on this account his maxims in general are not successful, as is shown
by his creed, “much money and no authority,” for much money always
paralyzes authority.
But where he creates he always succeeds; and we may truly say that with
him inspiration supplies the place of reflection. Something within him
ever drove him to poetry, and then everything that came from the man,
especially from his heart, was excellent. He produced his best things,
as women do pretty children, without thinking about it or knowing how
it was done.
He is a great talent, a born talent, and I never saw the true poetical
power greater in any man than in him. In the apprehension of external
objects, and a clear penetration into past situations, he is quite as
great as Shakespeare. But as a pure individuality, Shakespeare is his
superior. This was felt by Byron, and on this account he does not say
much of Shakespeare, although he knows whole passages by heart. He
would willingly have denied him altogether; for Shakespeare’s serenity
is in his way, and he feels that he is no match for it. Pope he does
not deny, for he had no cause to fear him. On the contrary, he mentions
him, and shows him respect when he can, for he knows well enough that
Pope is a mere foil to himself.
His high rank as an English peer was very injurious to Byron; for every
talent is oppressed by the outer world,--how much more, then, when
there is such high birth and so great a fortune. A certain middle rank
is much more favorable to talent, on which account we find all great
artists and poets in the middle classes. Byron’s predilection for the
unbounded could not have been nearly so dangerous with more humble
birth and smaller means. But as it was, he was able to put every fancy
into practice, and this involved him in innumerable scrapes. Besides,
how could one of such high rank be inspired with awe and respect by any
rank whatever? He expressed whatever he felt, and this brought him into
ceaseless conflict with the world.
* * * * *
Moreover, his perpetual negation and fault-finding is injurious even
to his excellent works. For not only does the discontent of the poet
infect the reader, but the end of all opposition is negation; and
negation is nothing. If I call _bad_ bad, what do I gain? But if I call
_good_ bad, I do a great deal of mischief. He who will work aright must
never rail, must not trouble himself at all about what is ill done,
but only strive to do well himself. For the great point is not to pull
down, but to build up, and in this humanity finds pure joy.
* * * * *
I could not make use of any man as the representative of the modern
poetical era except him, who undoubtedly is to be regarded as the
greatest genius of our century. Byron is neither antique nor romantic,
but like the present day itself. This was the sort of man I required.
Then he suited me on account of his unsatisfied nature and his warlike
tendency, which led to his death at Missolonghi.
* * * * *
Lord Byron is only great as a poet; as soon as he reflects, he is a
child.
_Scott_
Walter Scott’s _Fair Maid of Perth_ is excellent, is it not? There is
finish! there is a hand! What a firm foundation for the whole, and in
particular not a touch which does not lead to the goal! Then, what
details of dialogue and description, both of which are excellent. His
scenes and situations are like pictures by Teniers; in the arrangement
they show the summit of art, the individual figures have a speaking
truth, and the execution is extended with artistic love to the minutest
details, so that not a stroke is lost.
You find everywhere in Walter Scott a remarkable security and
thoroughness in his delineation, which proceeds from his comprehensive
knowledge of the real world, obtained by life-long studies and
observations, and a daily discussion of the most important relations.
Then come his great talent and his comprehensive nature. You remember
the English critic who compares the poets to the voices of singers, of
which some can command only a few fine tones, while others have the
whole compass, from the highest to the lowest, completely in their
power. Walter Scott is one of this last sort. In the _Fair Maid of
Perth_ you will not find a single weak passage to make you feel as if
his knowledge and talent were insufficient. He is equal to his subject
in every direction in which it takes him; the king, the royal brother,
the prince, the head of the clergy, the nobles, the magistracy, the
citizens and mechanics, the Highlanders, are all drawn with the same
sure hand, and hit off with equal truth.
The passage where the prince, sitting on horseback, makes the pretty
minstrel girl step upon his foot, that he may raise her up for a kiss,
is in the boldest English style. But you ladies are wrong always to
take sides. Usually, you read a book to find nutrition for the heart,
to find a hero whom you could love. This is not the way to read; the
great point is not whether this or that character pleases, but whether
the whole book pleases.
But, when you have finished the _Fair Maid of Perth_, you must at once
read _Waverley_, which is written from quite a different point of view,
but which may, without hesitation, be set beside the best works that
have ever been written in this world. We see that it is the same man
who wrote the _Fair Maid of Perth_, but that he has yet to gain the
favor of the public, and therefore collects his forces so that he may
not give a touch that is short of excellence. The _Fair Maid of Perth_,
on the other hand, is from a freer pen; the author is now sure of his
public, and he proceeds more at liberty. After reading _Waverley_, you
will understand why Walter Scott still designates himself the author of
that work; for there he showed what he could do, and he has never since
written anything to surpass, or even equal, that first published novel.
