on his twenty-second birthday (august 28, 1771), the day after his arrival at home, goethe applied to be admitted as one of the advocates of frankfort. a few days afterwards he took the oath as an advocate and citizen; and he soon received his first case—an extraordinary one, in which he had to defend a son against a father. judgment was given in favour of goethe’s client, but both he and the advocate on the other side were rebuked for the bitterness with which they had presented their arguments. in the course of the winter goethe had only one other case. law had little interest for him, and he accepted professional work merely to please his father, who was bent on seeing him an eminent pleader.
of all the studies carried on at this time the one that moved him most profoundly was the study of shakespeare, and at last he felt that he must find some means of expressing the thoughts and feelings kindled within him by the poet whom he adored. accordingly he decided that on the 14th of october a shakespeare festival should be held in his father’s house; and it was arranged that there should be a like festival at the same{48} time in strasburg. the plan was carried out, and goethe, in language of glowing enthusiasm, poured forth his admiration of the dramas in which, as he said, “the history of the world sweeps on before our eyes on the invisible thread of time.”
at strasburg he had lighted upon the autobiography of goetz von berlichingen, the knight with the iron hand, who had played so great a part in the peasants’ war in the sixteenth century. goetz (born in 1480) was one of the manliest of the warriors who, in the age which formed the border-line between the medi?val and the modern world, fought valiantly for the causes they conceived to be those of justice and freedom. his autobiography is a frank and simple record of his adventures, written with a view to prevent his descendants from misunderstanding him. as goethe read it, it seems to have flashed upon him that, notwithstanding external differences, there was much inward resemblance between the influences with which goetz contended and those which in his own day choked up the springs of thought and natural feeling. goetz had not allowed his spirit to be broken by the tyrannical forces of his period; he had asserted his individuality, and had been loyal to his own loftiest aims. here, then, was a figure which might be made the medium for the expression of goethe’s own aspirations; and he forthwith decided that goetz should be the hero of his first drama.
the execution of the scheme was somewhat delayed; but, stimulated by his sister cornelia, to whom all his thoughts and wishes were confided, he set to work early in the winter of 1771, and before the end of the year the{49} drama in its original form was completed. its title in this form was “geschichte gottfriedens von berlichingen mit der eisernen hand, dramatisirt” (“history of gottfried of berlichingen with the iron hand, dramatised”). while it was being written, he read in the evening to his sister the work done during the day, and he was greatly encouraged by her warm sympathy. copies of the play, in manuscript, were despatched to salzmann and herder. salzmann lost no time in congratulating his friend, but herder’s response, to which goethe looked forward anxiously, was long postponed.
about this time goethe made the acquaintance of a man by whose friendship he laid great store. this was merck, paymaster of the forces of darmstadt, who was about eight years older than goethe. he was a tall, meagre, rather awkward-looking man, somewhat cynical, but an ardent student of literature, and thoroughly loyal to his friends. towards the close of 1771, a bookseller at frankfort, asked merck to edit the “frankfurter gelehrten anzeigen” (“the frankfort learned notices,” or “the frankfort review,” as we might say), a new literary periodical which was to appear at the beginning of 1772. merck accepted the offer, and went to frankfort to make arrangements with contributors. during this visit goethe met him, and they at once became friends. goethe joined the staff of the “gelehrten anzeigen,” and during the next two years wrote for it a good many reviews of all kinds of books. the opinions expressed in these reviews give evidence of a free and vigorous judgment, and they are set forth in a fresh, incisive, and picturesque style. it may be safely said{50} that all great poets are great critics, and in his first efforts at criticism goethe gave sufficiently clear indications that in the maturity of his powers he would be no exception to the general rule.
