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    ^£060 : ' / T^ftB 1 IuM A BM&; [No. 293,...

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    Life Of Goethe. Life And Works Of Goethe...

    reMeton -was b ^ bty ; whose warship * was of nature , whose aim was culture His mission was to paint life , and for that it was requisite he should see life , to know ' The haunt and the main region of his song . " Hauoier circumstances might indeed have surrounded him , and given him a greater sphere . It would have teen very different , as he often felt , if there had been a nation to appeal to , instead of a heterogeneous inass of small peoples , willing enough to talk -of Fatherland , but in no wise prepared to become a . nation . There are many other j / w ¦ i n which much -virtue could be found j but inasmuch as he could not create cireumrstancea , V © must fallow his example , and be content -with what the gods provided . I do not ,, 1 confess , see what other sphere was open to him in -which his genius could have been more sacred ; but I do see that be built out of circumstances a noble temple m Which the altar-flame burut with a steady light , To hypothetical biographers he left the task of settling what Goethe might have been ; enough for us to catch some iglimpse of what he wa 3 .

    . Hitherto ^ Goethe ' s works , though they had already given him a European fame , are in his biography subordinate to the history of his external life and the development of his intellect and character ; but from this point the most important and interesting part of his life lies in his activity as an author . Before he -went to Weimar , he had published or written , besides Gotz and Werther , several dramatic pieces—the Larnie des Verliebten , Die Mitschuldigen , Clavigo and Stella ; and many plans and fragments , never completed , lay in his portfolio . Each of these Mr . Lewes describes and discusses as they occur in the narrative , so that the history of Goethe ' s productive faculty forms one -web with the history of his life . The first of his mature and greatest productions was the Ipbigenia , and with the consideration of this work Mr . Lewes opens his second volume . We quote the introductory observations ia which he contests the opinion that tie Iphigenia is a great play : —

    It was very characteristic in Schlegel to call Iphigenia " an echo of Greek song ; he delighted in such rhetorical prettynesses ; but that Germany , a land of scholars , should have so unanimously repeated the phrase , and should have so often without misgiving declared Iphigenia to be the finest modern specimen of Greek tragedy , is truly surprising , until we reflect on the mass of flagrant traditional errors afloat about the Greek drama . For a long while the Three Unities were held to be inseparable from that drama ; in spite of the fact that in several plays Unity of Time is obviously disregarded , and in two or tlree the Unity of Place is equally so . Then there was the notion that Comedy and Tragedy were not suffered to mingle in the same play ; in spite of the palpable fact of uEschylus and Euripides having mingled them . Then came the absurdity of Destiny as the tragic-pivot , in spite of the fact , as I hare elsewhere shown , that io the majority of these plays Destiny has no place , beyond what the religious conceptions of the poets must of necessity have given to it , just as Christianity must of necessity underlie the tragic conceptions of Christian poets . ia to

    The very phrase with which critics characterise Iphigenis sufficient condemn them . They tell us it las " all the repose of Greek tragedy . " Consider for a moment— Repose in a tragedy ! that is to say , calmness in the terrific npheavings of volcanic passions . Tragedy , we are told by Aristotle , acts through Terror and Pity , awakening in our bosoms Sympathy with suffering ; and to suppose this is to be accomplished by the " meditative repose which breathes from every verse , " is tantamount to supposing a battle-song will most vigorously stir the blood of combatants if it borrow the accents of a lullaby . Insensibly our notions of Greek Art are formed from Sculpture ; and hence , perhaps , this notion of repose . But acquaintance with the Drama ought to have prevented such an error , and taught men not to confound calmness of evolution with calmness of life . The unagitated simplicity of Greek scenic representation lay in the nature of the scenic necessities ; but wo do not call the volcano cold , because the snow rests on its top . Had the Greek Drama been represented on stages like those df Modern Europe , and performed by actors without cothurnus and mask , its deep

    agitations of passion would have welled up to the surface , communicating responsive agitations tp the form . But there were reasons why this could not be . In the Grecian Drama , everything- was on a scale of vastness commensurate -with the needs of an audience of many thousands , and . consequently everything was disposed in masses rather than in details ; it thus necessarily assumed something of the sculpturesque form , threw itself into magnificent groupings , and , with a view to its effect , adapted a peculiar eurhythmic construction . It thua assumed slowness of movement , because it could not bo rapid with effect . If the critic doubts this , let him mount on stilts , and , bawling through a speaking-trumpet , try what he can make of Shakspeare ; he will then have an approximative idea of the restraints laid upon the Grecian actor , who , clothed so as to aggrandise his person , and speaking through a resonant mask , which had infixed expression , could not act , in our modern sense of the word , but only declaim ; he had no means of representing the fluctuations of passion , and the poet therefore wns forced to make him represent passion in broad , flyed masses . Hence tho movement of tho Greek Drama iva 3 necessarily large , slow , and simple .

