On his twenty-second birthday (August 28, 1771), the day after his
arrival at home, Goethe applied to be admitted as one of the advocates
of Frankfort. A few days afterwards he took the oath as an advocate and
citizen; and he soon received his first case--an extraordinary one, in
which he had to defend a son against a father. Judgment was given in
favour of Goethe’s client, but both he and the advocate on the other
side were rebuked for the bitterness with which they had presented their
arguments. In the course of the winter Goethe had only one other case.
Law had little interest for him, and he accepted professional work
merely to please his father, who was bent on seeing him an eminent
pleader.
Of all the studies carried on at this time the one that moved him most
profoundly was the study of Shakespeare, and at last he felt that he
must find some means of expressing the thoughts and feelings kindled
within him by the poet whom he adored. Accordingly he decided that on
the 14th of October a Shakespeare festival should be held in his
father’s house; and it was arranged that there should be a like festival
at the same time in Strasburg. The plan was carried out, and Goethe, in
language of glowing enthusiasm, poured forth his admiration of the
dramas in which, as he said, “the history of the world sweeps on before
our eyes on the invisible thread of time.”
At Strasburg he had lighted upon the autobiography of Goetz von
Berlichingen, the knight with the iron hand, who had played so great a
part in the Peasants’ War in the sixteenth century. Goetz (born in 1480)
was one of the manliest of the warriors who, in the age which formed the
border-line between the mediæval and the modern world, fought valiantly
for the causes they conceived to be those of justice and freedom. His
autobiography is a frank and simple record of his adventures, written
with a view to prevent his descendants from misunderstanding him. As
Goethe read it, it seems to have flashed upon him that, notwithstanding
external differences, there was much inward resemblance between the
influences with which Goetz contended and those which in his own day
choked up the springs of thought and natural feeling. Goetz had not
allowed his spirit to be broken by the tyrannical forces of his period;
he had asserted his individuality, and had been loyal to his own
loftiest aims. Here, then, was a figure which might be made the medium
for the expression of Goethe’s own aspirations; and he forthwith decided
that Goetz should be the hero of his first drama.
The execution of the scheme was somewhat delayed; but, stimulated by his
sister Cornelia, to whom all his thoughts and wishes were confided, he
set to work early in the winter of 1771, and before the end of the year
the drama in its original form was completed. Its title in this form
was “Geschichte Gottfriedens von Berlichingen mit der eisernen Hand,
dramatisirt” (“History of Gottfried of Berlichingen with the iron hand,
dramatised”). While it was being written, he read in the evening to his
sister the work done during the day, and he was greatly encouraged by
her warm sympathy. Copies of the play, in manuscript, were despatched to
Salzmann and Herder. Salzmann lost no time in congratulating his friend,
but Herder’s response, to which Goethe looked forward anxiously, was
long postponed.
About this time Goethe made the acquaintance of a man by whose
friendship he laid great store. This was Merck, paymaster of the forces
of Darmstadt, who was about eight years older than Goethe. He was a
tall, meagre, rather awkward-looking man, somewhat cynical, but an
ardent student of literature, and thoroughly loyal to his friends.
Towards the close of 1771, a bookseller at Frankfort, asked Merck to
edit the “Frankfurter Gelehrten Anzeigen” (“The Frankfort Learned
Notices,” or “The Frankfort Review,” as we might say), a new literary
periodical which was to appear at the beginning of 1772. Merck accepted
the offer, and went to Frankfort to make arrangements with contributors.
During this visit Goethe met him, and they at once became friends.
Goethe joined the staff of the “Gelehrten Anzeigen,” and during the next
two years wrote for it a good many reviews of all kinds of books. The
opinions expressed in these reviews give evidence of a free and vigorous
judgment, and they are set forth in a fresh, incisive, and picturesque
style. It may be safely said that all great poets are great critics,
and in his first efforts at criticism Goethe gave sufficiently clear
indications that in the maturity of his powers he would be no exception
to the general rule.
