Leaving Aruba

Unlike my summer sojourns in British Columbia, this month in Aruba has not led to many posts. I have been working on a book, but it is not specifically about Goethe. And since this blog is mostly restricted to Goethe and to 18th-century related postings, there have been few posts. Lots of thoughts on world literature, as international tourism seems to be of relevance but I have been too occupied with my book to gather my thoughts into anything coherent.

I am returning to New York tomorrow, so this seems like a good time to post some pictures. (Click on photo to enlarge.) So here goes.

Carnival in Aruba

Do I look like I know what I am doing?

Goethe Girl's paddleboarding pals

Goethe at Ilmenau

Jan Luyken, Gold and Silver Mining in Hungary (1682)

This posting is also a bit of an odd and end. My friend Barbara flew down to join me for a few days in Aruba. She is a picture researcher and has recently been set loose studying the collection of the Rijksmuseum, which is making all of its images (in time, anyway) available to the public. Yesterday she drew my attention to the above image, which shows a silver and gold mine in Hungary in the 17th century.

Alto Vista Chapel, Aruba

Today also marks the day in 1784, when work at the Ilmenau mine was officially inaugurated, a ceremony at which Goethe addressed the dignitaries and workers. (See my earlier post on this subject.)

We went out to view the Alto Vista chapel, first built in 1750. It is located on Aruba's rugged north coast.

Goethe odds and ends

Thoas, Iphigenie, and Orestes

For a couple of nice posts on Goetheana, go to the German site übergoethe. One is a short video of a visit to "the Roman house" in Weimar, which looks like nothing so much as a deserted home. Very spectral.

Scrolling further down is a link to a playmobile animation of Iphigenie auf Tauris in 9.5 minutes. Very cute. It is part of a publishing project by Reclam called "Sommers Weltliteratur To Go." Michael Sommers is the impresario.

And in between is a review of Rüdiger Safranski's Goethe: Kunstwerk des Lebens. I have also reviewed this book, to appear in the next volume of Goethe Yearbook, along with a review of two very good volumes presenting Goethe as a correspondent: Albrecht Schöne's Der Briefschreiber Goethe and Lotte meine Lotte: Die Briefe von Goethe an Charlotte von Stein, 1776–1786.

Goethe's Venetian Epigrams

 

Protestant cemetery in Aruba

 This is a subject I have posted on several times (e.g., here and here), and now my thoughts have again been drawn back to Goethe in Venice. I brought with me on this trip to Aruba a folder of Goethe articles that I had not previously had time to consider, one of which was Gustav Seibt's review in the Süddeutsche Zeitung of Dan Wilson's Goethes Erotica und die Weimarer "Zensoren," which appeared in 2015. (Gustav Seibt is always worth reading in connection with Goethe.

Tomb of Segundo Jorge "Boy" Ecury

This post is in the way of acknowledging the continuing contributions Dan Wilson makes to Goethe studies, especially in less traveled areas (homosexuality, censorship), and which demonstrate his immersion in archival work, an example for all of us. My earlier posts have mentioned the early "editorial" mangling of the epigrams, because of their explicit sexual content and the criticism of the rulers of Venice. Drawing on unpublished archival material, Wilson has documented the meddling that occurred before the first "official" publication of the epigrams in volume 53 of the Weimar edition of Goethe's works in 1915.

Ecury family memorial

As Seibt writes: "Etliche der Epigramm-Handschriften waren mit Radiergummi, Messer und Schere behandelt worden, ganze Texte abgeschabt, einzelne Versgruppen herausgeschnippelt worden." Grand duchess Sophie was among those suspected of this "Textmassaker." Having inherited Goethe's manuscripts, she was the first who would have gone through them. Wilson has shown that the matter is not so straightforward. He tells what Seibt calls "eine windungsreiche, teilweise irrsinnige Geschichte, die bei Schillers und Herzog Carl Augusts Bedenken beginnt." (Seibt says that Wilson's use of "censorship" here is "nicht ganz glücklich.") The negotiations concerning the manuscripts also involved Eckermann, Riemer, and Kanzler Müller, as well as the fate of a case of "brisanten Manuskripte" that turned up in Müller's attic. Finally there was "die peinlich gequälte Arbeit berühmteste Germanisten und Archivare."

