The Essential Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Matthew Bell

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780691181042, 9780691162904
• eBook ISBN: 9781400874255
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Europäische Literarische Sammlungen

The most comprehensive one-volume collection of Goethe's writings ever published in English

The Essential Goethe is the most comprehensive and representative one-volume collection of Goethe's writings ever published in English. It provides English-language readers easier access than ever before to the widest range of work by one of the greatest writers in world history. Goethe's work as playwright, poet, novelist, and autobiographer is fully represented. In addition to the works for which he is most famous, including Faust Part I and the lyric poems, the volume features important literary works that are rarely published in English—including the dramas Egmont, Iphigenia in Tauris, and Torquato Tasso and the bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, a foundational work in the history of the novel. The volume also offers a selection of Goethe's essays on the arts, philosophy, and science, which give access to the thought of a polymath unrivalled in the modern world. Primarily drawn from Princeton's authoritative twelve-volume Goethe edition, the translations are highly readable and reliable modern versions by scholars of Goethe. The volume also features an extensive introduction to Goethe's life and works by volume editor Matthew Bell.

Includes:

• Selected poems
• Four complete dramas: Faust Part I, Egmont, Iphigenia in Tauris, and Torquato Tasso
• The complete novel Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
• A selection from the travel journal Italian Journey
• Selected essays on art and literature
• Selected essays on philosophy and science
• An extensive introduction to Goethe's life and works
• A chronology of Goethe's life and times
• A note on the texts and translations

Italian Journey

PART ONE

I, too in Arcadia

From Carlsbad to the Brenner

REGENSBURG, SEPTEMBER 3, 1786

I stole out of Carlsbad at three in the morning, for otherwise I would never have gotten away. Since my friends had been kind enough to celebrate my birthday on the twenty-eighth of August, no doubt they had earned a right to keep me there, but I could delay no longer. All alone, with no more luggage than a portmanteau and a satchel, I leapt into a mail coach and reached Zwoda at seven-thirty on a fine, still, misty morning. The higher clouds were like strips of wool, the lower ones heavy. I took this for a good sign that I might hope, after such a bad summer, to enjoy a good autumn. At twelve I was in Eger, in hot sunshine; and now I remembered that this town was on the same latitude as my native city. I was happy to eat my midday meal on the fiftieth parallel again, under clear skies.

In Bavaria one immediately comes upon the Waldsassen monastery—the choice possession of clerical gentlemen, who were clever sooner than other people. It lies in a basin more like a dish than a kettle, in a lovely, grassy hollow surrounded by gentle, fertile hills. Other properties owned by the monastery are spread far and wide in the area. The soil is decomposed shale. The quartz present in this species of rock neither decomposes nor weathers away, and it makes the ground friable and thoroughly fertile. The land rises as far as Tirschenreuth. The streams, heading for the Eger and the Elbe, flow toward me. To the south of Tirschenreuth the land slopes downward, and the streams run into the Danube. The smallest stream, once I have determined its direction of flow and the system it belongs to, quickly gives me a grasp of any region. Thus, even in areas one cannot survey, one forms a mental picture of the correlated hills and valleys. At the town mentioned there begins an excellent highway of granitic sand: it is the most perfect one imaginable, for the decomposed granite, which consists of gravel and clay, provides both a firm basis and a fine cohesive material, so that the road is as smooth as a threshing floor. But in consequence the region it runs through only looks worse: it too is of granitic sand, flat and marshy. Therefore the fine road is all the more desirable. Since the land also slopes downhill, one travels at an incredible speed that is quite a contrast to the snail’s pace in Bohemia. The enclosed sheet lists the various stations along the way. Suffice it to say, the next morning I was in Regensburg and thus had covered these twenty-four and a half miles in thirty-nine hours. At daybreak I found myself between Schwandorf and Regenstauf, where I noticed an improvement in the farmland. It was no longer detritus from the hills but mixed alluvial soil. In primeval times, all the valleys which at present empty their waters into the Regen river were affected by the ebb and flow from the Danube valley, and thus arose those natural polders which support agriculture. This observation holds true in the vicinity of all rivers large and small, and with this guideline the spectator can readily explain any cultivable soil.