* * * * *
Walter Scott is a great genius; he has not his equal; and we need not
wonder at the extraordinary effect he produces on the whole reading
world. He gives me much to think of; and I discover in him a wholly
new art, with laws of its own.
* * * * *
We read far too many poor things, thus losing time, and gaining
nothing. We should only read what we admire, as I did in my youth, and
as I now experience with Sir Walter Scott. I have just begun _Rob Roy_,
and will read his best novels in succession. All is great--material,
import, characters, execution; and then what infinite diligence in
the preparatory studies! what truth of detail in the execution! We
see, too, what English history is; and what a thing it is when such an
inheritance falls to the lot of a clever poet. Our German history, in
five volumes, is, on the other hand, sheer poverty.
* * * * *
It is a peculiarity of Walter Scott’s that his great talent in
representing details often leads him into faults. Thus, in _Ivanhoe_,
there is a scene where they are seated at a table in a castle-hall at
night, and a stranger enters. Now, he is quite right in describing the
stranger’s appearance and dress, but it is a fault that he goes to the
length of describing his feet, shoes, and stockings. When we sit down
in the evening, and some one comes in, we see only the upper part of
his body. If I describe the feet, daylight enters at once, and the
scene loses its nocturnal character.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Goethe had been reproached “for not taking up arms in the
German War of Liberation, or at least coöperating as a poet.”
[14] “Architecture is music in space, as it were a frozen
music.”--Schelling’s _Philosophie der Kunst_.
APPENDIX
I. On the Selection and Translation of the Essays in this Volume.
II. On the Chronology of Goethe’s Critical Studies.
APPENDIX
I. _On the Selection and Translation of the Essays in this Volume_
This book was first suggested to me in 1909, and was virtually
completed seven or eight years ago; but the manuscript was mislaid
among some old papers, and when it was recovered the European War was
at its height. Never again, it then seemed, could I regard my work
with the same disinterested temper in which it was begun, for what was
recovered was no longer a manuscript but a ghost, no longer a book but
a strange spirit returned from an all too irrecoverable past. When
I re-read these words from the lips of one who had spent his life
“with spirits god-like mild,” and related them to our new and altered
world, I understood once more how man forever fashions history to his
own meaning, and how it has no life except such as is given to it by
his creative mind. Every word I now read assumed a new and heightened
significance, a more intimate relation with life; and every word was a
call to sympathy and understanding,--the word of a man who had withheld
all hate from enemy France, had praised England and its literature,
had analyzed the defects of his own countrymen, and had made constant
denial of the compatibility of poetry and partisanship. How could
I approach work of this kind in the spirit of the fiery national
partisan, not to mention that of the mere dryasdust scholar, when every
word Goethe uttered shed light and meaning on the warm life about me,
and every accent of his voice taught a high forebearance? So when on
sick-leave from my regiment at the very end of 1917, to while away
the tediousness of convalescence, I played once more with the work
begun in the old days when I was still able to live in “the wise man’s
only country, Life”; and before I sailed for France, leaving behind me
the manuscript as it here stands, I determined that if it were ever
published, I should add nothing in the form of preface, introduction,
or critical apparatus, but allow Goethe to speak for himself to such
hearts as could hear and understand him. Some readers may find a key to
that understanding if they begin with the famous passage on “Poetry and
Patriotism” on page 251.
No adequate estimate of Goethe’s critical work has yet been achieved;
and the sensible but unilluminating chapter on this subject in the
late Calvin Thomas’s _Goethe_ is not much more disappointing than the
more extended studies in German of Oskar Walzel and Wilhelm Bode. For
a complete estimate of Goethe as a critic we should have to ransack
all his essays and reviews, his novels and poems, his autobiography
and his journals, his letters and conversations, for in all of them he
has scattered judgments on books and thoughts on the theory of art. It
would almost seem as if his reputation as a critic rests more securely
on these casual utterances than on his formal essays and studies. There
more than elsewhere Sainte-Beuve and Matthew Arnold recognized “the
supreme critic”; there above all we find that mellow wisdom which we
have come to associate with Goethe’s name.
