Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/756

Rh l|'.llu.-Z411. JIri3tz'7'. Yrnirn. 732 GOE He made a successful n1arri-1ge, and worked seriously at his Ilistory of the '1'lu'rt_r/ Years’ War. I11 1791 Schiller l1ad arranged with tl1e publisher, Cotta of Augsburg, whose name is from this time indissolubly co1111ected with the history of German literature, for the production of a new literary journal. tinguished German writers were to co11tribute to it. accepted tl1e i11vitatio11 willingly. The work was designed to mark an epoch i11 German taste, a11d it did so. l1ad two thousand subscribers. Among those wl1o promised to contribute were 11ot only Matthisson, Ilerder, K11ebel, Fritz Jacobi, a11d Glei111, but the brothers Humboldt, the veteran Kant, the youthful Fiehte, who had just beg1111 to lecture i11 Jena, and, at a later period, the brothers Schlegel. Schiller opened the ﬁrst number of the journal with his letters on the “JEsthetic Education of the Human Race.” Goethe contributed the “Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausge- wanderten,” a series of stories told by a number of German e111igrants who had been driven to cross the Rhine by the invasion of the French. The n1ost remarkable of these stories is the “.[‘zircl1en,” a wild a11d mystic tale, which l1as been the subject of as 111ucl1 controversy a11d of as many interpretations as the seco11d part of Faust. Goethe also published i11 the Iloren the “Riin1iscl1e Elegien,” the ﬂavour of which even Karl August found a little too strong. The ﬁrst effect of Schiller’s inﬂuence on Goethe was the co111- pletion of Willzelm Jfeisters Le}njaln'e. He had conceived the plan of the work twenty years before, and the ﬁrst six books had been written before the Italian journey. It was new ﬁnished by the addition of two 1nore books. It stands in the first rank of Goetl1e’s writings. He has aimed i11 it to attain to perfect objectivity of tone, to represent men as they are, and to pass no judgment upon them. The hero passes with weak irresolution through a number of ordinary circumstances, apparently the sport of fortu11e and the play- thing of chance, yet all these experiences have their deﬁnite result in the training of his character. Like the son of Kish, he goes forth to seek his father's asses and ﬁnds a king- dom. The unearthly charm of the child Mignon, the dark fate which shrouds the aged harper like the doom of (Edipus, the uncertain yearning after a happier home i11 brighter clin1es, give a deeper undertone to the prevailing lightness of the story. The style is exquisitely soft and ﬂowing. It has the sweetness and simplicity of Wertlzer, but is more mellow a11d more mature. The sixth book is occupied with the Belcentnisse einer sclzijnen Seele, a piece of the auto- biography of Goethe’s early friend Fraulein von Kletten- berg, altered to suit its new surroundings. The Jllusen Almcumc/L for 1796, edited by Schiller, was enriched by so1ne of Goetl1e’s n1ost exquisite poems—Die Nalze cles Geliebten, Jfeeres Stille, a11d Gliickliclze Falzrt. The storm of criticism which was aroused by the Iloren, a11d the little success which, after the first numbers, it met with f ron1 the public, determined the two friends to retaliate upon their aggressors. The poems of Martial contain a number of epigrams written in two lines, describi11g the numberless little presents or xenia, which it was customary for friends to exchange at Rome during the time of the Saturnalia. The name was borrowed by the two poets, and the .1'em'en was a convenient vehicle for the expression of their opinion on every subject. The newspapers of the day were the ﬁrst object of attack, but they soon went farther aﬁeld. The epigran1s were written in Schiller’s rooms at Jena. It is impossible to ﬁx the authorship of the Xenien ; one con- ceived the idea, the other wrote the lines; one wrote the hexameter, the other the pentameter; they intended the authorship as well as the ownership of the copyright to be one and indivisible. Notwithstanding this, the collection has been broken up. There is no guarantee that the epigrams which appear iii the separate works of either poet were really It was to be called the Iloren, a11d the 111ost dis- 1' Goethe It soon I / ‘ T H E written by the authors to whom they are ascribed ; so1ne are repri11ted iii the works of both; seine have remained un- printed altogether. They appeared in the .1! us-an .lImamu,-/1 for 1797, together with the Venetian elegies mentioned above. It is needless to say that they roused the writers whom they attacked to unspeakable fury, and were the occasion of a copious literature. A 111ore solid result of tl1e friendship betwee11 the poets was the production of Ilcrman.