he visited merck several times at darmstadt, where he became an intimate friend of herder’s betrothed, who often wrote about him to her lover at bückeburg. on one occasion, when walking to darmstadt from frankfort, he was overtaken by a tempest, and had to take refuge in a hut. here he recited aloud, exactly as the words occurred to him, the “wanderers sturmlied” (the “wanderer’s storm-song”), a series of wild, irregular verses, in which he celebrates the power of jupiter pluvius, and apostrophises the genius that makes the poet’s spirit independent of the accidents of time and place. to this period, also, belongs “the wanderer,” a fine poem—suggested, no doubt, by his experiences at niederbronn—in which a poet converses with a simple young mother in a hut built of stones taken from the ruins of an ancient temple.
it had always been intended that goethe, as his father had done before him, and as it was the custom of many young advocates still to do, should perfect himself in his profession by practising for some time in connection with the imperial chamber at wetzlar. accordingly, he took rooms at wetzlar, in may, 1772. the work of each advocate at the imperial chamber was exactly what the advocate himself chose to make it, and goethe chose to make his a mere form. wetzlar, a little town on the left bank of the lahn, is situated in a charming country, and he did not feel disposed to burrow among musty law-{51}books when, in bright summer weather, he had a chance of wandering in secluded valleys, and filling his sketch-book with studies of landscape. he also spent a good deal of time in reading greek poets, taking especial delight in pindar.
but even the pleasure he found in pindar and in nature was by and by thrust into the background by a more absorbing passion. the thought of frederika had often troubled him, but he had so far recovered from the shock of his separation from her that it had become possible for him to be subdued by a new fascination. and the possibility was soon transformed into reality. he had relatives at wetzlar, and having started with some of them one evening for a ball which was to come off at a neighbouring village, he stopped the carriage to take up a friend of theirs who was to accompany them. this friend was charlotte buff, the daughter of a public official at wetzlar. she was the second of a family of twelve children, and on her, after the recent death of her mother, had devolved the principal duties of the household. she was nineteen years of age, a beautiful girl with fair hair and blue eyes, remarkable for quick intelligence, and always bright and cheerful in the performance of the most troublesome tasks. goethe loved her at once, and, with his usual impetuosity, could not help showing how passionately he was devoted to her. every day he visited her in the afternoon, and delighted to lie at her feet on the grass while the children played around them; and in the evening he was often at the house again, drawn thither by an attraction he was powerless to resist. charlotte—or lotte, as she was called—was,{52} of course, interested in a man who was so different from all the men she had ever met, and she gave him as warm and true an affection as a woman can give to one who is no more than a friend. love she could not give him, nor did he ask for it, for she had already virtually pledged her troth. her lover was kestner, the secretary of the brunswick legation. kestner, who was about eight years older than goethe, was a man of solid qualities, able and steadfast, devoted to his professional duties, but with a keen and intelligent interest in literature. goethe, before his first meeting with lotte, had known him slightly, and soon became sincerely attached to him, thoroughly appreciating his manly and generous character. kestner saw, of course, the tumult that had been excited in goethe’s breast, but never either by word or by look gave the faintest sign of jealousy or of a wish to hamper lotte’s freedom.
the relation was a most difficult one, and made goethe restless and unhappy. at last the strain became intolerable, and he resolved to save himself by flight. on the 10th of september, having dined with kestner in a public garden, goethe spent the evening with the lovers in lotte’s home; and, as it happened, the talk became unusually sombre, lotte herself giving it a serious turn by a reference to the invisible world. on returning to his rooms he wrote farewell letters, adding next morning a line for lotte alone. “be ever of cheerful mood, dear lotte,” he wrote,—“you are happier than a hundred—only not indifferent! and i, dear lotte, am happy that i read in your eyes that you believe i shall never change. adieu, a thousand times adieu!{53}”
on the same morning he quitted wetzlar, haunted by the thought of her, but with the feeling that he was escaping from a grave and imminent peril. at darmstadt goethe had met frau von laroche, who had made some reputation as the author of a recently-published romance, “die geschichte des fr?ulein von sternheim.” she was the wife of a high official at the electoral court of trier, and her home was on the outskirts of a beautiful village that nestled at the foot of ehrenbreitstein. in response, no doubt, to an invitation to visit her, goethe now made his way slowly down the lahn towards the rhine, finding in communion with nature some relief from the depression that had succeeded the excitement of the previous weeks.