He visited Merck several times at Darmstadt, where he became an intimate
friend of Herder’s betrothed, who often wrote about him to her lover at
Bückeburg. On one occasion, when walking to Darmstadt from Frankfort, he
was overtaken by a tempest, and had to take refuge in a hut. Here he
recited aloud, exactly as the words occurred to him, the “Wanderers
Sturmlied” (the “Wanderer’s Storm-song”), a series of wild, irregular
verses, in which he celebrates the power of Jupiter Pluvius, and
apostrophises the Genius that makes the poet’s spirit independent of the
accidents of time and place. To this period, also, belongs “The
Wanderer,” a fine poem--suggested, no doubt, by his experiences at
Niederbronn--in which a poet converses with a simple young mother in a
hut built of stones taken from the ruins of an ancient temple.
It had always been intended that Goethe, as his father had done before
him, and as it was the custom of many young advocates still to do,
should perfect himself in his profession by practising for some time in
connection with the imperial chamber at Wetzlar. Accordingly, he took
rooms at Wetzlar, in May, 1772. The work of each advocate at the
imperial chamber was exactly what the advocate himself chose to make it,
and Goethe chose to make his a mere form. Wetzlar, a little town on the
left bank of the Lahn, is situated in a charming country, and he did not
feel disposed to burrow among musty law-books when, in bright summer
weather, he had a chance of wandering in secluded valleys, and filling
his sketch-book with studies of landscape. He also spent a good deal of
time in reading Greek poets, taking especial delight in Pindar.
But even the pleasure he found in Pindar and in nature was by and by
thrust into the background by a more absorbing passion. The thought of
Frederika had often troubled him, but he had so far recovered from the
shock of his separation from her that it had become possible for him to
be subdued by a new fascination. And the possibility was soon
transformed into reality. He had relatives at Wetzlar, and having
started with some of them one evening for a ball which was to come off
at a neighbouring village, he stopped the carriage to take up a friend
of theirs who was to accompany them. This friend was Charlotte Buff, the
daughter of a public official at Wetzlar. She was the second of a family
of twelve children, and on her, after the recent death of her mother,
had devolved the principal duties of the household. She was nineteen
years of age, a beautiful girl with fair hair and blue eyes, remarkable
for quick intelligence, and always bright and cheerful in the
performance of the most troublesome tasks. Goethe loved her at once,
and, with his usual impetuosity, could not help showing how passionately
he was devoted to her. Every day he visited her in the afternoon, and
delighted to lie at her feet on the grass while the children played
around them; and in the evening he was often at the house again, drawn
thither by an attraction he was powerless to resist. Charlotte--or
Lotte, as she was called--was, of course, interested in a man who was
so different from all the men she had ever met, and she gave him as warm
and true an affection as a woman can give to one who is no more than a
friend. Love she could not give him, nor did he ask for it, for she had
already virtually pledged her troth. Her lover was Kestner, the
secretary of the Brunswick Legation. Kestner, who was about eight years
older than Goethe, was a man of solid qualities, able and steadfast,
devoted to his professional duties, but with a keen and intelligent
interest in literature. Goethe, before his first meeting with Lotte, had
known him slightly, and soon became sincerely attached to him,
thoroughly appreciating his manly and generous character. Kestner saw,
of course, the tumult that had been excited in Goethe’s breast, but
never either by word or by look gave the faintest sign of jealousy or of
a wish to hamper Lotte’s freedom.
The relation was a most difficult one, and made Goethe restless and
unhappy. At last the strain became intolerable, and he resolved to save
himself by flight. On the 10th of September, having dined with Kestner
in a public garden, Goethe spent the evening with the lovers in Lotte’s
home; and, as it happened, the talk became unusually sombre, Lotte
herself giving it a serious turn by a reference to the invisible world.
On returning to his rooms he wrote farewell letters, adding next morning
a line for Lotte alone. “Be ever of cheerful mood, dear Lotte,” he
wrote,--“you are happier than a hundred--only not indifferent! And I,
dear Lotte, am happy that I read in your eyes that you believe I shall
never change. Adieu, a thousand times adieu!”
On the same morning he quitted Wetzlar, haunted by the thought of her,
but with the feeling that he was escaping from a grave and imminent
peril. At Darmstadt Goethe had met Frau von Laroche, who had made some
reputation as the author of a recently-published romance, “Die
Geschichte des Fräulein von Sternheim.” She was the wife of a high
official at the Electoral Court of Trier, and her home was on the
outskirts of a beautiful village that nestled at the foot of
Ehrenbreitstein. In response, no doubt, to an invitation to visit her,
Goethe now made his way slowly down the Lahn towards the Rhine, finding
in communion with nature some relief from the depression that had
succeeded the excitement of the previous weeks.