 Grand Duchess Sophie is absolved of having "geschabt und geschnippelt." More likely, if Wilson is correct, it was Goethe's grandson Walter before 1885, and then one of the directors of the archive around 1910, either Carl August Hugo Burkhardt or Bernhard Suphan.  Although, as Seibt writes, this cannot be conclusively proven ("im strengen Sinn"), no one can have come closer to the truth than Wilson. One thing in particular to be regretted: apparently Grand Duchess Sophie destroyed a letter of Goethe to Napoleon.

Note Vatican order on tombstone

Concerning Schiller's reaction to the Roman Elegies, Wilson plausibly demonstrates ("in minutiösen Fassungsvergleichen") that it was not "die Freizügigkeit an sich" that disturbed Schiller, but "Goethes unverblümte Feier sexueller Lust um ihrer selbst willen, auch ohne dauerhafte Beziehung." Other contemporaries were also offended, recognizing behind the "antikizierenden Gewand," the real person of Goethe. At the same time, those capable of discerning judgment realized that the Elegies were "ein überwältigend gelungenes Meisterwerk," with Herder commenting, "Goethe habe 'der Frechheit ein kaiserliches Insiegel aufgedrückt.'"

 One thing that surprised me was Seibt's continual remarking on Wilson's diligence. In conclusion, he writes of "Wilsons akribischer, gelegentlich pedantischer ... zuweilen auch überziehender Untersuchung." Are American scholars outshining German ones?

Goethe Girl goes touring

As mentioned in my previous post, I am in Aruba. The pictures here (click on images to enlarge) are from the Protestant Cemetery in Oranjestad. I was particularly touched by the words on the tombstone of Boy Ecury, whose appears to have come from one of Aruba's leading families. Indeed, the Archaeological Museum here is the former family home of the Ecurys. It seems that Boy was sent to study in Holland in 1937. When the Germans attacked that country he joined the resistance movement and with other resistance fighters sabotaged railway lines, blew up supply trucks, and assisted Allied pilots. He was captured and executed by the Germans in 1944, and his body was returned to Aruba for burial in 1947.

The lawyer Goethe

Goethe Girl in Aruba

 I am in Aruba for the month of February, living in a small cottage discovered through Airbnb, which does not cost a fortune. The weather is uniformly sunny and windy (thus, hardly any mosquitoes). In leaving New York for a while, I can indulge in my desire to read and write — on the back porch is a table and chairs, where I take my morning tea and read —  without many distractions. Hardly anyone emails me now; it is as if, by leaving NYC, I have no existence. Some mornings I go out for stand up paddle boarding. (More pictures to come.)

I brought with me a folder of articles and clippings about Goethe that I had not previously had time to read. One of them is “Goethe as Lawyer and Statesman,” by Arthur Lenhoff  (Washington University Law Review 51, 2 [1951]). In recent years,  since the publication of the “amtliche Schriften,” there has been much scholarship on Goethe the Weimar administrator. Lenhoff’s article was published before the appearance of that edition, and thus he draws on a few older publications (e.g., J. Meisner, Goethe als Jurist, 1885) and on Goethe’s non-administrative writings: e.g., Poetry and Truth, Maxims and Reflections, the "Ephemerides" (the latter showing the large number of law books Goethe read, including those by Anton Schultingh, Christian Thomasisus, Samuel Stryk, and Augustin Leyser). Goethe’s legal career is not an area on which I have concentrated, but, although this is an old article, my understanding of Goethe was broadened, especially his relevance to what is now called the “public intellectual.” First to the law part.