during his stay at the house of frau von laroche several guests arrived—among them, merck with his wife and little boy. goethe thoroughly enjoyed his visit, opening his heart and imagination to all the impressions produced on him by free, joyous intercourse with friends, and by the lovely scenery of the rhine country. frau von laroche, by whom he had not been strongly attracted at darmstadt, won his confidence and affection; and he had many a pleasant talk with the eldest of her two daughters, maximiliane, a girl of about seventeen, whose fine dark eyes and frank, pretty ways might have created for him a new danger but for the power that had so completely subdued him at wetzlar.
before the end of september he was back at frankfort, and in the course of a few weeks he was again engaged in professional business, to which he continued to give some attention during the whole of the remaining{54} time spent in his father’s house. but he was firmly resolved that his real work should be literature, and now so much had happened to deepen his feeling and quicken his imagination that the difficulty was, not how to find something to say, but how to give expression to even a small proportion of the thoughts that pressed upon him for utterance.
at wetzlar goethe had received herder’s anxiously expected reply with regard to the “geschichte gottfriedens von berlichingen.” it was anything but flattering to the young writer’s vanity. herder had hardly a good word to say for the play, and expressed the opinion that it had been spoiled by his slavish adherence to the manner of shakespeare. in his answer goethe acknowledged the justice of the strictures of his extremely candid friend, and announced his intention of completely recasting the work. at wetzlar, however, he was in no mood to undertake so strenuous a labour, and after his return to frankfort he was for some time too much occupied otherwise to think of carrying out his purpose. but merck, who heartily admired the play, urged him to give it its final form; and early in 1773 goethe at last took the task in hand. shutting himself up in his room at the top of the house, he worked at it day after day, becoming more and more absorbed in it as he went on; and before the winter was fairly over, he finished it. in its new shape the play received the title, “goetz von berlichingen mit der eisernen hand. ein schauspiel.” (“goetz von berlichingen with the iron hand. a drama.”) it is impossible to compare it with the work as originally written without admiring the high conception{55} of art by which goethe was controlled in transforming what he had done. in the minutest details he sought for perfection, and entire scenes, in themselves powerful and interesting, were struck out because they did not seem to accord with the scheme as a whole. long afterwards he taught that it is in “limitation” (beschr?nkung) that the master reveals himself; and already he had some perception of the vital importance of this great truth.
in working out his conception goethe did not consider it necessary to adhere strictly to the facts of history. he makes goetz die immediately after the peasants’ war, whereas in reality he lived nearly forty years afterwards, and distinguished himself in charles v.’s wars with the french and the turks. this, however, need not disturb any one in the enjoyment of the play, which is to be judged as a work of art without reference to the actual events which it in part reproduces.
“goetz” is as far as possible from being a faultless play. goethe tried to conceive it in the spirit of shakespeare’s historical dramas, but at this early period he had not sufficient mastery of his intellectual resources to be able to give, as shakespeare gives, unity of design to the representation of a complicated series of incidents. the forces called into exercise have in some instances only an accidental connection with one another; they are not combined so as to produce the impression of a complete and harmonious process of development. nevertheless, the work is unmistakably a creation of genius. it brings before us in grandly sweeping outlines, and in bold, vivid colours all the leading elements of the national life of germany in the early part of the sixteenth century. the{56} characters live and breathe, and their language—fresh, vigorous, and animated—is that which we should expect to hear from them in real life. goetz himself is an admirable type of a just and fearless warrior. he has not, indeed, any large conception of the issues towards which his age is moving, but in the midst of debasing influences he knows how to maintain the purity of his own impulses, and how to strike boldly and strongly in defence of ideas of which he makes himself a champion. rough in manner, and a lover of plain speech, he is at heart tender and humane; and in the most difficult circumstances, when a character less simple and direct might be liable to gross misconstruction, there can be no doubt as to the honesty and dignity of his motives. men of this noble mould—frank, unconventional, and true—were never more needed than in goethe’s own day, and one of the objects of the play was to suggest that if they were possible in the sixteenth, they could not be impossible in the eighteenth century.