In this little volume, however, we have most of Goethe’s successive
moods represented by some characteristic utterance,--the young
reviewer, the lover of Shakespeare and Gothic art, rebelling against
schools and rules but most of all against dullness and formality; the
contributor to Wieland’s _German Mercury_, the collaborator of Schiller
in the _Horen_ and in an exchange of letters of incomparable interest,
after the life of Weimar and the journey to Italy had mellowed
his talents; the student of art and æsthetics in the _Propyläen_,
championing the antique spirit and voicing a protest against the
excesses of romanticism; the more thoughtful but still sympathetic
student of Shakespeare, enthusiastic in _Wilhelm Meister_, more
temperate in _Shakespeare ad Infinitum_; the mature reviewer, welcoming
the publication of old German and foreign folksongs, and hailing in
turn Byron, Manzoni, Carlyle, Niebuhr, and all the young French and
German writers of his day; and finally, the literary dictator in his
old age, as shown in the careless and incessant wisdom of his recorded
conversation. We have here, it is true, a very small part of his
extraordinary output, but quite enough to form a just judgment of his
place among the great critics. In a career so extended and a mind so
active and all-embracing we must expect to find inconsistencies and
errors of judgment. Some of the ideas in this volume have only an
historical interest; a perverse mind might indeed garner from it an
anthology of critical errors. It was not these which won for him from
so many the title of “supreme critic,” but rather the sanity, insight,
and impartiality of his mind and his extraordinary gift for foreseeing
the direction of critical thought.
All of the selections in Part I, except the essay on “German
Architecture,” have been taken from Goethe’s _Essays on Art_,
translated by S. G. Ward (Boston, 1845). Wilhelm Meister’s critique
of _Hamlet_ has been excerpted from Carlyle’s rendering of _Wilhelm
Meister’s Lehrjahre_. The version of John Oxenford has been used for
the selections from the _Conversations with Eckermann_, and Oxenford’s
version, as revised by Miss M. S. Smith, for the selection from
Goethe’s _Autobiography_. The remaining essays were translated by the
late Randolph S. Bourne, by Professor F. W. J. Heuser, and by myself.
I am indebted to Mr. Bourne for translating the following essays: “On
German Architecture,” “Shakespeare ad Infinitum,” “The First Edition of
_Hamlet_,” “_Troilus and Cressida_,” “The Methods of French Criticism,”
“Supplement to Aristotle’s _Poetics_,” “Tieck’s Dramaturgic Fragments,”
“On the German Theatre,” “Didactic Poetry,” “Superstition and Poetry,”
“The Theory of a World Literature,” “Byron’s _Manfred_,” “Byron’s _Don
Juan_,” “Calderon’s _Daughter of the Air_,” “Molière’s _Misanthrope_,”
“Folksongs again Commended,” and “Laurence Sterne.” Professor Heuser
has translated the following: “The Production of a National Classic,”
“Epic and Dramatic Poetry,” and “English Reviewers.” I have made
material changes and corrections in almost all the translations, but on
the whole each translator should be held responsible for the accuracy
and style of his own work. For the selection and arrangement of the
material, and for the titles given to some of the excerpts, I am alone
responsible.
Some of Goethe’s judgments on books, and his maxims on life and art,
have already appeared in volumes of selections in English translation;
but no other work in any language, so far as I am aware, attempts to
include in a single volume the whole range of Goethe’s critical and
æsthetic studies. Some of the selections have never before appeared in
English.
J. E. S.
TROUTBECK, May, 1919.
Since the above was written, I have become greatly indebted to Lord
Haldane for contributing the Foreword, and especially to Professor
Friedrich Bruns for reading the proofsheets and revising some of the
translations. Miss L. Bonino has prepared the Index.
J. E. S.
NEW YORK, September, 1921.
II. _On the Chronology of Goethe’s Critical Studies_
The following chronology of Goethe’s critical activity is intended
chiefly to indicate the original sources of the selections in the
present volume.
1772-73. Reviews in the _Frankfurter gelehrten Anzeigen_:
Goethe as a Young Reviewer (reviews of Blum’s _Lyrische Gedichte_,
and Sulzer’s _Cymbelline, ein Trauerspiel, nach einem von
Shakespeare erfundnen Stoffe_, both translated in full).
1773. _Von deutscher Baukunst_:
On German Architecture (complete translation).
1788 sq. Articles in Wieland’s _Teutscher Merkur_:
Simple Imitation of Nature, Manner, Style (_Über Italien: Einfache
Nachahmung der Natur, Manier, Stil_, complete translation).
1794-1805. Correspondence of Goethe and Schiller:
Epic and Dramatic Poetry (complete translation); also footnote on
page 104.
1795-96. _Wilhelm Meister’s Lehrjahre_:
Wilhelm Meister’s Critique of _Hamlet_.
