Goethe and Time, updated

François Boucher, Pastor tocant per a una pastora

There is at least one important exception to what I wrote in the previous post, namely, the absence of Goethe's references to times of day in his early letters. In several letters to his Leipzig literary mentor, Ernst Wolfgang Behrisch, Goethe poured out his jealousy concerning Katherine Schönkopf. The letter dated  November 10–14, 1767, is composed of six installments, each headed with a specific time and/or a time of the day or night: Abends um 7 Uhr; um 8 Uhr; Mitwochs früh; Abends um 8; Freytags um 11. Nachts; Sonnabends.

I have recently finished an article that discusses this letter, but it is also the subject of excellent essays by Stuart Atkins and Albrecht Schöne. The letter is something like a first-person novelette detailing the depths of jealousy with its attendant sicknesses and fevers at the outset, to be followed at the end by the sweet pleasures of consolation and healing. As Schöne pointed out, in the next-to-final installment (Friday around 11 at night) Goethe remarks that he has reread what he has written and is astonished to discover its literary potential. It was in this same period that Goethe wrote the play Die Laune des Verliebten, in which the excessive jealousy of the shepherd Eridon threatens the harmony of the pastoral order. As with the play, both Atkins and Schöne discern in this and other letters of this period the development of Goethe’s apprenticeship in narrative prose, which will find its great expression in Die Leiden des jungen Werthers.

That novel includes specific dates on each letters written to Werther's friend Wilhelm, beginning with May 4, 1771, but there is only one letter — Werther’s final letter to Lotte — that details the time of day. It is headed “nach eilfe,” after which he records his last thoughts before putting the pistol to his head. And then: “es schlägt zwölfe! So sey’s denn — Lotte! leb wohl! Leb wohl!”

Any thoughts of this specificity?

Goethe and Time

 

I picked up at the post office yesterday a copy of the July 14 issue of the TLS,  in which my review of a new biography of the poet Phillis Wheatley appeared. (Yes, I occasionally venture into other parts of the 18th century.) Since I am not at home in NYC this summer, the book review editor kindly mailed the issue to me, and I was able to peruse it this morning with my cup of hot tea. Nothing in the issue itself about Goethe or German literature, but a couple of the reviews brought up subjects that prompted me to think about Goethe. One was a review of a book about “time and medieval life. The reviewer (Pablo Scheffer) opens with quotes from Chaucer that reminded me of how entrenched was once the tradition of writing about nature. In the Prologue, Chaucer writes of “tendre croppes” bathing the breath of the West Wind and of little birds impelled to “maken melodye” when fields are filled with flowers. And here is young Goethe, in 1765, in a poem sent to his friend Riese. (All quotes following reflect Goethe’s own spelling at the time of writing.)

So wie ein Vogel der auf einem Ast
Im schönsten Wald, sich Freiheit ahtmend, wiegt,
Der ungestört die sanfte Lust genießt,
Mit seinem Fitigen von Baum zu Baum,
Von Busch auf Busch sich singend hinzuschwingen

Since the book under review is about time, we learn about how people kept time when “there was the problem of keeping it,” before the invention of the mechanical clock in 1300. The clergy, tracking the seven mechanical hours, relied on sundials, water clocks, candles, sand glasses, and astrolabes, while everyone else relied on the clergy. In this way, as the authors of the book point out, “the sound of liturgical bells at the canonical hours became part of the medieval soundscape, governing all sorts of secular activities from the opening and closing of city gates to the business hours of shops and taverns.”

Allegory of Good Government by Lorenzetti Ambrogio

In reading through the two volumes of Karl Eibl’s edition of Der junge Goethe, I am now struck by how specific notations of time are absent in Goethe’s letters. There is one letter, however, to Kester, dated Christmas 1772, in which Goethe marks the times of the day almost as if he were a medieval person. In the first sentence, he writes “Christag früh. Es ist noch Nacht lieber Kestner, ich bin früh aufgestanden um bey Lichte Morgens wieder zu schreiben,” and continues: “ich habe mir Coffee machen lasen den Festag zu ehren und will euch schreiben biss es Tag ist.” And, then, what I have just learned about medieval times: “Der Türmer hat sein Lied schon geblasen ich wachte drüber auf.”

Some lines follow (which include the mention of Lotte’s portrait on the wall near his bed), after which we hear again of the town watchman “Der Türmer hat sich wieder zu mir gekehrt, der Nordwind bringt mir seine Melodie, als blies er vor meinem Fenster.” This is then followed by a description of his activities of the previous evening and his impressions of the natural world on his return home as well as the sights at the market place (“viele Lichter und Spielsachen”). And, then, returning to the present, he notes the passage of time: “Das erste Grau des Tags kommt mir über des Nachbaars Haus und die Glocken läuten eine Christliche Gemeinde zusammen. Wohl ich binn erbaut hier oben auf meiner Stube, die ich lang nicht so liebe hatte als ietzt.” I can really see Goethe in his room here, especially with that cup of coffee beside him!

