Goethe in Gotha

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Christ and Mary, ca. 1516-20

This summer I wrote a review of Sigrid Damm's book on the above subject for the Goethe Yearbook. I was reminded of the book this afternoon on my visit to the Morgan Library for the exhibition Word and Image: Martin Luther's Reformation at the Morgan Library. Most of the objects in the exhibition come from collections formerly in "East Germany," which I guess is an example of the enlarging compass of the transversal world (see previous posts). Several of the most beautiful objects come from Schloss Friedenstein, including the above painting by Louis Cranach the Elder.  Goethe passed many happy hours at Friedenheim, according to Sigrid Damm's account. The exhibition at the Morgan is one of a number of exhibitions (see list here) in connection with Luther Year 2017. The focus is the "media revolution" that powered the spread of the Reformation.

Damm's book is entitled Goethes Freunde in Gotha and opens by asking us to imagine what Goethe’s life might have been like had he gone to Gotha on his return from Italy, as was rumored he might do, rather than to Weimar. Goethe had been presented at the Gotha court during Carl August’s visit at Christmas 1775, apparently to satisfy curiosity about the Werther author, but the impression he made on that visit was summed up by the duke's brother, Prince August, in a letter written at the time: “Stolz und Mißgeschick macht Goethe wild und driest.” In the succeeding three and a half years, Charlotte von Stein’s remolding appears to have made Goethe “salonfähig,” and there occurred increasingly cordial relations between Goethe and Duke Ernst II (1745–1804) and Prince August (1774–1825), later Duke Friedrich IV. The Gotha Fourierbuch documents frequent visits, during which Goethe lodged at Friedenheim castle itself, in Suites 5 and 6. As Damm writes: Goethe was “ein gern gesehener und umworbener Gast und Gesprächspartner.”

Goethe and the duke shared scientific interests, for instance, a mutual interest in geology, and Ernst would be a shareholder in the Ilmenau mine. During research for his optical studies, Goethe also had the run of the laboratories and equipment in the astronomical observatory at Gotha, built under the aegis of Ernst. In the 1809–10 publication of the Farbenlehre Goethe expressed his gratitude for the support of the duke and the prince.

Seeberg Observatory in Gotha

Because of the observatory, Gotha had a reputation as a scientific center of European rank. In 1798, Ernst organized a congress of European luminaries in Gotha that included the doyen of astronomers, Joseph Jerome de Lalande, along with “Himmelskundler” from England, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The only exception was Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel, who was absent, due to the tensions between France and England. Damm asks whether the congress represented “der Keim einer europaischen “Gelehrtenrepublik.” Goethe's absence indicates that he would not be part of  this particular republic of letters. The congress in any case reflected the divide between his own scientific approach and the coming mathematization of science.

In August 1801 Goethe spent eight days in Gotha, residing with Prince August. Here is the prince’s account of Goethe’s birthday celebration: “Mein Bruder bat mich soeben, zu Ehren des Herrn Goethe und des Herrn [Heinrich] Meyer ein Mittagessen zu geben. Er nahm an diesem selbst teil, ebenso seine Exzellenz und Lady Fifry. Wir waren nur sechs Personen zu Tische. Der Abend verlief in derselben Weise.” Lady Fifry refers to Friederike von Frankenberg, wife of the privy councilor Sylvius Friedrich von Frankenberg. The day afterward, the same party was guests at lunch with Lady Frifry, after viewing the duke’s paintings in his quarters.

Lucas Cranach, The Young Luther (1520)

Damm does not give any indication of the range of paintings in the duke's collection and ventures only the following concerning the viewing: “Die Gesellschaft, die durch die Räume wandert. Bei welchen Gemälden mag sie länger verweilt haben?”

Indeed, which ones? Damm in uncharacteristiscally hesitant to speculate.

I wonder what Goethe would have thought of the dual portrait of Jesus and "Mary" (perhaps Mary Magdalene). The wall label at the Morgan calls it an "ambiguous" picture, and it does seem so, as far as the face of Jesus is concerned. The woman, however, seems more in the Cranach mode, as in the painting of the young Luther (Luther Memorials Foundation of Saxony- Anhalt) portrayed by the younger Cranach.

How Did They Manage to Do so Much?