1795-97. Articles in _Die Horen_:
The Production of a National Classic (_Literarischer
Sansculottismus_, complete translation except for four introductory
paragraphs).
1798-1800. Articles in _Die Propyläen_:
Introduction to the Propylæa.
On Laocoon (complete translation).
On Truth and Probability in Works of Art (complete translation).
The Collector and his Friends.
Notes on Dillettantism. (By Goethe and Schiller).
1804 sq. Reviews in the _Jenaische Allgemeine Literaturzeitung_:
Old German Folksongs (review of _Des Knaben Wunderhorn_, translated
in full except that only a few of Goethe’s characterizations of
individual poems are included).
1811-14. _Dichtung und Wahrheit_ (Autobiography):
German Literature in Goethe’s Youth (selected passages from part
ii, book 7); also footnote on page 14 (from part ii, book 10).
1815 sq. Articles in the _Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände_:
Shakespeare ad Infinitum, parts i-ii, written 1813 (_Shakespeare
und kein Ende_, complete translation).
On the German Theatre (complete translation).
1816-32. Articles in _Über Kunst und Alterthum_:
Ancient and Modern.
The Theory of a World Literature, part i (review of Duval’s _Le
Tasse_), part ii (_Bezüge nach Aussen_, complete translation),
part iii (_Edinburgh Reviews_), part v (review of Carlyle’s _Leben
Schillers_).
Supplement to Aristotle’s _Poetics_ (complete translation).
On Didactic Poetry (complete translation).
Superstition and Poetry (_Justus Möser_).
The Methods of French Critics (_Urteilsworte französischer
Kritiker_, complete translation).
On Criticism, § 1 (review of Manzoni’s _Carmagnola_), § 3 (review
of Rochlitz’s _Für Freunde der Tonkunst_).
The First Edition of _Hamlet_ (complete translation).
Byron’s _Manfred_ (complete translation).
Byron’s _Don Juan_ (complete translation).
Calderon’s _Daughter of the Air_ (complete translation).
Molière’s _Misanthrope_ (review of Taschereau’s _Histoire de la Vie
et des Ouvrages de Molière_, complete translation).
Shakespeare ad Infinitum, part iii, written 1816, published 1826
(complete translation).
Folksongs again Commended (complete translation).
Laurence Sterne (complete translation).
The English Reviewers (review of Manzoni’s _Carmagnola_).
1822-32. _Gespräche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens_,
by J. P. Eckermann (published 1836-48):
Extracts from Goethe’s Conversations with Eckermann.
Posthumous Works (_Nachgelassene Werke_, 1833):
Tieck’s Dramaturgic Fragments (complete translation).
_Troilus and Cressida_ (_Über die Parodie bei den Alten_).
INDEX
INDEX
Anacreon, 239.
Aristotle, 104 _sq._
Arnault, Antoine Vincent, 258.
Arnim, Achim von, 213 _sq._
Blümner, Heinrich, 184.
Blum, J. C., 199 _sq._
Blumauer, Alois, 206.
Bodmer, Johann Jakob, 233, 239.
Breitinger, Johann Jakob, 231, 233.
Brentano, Clemens, 213 _sq._
Bürger, Gottfried August, 74, 262.
Burns, Robert, 262.
Byron, 202 _sq._, 263, 268, 270, 276, 279, 283 _sq._
Calderon, 208 _sq._, 251, 269, 273, 276.
Carlyle, Thomas, 267 _sq._, 293.
Characteristic art, 11, 37.
Chinese literature, 249.
Chodowiecki, Daniel Nicolaus, 67.
Claudius, Matthias, 74.
Cousin, Victor, 97.
Criticism, theory of, 134, 140, 224, 230, 276, 283.
Diderot, Denys, 138.
Drama, and Theatre, 50, 75, 79, 100, 104, 109, 126, 158, 170, 179, 184,
190, 268 _sq._
Dürer, Albrecht, 13.
Erwin von Steinbach, 3, 7, 10, 12.
Fabroni, Angelo, 40.
Folksongs, 213, 220, 267.
Frederick the Great, 241.
Fürnstein, Anton, 259.
Gellert, Christian Fürchtegott, 232.
Gessner, Salomon, 74, 239.
Gleim, Johann Wilhelm Ludwig, 236, 242, 244.
Goldsmith, Oliver, 256.
Gottsched, Johann Christoph, 230 _sq._, 239 _sq._
Gozzi, Count Carlo, 272.
Gries, Johann Dietrich, 210.
Grimm, Friedrich Melchior, Baron von, 138 _sq._
Guizot, François Pierre Guillaume, 97.