Regensburg is beautifully situated. The region naturally attracted a town, and the clerical gentlemen carefully considered their own advantage too. All the fields around the town belong to them, and in the town there is one church and one institute standing next to the other. The Danube reminds me of my old Main. The river and bridge look better at Frankfurt, but here Stadtamhof, which lies opposite, has a nice appearance. I went straight to the Jesuit college, where the students were putting on their annual theatrical spectacle, and I saw the end of the opera and the start of the tragedy. They performed no worse than any other inexperienced amateurs and were beautifully, indeed almost too gorgeously costumed. This public show convinced me anew of the Jesuits’ astuteness. They scorned nothing that could be in some way effective, and they knew how to treat it with loving attention. This is not shrewdness in any abstract sense, for their delight in the thing, their empathetic and personal pleasure, which results from making use of life, is obvious. This great religious society not only has members who are organ builders, carvers, and gilders, but certainly also some with the inclination and ability to attend to the theater. Just as they distinguish their churches with a pleasing magnificence, so these judicious men make use of worldly sensuality with their decorous theater.

Today I am writing at the forty-ninth parallel, which shows great promise. The morning was cool, and here too people are complaining about the cold, damp summer; but the day turned out to be splendid and mild. The balmy air that comes with a great river is something quite unique. The fruit is not remarkable. I have eaten some good pears, but I long for grapes and figs.

I am fascinated by the activities and ways of the Jesuits. Their churches, towers, and buildings have a grandeur and completeness that fill everyone with secret awe. The decorations made of gold, silver, metal, and polished stones are massed together in such splendor and abundance that beggars of all classes must be dazzled by them. Here and there, as a sop and magnet to the common people, something tasteless is included. This is the genius of Catholic public worship in general; but I have never seen it applied with as much intelligence, skill, and consistency as by the Jesuits. Everything is designed, not, as with other religious orders, to preserve an old, worn-out form of worship, but to revive it with pomp and splendor to suit the spirit of the times.

A strange type of rock is processed here which looks like a kind of new red sandstone but must be considered older, primary, indeed porphyritic. It has a greenish admixture of quartz, is porous, and shows large spots of a sort of breccia. One bit was temptingly instructive and appetizing but could not be separated from the stone; and I have sworn not to load myself down with rocks on this trip.

MUNICH, SEPTEMBER 6.

On September fifth at twelve-thirty PM I left Regensburg. Near Abach and extending almost as far as Saal is a beautiful area in which the Danube surges against limestone rocks. This limestone is dense like that near Osteroda in the Harz, but porous nevertheless. At six o’clock in the morning I was in Munich and spent twelve hours seeing the sights, but shall comment on just a few of them. In the picture gallery I felt like a stranger; I must first accustom my eyes to paintings again. The collection is excellent. I was greatly delighted with the Rubens sketches from the Luxembourg gallery.

Also here is that elegant toy, a model of Trajan’s column. Gilded figures against a background of lapis lazuli. It is certainly a fine piece of work and pleasant to look at.

In the hall of classical sculpture I could soon tell that my eyes were not trained to appreciate such objects and so did not want to stay and waste time. Many pieces did not appeal to me at all, though I could not have said why. A Drusus attracted my attention, two statues of Antoninus pleased me, as did a few other things. On the whole they were not placed to advantage, despite being meant as decoration; and the room, or rather the vaulted basement, would have profited from being kept neater and cleaner. In the natural history section I found beautiful specimens from the Tyrol which were already familiar to me in small samples which, indeed, I own.

A woman selling figs approached me, and, being my first ones, they tasted delicious. But in general the fruit is not especially good, considering that this is the forty-eighth parallel. People here complain bitterly about the cold and dampness. A fog scarcely distinguishable from rain greeted me this morning outside of Munich. All day the wind blew in very coldly from the Tyrolean mountains. When I looked in that direction from up in a tower I found the mountains shrouded and the whole sky overcast. Now the setting sun is still shining on the old tower that faces my window. Excuse me for paying so much attention to wind and weather: the traveler by land depends on both almost as much as the seafarer, and it would be a pity if my autumn abroad should prove to be as little favored as the summer at home.

Now I am going straight to Innsbruck. How much I am neglecting on all sides in order to carry out my one intention, which I have waited almost too long to do!

MITTENWALD, SEPTEMBER 7, EVENING.