a love-story is interwoven with the presentation of goetz’s activity; and from the point of view of art this is perhaps the best part of the drama. weislingen, a young and brilliant statesman at the corrupt court of the bishop of bamberg, is taken prisoner by goetz. he falls in love with the knight’s sister, maria, and his love is returned. when, however, he goes back to the bishop’s court, pledged to support no undertaking against goetz or his friends, he is overcome by the wiles of adelheid, a subtle, cruel, and fascinating woman, who understands thoroughly the essential weakness of his character. she professes to love him, and becomes his{57} wife, and in the end he is poisoned by his servant, who acts as her agent. weislingen and adelheid are genuinely dramatic figures, and the character of maria, simple, affectionate, and loyal, is not less finely conceived. it was frederika brion he was thinking of when he depicted weislingen’s love for, and desertion of, maria. when the play was published, he sent a copy to salzmann, with a request that it should be forwarded to sesenheim. “poor frederika,” he wrote, “will be to some extent consoled when the unfaithful one is poisoned.”
the play was printed by merck, who had started a printing establishment of his own; and in the summer of 1773 it was published. the enthusiasm it awakened far surpassed goethe’s anticipations. hitherto the unities of the french classic drama had been rigidly respected in the drama of germany. lessing had fought hard to show that they are not essential to a great work of art, but in his own plays he had not cared to violate them. the author of “goetz” had wholly ignored them, daring to think rather of the vitality of his characters than of the conditions of a well-rounded scheme. to some critics of the older generation the play seemed almost grotesquely extravagant, but the younger men hailed it as a glorious symptom of the uprising of a new and adventurous spirit of liberty. a man of genius, putting aside conventions and artificialities, had gone straight to reality for inspiration, and had uttered a word that delivered them, as they thought, from the necessity of submitting not only to the unities, but to any kind of artistic law. a school of writers{58} was formed, all of whom looked to goethe as their chief. prominent among them was klinger, a native of frankfort, the title of one of whose plays, “sturm und drang,” was afterwards accepted as the name of the period in which it was produced. lenz, whom goethe had known at strasburg, and who, after goethe’s departure, had tried to win the affections of frederika brion, was another member of the group. these young writers had plenty of ambition and vigour, but they mistook eccentricity for originality, sentimentalism for passion, noisy declamation for poetry, and not a shred of interest now attaches to their productions, except as documents which throw light on a curious phase of literary history.
after the publication of his play, goethe became one of the “lions” of frankfort, and had to endure the visits of innumerable strangers who wished to make his acquaintance. he acquired confidence in his own genius, and did not doubt that he would be able to justify the highest expectations formed as to his future work. he was universally liked, for he had all the good qualities with which he had endowed goetz, and his friends found that there was always something exhilarating in his frank and brilliant talk. yet at this time he was passing through a period of deep depression. it was not connected with any particular misfortune, nor was it due to love for lotte, for kestner and she were now husband and wife, and goethe thought of her only as a friend. his unhappiness sprang wholly from spiritual causes. he had longings which the actual world seemed to be incapable of satisfying, and the more he reflected on life, and sought to comprehend its meaning,{59} the more he was oppressed by the old, old mysteries that have baffled and saddened so many a noble mind. sometimes the idea of suicide suggested itself, and in his autobiography he has described how he laid a dagger by his bed-side, and before putting out the light tried whether he could not pierce his breast.
