may be called a poet in the full sense of the word. A decided talent, endowed with sensuousness, imagination, memory, the gifts of conception and representation, productive in the highest degree, ready at rhythm, ingenious, witty, and of varied information besides; – he possessed, in short, all the requisites for creating, by means of poetry, a second life within life, even within common real life. We admire the great facility with which, in his occasional poems, he elevates all circumstances by the feelings, and embellishes them with suitable sentiments, images, and historical and fabulous traditions. Their roughness and wildness belong to his time, his mode of life, and especially to his character, or if one would have it so, his want of fixed character. He did not know how to curb himself, and so his life, like his poetry, melted away from him.

By his vacillating conduct, Günther had trifled away the good fortune of being appointed at the court of Augustus the Second, where, in addition to every other species of ostentation, they were also looking about for a court-poet, who could give elevation and grace to their festivities, and immortalize a transitory pomp. Von Koenig was more mannerly and more fortunate; he filled this post with dignity and applause.

In all sovereign states the material for poetry comes downwards from above, and the Review-camp at Mühlberg (Das Lustlager bei Mühlberg) was, perhaps, the first worthy object, provincial, if not national, which presented itself to a poet. Two kings saluting one another in the presence of a great host, their whole courts and military state around them, well-appointed troops, a mock-fight, fêtes of all kinds, – this is business enough for the outward sense, and overflowing material for delineating and descriptive poetry.

This subject had, indeed, the internal defect, that it was only pomp and show, from which no real action could result. None except the very first distinguished themselves, and even if they had done so, the poet could not render any one conspicuous lest he should offend the others. He had to consult the Court and State Calendar, and the delineation of the persons therefore went off pretty drily; nay, even his contemporaries very strongly reproached him with having described the horses better than the men. But should not this redound to his credit, that he showed his art just where an object for it presented itself? The main difficulty, too, seems soon to have manifested itself to him – since the poem never advanced beyond the first canto.

Schlosser.

Amidst such studies and reflections, an unexpected event surprised me, and frustrated my laudable design of becoming acquainted with our new literature from the beginning. My countryman, John George Schlosser, after spending his academical years with industry and exertion, had repaired to Frankfort-on-the-Maine, in the customary profession of an advocate; but his mind, aspiring and seeking after the universal, could not reconcile itself to this situation for many reasons. He accepted, without hesitation, an office as private secretary to the Duke Ludwig of Wurtemberg, who resided in Treptow; for the Prince was named among those great men who, in a noble and independent manner, purposed to enlighten themselves, their families, and the world, and to unite for higher aims. It was this Prince Ludwig who, to ask advice about the education of his children, had written to Rousseau, whose well-known answer began with the suspicious-looking phrase – "Si j'avais le malheur d'être né prince."

Not only in the affairs of the Prince, but also in the education of his children, Schlosser was now willingly to assist in word and deed, if not to superintend them. This noble young man, who harboured the best will, and laboured after a perfect purity of morals, would have easily kept men from him by a certain dry austerity, if his fine and rare literary cultivation, his knowledge of languages, and his facility at expressing himself by writing, both in verse and prose, had not attracted every one, and made living with him more agreeable. It had been announced to me that he would pass through Leipzig, and I expected him with longing. He came and put up at a little inn or wine-house that stood in the Brühl (Marsh), and the host of which was named Schönkopf. This man had a Frankfort woman for his wife, and although he entertained few persons during the rest of the year, and could lodge no guests in his little house, yet at fair-time he was visited by many Frankforters, who used to eat, and, in case of need, even take quarters there also. Thither I hastened to seek after Schlosser, when he had sent to inform me of his arrival. I scarcely remembered having seen him before, and found a young, well-formed man, with a round, compressed face, without the features losing their sharpness on that account. The form of his rounded forehead, between black eyebrows and locks, indicated earnestness, sternness, and perhaps obstinacy. He was, in a certain measure, the opposite of myself, and this very thing doubtless laid the foundation of our lasting friendship. I had the greatest respect for his talents, the more so as I very well saw that in the certainty with which he acted and produced, he was completely my superior. The respect and the confidence which I showed him confirmed his affection, and increased the indulgence he was compelled to have for my lively, impetuous, and ever-excitable disposition, in such contrast with his own. He studied the English writers diligently; Pope, if not his model, was his aim, and in opposition to that author's Essay on Man, he had written a poem in like form and measure, which was to give the Christian religion the triumph over the deism of the other work. From the great store of papers which he carried with him, he showed me poetical and prose compositions in all languages, which, as they challenged me to imitation, once more gave me infinite disquietude. Yet I contrived to help myself immediately by activity. I wrote German, French, English and Italian poems, addressed to him, the subject-matter of which I took from our conversations, which were always important and instructive.

Schlosser did not wish to leave Leipzig without having seen face to face the men who had a name. I willingly took him to those I knew; with those whom I had not yet visited, I in this way became honourably acquainted, since he was received with distinction as a well-informed man of education, of already established character, and well knew how to pay for the outlay of conversation. I cannot pass over our visit to Gottsched, as it exemplifies the character and manners of that man. He lived very respectably in the first story of the Golden Bear, where the elder Breitkopf, on account of the great advantage which Gottsched's writings, translations, and other aids had brought to the trade, had promised him a lodging for life.

We were announced. The servant led us into a large chamber, saying his master would come immediately. Now whether we misunderstood a gesture which he made, I cannot say; it is enough, we thought he directed us into an adjoining room. We entered, and to a singular scene; for, on the instant, Gottsched, that tall, broad, gigantic man, came in at the opposite door in a morning-gown of green damask lined with red taffeta; but his monstrous head was bald and uncovered. This, however, was to be immediately provided for; the servant sprang in at a side-door with a great full-bottomed wig in his hand (the curls came down to the elbows), and handed the head-ornament to his master with gestures of terror. Gottsched, without manifesting the least vexation, raised the wig from the servant's arm with his left, hand, and while he very dexterously swung it up on his head, gave the poor fellow such a box on the ear with his right paw, that the latter, as often happens in a comedy, went spinning out at the door; whereupon the respectable old grandfather invited us quite gravely to be seated, and kept up a pretty long discourse with good grace.