Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/311

 Reviews andNotes 305 This 1914 Wisconsin dissertation may be more exactly described as being a systematic presentation, not so much of Goethe's estimate of the Greek and Latin writers alone, but rather, in parts at least, of a detailed history or the minutiae of Goethe's study throughout his life principally of the Greek and to a lesser extent of the Latin writers, as recorded by Goethe himself. It at once challenges comparison with two recent works on the subject, namely that of Primer (Paul Primer, Goethes Verhdltnis zum klassischen Altertum, Progr., Frankfurt a. M., 1911, 45 pp.) and of the more pretentious Maass (Ernst Maass, Goethe und die Antike, Berlin, Stuttgart, Leipzig, Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1912. X+655 pp.). Goethe's relation to classical antiquity has often been investigated before Primer, but these attempts prior to Primer's as a rule limited themselves to Goethe's works only. Primer was the first to use the complete Weimar edition of the Letters for this purpose. Upon this basis, Primer seeks to draw a pic- ture of Goethe's extensive knowledge of classical antiquity and of the " powerful effect" it exercised upon Goethe. Primer thus sums up his results: die Briefe lehren, dasz Goethe bis ins spate Alter bemiiht gewesen ist, aus dem erfrischenden Quell der klassischen Literatur zu schopfen und sich das seiner Natur Gemasze anzueignen. Bei keinem unserer Klassiker tritt so deutlich wie bei Goethe die charakteristische Eigenart hervor und zwar sein ganzes Leben lang, selbst eigne Erlebnisse und Empfindungen in antikem Gewande darzustellen. Primer does not exhaust the Letters; he points to the Tagebucher, Conversa- tions, and other sources, which promise, upon further investiga- tion, to yield results additional to his own. And so one might link up Dr. Keller's work directly with Primer's brochure. One year after Primer's 1 pamphlet, Maass' bulky volume appeared. The chapter headings in this book reveal a lack of uniform grouping of the material. This divergent topical selection by Maass confuses the reader; the confusion is cleared up only if one finds the cleavage in his arrangement. Seven out of eighteen chapters have for their topic some part of Goethe's works, whereas eight other chapters bear the name of some Greek writers, two of which are mislabeled. The seven chapters are: I. Erste Dichtung; II. Gotz; IV. Nausikaa; V. Klassi- sche Walpurgisnacht; VI. Helena; IX. Mignon und Harfner; XII. Satyros. Of the mislabeled chapters, the seventh, 1 Primer was not accessible to me and known to me only through A. Krae- mer's article in the Deutsche Liter aturzeitung (XXXII. Jg., No. 41, October 14, 1911, pp. 2590-2593). According to Kraemer, the rendering of Goethes Iphigenie into Greek and of his Hermann und Dorothea into Latin was very successful (Vortrefflich gelungen).