The Night Bookmobile (detail), by Audrey Niffenegger

I asked myself this question while reading the biography of Goethe by the Scottish historian Peter Hume Brown (1849–1914). Keep in mind that Brown was not a Germanist, not even a literary scholar. Between 1898 and 1912, however, he made annual trips with Richard Haldane to Weimar, the two sharing an enthusiasm for Goethe's work and German literature in general, and collecting materials for a life of Goethe. In 1913 Brown brought out the first half of the biography; the second volume would appear posthumously, nearly complete in 1918, but edited by Richard and Elizabeth Haldane who also published a collection of Brown’s lectures.

Biographies, even the longest ones, give only a partial view of their subject, and Brown's is no exception. The inner life is not part of his remit, insofar as that refers to Goethe’s private emotions, but the extent of Brown’s knowledge of Goethe’s outward life and his works is pretty staggering. One small detail: noting that Carlsbad replaced Jena for Goethe after Schiller’s death, how did Brown come up with such details as that Goethe was among “about 650 visitors in Carlsbad”? Sigrid Damm, in Christiane and Goethe, devotes space to Goethe’s visits to the spa, including the one undertaken with Christiane, noting some of the well-known personalities at the watering hole, but she doesn’t mention how many visitors were actually partaking of the waters.

M.M. Prechtl, Goethe in Farbenkreis

Well, in answer to my question about how earlier writers managed to do so much, clearly they had someone like Christiane taking care of the household, from ceiling to cellar which included managing household accounts and servants, receiving visitors, generally isolating the master from distractions, and assuring that he had his favorite foods, even when he was in a town six hours a way by carriage. In “the troubled year of 1806,” according to Brown, Goethe was “assiduously  pursuing his own pursuits. In April he finished the first part of Faust, in December the didactic part of the Farbenlehre, and he was at the same time engaged on the edition of his collective [sic?] works.” He also assisted in restoring “the ordinary life” in Weimar and Jena after the French incursion. With the help of the commandant of the French soldiery quartered in Weimar, lectures were recommenced at the university of Jena on November 3; on December 5 the Institute of Drawing in Weimar was reopened; and also in December the theater in Weimar. “Goethe, in spite of conditions that would have arrested the productiveness of most men, turned out a considerable tale of literary work between 1805 and 1809.”

Does anyone care about the role of Christiane in all of this? Was she just a little nobody, an ordinary person, like many other women in Weimar, who would otherwise not attract any interest had she not been associated with Goethe? Marius Fränzel clearly thinks she does not merit a role in a double biography. Here is his judgment of Damm's study, summarized: Taken by herself, this woman is in no way interesting. Without her connection with Goethe, she remains ordinary, one among many contemporary women with an ordinary life. One should not be surprised to discover that she was no Simone de Beauvoir. Christiane herself simply does not interest us, despite the over 500 pages of this volume.

Moreover, Fränzel asserts, Damm knows this as well,  yet she seems to have set her self the task of pleading for this person, of making Christiane interesting — without success. 600 letters were exchanged between Goethe and Christiane, yet at the end of this book the relationship between Goethe and Christiane has not been illuminated. Fränzel  nsists that we know only what we can see from the outside, that they apparently loved each other — insofar as that can be explained — that they succeeded in establishing a way of life that was beneficial to Goethe’s productivity, and that was probably pragmatically accepted and maintained.  In sum: “Liebe und Alltag einer Lebensgemeinschaft.”

Fränzel does give Damm credit for the amount of archival research she has undertaken, which supports her narrative style, which he calls the  “Ich stelle mir vor” method. As he writes, “‘Ich stelle mir vor’ erscheint in diesem Blick nur als die reflektierte Variante dessen, was Biographik in wesentlichen Teilen immer schon war: Vergegenwärtigung des Undokumentierten.” Damm belongs to the school of biographers who rely on their imagination to effectuate a portrait, rather than on “the facts.”

Cornelia Goethe, ca. 1770, by J.L.E. Morgenstern

I think he is wrong, however, to condemn this double biography because of the lesser importance Christiane occupies in the world of Goethe studies. I pointed out in my last post Goethe’s failure to educate this “ordinary” woman with whom he lived on intimate terms for 28 years, especially the contrast it represented to the opportunities Marianne von Willemer received from Johann von Willemer. This failure is also of interest because of Goethe’s own pedagogical tendencies, revealed early on in his letters to Cornelia from Leipzig. And one should note the anecdote reported by Bettina Brentano, that the child Goethe had under his bed a stack of papers with lessons and stories in which he had planned to instruct his younger brother. He had once been an enthusiast for Rousseau, remember?

