Goethe and Politics Anew

I have been mulling the issue of Goethe and politics since my last posting. From the letters he wrote from Leipzig as a student, it seems clear that Goethe felt that it was his vocation to be a writer. Those letters of the 16-year-old from Leipzig show him working at his craft, reading and imitating other writers, trying to find his own voice. The literary life absorbed him. After all, two of the most important men of letters in Germany were in Leipzig at that time: Gellert and Gottsched. And so his apprenticeship continued in the following years, until he went to Weimar.

I am reminded of another writer whom I have been studying lately, V.S. Naipaul who has said of himself that, even when he didn't know how to write, his goal in life was to be a writer. I am now rereading The Enigma of Arrival, in the second chapter of which ("The Journey") Naipaul recapitulates his early struggle to find his subject and to craft a style, what he calls "a long preparation for the writing career!" In the early decades in particular he never had enough money, but he continued to persevere. But the struggle did not end when he became established:

"I discovered that to be a writer was not (as I had imagined) a state -- of competence, or achievement, or fame, or content -- at which one arrived and where one stayed. There was a special anguish attached to the career: whatever the labor of any piece of writing, whatever its creative challenges and satisfactions, time had always taken me away from it. And, with time passing, I felt mocked by what I had already done; it seemed to belong to a time  of vigor, now past for good. Emptiness, restlessness built up again; and it was necessary once more, out of my internal resources alone, to start on another book, to commit myself to that consuming process again."

Perhaps in his early years Goethe had taken his desire to be a writer too lightly. It seems to have come all too easy to him. The idea that the writer's life should be difficult is in any case a modern one. But that Goethe almost abandoned his poetic gift to become a bureaucrat in the service of the duke of Weimar is hard to understand. Still, there was a pattern in Goethe's youth that might serve to explain partly what happened in Weimar.

Beginning in Leipzig Goethe had a poetic mentor in  Ernst Wolfgang Behrisch (1738-1809). In Strassburg Goethe eagerly accepted instruction on literary matters from Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803). In 1771 he got to know Johann Heinrich Merck (1741-1791), whom Goethe later acknowledged (in book 12 of Poetry and Truth) as having had the greatest influence on his life. Acccording to Jochen Golz, who wrote the entry on Merck (pictured below) for the Goethe-Handbuch, Merck's first important influence on Goethe was in the matter of poetic production, in particular encouraging him while he was reworking Götz von Berlichingen. In any case, from all of these relationships flowed a variety of literary productions. By late 1774, when he met Carl August, Goethe appeared to be on the verge of not only a German but also a European literary career.

Of course, at the very time of his fame with Götz and The Sorrows of Young Werther Goethe was still living at home in Frankfurt with his parents. And during all the years in which he had been working at his literary craft, he had also been training to be a lawyer. He had gone to Leipzig to study law; likewise Strassburg.  Back in Frankfurt, while he was writing Mahomet and Von Deutscher Baukunst and contributing to the Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigen, while he was getting to know Sophie von la Roche, Lavater, and F.H. Jacobi, he was preparing legal opinions under the direction of his father. Again quoting Ekkehart Krippendorff, Goethe's legal internship in Wetzler in 1772, at the Imperial Cameral Court, acquainted him with the legal and political structure of the "Reich."

No doubt, Goethe would have been an excellent legal adviser for any ruler of the time to have around. And for a young ruler like Carl August, Goethe was also a jolly companion. But for Goethe, who since his youth had wanted to be a writer, the question remains: why?

I can't help thinking that the early pattern of mentor and student played a role here. It is always said that Goethe wished to train the young Carl August to his duties as a ruler. Moreover, in Weimar Goethe seems to have fallen into the worst kind of mentor-student relationship with Charlotte von Stein. Unlike most everyone else, she seemed unimpressed with the young genius Goethe, and took it upon herself to train him in the ways of the court. Goethe, the ready pupil, took her instruction gratefully. For a decade he remade himself at the Weimar court, a process that went against his nature since he literally fled Weimar and Charlotte von Stein in 1786. (I owe the silhouette of Frau von Stein's family -- her father stands behind her, while she plays chess with her brother -- to a Gilbert Stuart blog, which says: "Note the formality.")