in the autumn of 1773, the marriage of cornelia and schlosser took place, and they quitted frankfort, ultimately settling in emmendingen. this was a severe blow to goethe, for communion with his sister had been to him a constant source of consolation, and in her absence he was driven in, more than ever, upon himself. a little later in the year he heard with pleasure that he would soon have frequent opportunities of seeing maximiliane laroche, who, although still only a young girl, was about to be married to a frankfort merchant, an italian called brentano. the marriage was not a happy one, and proved to be for goethe a new cause of trouble. feeling for maximiliane, both for her own sake and for her mother’s (whom he always addressed as “mamma”), a sincere brotherly affection, he often called upon her, and did what he could to make her life in frankfort tolerable. brentano was of a furiously jealous disposition, and, misunderstanding these visits, one day grossly insulted goethe. violently agitated, goethe declined to enter the house again, and, for a long time, saw maximiliane only when he met her at the play or elsewhere accidentally.
it was always goethe’s habit, when burdened by any feeling, to liberate himself by means of some imaginative effort; and now he felt that the time had come for this{60} mode of relief. he had not to choose a subject, for the plan of a romance had already taken firm possession of his mind. towards the end of 1772 he had heard of the suicide of jerusalem, a young secretary of legation at wetzlar, with whom he had had a slight acquaintance both there and at leipsic. jerusalem had loved a married woman, and in a moment of despair had shot himself with a pistol borrowed from kestner. goethe, after the first shock of the tidings was past, decided to give an imaginative presentation of the tale, but in the early part to substitute for jerusalem’s experiences, about which he had only general information, the story of his own love for lotte. from time to time the execution of the scheme was put off, but when driven by an imperious impulse to give form to the conceptions by which he was haunted, he accomplished his task with almost feverish haste. the work was ended about the beginning of march, 1774, and the greater part of it was written during the preceding month. the figures of the romance stood out before him in sharply-cut outlines, and their story flowed freely from his pen, because in reality it was the story of his own inmost life. he called it “die leiden des jungen werthers” (“the sufferings of young werther”).
the work consists of a series of letters written by werther, and some explanatory statements made by the editor. in his conception of the tale, and in his choice of form, goethe was deeply indebted both to richardson and to rousseau, but especially to rousseau, the spirit of whose “la nouvelle hélo?se” breathes in every line of “werther.” “la nouvelle hélo?se,” however, is a book{61} of the past, interesting only to students of literature and of the history of ideas, whereas “werther” is still alive, and can never wholly lose its freshness.
werther has many qualities that excite interest and sympathy. he has a deep vein of poetry; nature appeals to him strongly; he is an enthusiast for the best literature; and he is always generous to the poor and the distressed. but he is incapable of manly decision, and on the slightest provocation he sheds floods of tears, secretly proud of his sensibility as a mark of a superior type of character. when the story opens, he is in a little provincial town, whither he has gone to see about a legacy left to his mother. he is not discontented, for in homer and ossian he has the kind of companionship he loves, and in the surrounding country there are exquisite views which he is never tired of admiring and sketching. suddenly he meets lotte, and his whole being is transformed. in her are realized all the dreams he has ever had of womanly loveliness and charm. she does not glide into his affections; the moment he sees her—with the children, for whom she cuts the “abendbrod,” clamouring around her—she becomes the supreme object of his devotion. to be in her presence is ecstasy. it is of her that all things in nature speak to him, and he has no thought, no wish but to serve her. she is already betrothed, but her lover is from home, and as long as he is absent werther thinks little about him, and lives in a world all glowing with the light reflected from his own happiness.
by and by albert, the accepted lover, returns, and now for the first time werther realizes that lotte is beyond{62} his reach. he suffers unspeakable tortures, and knows not where to turn for relief. deep in his heart, before he ever saw lotte, the seeds of morbid growths had been implanted, and in his wretchedness they spring up in rank luxuriance. all life becomes hateful to him. nowhere can he find anything that does not seem to bear the mark of some prim?val curse. even nature, in communion with which he has so often felt bounding delight, takes on the aspect of a devouring monster. her forces are pitiless; and he himself, full of tender compassion, cannot move without crushing some helpless creature under his feet. against the very essence of things he rises in revolt. thinking of what life may mean, he feels that he is standing on the edge of an abyss, and he looks with horror into its black depths.
