Goethetc. at New Year

The Goethezeitportal issued a New Year's "Greeting," with illustrations and texts, mostly from the 19th century. There were a lot of charming postcards featuring the kinds of graphics associated with "old Germany." As at Christmas, not a single line or feature from Goethe. The drawing above, however, from 1790, struck me as something that could have come from the pen of Goethe. It is identified as by Johann Rudolf Burckhardt (1750-1813) and is entitled "A Boy Presents a New Year's Greeting to His Father."

Burckhardt was a businessman from Basel, specializing in silk manufacture. According to the site of Basel's Institute of Archaeology, he was one of the richest men in the town, commissioning, for instance, the "Stadtpalais," a residence known as "das Haus zum Kirschgarten" (the house at the cherry orchard), which is now part of Basel's Historisches Museum.

The entry on Burkhardt goes on to say that his mansion housed lots of art, including many plaster casts of works of antiquity, and that he was in contact with such eminences as Goethe. I can't find any mention of him in any of my Goethe reference books, but who knows? I wonder if he is related to Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (1784-1817), a famous Swiss Orientalist who discovered the Roman city of Petra.

It's an indication of the fascination of the Middle East for Europeans that this Burckhardt, during his travels in the Middle East, disguised himself as an Arab (as pictured here), calling himself Sheik Ibrahim ibn Abdallah. His writings -- or perhaps news of his travels in the Middle East -- may have been familiar to Goethe. The scene pictured in the drawing at the top of this post, however, of the young boy handing a New Year's card to his father, would certainly have been one familiar to Goethe. The mother looks like Charlotte von Stein.

Goethe at New Year's

The first song in Goethe's collection Gesellige Lieder ("sociable/ convivial songs") is "Zum neuen Jahr" (On the New Year). When I was looking around on Google for information about this particular song, I found several English translations, at the end of which was appended "Composed for a merry party that used to meet, in 1802, at Goethe's house." Very intriguing. I'd like to know more about that party. According to the notes to WA I.1, "Zum neuen Jahr" first appeared in Taschenbuch auf das Jahr 1804, editors Wieland and Goethe. Here is the poem:

Zwischen dem Alten,

Zwischen dem Neuen,

Hier uns zu freuen

Schenkt uns das Glück

Und das Vergangne

Heißt mit Vertrauen

Vorwärts zu schauen,

Schauen zurück.

Stunden der Plage,

Leider, sie scheiden

Treue von Leiden,

Liebe von Lust;

Bessere Tage

Sammlen uns wieder,

Heitere Lieder

Stärken die Brust.

Leiden und Freuden,

Jener verschwundnen,

Sind die Verbundnen

Fröhlich gedenk.

O des Geschickes

Seltsamer Windung!

Alte Verbindung

Neues Geschenk!

Denk es dem regen

Wogenden Glücke,

Dankt dem Geschicke

Männiglich Gut,

Freut euch des Wechsels

Heiterer Triebe,

Offener Liebe,

Heimlicher Gluth!

Andere schauen

Deckende Falten

Über den Alten

Traurig und scheu;

Aber uns leuchtet

Freundliche Treue;

Sehet das Neue

Findet uns neu.

So wie im Tanze

Bald sich verschwindet,

Wieder sich findet

Liebendes Paar;

So durch des Lebens

Wirrende Beugung

Führe die Neigung

Uns in das Jahr.

I particularly like the phrase "des Lebens wirrende Beugung." The folks in Weimar were certainly lucky to have Goethe in their company.

The image above, of celestial fireworks (click to enlarge), is from the "Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar 2008." According to the legend, it shows the "ancient [!] open star cluster NGC 6791" taken in early 2008. Astronomers have uncovered three different age groups: two are burned-out stars called white dwarfs, of which this group of "low-wattage stellar remnants appears to be 6 billion years old." They are located 13,000 light years away in the constellation Lyra, NCG 6791, one of the oldest and largest open clusters known, containing roughly 10,000 stars. Visible between the crowded mass of stars are numerous distant galaxies far beyond our Milky Way.

I can't help wondering what Goethe would have thought about such a view of the universe, one unaided by the normal human eye but instead made possible by instruments, of which, as we know, he tended to be suspicious, intervening, as they do, with the directness of our perception of the sensible world. At the same time, the view might have confirmed his own "Naturansichten," as in the episode in the Wanderjahre (I.10) in which Wilhelm views the starry sky from the observatory and finds some confirmation of the famous statement of Kant: "Two things fill me with awe: the starry sky above and the moral law within."

Thanks to Hansjakob Werlen at Swarthmore for the convivial champagne image. A wonderful English translation of Goethe's New Year poem can be found at "Every Poet."