Plaque at birthplace of Goethe's great-great-grandfather

My first surprise concerned the “legacy” of lawyers Goethe inherited, on his mother’s side. For instance, his maternal great-great-grandfather, Johann Wolfgang Textor (1638–1703), was a professor of law in Heidelberg, until the destruction of the town by the armies of Louis XIV in 1689, which led him to relocate to Frankfurt, where we became the corporation counsel of the city. This Textor, according to Lenhoff, was famous for his enormous memory, “a quality which certainly distinguishes men of genius.” He wrote a book on the then international law under the title Synopsis of the Law of Nations, which is actually still in print. His son Christian Heinrich Textor was also a lawyer, likewise the latter's son, Goethe’s grandfather, also named Johann Wolfgang, who graduated in 1715 with a Doctor Juris from the University of Altdorf. He later became the schultheiss in Frankfurt. And his son, the brother of Goethe’s mother, was also a lawyer.

Goethe's father, Johann Kaspar, did not hail from a family of lawyers.  His folks were the inn keepers.

Concerning Goethe’s practice as a lawyer on his return to Frankfurt from Strassburg, Lenhoff notes that of the twenty-eight cases he handled, he never argued a matrimonial or criminal case; the cases concerned business transactions or surrogate work. Lenhoff writes that “his pleadings and briefs were at times lacking in objectivity and [were] insulting in tone.” For those of us familiar with Goethe’s pre-Weimar days, the passion of these writings are characteristic of the subjectivity of Sturm and Drang writers. The aggressiveness of Goethe’s writing, however, is part and parcel of a lawyer who is serious about defending his clients. Lenhoff quotes from Sprüche in Prosa: Goethe wrote that, for both mathematics and eloquence, “form is the essential thing; the content is a matter of indifference. Whether mathematics computes pennies or guineas, whether eloquence defends what is right or what is wrong, is unessential.” Consider some of the more provocative and contentious legal cases of our day (e.g., O.J. Simpson), and see that Goethe is, for better or worse, part of this fraternity.

Aruban lizard

Lenhoff discusses some of the legal problems that engaged Goethe throughout his life. One of these was the legal relation between state and religion. The Reformation introduced “confessions,” as well as the role of the state in adjudicating these. The state chose the country's religion; not the citizens. Although Goethe would abandon the idea of a civic religion (as per Rousseau), he continued to wrestle with the connection between education and religion in producing good citizens. Lenhoff draws here on Wilhelm Meister’s Travels, which he considers “one of the great repositories of Goethe’s socio-political ideas, particularly in the parts called ‘Lenardo’s Diary.’” Goethe's enormous experience in public administration can be seen in the passages about cotton manufacture and the textile industry and the competition faced by artisans from mechanization. In that novel, the solution was for workers to emigrate, but, as we know, that was only a temporary solution; today it is the jobs that emigrate.

Another area was criminal law, which, ultimately, is about who has the right to punish. For Goethe, the state was the only entity that was the legitimate source of violence. Thus, even in his 1771 dissertation in Strassburg, he wrote that “Capital punishment should not be abolished.” Later, in the Maxims and Reflections, he remarked:

“If one could abolish death, we certainly would not object to it; but it will be difficult to abolish death sentences. If society renounces its power of execution, people will immediately take the law in their own hands, blood revenge (vendetta) will rap at the door.”

“The emergence of written law” and the problems of its interpretation are a third area. Goethe wrote (quoted by Meissner) that “Statutes should be formulated so as to be terse in words and rich in reason.” Even in The Sorrows of Young Werther, one sees a dislike for hairsplitting; or, as Faust says to Wagner: “Und wenn’s Euch Ernst ist was zu sagen,/ Ist's notig, Worten nachzujagen?”

Lenhoff attributes to Goethe an understanding of the “enormous significance of historical evolution in the realm of legal science.” Which is not surprising in “the man who apprehended by intuition the laws of heredity and evolution in the realm of the physical world.” Lenhoff goes so far as to to say that Goethe was a predecessor of the “historical school of jurisprudence,” which conceives of law as a historical product. Thus, society must “infer the necessity for [law’s] alteration and change along with the changing needs of the ages.” The later formulation of this concept can be see in the work of Frederick Karl von Savigny, who “draws heavily on Goethe" in his System of Modern Roman Law (1840), even quoting verses from Faust (“Es erben sich Gesetz und Rechte, / Wie eine ew’ge Krankeit fort”) to illustrate  the “deadening effect inherent in the cult of precedent … or the principle of stare decisis.”

