Goethe's literary essays · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
II (1827)
My sanguine suggestion that our present active epoch with its increasing communication between the nations might soon hope for a world-literature has been taken up by chance by our neighbors of the west, who indeed can accomplish great things in this same direction. They express themselves on the subject in the following manner: _Le Globe_, Tome V., No. 91. “Every nation indeed, when its turn comes, feels that tension which, like the attractive power of physical bodies, draws one towards the other, and eventually will unite in one universal sympathy all the races of which humanity consists. The endeavor of scholars to understand one another and compare one another’s work is by no means new; the Latin language in former times has provided an admirable vehicle for this purpose. But however they labored and strove, the barriers by which peoples were separated began to divide them also, and hurt their intellectual intercourse. The instrument of which they made use could only satisfy a certain range and course of ideas, so that they touched each other only through the intellect, instead of directly through the feelings and through poetry. Travel, the study of languages, periodical literature, have taken the place of that universal language, and establish many intimate and harmonious relations which _it_ could never cultivate. Even the nations that devote themselves chiefly to trade and industry are most concerned with this exchange of ideas. England, whose home activity is so tremendous, whose life is so busy, that it seems as if it would be able to study nothing but itself, at the present time is showing a symptom of this need and desire to broaden its connection with the outside world and widen its horizon. Its Reviews, with which we are already familiar, are not enough for them; two new periodicals, devoted especially to foreign literature, and coöperating together towards that end, are to appear regularly.”
Of the first of these English journals, _The Foreign Quarterly Review_, there are already two volumes in our hands; the third we expect directly, and we shall in the course of these pages often refer to the views of important men who are giving proof, with so much insight and industry, of their interest in foreign literature. But first of all we must confess that it made us smile to see, at the end of the old year, more than thirty literary almanacs (_Taschenbücher_), already noticed in an English journal,--not indeed reviewed, but at least referred to with some characteristic comments. It is pleasant that our productions of this sort meet with approval and find a market over there, since we are also obliged to buy their similar works for good money. Little by little we shall discover, I suppose, whether the balance of this trade turns out to our advantage. But these trivial considerations must give place to more serious ones. Left to itself every literature will exhaust its vitality, if it is not refreshed by the interest and contributions of a foreign one. What naturalist does not take pleasure in the wonderful things that he sees produced by reflection in a mirror? Now what a mirror in the field of ideas and morals means, every one has experienced in himself, and once his attention is aroused, he will understand how much of his education he owes to it.
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