During his stay at the house of Frau von Laroche several guests
arrived--among them, Merck with his wife and little boy. Goethe
thoroughly enjoyed his visit, opening his heart and imagination to all
the impressions produced on him by free, joyous intercourse with
friends, and by the lovely scenery of the Rhine country. Frau von
Laroche, by whom he had not been strongly attracted at Darmstadt, won
his confidence and affection; and he had many a pleasant talk with the
eldest of her two daughters, Maximiliane, a girl of about seventeen,
whose fine dark eyes and frank, pretty ways might have created for him a
new danger but for the power that had so completely subdued him at
Wetzlar.
Before the end of September he was back at Frankfort, and in the course
of a few weeks he was again engaged in professional business, to which
he continued to give some attention during the whole of the remaining
time spent in his father’s house. But he was firmly resolved that his
real work should be literature, and now so much had happened to deepen
his feeling and quicken his imagination that the difficulty was, not how
to find something to say, but how to give expression to even a small
proportion of the thoughts that pressed upon him for utterance.
At Wetzlar Goethe had received Herder’s anxiously expected reply with
regard to the “Geschichte Gottfriedens von Berlichingen.” It was
anything but flattering to the young writer’s vanity. Herder had hardly
a good word to say for the play, and expressed the opinion that it had
been spoiled by his slavish adherence to the manner of Shakespeare. In
his answer Goethe acknowledged the justice of the strictures of his
extremely candid friend, and announced his intention of completely
recasting the work. At Wetzlar, however, he was in no mood to undertake
so strenuous a labour, and after his return to Frankfort he was for some
time too much occupied otherwise to think of carrying out his purpose.
But Merck, who heartily admired the play, urged him to give it its final
form; and early in 1773 Goethe at last took the task in hand. Shutting
himself up in his room at the top of the house, he worked at it day
after day, becoming more and more absorbed in it as he went on; and
before the winter was fairly over, he finished it. In its new shape the
play received the title, “Goetz von Berlichingen mit der eisernen Hand.
Ein Schauspiel.” (“Goetz von Berlichingen with the Iron Hand. A drama.”)
It is impossible to compare it with the work as originally written
without admiring the high conception of art by which Goethe was
controlled in transforming what he had done. In the minutest details he
sought for perfection, and entire scenes, in themselves powerful and
interesting, were struck out because they did not seem to accord with
the scheme as a whole. Long afterwards he taught that it is in
“limitation” (_Beschränkung_) that the master reveals himself; and
already he had some perception of the vital importance of this great
truth.
In working out his conception Goethe did not consider it necessary to
adhere strictly to the facts of history. He makes Goetz die immediately
after the Peasants’ War, whereas in reality he lived nearly forty years
afterwards, and distinguished himself in Charles V.’s wars with the
French and the Turks. This, however, need not disturb any one in the
enjoyment of the play, which is to be judged as a work of art without
reference to the actual events which it in part reproduces.
“Goetz” is as far as possible from being a faultless play. Goethe tried
to conceive it in the spirit of Shakespeare’s historical dramas, but at
this early period he had not sufficient mastery of his intellectual
resources to be able to give, as Shakespeare gives, unity of design to
the representation of a complicated series of incidents. The forces
called into exercise have in some instances only an accidental
connection with one another; they are not combined so as to produce the
impression of a complete and harmonious process of development.
Nevertheless, the work is unmistakably a creation of genius. It brings
before us in grandly sweeping outlines, and in bold, vivid colours all
the leading elements of the national life of Germany in the early part
of the sixteenth century. The characters live and breathe, and their
language--fresh, vigorous, and animated--is that which we should expect
to hear from them in real life. Goetz himself is an admirable type of a
just and fearless warrior. He has not, indeed, any large conception of
the issues towards which his age is moving, but in the midst of debasing
influences he knows how to maintain the purity of his own impulses, and
how to strike boldly and strongly in defence of ideas of which he makes
himself a champion. Rough in manner, and a lover of plain speech, he is
at heart tender and humane; and in the most difficult circumstances,
when a character less simple and direct might be liable to gross
misconstruction, there can be no doubt as to the honesty and dignity of
his motives. Men of this noble mould--frank, unconventional, and
true--were never more needed than in Goethe’s own day, and one of the
objects of the play was to suggest that if they were possible in the
sixteenth, they could not be impossible in the eighteenth century.