-I uml Doro!/Lea. It is a Gennan idyll ; the story is taken from the sufferings of Lutherans driven out in the early part of the 18th century fro111 the province of Salzburg, but Goethe has given it the character of his ow11 time. He had seen much of the suﬂ'ering produced by the French Revolu- tion, and he wished this poem to be a rctlexion iii a tiny 111irror of the storms and convulsions of the great world. In its literary form it is a desce11da11t of 'oss’s Luise. It was co11ccived at Ilmenau in August 1796, and ﬁnished in the following spring. Schiller tells us how it was composed with extraordinary ease and rapidity. Duri11g nine days Goethe produced 150 li11es a day. You l1ave only to shake the tree, as Schiller said, a11d ripe apples will tu111blc dow11 about yo11. The lines thus hastily written underwent 11 careful revision. Conteniporaneous with Ilermcm-n mu! Dorothea. is the production of ll'allenstez'ns Luger by Schiller, which was written with the advice and assistance of his brother poet. The completion of this cycle of plays falls two years later. The year 1797 is the year of ballads. I11 his garden house at Jena Schiller worked diligently at this vein, that perhaps for which he was best suited, a11d i11 which he 111ost nearly rivals Goethe. Goethe wrote Die B2-uut 2'07: Korintlz, Gott mad die Bayadere, and Der Zrmberlelnt-z'n_q; and the whole collection was published i11 the .l[ ((5671 Almanach for 1798. The latter half of this year was occupied with a tour i11 Switzerland. Before its CL 111- mencement he visited his 1notl1er at Frankfort for the last time, and presented to her his wife and his so11. It was a year of extraordinary activity. Besides the ballads and his researches in the morphology of plants and i11sccts, he translated a great part of the autobiography of Be11ve11uto Cellini, wrote a number of essays on the question of aesthetics, and worked at his long neglected Ivlaus-t. Of this he wrote the dedication, the “ Prologue i11 Ileaven,” and the “ Golden Marriage of Oberon and Titania”—so power- ful was the effect of intellectual syn1patl1y and stimulus. The six years which succeeded Goethe’s return from his third Swiss tour, although they embrace the period i11 which he and Schiller were in daily co-operation, have left us little of permanent worth fro111 the older poet. 011 the other hand, they are the years of Schiller's greatest activity. The great trilogy of Wallen.ste2'n, perhaps the highest poi11t of Scl1iller’s genius, was followed by Jlariu Stuart, the Jmtf/frau von Orleans, the Jfraut von 11[essz'na, a11d ll'z'l/telm. Tell. From the end of 1799 Schiller was permanently settled in Weimar ; a dramatic school was founded, and the representation of these classical dramas was the glory of the Weimar stage. Duri11g these years Goethe was occupied with F uust, with his researches into the theory of colours and of biological development, with the co11duct of the theatre a11d the practical cncourage1nent of art. I11 1798 the Iloren died a natural death, aml was succeeded by the 1’:-opylc'ien, a journal of literature and criticism, which, although it contained many essays by Got-the, never ex- ceedcd a circulation of 300. I11 the spring 1799 the study of Ho111er incited Goethe to sketch a long epic poem 011 the subject of Achilles. Schiller did his best to encou- rage the work. The ﬁrst canto was rapidly completed, but it had no successor. Goethe contented himself with trans- lating the works of others, a11d prepared the Illa/wmet and Tancred of Voltaire for the Leipsic stage. In the ﬁrst [/1 J‘:/i'.l:. 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