As far as politics goes, if one accepts Krippendorff's definition of politics, then Goethe was in the decade before he went to Rome, "ein Mann der Politik": "all behavior that has as its goal the forming, ordering, and permanent [!] structuring of social conditions and activities" (Wenn wir unter Politik alles Handeln verstehen wollen, das die Gestaltung, Ordnung und dauerhafte Strukturierung gesellschaftlicher Verhältnisse und Tätigkeiten zum Ziel hat). That "dauerhaft" (permanent) gives me a chill, for it sounds like the worst sort of bureaucrat. (Anyone for "remaking America"?) Of course Krippendorff does not leave the matter there. He stresses Goethe's aversion to the "power politics" of his day and his interest in cultural politics: after the French Revolution, according to Krippendorff, Goethe focused on the education establishment (das Bildungswesen), especially the university in Jena, museums and collections, the theater. As a minister Goethe still had a role to play.

Ever since I wrote my dissertation on Goethe's pre-Weimar oeuvre, I have felt that Weimar was a direction at odds with his poetic talent. Last night I was rereading his letters to Kestner from 1772-73, and was struck anew by the vitality of the young Goethe. Thus, even if his "politics" were of a sort that contributed to the general weal of the duchy of Weimar, as Krippendorff claims, there seems to have been much that was lost, especially in Goethe's empathy toward others. He became in the end an official person. The young man at the left turned into the stately minister pictured at the top of this post. There is of course much to admire in Goethe's later poetic oeuvre and also in his scientific pursuits, but in these accomplishments Goethe seems to have remade his nature into art.

Goethe and Politics

"In the fatal circumstances in which he is now trapped, it seems as if his genius has completely abandoned him. His power of imagination seems to have burned out; instead of the invigorating warmth that he used to exude, there is political frost all around him."

This morning I came across the above quote from Wieland, writing to Merck about Goethe on July 13, 1777. It was a serendipitous discovery. Yesterday, after two weeks of writing, editing, and rewriting, I finally finished a draft of my introduction to the book of essays on free speech. Goethe was occasionally on my mind as I was writing, yet as I immersed myself in the historical material in preparation for writing the introduction he never seemed relevant to the issue.

Yesterday I consulted the Goethe-Handbuch entry on "politics." It was written by Ekkehart Krippendorff, a retired professor of political science at the Free University of Berlin. He writes that the "political dimension" of Goethe's oeuvre and life is a "stepchild" of scholarly study and that, from the point of view of the ordinary person, Goethe's role as a politician ("als nicht nur nomineller, sondern aktiver Angehöriger der politischen Klasse seiner Zeit") is practically unknown.

Krippendorff himself has written two studies on this political dimension. The first, as far as I can tell, was Goethe: Politik gegen den Zeitgeist, which appeared in 1999. The other was a "duography," namely, Jefferson and Goethe, from 2001.

For those familiar with Goethe, his service as minister in Weimar is well known, including his administrative duties, whether these be oversight over the mine at Ilmenau, improvements in canal and road construction, at the university in Jena, and so on. This is not politics as we know it, but rather the work of what we might call today a cabinet member. Krippendorff underlines Goethe's aversion to the power politics of his day and sums up Goethe's political attitude as one "principally of administrative activity in the service [of others]" (vorrangig dienende Verwaltungstätigkeit).

Politics of usefulness is probably the case with Goethe, and it may also be why Krippendorff himself would be drawn to this aspect. I discovered a review of his 1999 book (subtitled "politics against the 'Zeitgeist'") that was titled "Attorney for the Underprivileged." Krippendorff, despite a successful academic career, appears to have been in his formative years influenced by the German student movement. He claims not to have been a "68er" (though see this report of a "Rudi Dutschke" conference, quoting Krippendorff). Thus the appeal of a great figure who was free of the compromises that plague politicians in a democracy.