It seems that my guardian angel is saying Amen to my Credo, and I thank him for having brought me here on such a fine day. The last postilion, shouting happily, said that it was the finest one of the whole summer. I am silently nurturing my wishful belief that the good weather will continue, but my friends must forgive me for talking again about air and clouds.

When I rode away from Munich at five o’clock the sky had cleared. Huge cloud masses clung motionless to the Tyrolean mountains. Nor did the strips in the lower regions move. The road goes along the heights, below which one sees the Isar flowing past drifts of piled-up gravel. Here one can understand the effects of currents in the primeval sea. In many a granite boulder I found siblings and relatives of the pieces in my collection, which were a gift from Knebel.

The mists from the river and the meadows persisted for a while, but at last they too were dissipated. Between the gravel hills I have mentioned, which must be imagined as several hours’ journey long and wide, was the finest, most fertile soil, as in the Regen river valley. Now the way leads back to the Isar, where one sees a profile of the slope of the gravel hills, a good hundred and fifty feet high. I arrived in Wolfrathshausen and reached the forty-eighth parallel. The sun burned fiercely. No one expects the good weather to continue, there is wailing about the evils of the current year and lamenting that our great God is not tending to His business.

Now a new world opened up to me. I was approaching the mountains, which rose up before me gradually.

Benediktbeuern is choicely located, and the first sight of it surprises. In a fertile plain there is a long, broad white building with a broad, high, rocky ridge behind it. Now the road ascends to Lake Kochel; then higher up into the mountains to Lake Walchen. Here I greeted the first snow-capped peaks, and when I expressed my amazement at already being so close to snowy mountains, I heard that it had thundered and lightninged yesterday in the region and snowed in the mountains. In these phenomena hope was seen for better weather, and the first snow was presumed to mean a change in the atmosphere. The rocky cliffs surrounding me are all limestone of the oldest type, which does not yet contain fossils. Enormous uninterrupted ranges of these limestone mountains reach from Dalmatia to the St. Gotthard and beyond. Hacquet has toured a great section of this chain. It rests on a fundament rich in quartz and clay.

I got to Lake Walchen at four-thirty. About an hour’s journey from the place I met with a pretty adventure: a harp player was walking ahead of me with his daughter, a girl of eleven years, and he asked me to take the child into my carriage. He went on with the instrument, I put the girl on the seat beside me, and she carefully placed a large new case at her feet. A polite, accomplished little creature, already quite well traveled. She and her mother had made a pilgrimage on foot to Maria Einsiedeln, and the two had been about to start on a longer journey to Santiago de Compostella when the mother departed this life without fulfilling her vow. The girl said that nothing was too much when it was a question of honoring the Mother of God. She herself had seen a whole house burnt down to the ground after a great conflagration, yet over the door, behind a glass, was a picture of the Virgin, quite undamaged, which was obviously a miracle. She had made all her trips on foot, had just played for the elector in Munich, and as a matter of fact had performed before twenty-one princely personages. She entertained me very well. Lovely big brown eyes, a stubborn forehead which sometimes puckered a little. She was pleasant and natural when she spoke, and especially when she laughed loudly, like a child. On the other hand, when she was silent she seemed to want to intimate something and curled her upper lip disagreeably. I discussed many things with her, she was at home everywhere, and very observant of things. Thus she asked me once what kind of a tree that was? It was a fine big maple, the first I had seen on the whole trip. Naturally she had noticed it at once, and when several others appeared one by one, was glad that she too could identify this tree. She said she was going to the fair at Bolzano, where I was also presumably heading. If we met there I was to buy her a present, which I promised to do. There she would also wear the new bonnet she had had made for herself in Munich from her earnings. She wanted to give me a look at it in advance. So she opened her case, and I was required to share her joy in the richly embroidered and much-beribboned head adornment.

We also took mutual pleasure in another happy prospect. Namely, she assured me the weather would be good. They had a barometer with them, that is to say, the harp. When the treble rose in pitch, that meant good weather, and it had done so today. I gladly accepted the omen, and we parted in the best of humor, hoping for an early reunion.

ON THE BRENNER, SEPTEMBER 8, EVENING.