And now to the second observation I take from this article. Even in his own lifetime, Goethe was criticized for his "politics," especially in the years after the "restoration." There are two things to note about this criticism. First, his critics clearly believed that poets were “legislators” (as per Shelley in “A Defense of Poetry”). If the role of criticism from the Renaissance to the 18th century was to shape standards of literary taste, since the 19th century it has become very encompassing.

America's "foremost public intellectual"?

I am reminded of the full-page ads in The New York Times and other newspapers in support or opposition to some public issue, with the signers listed by their academic department, as if professors, even one of English or chemistry, had more standing than an ordinary citizen on the issue. Or how about movie stars appearing before Congress to testify?

Second, unlike most “public intellectuals” today or in the past two centuries, Goethe actually had played role in political and legal administration, and it may have been that experience that made him hesitant about formulating a  “political philosophy,” unlike contemporary opinion makers.

Lenhoff mentions that Goethe, like his great-great-grandfather, was a proponent of “positive law” and thus rejected “the natural law movement.” (In his Synopsis, the latter also gave a summary of arguments pro and con on why natural law does not condemn polygamy.) This rejection was the influence of the writings of Justus Möser, whose book Patriotic Fantasies convinced Goethe that, although a constitution may rely on the past, it cannot be an obstacle for “movements and changes in things that cannot be hindered.”  Goethe also “loved the idea of building up a free, self-governing body politic from below,” no doubt the influence of Möser’s “fantasies” about small social units, linked by unselfish devotion, forming the basis for a good society. America in the 1820s, when Wilhelm Meister's Travels appeared, seemed a possible location for such a community. In the real world, his “government experience” probably restrained Goethe from writing an explicit political treatise. His vision of "good government" was embodied in his literary works.

Picture credit: Diomedia; The Atlantic

Goethe in The New Yorker

Goethe, as illustrated by Boris Pelcer

A new anthology of Goethe's writing, The Essential Goethe (Princeton UP), edited by Matthew Bell, has prompted Adam Kirsch to give a galloping summary of Goethe's life and work in the current issue of The New Yorker. It is the first time that I have had occasion to find fault with a review by Kirsch, who is generally very thoughtful. Indeed, I mentioned an essay by him in a post a few years ago on this blog. But the New Yorker piece is rather potted, as if Kirsch had read a long encyclopedia article and excerpted it. All the high points are there -- e.g., the holism of Goethe's scientific view, the "objectivity" offered by Weimar, the "watershed" experience of Italy, the subject of "Bildung," the Olympian perspective -- but nothing distinctive emerges about Goethe's person or personality.

Kirsch brings out the old charge that The Sorrows of Young Werther started "a craze for suicide among young people emulating its hero."

Here are a couple other assertions that one might quibble with.

"Though he studied law, at his father’s insistence, and even practiced briefly, the occupation was never more than a cover for what really interested him, which was writing poetry and falling in love. It was one of these early infatuations that plunged Goethe into the despair that would become the subject of his first success, The Sorrows of Young Werther.”

Or of Goethe's death: "At the age of eighty-two, dying of a painful heart condition, Goethe’s last words were 'More light!' Probably his vision was dimming and he just wanted someone to open a window. But it is also Goethe’s last perfect metaphor: one final plea for illumination, from a writer who had spent all his life seeking it."

I did like Kirsch's assessment of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship: "Indeed, so many scandalous things happen in the novel—from adultery and illegitimacy to arson, incest, and suicide—that it often feels more like a gothic parody than like an earnest Bildungsroman."

Kirsch also emphasizes the difficulty of rendering Goethe's poetry in a way that truly captures its beauty, which is an obstacle to an appreciation of Goethe in the U.S.

A disappointing piece, although I like the illustration of Goethe by Boris Pelcer.

"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