I am not criticizing Krippendorff so much as pointing out a distinctive difference between the political system of the Old Regime and that of the modern liberal order. This difference struck me very forcefully while I was writing my introduction to the volume of essays on free speech in the 18th century. A characteristic of the Old Regime was that rulers did not make a distinction between themselves and their subjects. A phenomenon of the 18th century was the "enlightened monarch." Among these were Frederick the Great in Prussia and Catherine the Great in Russia. Thus, these monarchs introduced certain reforms in their realms, mostly in order to improve technology and economic life and in that way provide benefits to their subjects. All very admirable, of course, and it certainly seems a better way of ruling than, say, that of the Spanish monarchs, who simply taxed and plundered and thereby prevented any economic growth or improvement.

In this period there was also a growing class of men (and they were principally men) who were interested in the moral improvement of the masses. Some of these advised sovereigns (e.g., Voltaire); some labored in universities. Gottsched is a good example, from his seat in Leipzig seeking to improve the Germans linguistically and otherwise. It was all a very admirable Enlightenment project. It would seem, at least following Krippendorff, that Goethe was in this mold. He quotes from Maximen und Reflexionen (967): "Herrschen lernt sich leicht, regieren schwer" (ruling is easy to learn, governing difficult). Goethe's "political ethics" derives from the principle of renunciation, according to Krippendorff: "The only one [I am quoting Krippendorff here] who has the qualifications for political activity and for governing is [the man] who has the inner strength -- and the outer independence, not least of all economic -- that make it possible to resist the temptations that are connected with the privileges of power." In attributing such an attitude to Goethe, Krippendorff makes Goethe sound very Old Regime. I'm sure a lot of our contemporary American politicians, especially those who have served five or six terms in Congress or the Senate, have the same attitude. The public can't do without their selfless service ("dienende Verwaltungstätigkeit"?) to our nation, right?

Helena Rosenblatt, in her contribution to the free speech volume, writes that it was Benjamin Constant (1767-1830) who would rearticulate the issue of free speech by introducing skepticism about power, no matter who wields it. Thus, Constant made individual rights the cornerstone of liberal government. His crucial role was to argue that it was not the role of government to regulate morals or to mold public opinion through education or to "enlighten" citizens. If Rousseau wished for the reign of virtue, to be established by a unanimous will, Constant extolled the collision of opinions.

In 1814 Goethe sent back to Karl Ludwig von Knebel Benjamin Constant's anti-Napoleonic treatise De l'esprit de conquête et de l'usurpation. In his letter to Knebel Goethe said that he had not been able to read it; indeed he resisted the ideas in it. Later Constant visited Weimar with Madame de Staël. There are references in Goethe's diaries to these visits, without details. Goethe had a very retentive memory, however, and it strikes me that his later (not until the 1820s) concept of "world literature" derives from a less paternalistic attitude toward the masses. World literature, after all, concerns the free movement of ideas among peoples. Goethe could not foresee the explosive "collision of opinions" that characterizes the early 21st century. I am not even sure that he would really have admired it, though one must be cautious in attributing opinions post hoc facto to him.

The liberal political order that began to take shape in the early 19th century was based on the concepts of individual rights and little government interference. This means that people would be free to craft their own individual destiny, for good or bad, in association with other individuals. In the West in recent years, however, there is less confidence in this order, especially as we have seen the failures of attempts to transplant it to non-Western countries. This failure has allowed the "do gooder" class, 21st-century versions of Gottsched and Voltaire, to reemerge, seeking to impose a kind of enlightened moral consciousness on citizens. One sees this in particular in the universities, which should be bastions of free speech but in which reigns instead a pervasive uniformity on otherwise contentious issues. Thus, my hat is off to Miss California, who was so incautious recently as to express her true opinion on marriage. And she gave up being Miss USA! A heroine of free speech is a beauty pageant contestant.