As has been written: "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." There is no use in speculating on what might have become of Christiane had Goethe devoted more time to her education. Had he done so, we would have had a different Goethe to contend with. But the omission does suggest that Goethe could not combine physical intimacy with a woman with whom he was intellectually or literarily involved (Charlotte von Stein), even had he wished to do so (Marianne v. Willemer, Minna Herzlieb)

Picture credits: The Guardian; Galeria Jacobsa Nürnberg

Christiane und Marianne

Marianne von Willemer, 1809

Weimar had lain in the path of Napoleon's retreat after the battles between the French army and the Russian-Austrian allies in October 1813. As in 1806, Weimar was threatened, but the early arrival of Russian Cossacks, Prussian and Hungarian Hussars, and Austrian Dragoners had prevented the town from being burned to the ground by the retreating French. Despite uncertainty and fears, Goethe and his household were again spared. They receive a “Sauvegarde” on October 22. The Austrian general Hieronymus von Colloredo was quartered in Goethe's house from October 23, along with 14 officers. Every room in the house was required, and one can imagine the amount of work Christiane had to organize. According to Damm, there was a single "Abtritt" in the house. Despite the tribulations, Goethe made note in his diaries of the “interesting acquaintances” he had made, which to some extent mitigated the evils that he experienced: Metternich, Hardenberg, Prince Paul of Wurttemberg, Prince August of Prussia. At the court in Weimar he met emperor Alexander.

1814, as Sigrid Damm notes, the year of Restoration, was also one of restoration for Goethe. Christiane, however, was not part of what many at the time saw as Goethe's rejuvenation and rebirth. His failure to make her part of his intellectual life continued to deepen the distance them, no more so than in his discovery of the Persian poet Hafiz. A new woman, Marianne Willemer, came into his life. Damm's portrayal of the relationship between Marianne and Goethe, in connection with the composition of the West-East Divan, indicates what Christiane might have been had Goethe nurtured her spiritually and not been solely content for her to serve as his "Hausschatz" or "Bettschatz" (his own terms),

In May 1814, Goethe and Christiane made their final trip together as man and wife, to Bad Berka. While there, Goethe was given a copy of the Divan translation by Joseph von Hammer. Goethe began to make his escape from the risin German patriotism, with which he had no sympathy, and other contemporary political distractions with his "hegira" to the East.  Damm writes: “Gedankliches Auswandern als bewußte Abgrenzung zum Zeitgeschehen.” Throughout 1814 he continued to write poems in emulation of Hafiz. He also traveled in July to the Rhine/Main area. During his absence Christiane experienced the first of what Damm calls "Anfälle."

View of Frankfurt from Gerbermühle, with dedication by Goethe

1815 begins with her illness. Goethe writes to Johann Jacob von Willemer in Frankfurt in April that Christiane had been “two fingers” away from death. Does Goethe stay and attend to his wife, the woman with whom he has lived for 28 years? I am afraid Goethe does not come off well in Damm's account. That summer he is again in the Rhine/Main area, and spends over a month with the Willemers, both at their residence in Frankfurt and at their summer retreat at "Gerbermühle." The influence of Marianne on the further composition of the Goethe's Divan as well as her own contributions have been studied by scholars. (For an overview in English,  especially concerning the "Suleika" cycle, go to this link.) What interests me here, and what Damm contends Goethe must have noticed, were the parallels between Marianne and Christiane. Both were accomplished in the field of "Lebenskunst."

Marianne came from a theatrical background, i.e., her mother was an actress, with father unknown. She made an early appearance on the Frankfurt stage at the age of eleven with a traveling troupe of ballet-dancers. Theatrical notices of the time point out "the gracefulness of her infantine performances." Mignon, anyone? It was at this time that she attracted the notice of the wealthy Frankfurt banker Willemer, who literally purchased the girl from her mother (2,000 gulden) and who thereupon raised her in his own household, educating her with his own daughters. Like Christiane, Marianne was a "creature" of a man, but one who provided her with a many-sided education. For instance, she had had music lessons from Clemens Brentano. In the late summer of 1815, she met Goethe on equal terms.

Christiane, too, was Goethe's "Geschöpf," as Damm writes, but he never gave her the opportunity to rise above her background, which in any case was not lacking in intellectual substance. She went frequently to the theater, evidence of a life-long interest, awakened early in companionship with her brother, who himself was an accomplished writer. In the last year of her life, she attended 43 performances in a five-month period. She was on intimate terms with Weimar's star actress, Caroline Jagemann (also the duke's mistress), and, as Damm notes, had mediated the artistic differences between Goethe as director of the Weimar theater and Jagemann.

