On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    Book of Suleika—Love Poems . Salci Nameh—TYis Boole of Wine , more literally , of Offerings *—And here he takes occasion to treat of the pure affection that may subsist between youth and age . Book of Parables ^ Book of the Parses , and Book of

    Paradise : the latter of these last poems at least is taken from oriental fictions , but the Seven Sleepers is not a Mahometan but a Christian fable ; with this tale he fitly terminates the volume of poems . For is not that rare phenomenon—a genuine poet—an awakening of the heavenly muse after the repose of ages ?

    The rest of the prose volume consists of further essays on the Old Testament ; a reprint of a juvenile essay on the Journey of the Israelites through the Wilderness , and enters into a minute calculation on the time probably spent in the wandering . The author contends that the journey did not last quite two years , and he concludes his work by enumerating the books he had read , and the assistance he had received in his recent studies .

    With the 7 th volume commence Goethe ' s dramatic writings . These are numerous , but the greater number are to be considered rather as literary exercises than works . No great poet , more particularly no dramatic poet , ever wrote so much to please himself and cared so little for the public . Having studied closely the drama of all ages and countries , and having a little theatre at his own command , he amused himself by making experiments of all

    kinds . Our own Wordsworth entitled a class of his small poems c Moods of my own Mind , ** and seems therein to have affronted the critical public , as if he had taken a liberty with them . Of course such exercises would be less agreeable in a play than a ballad or sonnet ; and _ , therefore , though Goethe ' s absolute authority over the Weimar stage could enable him to bring upon the boards any whim or extravagance whatever ; and though those

    exquisite charms of style , which are found in the least popular of his writings , will render them delightful as long as the German remains a language spoken by men of taste ; yet few of Goethe ' s plays are found in the repertorium of the managers of German theatres . And the traveller , ( we speak from personal observation ,, ) who between thirty and twenty years ago travelled in any part of

    Germany , found the theatres crowded at the representation not of Schiller ' s tragedies merely , but even of the sentimental comedies of Kotzebue and Iffland , &c . &c , and had seldom an opportunity of witnessing a play of Goethe , This want of popularity will not surprise the intelligent reader , nor disturb the admirer of the author , or make him doubt the reasonableness of his own

    admiration . It can be said of very few that they are failures , * For none can compass more than he intend 'for though the drama seems peculiarly to belong to the exoteric classes of poetry , and as such to lie within the jurisdiction of that supreme judge the public , against whose decrees there is no

    Untitled Article

    510 Goethe sWorlcs .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1832, page 510, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1818/page/6/