at last, yielding to the entreaties of the friend to whom his letters are addressed, he flies from the scene of his misery, and, accepting a diplomatic appointment at a german court, hopes to regain peace of mind by taking part in the world’s work. but he is slighted in an assembly of people with whom, as a man of the middle class, he is not thought fit to associate; and the insult so rankles in his mind that he sends in his resignation, and after some months of brooding he cannot resist the temptation to go back to lotte. by this time she is married; nevertheless, his passion burns more fiercely than ever, and anguish rends his heart when he sees her in albert’s possession. she has always had a warm regard for werther. now his sufferings arouse her pity, and in the end she cannot conceal from herself that she loves him. but she expostulates with him, and begs{63} him to leave her, to marry some one who can honourably give herself to him, and to return as a friend. albert becomes jealous and watchful, and utter shipwreck seems to be the destiny of the newly-formed household. werther, sick at heart, loathing existence, resolves to bring his agony to a violent end, and after a wild scene, in which lotte almost loses control of herself, the tragedy closes with his death. the pistol with which he shoots himself he borrows from albert on the plea that he is about to start on a journey. lotte takes it from its place, and, having wiped the dust from it, hands it to the messenger with a sad foreboding that some terrible disaster is at hand.
“werther” is a story of a “mind diseased”; and, judged from this point of view, it stands supreme among the prose writings of the eighteenth century. goethe himself never wrote, in prose, anything more powerful. werther’s malady was not the malady of an individual only, but of an age. thoughtful men had outlived their beliefs, their institutions, their customs; all around them was a world touched by the finger of decay. they sought to shake themselves free from the intolerable yoke of the past, but as yet nothing had appeared that could take the place of the old ideas; there was no influence to awaken disinterested enthusiasm, to lead to combined and settled effort for worthy ends. so even the best minds—and perhaps they more than others—felt themselves isolated, and, in the absence of nobler interests, were forced to think much about their own moods, about the ebb and flow of the tides of purely personal feeling. hence a morbid sensitiveness, an extravagant senti{64}mentalism; hence, too, a disposition to read the facts of existence in the light of individual experience—a tendency to conclude that, because the hungry “i” was unhappy, therefore the universe was a gigantic blunder and imposture. in “werther” goethe probes this disease to its roots. it is a profound error to suppose that he intended the hero of the tale to be taken as a complete representation of his own character. werther wholly lacked many of the qualities that made goethe great—his original impulse, his creative energy, his strength of will. but werther’s mood had for a while been goethe’s mood, and it is for this reason that as we read the solitary sentimentalist’s letters he seems to start into life, and we learn to know him, back into the inmost recesses of his spirit, more intimately than if he stood before us in actual flesh and blood. it was a phase—a passing but most striking phase—of his own many-sided nature that goethe was disclosing, and he could not but write of it in words of searching power. and yet all was not put down exactly as it came into his mind. with fine, instinctive art he selected those elements of the tale, and those only, that were fitted to reveal his essential purpose, and to prepare the way for the ultimate issue. when we close the book, and look back, we feel that no other issue was possible. were werther a man of good sense and resolute will, he could easily, no doubt, disentangle himself, but with his character, and in his circumstances, ruin is inevitable.
lotte, as she is presented in the first part of “werther,” is one of the most exquisite of goethe’s creations. her youth and beauty, the frankness of her manner, the joyous{65} spirit in which she devotes herself to others, and the warm poetic feeling combined in her nature with a sound and ready judgment, are brought out with so delicate a grace, yet in such clear outlines, that we do not wonder at the influence she exerts over all who know her, and especially over a sensitive mind like werther’s. it is hard to realize that the lotte of the second part is also the lotte of the first, and it may be that here there is a flaw in goethe’s idea of the character. the maelstrom of passion within whose sweep she is caught is so powerfully depicted that at the moment of reading we are not permitted to raise any question as to the consistency of the conception; but when all is over, we cannot help suspecting that we have been introduced to two lottes rather than to one. the lotte who afterwards lives in the imagination is certainly the lotte of the first part, a sane and wholesome figure, contrasting strongly with the shrill and despairing werther. albert stands out less prominently than werther and lotte, but he also has living qualities, and if anything could make the final scenes, so far as lotte is concerned, intelligible, it would be his pompous self-esteem and exasperating respectability.