One can't help thinking that Christiane might have become a knowledgeable theater critic or even taken a more active role in Weimar theatrical productions had Goethe taken the time to lead her. After their marriage duties were imposed on her from which she had been excluded for 18 years and in which she was not skilled.  There had never been lessons, no training or education at all.  As Damm writes, Christiane did not know "the text." So, while the relationship with Marianne came to be symbolized by the Ginko leaf, with its two-part leaf form representing symmetry and even equal partnership, Goethe's relationship with Christiane is associated with the clinging ivy and strangled tree of the poem "Amyntas."

Despite the number of volumes of Goethe's works devoted to "autobiography," Damm observes that Goethe remained silent about his happiness during the six weeks he spent in Marianne's company. It is only in the Divan that one feels his happiness. And although Goethe lived for sixteen years after Christiane's death in 1816, he likewise never wrote a word about the woman with whom he had lived for twenty-eight years. Goethe never discussed any truly private matters. Damm refers to this reticence as a natural disposition to self-protection. His silence about Christiane, however, has given rise to clichés, legends, and half-truths that have obscured her image for posterity.

Pictures: Willemer portrait by by Johann Jacob de Lose (Freies Dt. Hochstift–Frankfurter Goethe-Museum); Goethe's poem "Ginkgo Biloba," in his handwriting, 1815, with attached Ginkgo leaves

"Portrait of a Marriage"

African American cemetery, Richmond, Virginia

In Sigrid Damm's Christiane und Goethe, the years from 1796 to 1802 marks greats strains in the relationship. Schiller has entered the picture, Goethe is feeling the need for poetic productivity. The love nest is sacrificed to the working life, and he spends much time in Jena. The letters from Christiane to Goethe from this period are painful to read. She has no social status, only him, and she sounds a bit like Gretchen in Faust. On September 25, 1796, she writes:  “[E]s ist mir … als wär mir es unmöglich, länger ohne Dich zu leben.” On October 2: "“Des Abends ist mein letzter Gedanke an Dich und des Morgens ist es wieder der erste. … Kurz, wenn Du nicht da bist, ist es alles nichts.” Truly cringe-worthy.

While he is in Jena, his letters to her have mentioned what he is working on, if not the content. When he informs her in 1797 that he has finished writing “Die Braut von Korinth” and “Der Gott und die Bajadere,” she actually suggests he take a break from writing. When she learns of his intention to travel to meet Heinrich Meyer in Switzerland, she threatens to come along, whether he wants her or not: "Und wenn Du nach Italien oder sonst eine lange Reise machst und willst mich nicht mitnehmen, so setze ich mich mit dem Gustel hinten darauf; denn ich will lieber Wind und Wetter und alles Unangenehme auf der Reise ausstehen, als wieder so lange ohne Dich sein." Damm writes that Goethe must feel himself threatened in the most important part of his existence, his creativity.

"Amyntas," written in classic, elegiac meters, visualizes this threat. In the poem Amyntas, suffering from love, addresses Nikias a "doctor of body and soul," who had advised reason. But Amyntas compares his situation to that of an apple tree, whom he has discerned speaking. The tree can scarcely bear fruit any longer and its own existence is threatened by the ivy that encircles, embraces, and strangles it.

“Und so saugt sie das Mark, sauget die Seele mir aus … nichts gelangt zur Krone hinauf, die äußersten Wipfel / Dorren, es dorret der Ast über dem Bache schon hin. / Ja, die Verräterin ist’s! sie schmeichelt mir Leben und Güter, / Schmeichelt die strebende Kraft, schmeichelt die Hoffnung mir ab.”

Like the tree, however, Amyntas recognizes his own contribution to this threatening pas de deux:

 “Hab ich nicht selbst sie genährt und sanft sie herauf mir erzogen? … Soll ich nicht lieben die Pflanze, die, meiner einzig bedürftig, / Still, mit begieriger Kraft, mir um die Seite sich schlingt?/ Tausend Ranken wurzelten an, mit tausend und tausend / Fasern, senket sie, fest, mir in das Leben sich ein.”

Goethe is often called "the poet of experience," but as this poem demonstrates, the experience is never unmediated. He transfuses his experience with inherited poetic imagery or forms, especially classical exemplars.

