Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 1.djvu/23

Rh was quick to seize on the occurrences of real life. His absurdly capricious relations with the young girl whom he called Annchen became the basis of his earliest dramatic writing, "The Lover's Caprice." His self-tormenting penance at having caused sorrow and disappointment to Frederica, the daughter of the pastor of Sesenheim, was worked into his plays of "Götz von Berlichingen" and "Clavigo;" his "Sorrows of the Young Werther" were his own sorrows, because Charlotte Buff loved J. C. Kestner. He portrayed his irregular life at Leipsic in one scene in "Faust." He had the power of coining experiences into literature. He himself said to Eckermann, "I have never uttered anything which I have not experienced, and which has not urged me to production."

Though he so quickly seized upon the popular current of sentimentalism to float his romantic productions, his really sound and wholesome nature revolted against the overstrained and artificial. As a reaction against "Werther" he composed "Reinecke Fuchs." The permanent value of "Faust" lies in its wonderful union of realism with mediaeval supernaturalism. The pathetic and exquisite story of Gretchen was suggested by his first love; his friend Fraulein von Klettenberg's alchemistic vagaries took him back into the Middle Ages. His creative imagination embraced many epochs and many countries, but this imagination required a basis of practical knowledge. His acquaintance with other languages was phenomenal, he wrote poems in French, English, Italian, and Latin. As a boy he was not satisfied until he read the Bible in Hebrew. As old man his interest in Oriental poetry tempted him to study Persian, Arabic, and Sanscrit. He had a good knowledge of modern Greek. He took pleasure in etching, engraving, and painting, and this experimental facility stood him in good stead in his official capacity when he was called upon to criticise and select works of art for the ducal galleries.

And, with all this many-sided productiveness, with all the reverence and worship which he inspired, Goethe preserved