    But if we pierce beneath scenic necessities and attend solely to the dramatic life which poises ' through the Grecian tragedies , what sort of calmness meets us there ? Calmness is a relative word , Polyphemus hurling rocks as school-boys throw cherrystones , ' would doubtless smile nt our riots , as wo sinilo at buzzing flies ; and Moloch howling through the unfathomable , wilderness in passionate repentnnco of his fall , would envy us the wildest of our despair , and call it culmnesj . But measured by human standards I know nop whose sorrow " can boar such emphasses " as to pronounce those . pulses calm which throb in the CEdipua , the Agamemnon , or tho Ajax , The Labdacidan Tale is one of the soinbrest threads woven by tho Parents . The subject * selected by the Greek dramatists are almost uniformly such as call into play the deepest and darkest passions ' : madness , adultery , and murder in Agamemnon revenge , murder , and matricide in the Choephortr . ; Incest in CEdipxist jealousy an , " infanticide in Medea y incestuous adultery in llippolytus ; madness in Ajax ; and

    -on throughout the series . Tho currents of theso passions are forever kept in agitation and the alternations of pity nnd terror closo only with tho closing of the scone . In other words , in spite of the slowness of its evolution , tho drama is distinguished by the very absence of tho repote which is pronounced its characteristic . Here it is we moot yfivi the first profound difference ) separating Goethe from tho Greek dramatist . The repose which wan forced upon the Greek , which formed one of his restraints , as the hardness of Hie marble restrains tho sculptor , Goethe has adopted under conditions which did not force him 5 wh } lc the repose , which tho Greek kept only at tho surfaco , Goetho has allowed to scttlo down to the cord . In what was accidental , temporal , Gootlio has imitated Groek Art ; in tho essential characteristic imhas not imitated it . Itacino , so unjustly treated by Schlegel , has glvon us tho passionate life of tho Greek Drama , in spite of his Madame Herrnione and Monsieur Oreste ; in imitating the slow scenic movement he has also imituted tho dramatic -agitation of the under-ciirrunt . Goethe ' s Iphigenia , tlion , we must conso to regard according to tho Grecian standard .: Jt ia a Gorman play . It substitutes profound moral and psychological

    struggles * for the passionate struggles o old legend . It is not Greek in ideas nor in sentiments . It is German , and transports Germany of the eighteenth century into Scythia during the mythic age , quite as absolutely as Racine places the Court of Versailles in the Camp of Aulis ; and with the same ample justification . The points in which Goethe ' s work resembles the Greek , are , first , the slowness of its scenic movement and simplicity of its action , which produce a corresponding calmnes s in the dialogue ; and secondly , a saturation of mythic lore . All the rtst is German . And this Schiiler , as a dramatist , clearly saw . ' " I am astonished , " he sajs , " to find this piece no longer makes the same favourable impression on me that it did formerly ; though I still recognise it as a . work full of soul . It is , however , so astonishinglymodern and un-Greek that I cannot understand how it was ever thought to resemble a Greek play . It is purely moral , but the sensuous power , the life , the agitation , and everything which specifically belongs to a dramatic work is wanting . Goethe has himself spoken slightingly of it , but I took that as a mere caprice or coquetry ; now I understand him . " This is very different from Herder ' s assertion that the piece is as much above Euripides as Sophocles is above Euripides .

    We must pass over the journey to Italy , the criticism of Egmont and Tasso , and tlie story of Christiane Vulpius ( though we would willingly have paused over this , because it , for the first time , gives us a distant idea of the woman who became Goethe ' s wife ) , to notice the chapter in which Mr . Lewes presents a survey of Goethe ' s labours in Science . The reader will there find a full account , intelligible even to uuscientific persons , of what Goethe really achieved in Botany and Comparative Anatomy and of what he failed to acheive in Optics . The chapter will be interesting to the psychological student as furnishing an example of the mode in which the poetic mind works in the region of positive science .