Nicholas Boyle writes that Schiller, commenting to Goethe on the poem, diplomatically overlooked the Nikias-like advice he had been offering Goethe for over a year. Further, according to Boyle, Goethe "turns the symbol of sexual obsession into a symbol of quasi-marital fidelity and so creates a sense of amused detachment from a paradoxical relationship":

"Halte das Messer zurück! o Nikias! schone den Armen, / Der sich inliebender Lust willig gezwungen, verzehrt. / Süß ist jede Verschwendung! o! laß mich der schönsten genießen! / Wer wich der Liebe vertaut hält er sein Leben zu Rat?"

Paradoxical, indeed. Talk about sexual dependence. Körner responds to Schiller, who has written to him of Goethe's "weakness" vis a vis Christiane: “Man verletzt die Sitten nicht ungestrafft."

Andre Masson, Goethe and the Metamorphosis of Plants (1940)

The complexity of the relationship can be seen in an earlier poem (1790) more complimentary to Christiane, namely, "The Metamorphosis of Plants," which again resorts to intense nature imagery to describe the interdependence of the lovers: “O! gedenke denn auch wie, aus dem Keim der Bekanntschaft, / Nach und nach in uns holde Gewohnheit ersproß .. Denke wie mannigfach bald diese bald jene Gestalten, / Still entfaltend, Natur unsern Gefühlen geliehen.”

In any case, by 1798, as Damm writes, Goethe and Christiane finally came to an agreement, as Goethe has been able to make her understand the importance of his work for their combined future thriving; in other words, he must work and earn money. And his work means solitude for himself, even apart from her.

Picture sources: East End Cemetery; DreamTime;

Goethe and Christiane, 2

Beach on Kaleva Road

I continue to read Sigrid Damm's fascinating book Christiane und Goethe: Eine Recherche. (See earlier post for first installment.) Damm writes in an afterword that this book is not a scholarly monograph. She wishes instead to approach her subject "narratively." Which she does, a method familiar to all who have read her earlier books. Scholarly or not, the research she brings to bear is impressive and shows the insights to be gained from archival diligence.

Part IV begins with the 1792 French campaign. Goethe wants no part of it; neither the deaths of aristocratic or of democratic sinners are of concern to him. He complains of the four-year song of pro and con in regard to the French Revolution. Nevertheless, he accompanies the duke, traveling alongside the army in civilian dress, with servant and luggage. The duke's soldiers call him "Feldpoet," and carry him over the mud in and out of his sleeping tent. When he reaches Luxumburg on October 2, he notes in his diary: "Hairdresser."

The letters to Christiane show Goethe the lover. "Declarations of love," they allows a glimpse of the  trust and intimacy that had grown up between them in the past four years. A sign of his longing for domestic comforts is his reference to Christiane as his “lieber Küchenschatz.” As Damm writes: "In seiner Lebensmitte ist eine Frau für ihn wichtig, die Bette und Tische mit ihm teilt. Ihm Behagen, Behaglichkeit in weitesten Sinne schafft: im Bett, am Tisch, in Haus.” Further: “Sein Wohlergehen steht über allem.” They have a nickname for the child Christiane is expecting: Pfuiteufelchen.

Former main entrance to Goethe's residence

The relationship changes after the meeting with Schiller in 1794. Goethe rediscovers his poetic vocation. He begins to spend days, weeks, in the company of Schiller and even of Schiller's family. In a letter of January 1795, Christiane shows her anger at this neglect. Addressing him as "Sie," she complains about the emptiness of the house and of her boredom. The complaints make her sound clinging, but not without reason. I was struck by a letter from Schiller to his wife from which Damm quotes. In it Schiller describes to Charlotte all the things that he and Goethe are discussing during Schiller's stay at the Frauenplan house in Weimar. Goethe, we must assume, discusses nothing with Christiane. Unlike Schiller's wife, she is a woman without conjugal rights. Schiller never encounters her, although she prepares his room, fixes his meals, and so on. If "Schillers Frau und Kind werden ganz selbstverständlich in die Freundschaft einbezogen," the reverse is not the case. The Frauenplan house is about Goethe and his interests. It is a “representative” home, decorated, as one visitor notes, with “feinstem epikuräischem Geschmack.”

