Page:Imperialdictiona02eadi Brandeis.pdf/702

GOE But the lasting monument Göthe has left of his own dramatic tastes, and of the ideal views he endeavoured with so much vigour to realize, is the novel of "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship" (Lehrjahre), which he published in 1796. It is scarcely a novel in our sense of the word, so slight a structure of action has to bear so great a mass of contemplative and critical writing. There is no regularly progressive plot; the book is held together almost solely by the presence of Meister himself, and the other characters pass, repass, and often disappear like ships on the sea. One aspect of it is allegorical; the career of the artist is a type of the education of experience in general; his various friends are more or less representatives of the influences which affect every individual mind in its progress through life. But it should be borne in mind that the tendency of the whole work is more æsthetical than moral. It is content to suggest self-culture as the great means of development. It is a picture of modern life—of the life of an artist in Germany at the dawn of the nineteenth century. Few works will afford to the reader more artistic pleasure; the beauty of the style throughout it itself repays him, and some of the characters are among the author's most charming creations. Many of the critical passages in "Meister" have attained a just celebrity, especially the exhaustive conversations and remarks on Shakspeare and Hamlet. This novel exerted at the time of its publication a considerable influence on society and dramatic art, and Göthe was induced to write a sequel to it under the title of "Meister's Wanderjahre." "Meister" was succeeded in 1798 by "Hermann and Dorothea," the form of which was probably suggested by Voss' Louise. The grace and dignity of Göthe's idyll are beyond praise; and, touching a chord which was in 1798 more of a response, the political events of the times are introduced as a sombre background to this picture of domestic trials and home happiness. The "Natural Daughter" (1804) has found few admirers, and it must be acknowledged that the play is marked by an entire want of vigour and dramatic interest.

The Germans delight to celebrate 1797 as the year when Göthe and Schiller wrote their ballads. The two poets often supplied each other with subjects for these beautiful poems. In 1805 death severed a brotherly union, which bore such splendid fruits for the fame of both the poets and for their country's literature. Schiller, whose constitution had been long undermined by disease, at last succumbed; and it was long before Göthe, who was himself suffering from an illness which it was feared would be mortal, could rally from the blow.

He betook himself to the consolations of art and science. The treatise on Winckelman (1805) should here be mentioned, and the art-journal. Art and Antiquity (Kunst und Alterthum), begun some years later (1816). Our space does not allow us to discuss the value of Göthe's scientific researches, which to himself at least were a constant source of satisfaction. The question has been amply considered in a point of view eminently favourable to Göthe in Mr. Lewes' Life, and an article previously written by the same hand in the Westminster Review. His "Theory of Colours" (Farbeulehre), 1810, is allowed even by Mr. Lewes to rest on an entire misconception, while his "Metamorphosis of Plants," published as early as 1790, and anatomical treatises have been recognized as guesses at truth by the highest authorities.

Schiller had not lived to witness the publication of Göthe's greatest work, which alone would be sufficient to place him in the position of the greatest poet of our times. Biographically, the interest of "Faust" consists in its being the only work of Göthe which gives us the whole man; neither the youth who drew the defiant sketches of Götz and Werther, nor the master who chiselled the calm features of Tasso, but the Göthe who bends the desires and aspirations of youth to their appointed purposes, and accompanies the delineations of matured thought by a sympathetic exposition of the struggles which preceded it. The first part of "Faust" was not published as a whole till the year 1807. A fragment had appeared seventeen years before; but Göthe seems to have been occupied with the idea of this tragedy since a far earlier period of his life. It is impossible to trace accurately the growth of a work written under the most different feelings and circumstances; but it is perhaps worth mentioning that some of its most grotesque scenes (as that in the Witch's Kitchen) were composed in the classic atmosphere of the Villa Borghese at Rome. It is not strange that the subject of "Faust" should have exercised so great a fascination over Göthe's mind. The popular tales of the doctor and his evil companion were, and are, in the hands of every German child. The Leipsic student frequently caroused in Auerbach's cellar, which derives its peculiar sanctity from the memorable manner in which it was visited and quitted by the mysterious pair. Faust was a favourite subject among the geniuses of the Sturm und Drang times, two of whom, Klinger and Maler Müller, dramatized it after their wild fashion; and Lessing had left a fragment founded on the same story. In the beautiful dedication prefixed to the drama, Göthe has contrasted the feelings with which he approached and those with which he completed his works. Faust is the type of man struggling for perfection; aware of the conflict in which he is engaged, and of the troubles besetting his path; but only darkly seeing the end to which he shall attain, and utterly erring as to the means of attainment. In vain he gropes among his books for truth; it is only the beginning of wisdom that he learns from them—that he knows nothing. Mephistopheles enters—the negative spirit—the arch scoffer—the modern devil—at first in the form of a beast, with counsels and a philosophy befitting his original shape. Under his guidance Faust forsakes his books entirely, but not for that nature which is the book from which he might learn what he seeks. Sensualism is the phase on which he now enters, refined only by an innate nobility which reproves while it does not restrain him, and by the simple purity of the object of his passion. Margaret is ruined; and Faust whirled away into the mad carnival of the Walpurgis-night, from which he returns to witness the death of his mistress. Through patience and suffering she finds salvation and happiness, while he is carried off, none knows whither, to new conflicts and struggles—. It is not wonderful that so much secret meaning has been supposed to be hidden in this work. There are few great struggles of mankind or the individual man to which some application may not be made from it. But the remark must not be omitted, that while the conviction that the secret of life cannot be discovered among the dust of books, while nature lies open before men, was the motto of the whole school of young writers and thinkers who revolutionized German literature, Faust teaches also the converse lesson—that the green tree of life, as Mephistopheles calls it, does not immediately yield the desired fruit to every hand that plucks at its branches. The student of "Faust" will find no lack of commentators to help him on his way. But none will be needed for the appreciation of the poetical beauties of Göthe's masterpiece—of the subtlety of its characterizations, of the glowing fancy which illuminates so many passages from the prologue in heaven down to the last thrilling prison-scene, and of the charming lyrical pieces and songs with which the tragedy is interspersed.

There are innumerable translations of "Faust" into the English language. Shelley, who was most successful in the few scenes he attempted, acknowledged the difficulty of the task.

In 1809 the "Elective Affinities" (Wahlverwandtschaften) appeared. As a work of art the book is perfect; the delineation of character is minute without being tedious, and the meaning of the whole clear without being obvious. The moral and metaphysical questions involved in it must not be considered separately with regard to the single book, but in their relation to Göthe's whole system of morality. The conflict of Werther reappears, but under how different a light! Again we see the laws of nature in conflict with the by-laws of society; again we see the tragic issue of that conflict in one case; but we are directly taught, what in "Werther" we were taught only by implication, that the solution of the problem lies in a resignation which recognizes the ordinances of society without becoming part of them, and obeys them without incorporating their inhumanity.

Göthe had now arrived at the period of age respected and honoured by all around him, still as in youth his prince's counsellor and friend, still with sympathies ready to welcome everything great and good; with a warmth of heart that inspired him at times with an almost boyish ardour, and a benevolence which was his unfailing characteristic, he walked over what remained of his illustrious path. To the last he preserved his interest in all branches of science and art, and continued to enrich literature with works only inferior to those of his own prime. His autobiography (published 1811-13, under the title of "Poetry and Truth, from my life") is one of the most