A love-story is interwoven with the presentation of Goetz’s activity;
and from the point of view of art this is perhaps the best part of the
drama. Weislingen, a young and brilliant statesman at the corrupt court
of the Bishop of Bamberg, is taken prisoner by Goetz. He falls in love
with the knight’s sister, Maria, and his love is returned. When,
however, he goes back to the Bishop’s court, pledged to support no
undertaking against Goetz or his friends, he is overcome by the wiles of
Adelheid, a subtle, cruel, and fascinating woman, who understands
thoroughly the essential weakness of his character. She professes to
love him, and becomes his wife, and in the end he is poisoned by his
servant, who acts as her agent. Weislingen and Adelheid are genuinely
dramatic figures, and the character of Maria, simple, affectionate, and
loyal, is not less finely conceived. It was Frederika Brion he was
thinking of when he depicted Weislingen’s love for, and desertion of,
Maria. When the play was published, he sent a copy to Salzmann, with a
request that it should be forwarded to Sesenheim. “Poor Frederika,” he
wrote, “will be to some extent consoled when the unfaithful one is
poisoned.”
The play was printed by Merck, who had started a printing establishment
of his own; and in the summer of 1773 it was published. The enthusiasm
it awakened far surpassed Goethe’s anticipations. Hitherto the unities
of the French classic drama had been rigidly respected in the drama of
Germany. Lessing had fought hard to show that they are not essential to
a great work of art, but in his own plays he had not cared to violate
them. The author of “Goetz” had wholly ignored them, daring to think
rather of the vitality of his characters than of the conditions of a
well-rounded scheme. To some critics of the older generation the play
seemed almost grotesquely extravagant, but the younger men hailed it as
a glorious symptom of the uprising of a new and adventurous spirit of
liberty. A man of genius, putting aside conventions and artificialities,
had gone straight to reality for inspiration, and had uttered a word
that delivered them, as they thought, from the necessity of submitting
not only to the unities, but to any kind of artistic law. A school of
writers was formed, all of whom looked to Goethe as their chief.
Prominent among them was Klinger, a native of Frankfort, the title of
one of whose plays, “Sturm und Drang,” was afterwards accepted as the
name of the period in which it was produced. Lenz, whom Goethe had known
at Strasburg, and who, after Goethe’s departure, had tried to win the
affections of Frederika Brion, was another member of the group. These
young writers had plenty of ambition and vigour, but they mistook
eccentricity for originality, sentimentalism for passion, noisy
declamation for poetry, and not a shred of interest now attaches to
their productions, except as documents which throw light on a curious
phase of literary history.
After the publication of his play, Goethe became one of the “lions” of
Frankfort, and had to endure the visits of innumerable strangers who
wished to make his acquaintance. He acquired confidence in his own
genius, and did not doubt that he would be able to justify the highest
expectations formed as to his future work. He was universally liked, for
he had all the good qualities with which he had endowed Goetz, and his
friends found that there was always something exhilarating in his frank
and brilliant talk. Yet at this time he was passing through a period of
deep depression. It was not connected with any particular misfortune,
nor was it due to love for Lotte, for Kestner and she were now husband
and wife, and Goethe thought of her only as a friend. His unhappiness
sprang wholly from spiritual causes. He had longings which the actual
world seemed to be incapable of satisfying, and the more he reflected on
life, and sought to comprehend its meaning, the more he was oppressed
by the old, old mysteries that have baffled and saddened so many a noble
mind. Sometimes the idea of suicide suggested itself, and in his
autobiography he has described how he laid a dagger by his bed-side, and
before putting out the light tried whether he could not pierce his
breast.
In the autumn of 1773, the marriage of Cornelia and Schlosser took
place, and they quitted Frankfort, ultimately settling in Emmendingen.