Their fourth child was born in October 1795, apparently healthy, but dies within a few weeks. Rhesus factor is now suspected for these deaths; August, the first child, survived, but the blood incompatibility of the father and mother dooms the succeeding children. One wonders to what extent these deaths prevented their relationship from maturing.

Christiane keeps the household accounts; there are outlays on fine foods, not to forget Goethe's acquisitions of drawings and engravings. Christiane never takes the affluence for granted. “Die Wohlhabenheit des Hauses Goethe wird sie zeitlebens nicht als die ihre betrachten.” During this time, he seeks to get a small widow's pension for her, in case of his death. But, as Damm asks, was Goethe, who was never threatened with financial insecurity, able to put himself in Christiane's place?

Kaleva Road drift wood

To return to Damm's preface. Although Damm asserts that this book is not a scholarly monograph, the creation of Goethe's oeuvre took place against the background of their everyday life, whether they were together or apart. By considering Christiane, one attains astonishing insights into Goethe's method of working and the genesis of his works. These include, in this Part IV, Reinecke Fuchs, Wilhelm Meister, and the Roman Elegies.

 I beach combed this morning, although the beach on the west side of Malcolm Island is not friendly to walkers. Along with the huge pebbles, the "drift wood" on the beach is huge, like the bones of mastodons. As a walker, one must watch one's step, which means that I am always looking for rocks showing signs of interesting geological history.

Goethe and Christiane

Der Geheimrat und sein Mädchen

I have a long overdue book review to write this summer: Sigrid Damm's Goethes Freunde in Gotha and Weimar (2014). In preparation, I am going back and reading two of Damm's earlier books on the "Goethe circle." As I prepare to head out to British Columbia for the rest of the summer, my suitcase includes Cornelia Goethe (1987) and Christiane und Goethe: Eine Recherche (1998). The latter book is structured in terms of "parallel lives," which over two centuries bring the two together in Weimar. While Goethe's ancestors go from strength to strength through the centuries, the Vulpius clan represents a case of downward mobility.

 By the end of the second part of this book they are on the brink of their meeting on July 12, 1788, in the park in Weimar, when Christiane approaches Goethe with a request from her brother for support. As Damm writes, without exception all accounts admit of no doubt that this is what happened. Except, as she continues, there is no surviving document from Christian's brother requesting support, and it was not until July 19 that Goethe's friend Knebel vacated Goethe's garden house, which became the love nest. Still, both Goethe and Christiane date the beginning of their "Liebesbund" to this date.

The subtitle, "Recherche," means investigation, which this book certainly is, and one cannot help being touched and impressed by the amount of research Damm has undertaken, burrowing in archives, traveling to small Thuringian towns to go through church records. In the church in Rothenstein she finds a grave marker of Johann Friedrich Vulpius, who was pastor of the community for 39 years before passing away in 1715. The account Damm gives here of the struggles of Christiane's father should disabuse anyone of nostalgia about life in a town dominated by a court in the mid-18th century.

Part 3, which I am now reading, concerns the initial and clandestine arrangements between Goethe and Christiane shortly after his return to Weimar from Italy and, then, the household he was forced to form after she became pregnant and he had to leave the Frauenplan house. Carl August's wife did not want to have Goethe's bastard child running around under her nose. From the beginning, as Damm writes, Goethe didn't intend to sanctify their relationship with a marriage license or ceremony, not because he had hesitations about accepting his responsibility to Christiane. It was because of his "paganism," his anti-Church sentiments, and his aversion to marriage. Besides, a "wild marriage" corresponded to his post-Italian notion of himself living in Weimar as "artist" and "guest."

So, in order to avoid a bourgeois or Christian marriage, Goethe had to transport to a new house his lover and his lover's aunt and stepsister. His long-time cook and his trusty factotum were dismissed. His own working arrangements were disrupted, and he no longer had all his favorite possessions around him. He had to assert himself in a milieu that for ten years had sheltered him and given him a stage on which to play a leading role, but that had becoming disapproving. Oh, Goethe!

Picture credit: Lydia Keßner

"Geheimnis offenbar"

Goethe officially opens work at the Ilmenau mine, February 1784

I have a stack of books on Goethe that I am trying to get through quickly. Top of the heap was a short one, with text by Sigrid Damm and wonderful illustrations by her son Hamster Damm. (Yes, that seems to be a real name: maybe conceived in Holland?) It is entitled "Geheimnis offenbar": Goethe im Berg.