After some more words about Lotte and his “lieben Mädgen,” it is finally morning: “Der Tag kömmt mit Macht …”

Clearly Goethe came to reflect on time and became to some extent clock bound. The above image, "Comparative Table of German and Italian Time," appears in The Works of J. W. von Goethe (vol. 12, p. 131). It is the only image I could find on Google on the subject of "Goethe and time" and comes, I suspect, from his Italian journey. (I don't have the English edition with me, but if anyone has it and would liket to let me know about the image, I would appreciate it.) There is more that I could write about the issue of “temporal progress,” as it is certainly a subject in which Goethe devoted some thought. More anon.

Image credits: Physics World

 

Goethe's "Belsazar" Fragment

 

As mentioned in my last post, I am on a small island in British Columbia, concentrating as usual on “der junge Goethe.” All the documentation of that era is to be found in the five-volume edition of that title by Hanna Fischer-Lamberg, which I own, but which I did not bring with me this summer. Instead, for my review of this early period, I carted along Karl Eibl’s two-volume set Der junge Goethe in seiner Zeit, which is hefty enough at 700-plus pages per volume. Unlike Fischer-Lamberg, which is chronological, vol. 1 of Eibl’s edition contains the plays, diaries and legal writings; vol. 2 the poetry, prose, and bibliography. I started with the poetry and have worked my way up to the “Iris” poems of 1774, but have decided to take a break and turn to the plays. The first two items in Eibl are fragments. One concerns the drama "Belsazar," the action of which seems to have been on Goethe’s mind already before he went to study in Leipzig in 1765. The second is a monologue entitled “Die königliche Einsiedlerin.” From there, Eibl continues with “Der Lügner,” “Tugendspiegel,” and then, coming to more familiar territory, Die Laune des Verliebten. These three were also Leipzig products.

Willilam Blake, Nebuchedensar loses his mind

Among my reading on this subject has been the Old Testament Book of Daniel, which begins with the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. It is the era of what is called the Babylonian Captivity, which included the deportation from Judah to Babylon of the smartest Jews, who become court favorites. Daniel was one of Nebuchadnazzar’s favorite soothsayers and was called to interpret  a dream that presaged his loss of royal authority. As the Book of Daniel has it: “You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals. You will eat grass like the ox” (Dan. IV, 31–32). This episode (recounted in Dan. V, 21) was the subject of the above painting by William Blake. Belsazar seems to have been more favored as a subject by later artists, and the OT account describes several episodes, including Daniel’s reading of the inscription on the Wall that so terrified Belzasar, the casting of Daniel’s friends into the blazing furnace, and Daniel’s sojourn in the lions’ den.

Rembrandt, Belzasar sees the writing on the wall

Goethe was what Germans call “bibelfest,” and the language of his oeuvre shows the influence of that acquaintance. As Roger Paulin writes in a very good article on the influence of Klopstock on Goethe, it was via Klopstock that the persons of the Old and New Testaments had achieved “ein zartes und gefühlvolles Wesen,” one that spoke to the young Goethe and many of his contemporaries. Thus Klopstock’s epic poem Der Messias (1748–1773). There were also other German-speaking writers who wrote such epics, e.g., Bodmer. (See my earlier post on Bodmer.) So it was that Goethe, as Paulin writes, for a time planned several works on Biblical themes. Besides the Belazar drama, there was to be an epic poem about Joseph and a tragedy on the successor of the Pharoah, the subject of which was the killing of the first born. Those drafts as well as of Ruth and Jezabel were destroyed in one of Goethe's auto da fés, excepting the two fragments mentioned here.

The two fragments of “Belsazar” are pretty strong stuff, even if they are written in the Baroque-favored alexandrine meter at which Goethe was so adept. In the first Pherat, a confident of the Persian king Cyrus, describes how the tyrant Belsazar will be killed. The death will be brutal, and blood will flow. Pherat views Belsazar as a tyrant, and the coup will free the city from its hard yoke and allow Cyrus to conquer Babylon (ca. 7th century B.C.). It is the feast day of “Sesach, the Babylonian god of wine,” when “rauchend Blut” will replace the wine that flows in Belsazar’s body and when “our sword will enter the darkness and spear him and transport him to death.”

Der König, und den Hof, mag erst der Wein erfüllen,
Dann wollen wir den Durst in seinem Blute stillen

Swords out for Belsazar

The second fragment is from Belsazar’s point of view and take place after the feast and his tired spirit is being lulled to sleep with sweet dreams. It begins with his feeling of contentment. Feeling himself equal to the gods (den Göttern gleich), he wishes only that “ungetrübtes Glück” continues to be his lot. But, like all these pagan rulers, he has a vision. A cloud approaches, and it is not a good omen. Belsazar foresees the end of his plan to enlarge his kingdom, of marching through the world “mit hohem Siegerschritt.” He seems suddenly to perceive the existence of a more destructive power. It is unclear to me whether Cyrus is meant here or the higher God that is the message of the Book of Daniel.

Im wetter eigehüllt, tritt er mit Macht hervor,
Der Donner bring sein wort in men betäubtes ohr.

Since Goethe worked pretty assiduously on the drama in Leipzig, I couldn’t help thinking that the two fragments also show his reading of Shakespeare during his early student days. In a letter to Cornelia, dated May 11, 1767, he reported that he finished the five-act Belsazar drama, with the fifth act composed in iambic meter, the standard meter of “Der Britte,” meaning Shakespeare. To my ears the content of the two fragments also seems to draw on plays concerning conspiracies to overthrow a tyrannical ruler (e.g., Julius Caesar, Macbeth).