Günther, Johann Christian, 234.
Haller, Albrecht von, 235.
Hamann, Johann Georg, 14.
Handel, Georg Friedrich, 107.
Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 14, 262.
Hirt, Alois, 36.
Homer, 10, 240.
Horace, 136, 199 _sq._, 231, 239 _sq._
Hugo, Victor, 279 _sq._
Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm, Baron von, 257.
Huysum, Jan van, 62.
Iffland, August Wilhelm, 113.
Johnson, Samuel, 201.
Kant, Immanuel, 257.
Kleist, Ewald Christian von, 240 _sq._
Kleist, Heinrich von, 126.
Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb, 74, 112, 236, 244.
König, Johann Ulrich von, 233 _sq._
Körner, Theodor, 251.
Laocoon, 22, 24 _sq._, 33 _sq._, 39, 42.
Laugier, Marc Antoine, 14.
Leonardo da Vinci, 68, 256.
Lessing, 38, 112, 232, 236, 244, 257, 269.
Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph, 206.
Lichtwer, M. G., 232.
Liscow, Christian Ludwig, 228.
Lowell, James Russell, 179.
Mannerists, 36, 64, 67.
Manzoni, Alessandro, 205, 253, 268.
Matthisson, Friedrich von, 250.
Menander, 275.
Mérimeé, Prosper, 278 _sq._
Michelangelo, 68.
Milton, 240.
Molière, 212, 269, 272 _sq._
Napoleon, 252.
Nicolai, Christoph Friedrich, 201.
Niebuhr, B. G., 293.
Novel, the, 170.
Oeser, Adam Friedrich, 237.
Originality, 255.
Perugino, 68.
Pindar, 240.
Plato, 256.
Pope, Alexander, 239, 284.
Rabener, Gottlieb Wilhelm, 228 _sq._
Ramler, Karl Wilhelm, 235 _sq._, 242.
Raphael, 68.
Richardson, Samuel, 249.
Romanticism, 179, 263, 277.
Rubens, 69.
Ruysch, Rachel, 62.
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von, 267.
Schiller, 38, 100, 104, 109 _sq._, 115 _sq._, 119 _sq._, 129, 184, 191,
255, 257, 264 _sq._, 268, 272 _sq._, 282 _sq._, 292.
Schlegel, August Wilhelm von, 257, 269, 276 _sq._
Schlegel, Friedrich von, 257, 269.
Schlegel, Johann Elias, 239.
Schroeder, Friedrich Ludwig, 124, 188 _sq._
Schubarth, Karl Ernst, 65.
Scott, Sir Walter, 286 _sq._
Seylerin (i.e., Sophie Friedrike Seyler), 118.
Shakespeare, 65 _sq._, 124, 127, 136, 145 _sq._, 171 _sq._, 181 _sq._,
200 _sq._, 204, 209 _sq._, 225, 238, 254, 256, 268 _sq._,
272, 275, 284.
Steevens, George, 193.
Sterne, Laurence, 222, 256.
Style, 61, 265.
Sulzer, J. G., 200 _sq._
Taschereau, J., 212.
Theatre, see Drama.
Thomson, James, 252.
Tieck, Ludwig, 126 _sq._
Uvaroff, Count, 137.
Villemain, Abel François, 97.
Virgil, 34 _sq._, 240.
Voss, Johann Heinrich, 262.
Wieland, Christoph Martin, 74, 86, 164, 236 _sq._, 292.
Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, 38, 257.
World Literature, 89 _sq._, 267.
* * * * *
Transcriber’s note
Italics in chapter headings and spelling of title of works were
standardized. Hyphenation was standardized where appropriate.
Page number references in the index are as published in the original
publication and have not been checked for accuracy in this eBook.
Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following
changes:
Page vii: “Tieck’s _Dramaturgic_” “Ludwig Tieck’s _Dramaturgic_”
Page viii: “Subject-matter of Poetry” “Subject-Matter of Poetry”
Page 36: “with my possessessions” “with my possessions”
Page 89: “its aesthetic and ethical” “its æsthetic and ethical”
Page 166: “These s approaches” “These soft approaches”
Page 200: “Cymbelline, a Trageay” “Cymbelline, a Tragedy”
Page 207: “art of poety ever” “art of poetry ever”
Page 244: “and the stubborness” “and the stubbornness”
Page 255: “made many distiches” “made many distichs”
Page 291: “of the compatability” “of the compatibility”
Page 292: “elsewhere Sainte-Beauve” “elsewhere Sainte-Beuve”
Page 297: “(complete translalation” “(complete translation”