Like most books by Sigrid Damm, this one has a story to tell. The story here concerns the almost lifelong investment of time and energy by Goethe with the Ilmenau mine. It is an exemplary, almost conversational, analysis of certain subjects: the difficulties and complexities of mining in the 18th century; Goethe’s desire to have his name attached to a successful, real world project; and the failure of the mine and Goethe's transformation of failure (of the lack of metallic "Gewinn," so to speak) into personal gold. Aside from one exception, she does not draw on what scholars have said on the subject, but instead draws solely on writings by Goethe and others in his circle. She has done the research, with much attention to the "amtliche Schriften."

After an epigram -- “Im engsten Stollen, wie in tiefsten Schachten/ Ein Licht zu suchen, das den Geist entzünde” -- she opens with a scene, a “sunny day in September 1827” as Goethe and Eckermann make an excursion, and the 78 year old Goethe exclaims: “Was habe ich nicht drüben in den Bergen von Ilmenau in meiner Jugend alles durchgemacht!” Doubtless, writes Damm, he is referring above all to the Ilemenau mine. What follows is the history of Goethe’s engagement with the mine, filled with many high and low points. Despite Goethe’s allusion to his youth, his responsibility for the mine extends far into the future: from his 27th to his 63d year and “darüber hinaus,” the mine did not let him go.

Damm characterizes the project as follows. (Italicized words are those of Goethe or his contemporaries.)

“Die Metallgewinnung aus dem Erdinneren ist ein Werk, das er mit Ehrgeiz und einer großen Vision angeht.

"Ein Werk, das Grenzüberschreitung signalisiert.

"Wie unter seinem literarischen Werk soll auch unter diesem sein Namenszug stehen.

"Über die geistigen Impulse hinaus will der Erfolgsautor der ‘Leiden des jungen Werthers’ nun eine andere Dimension, er will das Leben selbst. Will Handlung. Tat. Das feste irdische Glück für andere ist sein Ziel. Durch sein Tun soll den Menschen einer wirtschaftlich schwachen Region, den Bergleuten, den armen Maulwurfen, wie er sie nennt, Beschäfftigung und Brod gegeben werden.

Ein soziales Projekt.”

Goethe speaks to the shareholders

Through all the years of practical efforts one thing stands out, namely, the power of Goethe’s name and personality to get the project off the ground. The personality of Goethe continues to play a role as the years go by and nothing pans out as expected (Trebra, the “Gutachter,” judged three years of work to the opening of the shaft, after which riches would be brought up), as the technical obstacles add up. It is he who keeps the shareholders on board as the need for money exceeds the initial estimate. As Damm details, in the end everyone loses his investment, in some cases his shirt, including the villagers who have thrown in their savings in the hope of future wealth.

Damm notes that in October 1796, by which date it was clear that the mine was useless and that there would be no help for the “armen Maulwurfen,” Goethe writes (source not given) concerning the death of the foundery master Schrader: “Seine Witwe bleibt freilich mit vielen Kindern zurück, an der wohl auch einige Barmherzigkeit zu thun ist; doch wird man sie wohl mit einer kleinen Abfindung los, weil sie wohl wieder nach Hessen zurückgeht.”

Ouch is the response of a 21st-century reader, but Goethe did not live in the 21st century. Indeed, after reading this book, one has the feeling that, if Goethe lived now, he would have been head of the World Bank or a White House chief of staff.  Damm has combed all of the relevant documents, including the amtliche Schriften, which demonstrate in high degree Goethe’s administrative abilities. Goethe was not an idle dreamer. He consulted with all the relevant people, both the “Bergleute von der Feder,  die wissenschaftlich augebildeten Geologen, als auch die Bergleute vom Leder, die Praktiker,” too.  The mine had worked once; so it was thought, by 18-year-old Carl August, that it could be made to work again, with revenue for the duchy. Everyone had the best of intentions.

Some of the original Ilmenau investors

One can't help wondering about the seeming futility, and Damm brings in a modern expert, Kurt Seebuck, who has written a book about the subject: Silber und Kupfer aus Ilmenau: Ein Bergwerk unter Goethes Leitung. Hintergründe, Erwartungen, Enttäuschungen, which appeared in 1995, two hundred years after the final mine collapse. There were, as Seebuck mentions, ominous signs from the beginning. Already in February 1784 the “Geschworene” Schreiber had drawn attention to “den äußerst schlechten Zustand eines Stollenstücks.” Goethe investigated and was convinced of the need for repair of the passage. The costs were assessed at 1,440 Reichstaler and three years of work.