This was a severe blow to Goethe, for communion with his sister had been
to him a constant source of consolation, and in her absence he was
driven in, more than ever, upon himself. A little later in the year he
heard with pleasure that he would soon have frequent opportunities of
seeing Maximiliane Laroche, who, although still only a young girl, was
about to be married to a Frankfort merchant, an Italian called Brentano.
The marriage was not a happy one, and proved to be for Goethe a new
cause of trouble. Feeling for Maximiliane, both for her own sake and for
her mother’s (whom he always addressed as “Mamma”), a sincere brotherly
affection, he often called upon her, and did what he could to make her
life in Frankfort tolerable. Brentano was of a furiously jealous
disposition, and, misunderstanding these visits, one day grossly
insulted Goethe. Violently agitated, Goethe declined to enter the house
again, and, for a long time, saw Maximiliane only when he met her at the
play or elsewhere accidentally.
It was always Goethe’s habit, when burdened by any feeling, to liberate
himself by means of some imaginative effort; and now he felt that the
time had come for this mode of relief. He had not to choose a subject,
for the plan of a romance had already taken firm possession of his mind.
Towards the end of 1772 he had heard of the suicide of Jerusalem, a
young secretary of legation at Wetzlar, with whom he had had a slight
acquaintance both there and at Leipsic. Jerusalem had loved a married
woman, and in a moment of despair had shot himself with a pistol
borrowed from Kestner. Goethe, after the first shock of the tidings was
past, decided to give an imaginative presentation of the tale, but in
the early part to substitute for Jerusalem’s experiences, about which he
had only general information, the story of his own love for Lotte. From
time to time the execution of the scheme was put off, but when driven by
an imperious impulse to give form to the conceptions by which he was
haunted, he accomplished his task with almost feverish haste. The work
was ended about the beginning of March, 1774, and the greater part of it
was written during the preceding month. The figures of the romance stood
out before him in sharply-cut outlines, and their story flowed freely
from his pen, because in reality it was the story of his own inmost
life. He called it “Die Leiden des jungen Werthers” (“The Sufferings of
Young Werther”).
The work consists of a series of letters written by Werther, and some
explanatory statements made by the editor. In his conception of the
tale, and in his choice of form, Goethe was deeply indebted both to
Richardson and to Rousseau, but especially to Rousseau, the spirit of
whose “La Nouvelle Héloïse” breathes in every line of “Werther.” “La
Nouvelle Héloïse,” however, is a book of the past, interesting only to
students of literature and of the history of ideas, whereas “Werther” is
still alive, and can never wholly lose its freshness.
Werther has many qualities that excite interest and sympathy. He has a
deep vein of poetry; Nature appeals to him strongly; he is an enthusiast
for the best literature; and he is always generous to the poor and the
distressed. But he is incapable of manly decision, and on the slightest
provocation he sheds floods of tears, secretly proud of his sensibility
as a mark of a superior type of character. When the story opens, he is
in a little provincial town, whither he has gone to see about a legacy
left to his mother. He is not discontented, for in Homer and Ossian he
has the kind of companionship he loves, and in the surrounding country
there are exquisite views which he is never tired of admiring and
sketching. Suddenly he meets Lotte, and his whole being is transformed.
In her are realized all the dreams he has ever had of womanly loveliness
and charm. She does not glide into his affections; the moment he sees
her--with the children, for whom she cuts the “Abendbrod,” clamouring
around her--she becomes the supreme object of his devotion. To be in her
presence is ecstasy. It is of her that all things in Nature speak to
him, and he has no thought, no wish but to serve her. She is already
betrothed, but her lover is from home, and as long as he is absent
Werther thinks little about him, and lives in a world all glowing with
the light reflected from his own happiness.
By and by Albert, the accepted lover, returns, and now for the first
time Werther realizes that Lotte is beyond his reach. He suffers
unspeakable tortures, and knows not where to turn for relief. Deep in
his heart, before he ever saw Lotte, the seeds of morbid growths had
been implanted, and in his wretchedness they spring up in rank
luxuriance. All life becomes hateful to him. Nowhere can he find
anything that does not seem to bear the mark of some primæval curse.
Even Nature, in communion with which he has so often felt bounding
delight, takes on the aspect of a devouring monster. Her forces are
pitiless; and he himself, full of tender compassion, cannot move without
crushing some helpless creature under his feet. Against the very essence
of things he rises in revolt. Thinking of what life may mean, he feels
that he is standing on the edge of an abyss, and he looks with horror
into its black depths.