    The Sixth Book comprises the period of the Friendship with Schilliera friendship which Goethe said made a new " Spring " for him- It was during this period that he completed Wilhelm Meister , and the first part of Faust , wrote his unrivalled Ballado , and that most perfect of idyls , Hermann and Dorothea , and united with Schiller in schemes for the elevation of the drama in Germany ; so that this sixth book is vjty various in its matter . We have a sketch of the Romantic School , agffnsfc which Goethe and Schiller conducted a vigorous crusade , a criticism and analysis of the great works just mentioned , and an amusing chapter , telling the story of Goethe ' s

    career , as In ten dan t of the Theatre at Weimar . The Jast Book— "Sunset " desci-ibes the circumstances of his marriage , his relation to Bettina , and his interviews with Napoleon , criticizes the WahlverwandtschaJ"ten and the Second part of learnt , discusses Goethe ' s politics and religion , and depicts the occupations and incidents of his closing years . It contains also a letter from Thackeray , veiy pleasantly describing the aspect of society in Wiemar when he resided there as a youtb , and the interview he had with Goethe . But we shall best use our remaining space by giving another quotation . It shall be the following passage from the comparison between Goethe and Schiller .

    There are few nobler spectacles than the friendship of two great men ; and the History of Literature presents nothing comparable to the friendship of Goethe and Schiller . The friendship of Montaigne " and Etienne de la Boetie was , perhaps , more passionate and entire ; but it -was the union of two kindred natures , -which from the first moment discovered their affinity , not the union of two rivals incessantly contrasted by partizans , and originally disposed to hold aloof from each other . Rivals they were , and are ; natures in many respects directly antagonistic ; chiefs of opposing camps , and brought into brotherly union only by what was highest in their natures and their aims . To look on these great rivals was to see at once their profound dissimilarity . Goethe ' s beautiful head had the calm victorious grandeur of the Greek ideal ; Schiller ' s the earnest beauty of a Christian looking towards the future . Tho massive brow , and

    large-pupil eyes , like those given by Raphael to the infant Christ , in the matchless Madonna di San Sisto , —the strong and well-proportioned features , lined indeed by thought and suffering , yet showing that thought and suffering have troubled , but not vanquished , the strong " , —a certain healthy vigour in the brown skin , and an indescribable something which shines from out the face , make Goethe a striking contrast to Schiller , with his eager eyes , narrow brow , —tense and intense , —his irregular features lined by thought and suffering , and weakened by sickness . The one looks , the other looks out . Both are majestic ; but one has the majesty of repose , the other of conflict . Goethe ' s frame is massive , imposing , he seems much taller than he is ; Schiller ' s frame is dispropprtioncd , he seems less than he is . Goethe holds himself stiffly erect ; the long-necked Schiller " walks like a camel . " Goethe's chest is like the torso of tho Theseus ; Schiller ' s is bent , and has lost a lung .

    A similar difference is traceable in details . " An air that was beneficial to Schiller acted on me like poison , " Goethe said to Kckermann . " I called on him one day , and as I did not find him at home , I seated myself at his writing-table to note down various matters . I had not been seated long , before I felt a strange indisposition steal over me , which gradually increased , until at last I nearly fainted . At first I did not know to what cause I should ascribe this wretched and to mo unusual state , until I discovered that a dreadful odour issued from a drawer near mo . When I opened it , I found to my astonishment that it was full of rotten apples . I immediately went to tho window and inhaled the fresh air , by which I was instantlj' restored . Meanwhile his wife cam © in , and told me that the drawer was always filled with rotten apples , because the scent was beneficial to Schiller , and ho could not livo or work ¦ without it . " As another and not unimportant detail , characterising tho healthy nnd unhealthy practice of literature , it may be added that Goetho wrote in tho freshness of morning , entirely free from stimulus ; Sohlllcr worked in the feverish hours of night , stimulating his languid brain with coffee and champagne .

    In comparing one to a Greek ideal , the other to a ' Christian ideal ) it has already been implied that one was the representative : of Realism , the other of Idoalisin . Goothe has himself indicated the capital distinction between them s Schiller was animated with the idea of Freedom ; Goethe , on tho contrary , was animated with tho idea of Nature . This distinction runs through their works . Schiller always pining for something greater tbmn nature , wishing to make men Demigods . Goethe always striving to let nature have free development , nnd produce tho highest fonna of Humanity . Tho Fall of Man -was to Schiller tho happieBt of all ovonts , because thereby men fell away from puro instinct into conscious freedom , and with this sense of freedom came the possibility of Morality . To Goetho this seemed paying a pn for Morality -which was higher than Morality was worth ; he had the ideal of a condition wheroin Morality was unnecessary . Much as ho might priao a good police , ho prized still more a society in which a police would nover bo needed . But while the contrast between theao two is tho contrast of real and ideal , or objective and mbjoetive tendencies , apparent when wo consider tho men in their

    ^£060 : ' / T^Ftb 1 Ium A Bm&; [No. 293,...

    ^ £ 060 : ' / T ^ ftB IuM A BM &; [ No . 293 , totrnplTV

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 3, 1855, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03111855/page/16/