one of the secrets of the charm of “werther” lies in its style. it is a style peculiar to goethe himself, yet without a trace of eccentricity. strong, lucid, and picturesque, it adapts itself with perfect suppleness to every mood the writer wishes to express; and it is so absolutely unaffected that, as we read, we think of what is said rather than of the artist’s way of saying it. “werther” is also remarkable as the first modern german book in which we find descriptions of nature that are still full of{66} charm. it was rousseau who had opened men’s eyes to the splendour and loveliness of the outward world. goethe had learned all that rousseau could teach as to the art of suggesting natural scenery to the imagination through written speech, and in “werther” he went far beyond the highest achievements of his instructor. his descriptions are often merely rapid sketches, but they are sketches drawn with so sure a touch that they never fail to call up a vision having all the freshness of reality. and they intensify interest in the tale, for nature is brought in less for its own sake than for the sake of its relation to feeling. it is with werther’s eyes that we see the scenes he reproduces, and he finds in them always a power that responds to his own happiness or gloom.
few books have ever produced so strong a sensation. almost everywhere in germany “werther” was received with mingled astonishment and delight. it had come straight from the writer’s heart, and went as straight to the hearts of those who read it. they found in the tale a voice that gave utterance to much that they themselves had been feeling, and many of them not only shed hot tears for werther’s fate, but affected his modes of expression, and even dressed as he had dressed—in blue coat, yellow vest, yellow hose, and top-boots. by and by the book was translated into almost every european language, and in far cathay werther and lotte were painted on glass by native artists.
at first there was one discordant note in the general chorus of praise. kestner was gravely offended by what he took to be a misrepresentation of the relations between goethe, lotte, and himself. in reality there was no{67} misrepresentation, for goethe had dealt freely with the experiences through which he had passed, using only those of them that were adapted to his scheme, and adding scenes in which there was no element of fact. the lotte of the first part, notwithstanding her black eyes, is charlotte buff, perhaps slightly idealized; but in the second part she is wholly a figure of the imagination. as for albert, goethe, if he thought of any one in particular in conceiving the character, thought of brentano, not of kestner. in the end kestner had a better understanding of what had been intended, and was not a little proud of the part his wife had unconsciously played in the creation of so famous a romance.
goethe himself says that when he finished “werther” he felt as one feels after a general confession. the load that had weighed so heavily on his spirit was for the moment removed, and, once more free and happy, he looked forward hopefully to new activity. by and by he could even jest about the characters whose woes had moved him so deeply. nicolai, the berlin bookseller and man of letters, who had done better work in his time, wrote a parody of the book, showing how in reality werther and lotte became husband and wife, and lived happily ever after; the pistol with which werther had tried to shoot himself having been loaded with chicken’s blood. some verses written by goethe show that he took offence at this indignity; but afterwards he wrote an amusing little dialogue, in which werther and lotte complain of nicolai’s misconceptions. the chicken’s blood has blinded werther, and lotte, while pitying him, is anything but enchanted by the change this has made in his{68} appearance. his eyebrows, she says, will never be so beautiful as they were before. in “dichtung und wahrheit” goethe speaks of this dialogue with some pride, and it certainly shows how completely, at the time when he wrote it, he felt himself emancipated from the influences from which “werther” had sprung.
he had not yet, however, brought his powers under strict control. many conflicting ideas struggled in his mind for mastery, and his moods varied from day to day, one giving way to another without any apparent reason and with startling rapidity. goethe’s nature was too complicated, touched to too many fine issues, to attain suddenly, or soon, to inward repose.