At last, yielding to the entreaties of the friend to whom his letters
are addressed, he flies from the scene of his misery, and, accepting a
diplomatic appointment at a German court, hopes to regain peace of mind
by taking part in the world’s work. But he is slighted in an assembly of
people with whom, as a man of the middle class, he is not thought fit to
associate; and the insult so rankles in his mind that he sends in his
resignation, and after some months of brooding he cannot resist the
temptation to go back to Lotte. By this time she is married;
nevertheless, his passion burns more fiercely than ever, and anguish
rends his heart when he sees her in Albert’s possession. She has always
had a warm regard for Werther. Now his sufferings arouse her pity, and
in the end she cannot conceal from herself that she loves him. But she
expostulates with him, and begs him to leave her, to marry some one who
can honourably give herself to him, and to return as a friend. Albert
becomes jealous and watchful, and utter shipwreck seems to be the
destiny of the newly-formed household. Werther, sick at heart, loathing
existence, resolves to bring his agony to a violent end, and after a
wild scene, in which Lotte almost loses control of herself, the tragedy
closes with his death. The pistol with which he shoots himself he
borrows from Albert on the plea that he is about to start on a journey.
Lotte takes it from its place, and, having wiped the dust from it, hands
it to the messenger with a sad foreboding that some terrible disaster is
at hand.
“Werther” is a story of a “mind diseased”; and, judged from this point
of view, it stands supreme among the prose writings of the eighteenth
century. Goethe himself never wrote, in prose, anything more powerful.
Werther’s malady was not the malady of an individual only, but of an
age. Thoughtful men had outlived their beliefs, their institutions,
their customs; all around them was a world touched by the finger of
decay. They sought to shake themselves free from the intolerable yoke of
the past, but as yet nothing had appeared that could take the place of
the old ideas; there was no influence to awaken disinterested
enthusiasm, to lead to combined and settled effort for worthy ends. So
even the best minds--and perhaps they more than others--felt themselves
isolated, and, in the absence of nobler interests, were forced to think
much about their own moods, about the ebb and flow of the tides of
purely personal feeling. Hence a morbid sensitiveness, an extravagant
sentimentalism; hence, too, a disposition to read the facts of
existence in the light of individual experience--a tendency to conclude
that, because the hungry “I” was unhappy, therefore the universe was a
gigantic blunder and imposture. In “Werther” Goethe probes this disease
to its roots. It is a profound error to suppose that he intended the
hero of the tale to be taken as a complete representation of his own
character. Werther wholly lacked many of the qualities that made Goethe
great--his original impulse, his creative energy, his strength of will.
But Werther’s mood had for a while been Goethe’s mood, and it is for
this reason that as we read the solitary sentimentalist’s letters he
seems to start into life, and we learn to know him, back into the inmost
recesses of his spirit, more intimately than if he stood before us in
actual flesh and blood. It was a phase--a passing but most striking
phase--of his own many-sided nature that Goethe was disclosing, and he
could not but write of it in words of searching power. And yet all was
not put down exactly as it came into his mind. With fine, instinctive
art he selected those elements of the tale, and those only, that were
fitted to reveal his essential purpose, and to prepare the way for the
ultimate issue. When we close the book, and look back, we feel that no
other issue was possible. Were Werther a man of good sense and resolute
will, he could easily, no doubt, disentangle himself, but with his
character, and in his circumstances, ruin is inevitable.
Lotte, as she is presented in the first part of “Werther,” is one of the
most exquisite of Goethe’s creations. Her youth and beauty, the
frankness of her manner, the joyous spirit in which she devotes herself
to others, and the warm poetic feeling combined in her nature with a
sound and ready judgment, are brought out with so delicate a grace, yet
in such clear outlines, that we do not wonder at the influence she
exerts over all who know her, and especially over a sensitive mind like
Werther’s. It is hard to realize that the Lotte of the second part is
also the Lotte of the first, and it may be that here there is a flaw in
Goethe’s idea of the character. The maelstrom of passion within whose
sweep she is caught is so powerfully depicted that at the moment of
reading we are not permitted to raise any question as to the consistency
of the conception; but when all is over, we cannot help suspecting that
we have been introduced to two Lottes rather than to one. The Lotte who
afterwards lives in the imagination is certainly the Lotte of the first
part, a sane and wholesome figure, contrasting strongly with the shrill
and despairing Werther. Albert stands out less prominently than Werther
and Lotte, but he also has living qualities, and if anything could make
the final scenes, so far as Lotte is concerned, intelligible, it would
be his pompous self-esteem and exasperating respectability.