Damm asks whether it was the considerable amount of money or the enormous time delay, especially at this early moment of euphoria — Goethe had just given his speech at the opening of the mine — that caused Goethe to decide not to undertake the corrective maintenance? The result in 1796 was the “unsägliche Not, die mit dem Stollenbruch im Oktober 1796 über das Berkwerk hereinbrach.” As Goethe would later write: “Der Geldmangel der Gegenwart habe die Not der Zukunft geboren.”

Although this venture was taking place at a time when geological and mining knowledge was not as advanced state as it is today, Seebuck says that a close study of the archives of the Ilmenau mine at the time would have shown that the site chosen for the sinking of the shaft was incorrect. Indeed, an experienced “Praktiker,” had he studied the written history of the mine, would have been able to draw that conclusion. But in the 18th century “archival research when exploring the feasibility of mineral deposits was not yet recognized.”

In the end, Goethe’s own assessment was that it was the limits of nature herself that thwarted the venture (and all attempts to do good and, one must add, put his name on a successful, real-world success). In April 11, 1812, in response to Carl August, who had asked whether it was finally time to close the mine, Goethe wrote what Damm calls a “mit Wehmut das Scheitern eingestehende intime Aussage dem Freund und Mitstreiter,” which, she says, has no correspondence in Goethe’s public pronouncements about Ilmenau:

“Es ist freylich ein Unterschied, ob man in unbesonnener Jugend und friedlichen Tagen, seinen Kräften mehr als billig ist vertrauend, mit unzulänglichen Mitteln Großes unternimmt und sich und Andre mit eitlen Hoffnngen hinhält, oder ob man in späteren Jahren, in bedrängter Zeit, nach aufgedrungener Einsicht, seinem eigenen Wollen und Halbvollbringen zu Grabe läutet.”

The Johannes shaft at Ilmenau

In the “Tag- und Jahreshefte” for 1794, which Damm dates to the years 1819 to 1823, Goethe refers as follows to the failure: “die Ausführung [war] weder umsichtig noch energisch genug, und das Werk, besonders bey einer ganz unerwarteten Naturbildung [war] mehr als einmal im Begriff zu stocken.”

It is this “completely unexpected natural formation” that is the lesson Goethe draws from all these years of effort. Despite feelings of resignation, the failure that might have weighed on others is not something Goethe accepts. It is his nature to draw a lesson for himself from such efforts. When, in 1816 Christian Gottlob Voigt celebrates his 50th anniversary in public service, Goethe congratulates him with a poem, from which the opening epigraph draws:

Im engsten Stollen, wie in tiefsten Schachten
Ein Licht zu suchen, das den Geist entzünde,
War ein gemeinsam köstliches Betrachten,
Ob nicht Natur zuletzt sich doch ergründe?
Und manches Jahr des stillsten Erdelebens
Ward so zum Zeugen edelsten Bestrebens.

As Damm writes, if reflection and practical work went hand in hand at the beginning, by this point reflection remains. “Mit der Distanz, die auch der vergehenden Zeit geschuldet ist, verlagert sich die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Mythos Berg ausschließlich auf die künstlerische Ebene, findet im Werk selbst statt.” The geologist and miner (Bergman) in Goethe remains alive in the poet and natural scientist, leading him beyond the practical dimension of the “Kampf mit der Natur” to its ethical counterpart. The final part of “Geheimnißvoll offenbar” examines works that resonate with this dimension.

These include the figure of Montan in Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre. Whereas Wilhelm sees only “ein weitläufiges Alphabet” in the crevices and cracks in the rocks, Montan seeks to understand the “Schrift der Natur.” Ottilie in Elective Affinities participates in a mysterious connection with the magnetic forces in the earth. And of course Goethe’s experience with mines can be seen in “Das Märchen.” Damm devotes most of her conclusion to several scenes in the second part of Faust, especially the carnival scene at the imperial palace, in which she also sees Goethe’s uneasy response, especially in the use of paper money, to the beginnings of a capitalist economy. As the failure of the Ilemenau venture shows, “treasures” may indeed lie buried in the ground, but one cannot count on harnessing them. Nature will have her way.

The paintings here are by Hamster Damm. More information about the book can be found on the website of the Villa Rosenthal in Jena, which on Feburary 10 features a reading from Damm's book by the actress Steffi Kühnert.

Image credit: Encyclopedia of Human Thermodynamics