Here I was practically compelled to stop for a rest, in a quiet place that was everything I could have wished for. The day was of a kind that can be enjoyed in retrospect for years. At six o’clock I left Mittenwald, a brisk wind cleared the sky completely. The cold was of a degree permissible only in February. Now, however, the gleam of the rising sun over the dark foregrounds covered with fir trees, the gray limestone rocks between them, and in the background the highest snowy peaks—those were exquisite, constantly changing pictures.

At Scharnitz one enters the Tyrol. The border is closed off by a rampart which seals the valley and adjoins the hills. It looks good; on one side the rock is fortified, on the other it rises up vertically. After Seefeld the road gets more and more interesting, and whereas from Benediktbeuern on it ascended from height to height and all the waters flowed into the Isar basin, now we look over a ridge into the Inn valley, and Inzingen lies before us. The sun was high and hot, I had to lighten my clothing, which I often change because of the day’s changeable atmosphere.

At Zirl one rides down into the Inn valley. The locality is indescribably beautiful, and the sunny vapor made it look quite magnificent. The postilion hurried more than I wanted him to; he had not yet been to mass, and wished to hear it all the more devoutly in Innsbruck, today being the Virgin’s Nativity. Now we kept on rattling down the Inn, past St. Martin’s Wall, an enormous, steeply descending limestone face. It would have been at best a foolhardy undertaking, but I was confident that even without angels fluttering about I could reach the place where Emperor Maximilian is said to have lost his way while climbing.

Innsbruck is splendidly situated in a broad, fertile valley among high cliffs and mountains. At first I wanted to stay there, but I had no rest. For a short time I was amused by the innkeeper’s son, my Söller in the flesh. Thus I meet my characters one by one. Everything is decorated in celebration of the Nativity of the Virgin. Crowds of people, looking healthy and prosperous, made the pilgrimage to Wilten, a shrine a quarter of an hour’s walk from town in the direction of the mountains. At two o’clock, when my rolling carriage parted the cheerful, colorful throng, everybody was happily on the move.

Above Innsbruck the landscape grows more and more beautiful, no words can describe it. On very smooth roads one goes up a gorge that sends its water to the Inn, a gorge that offers the eye innumerable changes of scenery. While the road comes close to very sheer cliffs, indeed is cut into them, on the opposite side the land slopes gently and can support the finest agriculture. Villages, houses, cottages, huts, all painted white, stand among fields and hedges on the high, broad, sloping surface. Soon everything changes: the land is usable only for meadow, until that too disappears in a steep declivity.

I have gained much to support my view of the creation of the world, but nothing altogether new and unexpected. I have also mused a great deal about the model I have talked about for such a long time, by means of which I would like to make intelligible some ideas revolving in my mind that I cannot readily demonstrate in nature.

Now it grew darker and darker, details merged, the masses became larger and more imposing, but at last, when everything was just moving before me like a mysterious, murky picture, I suddenly saw the high, snowy peaks again, illumined by the moon. Now I wait for the morning to brighten this rocky gorge that hems me in, here on the boundary between south and north.

I shall add some remarks about the atmospheric conditions, which are favoring me, perhaps in gratitude for the many reflections I devote to them. In level country good and bad weather is received fully developed, but in the mountains one is present at its origin. This has happened to me so often on trips, walks, and out hunting, when I have spent days and nights in mountain forests, among rocky cliffs; and so a fanciful thought arose in me, which I do not pretend was anything else but which I cannot rid myself of, as indeed fanciful thoughts are the hardest to get rid of. I see it everywhere, as if it were a fact, and so I shall express it, since in any case I often find myself testing the patience of my friends.

Whether we contemplate the mountains from nearby or afar, now seeing their peaks agleam in the sunshine, now shrouded in fog, encircled by rushing clouds, whipped by pelting rain, or covered with snow, we ascribe it all to the atmosphere, since our eyes plainly see and grasp its movements and changes. On the other hand, the mountains stand there before our external senses, motionless, in their customary form. We consider them to be dead because they are rigid; we think them inactive because they are in repose. For ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chronology of Goethe’s Life and Times
• Selected Poems
• Egmont
• Iphigenia in Tauris
• Torquato Tasso
• Faust. A Tragedy
• Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
• Italian Journey: Part One
• On Literature and Art
• On Philosophy and Science