One of the secrets of the charm of “Werther” lies in its style. It is a
style peculiar to Goethe himself, yet without a trace of eccentricity.
Strong, lucid, and picturesque, it adapts itself with perfect suppleness
to every mood the writer wishes to express; and it is so absolutely
unaffected that, as we read, we think of what is said rather than of the
artist’s way of saying it. “Werther” is also remarkable as the first
modern German book in which we find descriptions of nature that are
still full of charm. It was Rousseau who had opened men’s eyes to the
splendour and loveliness of the outward world. Goethe had learned all
that Rousseau could teach as to the art of suggesting natural scenery to
the imagination through written speech, and in “Werther” he went far
beyond the highest achievements of his instructor. His descriptions are
often merely rapid sketches, but they are sketches drawn with so sure a
touch that they never fail to call up a vision having all the freshness
of reality. And they intensify interest in the tale, for nature is
brought in less for its own sake than for the sake of its relation to
feeling. It is with Werther’s eyes that we see the scenes he reproduces,
and he finds in them always a power that responds to his own happiness
or gloom.
Few books have ever produced so strong a sensation. Almost everywhere in
Germany “Werther” was received with mingled astonishment and delight. It
had come straight from the writer’s heart, and went as straight to the
hearts of those who read it. They found in the tale a voice that gave
utterance to much that they themselves had been feeling, and many of
them not only shed hot tears for Werther’s fate, but affected his modes
of expression, and even dressed as he had dressed--in blue coat, yellow
vest, yellow hose, and top-boots. By and by the book was translated into
almost every European language, and in far Cathay Werther and Lotte were
painted on glass by native artists.
At first there was one discordant note in the general chorus of praise.
Kestner was gravely offended by what he took to be a misrepresentation
of the relations between Goethe, Lotte, and himself. In reality there
was no misrepresentation, for Goethe had dealt freely with the
experiences through which he had passed, using only those of them that
were adapted to his scheme, and adding scenes in which there was no
element of fact. The Lotte of the first part, notwithstanding her black
eyes, is Charlotte Buff, perhaps slightly idealized; but in the second
part she is wholly a figure of the imagination. As for Albert, Goethe,
if he thought of any one in particular in conceiving the character,
thought of Brentano, not of Kestner. In the end Kestner had a better
understanding of what had been intended, and was not a little proud of
the part his wife had unconsciously played in the creation of so famous
a romance.
Goethe himself says that when he finished “Werther” he felt as one feels
after a general confession. The load that had weighed so heavily on his
spirit was for the moment removed, and, once more free and happy, he
looked forward hopefully to new activity. By and by he could even jest
about the characters whose woes had moved him so deeply. Nicolai, the
Berlin bookseller and man of letters, who had done better work in his
time, wrote a parody of the book, showing how in reality Werther and
Lotte became husband and wife, and lived happily ever after; the pistol
with which Werther had tried to shoot himself having been loaded with
chicken’s blood. Some verses written by Goethe show that he took offence
at this indignity; but afterwards he wrote an amusing little dialogue,
in which Werther and Lotte complain of Nicolai’s misconceptions. The
chicken’s blood has blinded Werther, and Lotte, while pitying him, is
anything but enchanted by the change this has made in his appearance.
His eyebrows, she says, will never be so beautiful as they were before.
In “Dichtung und Wahrheit” Goethe speaks of this dialogue with some
pride, and it certainly shows how completely, at the time when he wrote
it, he felt himself emancipated from the influences from which “Werther”
had sprung.
He had not yet, however, brought his powers under strict control. Many
conflicting ideas struggled in his mind for mastery, and his moods
varied from day to day, one giving way to another without any apparent
reason and with startling rapidity. Goethe’s nature was too complicated,
touched to too many fine issues, to attain suddenly, or soon, to inward
repose.
