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The Pattern of the Stowaway in Goethe's Works

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

George C. Buck
George C. Buck*
Affiliation:
University of Washington, Seattle 5
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Extract

The Purpose of this paper is to analyze one particular aspect of Goethe's creative process which manifests itself throughout his artistic career, a strange and as yet unexplained motivation which prompted him at times to incorporate in his works enigmatic elements which puzzled his contemporaries and continue to confound scholars. Toward the end of Werther, for example, we find several pages of a translation from Ossian. The sixth book of Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre is purportedly a manuscript entrusted to a doctor by a mysterious aunt and which bears a title of its own: “Die Bekenntnisse einer schönen Seele.” Obviously this chapter made a singular impression on the public at that time, because in 1806 an otherwise unknown author by the name of Friedrich Buchholz wrote a novel with this same title and it was reviewed by Goethe. Goethe's chapter has even been issued in a separate edition by the theologian Hermann Dechent. Not many novels contain chapters which can exist independent of their matrix.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 71 , Issue 3 , June 1956, pp. 451 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1956

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References

1 Bekenntnisse einer schonen Seele, von ihr selbst geschrieben (Berlin, 1806). Rev. by Goethe: WA 1, XL, 367 ft. (WA–Weimar ed.; JA–Jubilee ed.; AlH = Ausgabe lelzter Band).

2 Goethe's Schone Seele Susanna Katharina v. Kleltenberg (Gotha, 1896).

3 “Is the Prelude in the Theatre a Prelude to Faust?” PMLA, LXIV (June 1949), 462–470.

4 “Zur Entstehung und Datierung einiger Faust-Szenen um 1800,” Euphorion, XLVII (1953), 295–330.

5 Cf. maxims numbered 3, 16, 23, 31, 45 in Max Hecker, Goethe: Maximen und Re-Uexionen (Weimar, 1907).

6 Paul Stöcklein has advocated printing the maxims with the Wanderjahre, but when faced with the practical decision for Vol. ix of the Gedenkausgabe (Beutler ed.), he chose to let them follow on the heels of the novel accompanied with a footnote which explains the historical relationship. Erich Trunz is thus far the only scholar with the fortitude to follow his own convictions. In Vol. viii of his Hamburger Ausgabe he actually reprints the maxims in the original sequence as they occurred in the Ausgabe letzter Hand. However, even he omits the poems, which surely seems a methodological error.

7 13 Feb. 1769: Max Morris, Der junge Goethe, i, 323.

8 Die deutschen Ossian-Überselzungen des XVIII. Jahrhunderts (Diss. Greifswald, 1926).

9 WA 1, xix, 175.

10 Ibid., pp. 175 f.

11 See letter from Reichel to Goethe, 15 March 1829, in WA 4, XLV, 402 f. and Goethe's reply of 19 March 1829: “Ew. Wohlgeboren Vorstellung und Wünschen füge mich um so lieber, als der letzte Band auch nicht stark ist und es hauptsächlich darauf ankommt, daß diese übersendeten Aphorismen mit gegemvärtiger Lieferung [i.e., Vols, xxr-xxv] in's Publicum treten. Hiernach käme das Nachgesendete: Aus Makariens Archiv an's Ende des dritten Bandes der Wanderjahre [i.e., Vol. xxiii].”

12 Goethes “Wilhelm Meisler” und die Entwicklung des modernen Lebensideals (Berlin and Leipzig, 1913; 2nd ed., 1932). Also, “Aus Makariens Archiv. Zur Entstehung der Aphorismensammlungen in den Wanderjahren,” Germanisch-Romanische Monatschrift, vii (1915–19), 177–184.

13 PMLA, LIX (Dec. 1944), 1156–62 (Mautner); 1162–66 (Feise); 1166–72 (Viëtor); LX (June 1945), 399–420 (Hohlfeld); 42W26 (Viëtor).

14 It occurs first in A1H, xii, 313, i.e., on the last page of the volume, immediately following the fragment of Faust II, Act i. Its final occurrence is in A1H, xxiii, 286, where it is printed out of esthetic reasons in the same Roman type font as the poem, “Schillers Schädel.”

15 Curtis Vail has pointed out to me that the most recent scholar to accept the latter view is Paul Friedländer, Rhythmen und Landschaften im zweiten Teil des “Faust” (Weimar, 1953), p. 107, n. 1.

16 Monatshefle, XLV (Oct. 1953), 333.

17 Meister, p. xi: “Seit ich als Primaner …”

18 J. P. Eckermann: Sein Leben für Goethe (Leipzig, 1925–28).

19 George C. Buck, Goethe and His Stowaways (diss. Yale, 1954), pp. 360 ff.

20 The MS is no longer extant. The question has been debated at great length in the articles cited above by the late Karl Viëtor and A. R. Hohlfeld in PMLA, LIX (Dec. 1944) and IX (June 1945).

21 Hecker, p. 361.

22 E.g., Wundt, p. 453; Paul Stöcklein, Wege zum späten Goethe (Hamburg, 1949), p. 165; Wilhelm Flitner, “Aus Makariens Archiv. Ein Beispiel Goethescher Spruchkomposition” in Goethe-Kalender des Frankfurter Goethe-Museums auf das Jahr 1943 (Leipzig, 1942), p. 126.

23 Before leaving this rather intricate business, I should like to subjoin my own interpretation of Goethe's procedure which cannot be developed in detail here. The “1st fort-zusetzen” is a mild imperative which seems to contain the author's promise to the reader that he will continue to freight down future installments of the Ausgabe letzter Band, in answer to his critics who claim there is nothing “new” in the new edition, thus making its purchase worthwhile, even for those who already have editions of his works. (The irony becomes evident when one actually determines the amount of duplication for which the reader had to pay double and the amount of new material. Of course Goethe did not evaluate his additions by the pound or page.) To my way of thinking, then, the aphorisms and poems are not an integral part of the novel but a form of customer appeasement which is loosely added to the end of a volume. The choice of volume was dictated by editorial necessity. The practice of stowing away irrelevant material of this sort continues sporadically throughout the whole 40 volumes of the AlH.

24 JA, xxx, vii.

25 We may expect something along these lines in René Wellek's forthcoming book on the history of literary criticism, two volumes of which have already appeared.

26 Goethes Altersroman: Stuiien über die innere Einheit von “Wilkelm Meisters Wanderjahren” (Halle, 1941).