two complete prose dramas were written in frankfort after he finished “werther”—“clavigo” and “stella.” “clavigo” is a dramatic rendering of incidents recorded in the “memoirs” of beaumarchais. these “memoirs” appeared in paris in the spring of 1774, and in the summer of the same year goethe’s play was published. in imaginative energy, and in range and depth of feeling, “clavigo” is far inferior to “goetz,” but it displays a striking advance in the power of construction. the formerly despised unities are here observed, and the interest, such as it is, steadily grows until it culminates in the catastrophe. the chief defect of the play is that clavigo, on whose action everything depends, is too feeble a character to excite much interest. his cynical friend, don carlos, has, however, marked individuality, and the part played by him is still found by german actors to repay careful study. maria, the heroine, dies of a broken heart, and in describing clavigo’s desertion of her, as in describing{69} weislingen’s desertion of the maria of “goetz,” goethe did a kind of penance for his treatment of frederika brion.
“stella,” which was written in 1775, seems to have been suggested by swift’s relations to stella and vanessa. in this play also goethe respects the unities, and much technical skill is shown in the development of the story. the play in its original form, however, could not now be acted without exciting ridicule. the hero, ferdinand, having married cecilia, whom he loves, feels after a while that his freedom is unduly limited by a wife and daughter; and accordingly he leaves them. then he falls in love with stella, but her also he ultimately deserts. when the play opens, he has returned in the hope of being re-united to stella. he finds her, but at the same time finds his wife and daughter, the latter having become stella’s companion. there is now a vehement conflict of motives. which of the two women shall he select? cecilia suggests that it may be possible for him to live with both, and this solution, with stella’s hearty consent, he joyfully accepts. such was the passion for “nature” at the time that the public do not seem to have been in any way offended or perplexed by this strange conclusion; but thirty years afterwards goethe changed the last act, bringing the play to an end with the suicide of ferdinand and stella. a tragic issue, however, could not be made to appear the natural result of conditions which were in the first instance planned for a wholly different scheme.
to this period belong two short plays with songs—“erwin and elmire,” and “claudine von villa bella.” both are brightly written, but—except in the charm of{70} their songs—they have no qualities that mark them off sharply from work of a like kind done by other dramatists of the time. the idea of the first of these two plays is the idea of goldsmith’s ballad, “edwin and angelina.”
at this time goethe sometimes amused himself by writing humorous and satirical sketches, in all of which there is a free and lively play of fancy. the most famous of them is “g?tter, helden, und wieland” (“gods, heroes, and wieland”), which goethe (with a bottle of burgundy on the table) dashed off one sunday afternoon. lenz, to whom it was sent, printed it without having received goethe’s permission. in this prose “farce” goethe very wittily makes fun of wieland’s misrepresentations of greek mythology.
so many ideas crowded into goethe’s mind that it was impossible for him to realize all his plans. for some time he thought of taking the career of mahomet as the subject of a poetical drama, and if we may judge from the beginning he actually made, the theme as he conceived it would have given full scope to his highest creative faculties. he also intended to write a poem on the wandering jew, bringing out the contrast between the loftiest idealism, as represented in christ, and vulgar worldly intelligence, as represented in ahasuerus, who was to have expostulated with christ for uselessly exposing himself to danger by the proclamation of unpopular truths. of this poem he completed only a few passages, written in couplets like those of hans sachs—a poet whom goethe warmly admired. another of his poetical fragments is “prometheus,” one of the finest of his early writings. the moravian brethren, with whom{71} he still occasionally associated, impressed upon him that man, of himself, can do nothing well, and that his aim should be to wait passively for supernatural influences. this doctrine was ill fitted for a young poet who by a law of his nature was impelled to ceaseless effort; and in “prometheus” he proposed to develop an exalted conception of the power of the free individual mind. the defiant address of prometheus to zeus, with which the fragment closes, ranks among the most splendid of his shorter poems.