Two complete prose dramas were written in Frankfort after he finished
“Werther”--“Clavigo” and “Stella.” “Clavigo” is a dramatic rendering of
incidents recorded in the “Memoirs” of Beaumarchais. These “Memoirs”
appeared in Paris in the spring of 1774, and in the summer of the same
year Goethe’s play was published. In imaginative energy, and in range
and depth of feeling, “Clavigo” is far inferior to “Goetz,” but it
displays a striking advance in the power of construction. The formerly
despised unities are here observed, and the interest, such as it is,
steadily grows until it culminates in the catastrophe. The chief defect
of the play is that Clavigo, on whose action everything depends, is too
feeble a character to excite much interest. His cynical friend, Don
Carlos, has, however, marked individuality, and the part played by him
is still found by German actors to repay careful study. Maria, the
heroine, dies of a broken heart, and in describing Clavigo’s desertion
of her, as in describing Weislingen’s desertion of the Maria of
“Goetz,” Goethe did a kind of penance for his treatment of Frederika
Brion.
“Stella,” which was written in 1775, seems to have been suggested by
Swift’s relations to Stella and Vanessa. In this play also Goethe
respects the unities, and much technical skill is shown in the
development of the story. The play in its original form, however, could
not now be acted without exciting ridicule. The hero, Ferdinand, having
married Cecilia, whom he loves, feels after a while that his freedom is
unduly limited by a wife and daughter; and accordingly he leaves them.
Then he falls in love with Stella, but her also he ultimately deserts.
When the play opens, he has returned in the hope of being re-united to
Stella. He finds her, but at the same time finds his wife and daughter,
the latter having become Stella’s companion. There is now a vehement
conflict of motives. Which of the two women shall he select? Cecilia
suggests that it may be possible for him to live with both, and this
solution, with Stella’s hearty consent, he joyfully accepts. Such was
the passion for “nature” at the time that the public do not seem to have
been in any way offended or perplexed by this strange conclusion; but
thirty years afterwards Goethe changed the last act, bringing the play
to an end with the suicide of Ferdinand and Stella. A tragic issue,
however, could not be made to appear the natural result of conditions
which were in the first instance planned for a wholly different scheme.
To this period belong two short plays with songs--“Erwin and Elmire,”
and “Claudine von Villa Bella.” Both are brightly written, but--except
in the charm of their songs--they have no qualities that mark them off
sharply from work of a like kind done by other dramatists of the time.
The idea of the first of these two plays is the idea of Goldsmith’s
ballad, “Edwin and Angelina.”
At this time Goethe sometimes amused himself by writing humorous and
satirical sketches, in all of which there is a free and lively play of
fancy. The most famous of them is “Götter, Helden, und Wieland” (“Gods,
Heroes, and Wieland”), which Goethe (with a bottle of Burgundy on the
table) dashed off one Sunday afternoon. Lenz, to whom it was sent,
printed it without having received Goethe’s permission. In this prose
“farce” Goethe very wittily makes fun of Wieland’s misrepresentations of
Greek mythology.
So many ideas crowded into Goethe’s mind that it was impossible for him
to realize all his plans. For some time he thought of taking the career
of Mahomet as the subject of a poetical drama, and if we may judge from
the beginning he actually made, the theme as he conceived it would have
given full scope to his highest creative faculties. He also intended to
write a poem on the Wandering Jew, bringing out the contrast between the
loftiest idealism, as represented in Christ, and vulgar worldly
intelligence, as represented in Ahasuerus, who was to have expostulated
with Christ for uselessly exposing Himself to danger by the proclamation
of unpopular truths. Of this poem he completed only a few passages,
written in couplets like those of Hans Sachs--a poet whom Goethe warmly
admired. Another of his poetical fragments is “Prometheus,” one of the
finest of his early writings. The Moravian Brethren, with whom he still
occasionally associated, impressed upon him that man, of himself, can do
nothing well, and that his aim should be to wait passively for
supernatural influences. This doctrine was ill fitted for a young poet
who by a law of his nature was impelled to ceaseless effort; and in
“Prometheus” he proposed to develop an exalted conception of the power
of the free individual mind. The defiant address of Prometheus to Zeus,
with which the fragment closes, ranks among the most splendid of his
shorter poems.