Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/317

 Reviews and Notes 311 tophanes' lyric passages. To the tragedians he looked up with humilhy; " toward Aristophanes his attitude is rather a good- natured patronage, much like that which Aristophanes himself feels for his characters" (p. 98). Although Goethe ranks the Greek historians high, yet there is a striking lack of interest in their works. In Herodotus, the style and the story element attract him. Thucydides receives very little attention. Goethe is attracted to Socrates' philosophy because it is practical rather than speculative. For a time, Socrates is the object of his genuine enthusiasm. There are a number of references to Plato in Goethe's early period when, however, his concern with Plato's writings, special- ly the Phaedo and the Apology, is due to his interest in Socrates rather than in Plato himself. At this time Goethe does not express any real appreciation of Plato's greatness: "Die Fiille des Plato fruchtete bei mir nicht im mindesten. " He did not really know Plato up to 1793. Even then he was but gradually won over, so that we can say that he was a mature man when he came to know Plato. His deep admiration dates from about the beginning of the century when he comes to feel the greatness of Plato. In 1808 he says: "In der Kultur der Wissenschaften haben die Bibel, Aristoteles und Plato hauptsachlich gewirkt, und auf diese drei Fundamente kommt man immer wieder zuriick. " The work done on the Farbenlehre brings to him a full appreciation of Plato, and the expression of his profoundest admiration is found here. In Ueberliefertes he continues to develop the idea of the importance of the Bible, Aristotle, and Plato in the world's culture: "Soil . . . fur uns ein Faden aus der alten Welt in die neue heriiberreichen, so mlissen wir dreier Hauptmassen gedenken, welche die groszte, entschieden- ste, ja oft ausschlieszende Wirkung hervorgebracht haben, der Bibel, der Werke Platos und Aristoteles." Plato's appeal to Goethe was almost entirely scientific, not literary. Goethe's utterances deal with the Symposium, Phaedrus (these two are merely mentioned), Apology, Phaedo, Ion, and Timaeus (pp. 105-111). Goethe finds Aristotle a difficult author to handle and comes really to know him (as was the case with Plato) only after Goethe has become a mature man. In one of the two passages above cited, Aristotle is mentioned in the second place, in the other in the third place, as being one of the three great founda- tions of modern culture (the Bible in the first and Plato in the third and second place respectively). If Plato is the man of " Geist " and " Gemut, " Aristotle is the man of "Forscherblick" and "Methode," Goethe especially admires in Aristotle his holding to facts, his insistence on experience, and his power of