Goethe's literary essays · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
GERMAN LITERATURE IN GOETHE’S YOUTH
However great the confusion of these varied efforts, the only thing to be done by any one who contemplated producing anything original, and was not content to take the words and phrases out of the mouths of his predecessors, was to search unremittingly for some subject-matter for treatment. Here, too, we were greatly misled. People were constantly repeating a saying of Kleist’s, who had replied playfully, with humor and truth, to those who took him to task on account of his frequently lonely walks: “that he was not idle at such times--he was hunting for images.” This simile was very suitable for a nobleman and soldier, for in it he contrasted himself with men of his own rank, who never missed an opportunity of going out, with their guns on their shoulders, to shoot hares and partridges. Accordingly we find in Kleist’s poems many such individual images, happily seized, although not always happily elaborated, which remind us pleasantly of nature. But now we, too, were admonished quite seriously to go out hunting for images, and in the end to some slight purpose, although Apel’s Garden, the Cake Gardens, the Rosental, Gohlis, Raschwitz and Konnewitz, were the oddest ground in which to beat up poetical game. And yet I was often induced from this motive to contrive that my walk should be solitary. But few either beautiful or sublime objects met the eye of the beholder, and in the truly splendid Rosental the gnats in summer made all gentle thoughts impossible, so by dint of unwearied, persevering endeavor, I became extremely attentive to the small life of nature (I should like to use this word after the analogy of “still life”). Since the charming little incidents to be observed within this circle are but unimportant in themselves, I accustomed myself to see in them a significance, tending now towards the symbolical and now towards the allegorical, according as intuition, feeling, or reflection predominated.
Whilst I was playing the part of shepherd on the Pleisse, and was childishly absorbed in such tender subjects, always choosing such only as I could easily recapture and lock in my heart, greater and more important themes had long before been provided for German poets. It was Frederick the Great and the events of the Seven Years’ War which first gave to German literature a real and noble vitality. All national poetry cannot fail to be insipid, or inevitably becomes so, if it is not based on the man who stands first among men, upon the experiences which come to the nations and their leaders, when both stand together as one man. Kings should be represented in the midst of warfare and danger, for there they are made to appear the highest, just because the fate of the lowest depends upon them and is shared by them. In this way they become far more interesting than the gods themselves, who, when they have decided the destinies of men, do not share them. In this sense every nation that wishes to count for anything ought to possess an epic, though not necessarily in the form of an epic poem. The war-songs first sung by Gleim deserve their high place in German poetry, because they were the outcome of and contemporary with the events they celebrate; and furthermore, because the felicitous form, suggestive of a combatant’s utterance in the thick of the fray, impresses us with its absolute effectiveness.
Ramler sings in different but dignified strains the exploits of his king. All his poems are thoughtful, and fill our minds with great and elevating subjects, and on that account alone possess an indestructible value. For the significance of the subject treated of is the Alpha and Omega of art. Of course, no one will deny that genius, or cultivated artistic talent, can by its method of treatment make anything out of anything, and render the most refractory subject amenable. But on close inspection the result is rather an artistic feat than a work of art, which latter should be based on a fitting subject, so that in the end the skill, the care, the diligence of the artist’s treatment only brings out the dignity of the subject in greater attractiveness and splendor.
Prussians, and with them Protestant Germany, therefore gained a treasure-trove for their literature, which was lacking to the other party, who have not been able to repair the deficiency by subsequent efforts. In the high idea which they cherished of their King, the Prussian writers first found inspiration, and fostered it all the more zealously because he in whose name they did everything would have nothing whatever to say to them. French civilization had been widely introduced into Prussia at an earlier date by the French colony, and again later by the King’s preference for French culture and French financial methods. The effect of this French influence was to rouse the Germans to antagonism and resistance--a result decidedly beneficial in its operation. Equally fortunate for the development of literature was Frederick’s antipathy to German. They did everything to attract the King’s attention, not indeed to be honored, but only to be noticed by him; yet they did it in German fashion, from inner conviction; they did what they held to be right, and desired and wished that the King should recognize and prize this as right. That did not and could not happen; for how can it be expected that a king, who wishes to live and enjoy himself intellectually, should waste his years waiting to see what he thinks barbarous developed and rendered enjoyable too late? In matters of trade and manufacture, it is true, he pressed upon himself, but especially upon his people, very mediocre substitutes instead of excellent foreign wares; but in this department of life everything is perfected more rapidly, and it does not take a man’s life-time to bring such things to maturity.
But I must here, first of all, make honorable mention of one work, the most genuine product of the Seven Years’ War, altogether North German in its national sentiment; it is the first dramatic work founded upon important events of specific contemporary value, and therefore produced an incalculable effect--_Minna von Barnhelm_. Lessing, who, unlike Klopstock and Gleim, was fond of laying aside his personal dignity, because he was confident that he could resume it at any moment, delighted in a dissipated, worldly life and the society of taverns, as he always needed some strong external excitement to counterbalance his exuberant intellectual activity; and for this reason also he had joined the suite of General Tauentzien. It is easy to see how this drama was generated betwixt war and peace, hatred and affection. It was this production which successfully opened to the literary and middle-class world, in which poetic art had hitherto moved, a view into a higher, more significant world. The hostile relations in which Prussians and Saxons had stood towards each other during this war, could not be removed by its termination. The Saxon now felt for the first time the whole bitterness of the wounds which the upstart Prussian had inflicted upon him. Political peace could not immediately reëstablish a peace between their hearts. But the establishment of this peace was represented symbolically in Lessing’s drama. The grace and amiability of the Saxon ladies conquer the worth, the dignity, and the stubbornness of the Prussians, and, in the principal as well as in the subordinate characters, a happy union of bizarre and contradictory elements is artistically represented.
If I have caused my readers some bewilderment by these cursory and desultory remarks on German literature, I have succeeded in giving them a conception of the chaotic condition of my poor brain at a time when, in the conflict of two epochs so important for the national literature, so much that was new crowded in upon me before I could come to terms with the old, so much that was old still maintained its hold upon me, though I already believed I might with good reason renounce it altogether. [12] About 1765-68.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.