Anna’s Thinking Cap Reading Marathon Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther
Anna’s Thinking Cap Reading Marathon 100 Days of Charming Rotten Scoundrels
Anna’s Thinking Cap Reading Marathon
100 Days of Charming Rotten Scoundrels
February 20 - May 31, 2024
February 21, 2024
Part 1 of 2
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was the greatest writer in the German language - yet he never lived in Germany - since in the course of his long (28 August 1749 - 22 March 1832), prolific, and eventful life Germany did not exist. The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) ended exactly a century before Goethe’s birth and resulted in the annihilation of a unified German state which was not reconstituted till the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. The entirety of Goethe’s life was spent at the crossroads of history, culture, and geopolitics which was reflected with such urgent vitality in his greatest creation, Faust, the complete version of which was not published till after Goethe’s death. Posterity had a great deal to say about this idiosyncratic creation - yet Goethe chose to escape the judgement of his peers - thus his wish for a posthumous publication of the complete Faust which now belongs to eternity!!!
The grandson of a mayor and son of a lawyer, product of content middle class prosperity, native son of the imperial city of Frankfurt, he let history unleash its fury on the outskirts of his measured life spent in the service of the Duke of Weimar, away from the active political centers such as Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Saint Petersburg, and Rome which decided the course of European history in the aftermath of the Great French Revolution of 1789. But I am getting WAY ahead of the story!!!
In order to understand the complex and contradictory totality of Goethe, let’s pay a visit to a few German cities - starting with Aachen - in 800 AD.
Those of you who read all those Napoleon inspired French novels with me - or my Iowa City Press-Citizen article on the Battle of Marengo - are aware of the Jacques-Louis David painting of Napoleon crossing the Alps in 1800 on a galloping white street (incidentally named Marengo!!!). Under the front hoofs of the horse, David added 3 graffitied names - Bonaparte, naturally - plus two historical figures who were Napoleon's inspiration for this daring deed - Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who invaded Rome from the north after marching ELEPHANTS over the Alps during the Second Punic War (218 – 201 BC) - AND Karolus Magnus - or Charlemagne (748-814) - the first Holy Roman Emperor - crowned in Rome by Pope Leo III after his militant march to capture the Eternal City in 800 AD. The pope relented and said - let's stop fighting and learn to share Europe instead!!! And thus began the thousand-year tug of war between the Papal power presiding over Southern European Christendom and the Holy Roman Emperor presiding over an ever-shifting confederation of Central and Northern European states known as the Holy Roman Empire. (Incidentally, this millennium-long battle inspired the greatest book in the Italian literary tradition, The Divine Comedy, living on the intersection of politics and metaphysics, written by a political exile, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), who was forced to flee his beloved Florence when his political party, the Guelphs, supporters of the papacy, lost to the Ghibellines, supporters of the Holy Roman Emperor. Dante, Florence’s greatest son, is to this day buried in the city of his exile, Ravenna - but that a story for another day…)
The first Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne, ruled a kingdom that was constituted out of what is today's France and Western Germany which were united under his control with a capital in the city of Aachen - where Charlemagne rests to this day in the imperial shrine. Yes, France and Germany were once a united country – ah, the irony of history...
500 years before Charlemagne, this Western part of Germany, the cultural and ideological birthplace of Goethe, was a part of the Ancient Roman Empire, with the great Constantine (272-337) himself, the first Christian Roman emperor and the future founder of the Byzantine Empire, ruling from the now German city of Trier, still sporting a FABULOUS Roman city gate AND the Aula Palatina also known as the Basilica of Constantine!!!
Yes, the land that birthed Goethe was the cultural and geopolitical epicenter of Europe and the young Johann was fully aware of the heritage of his land from an early age, tutored in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, as well as Italian, French, and English, absorbing the historical and literary foundations necessary for the education of a young man of his age, with his father serving as the primary guide for the intellectual development of the future author of Werther and Faust.
The horrors of the Thirty Years' War, which witnessed the deaths of one third of the German speaking population of Europe, were a distant memory when Goethe was born in Frankfurt in the house purchased by his grandmother, Cornelia Goethe, whose husband was the of mayor of this lively, culturally, and economically prosperous city. Goethe parents moved into the house before he was born and made it their home during the births of their children - only two of whom survived to adulthood, Goethe and his younger sister, named Cornelia in honor of the grandmother. Brother and sister were educated together and were trained, in addition to ancient and modern languages, in mathematics, natural sciences, geography, history, as well as riding, fencing, dancing, music, drawing, and etiquette!!!
It is here in Frankfurt that Goethe witnessed the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, son of the Austrian and Holy Roman Empress Maria Teresa, future patron of Mozart and political ally of Catherine the Great of Russia. Conducted with great pomp and circumstance in the Frankfurt Cathedral in 1764, the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor made a huge and lasting impression of the 14-year-old Goethe!!!
As a member of a prominent middle-class family, he got to participate in the coronation festivities - and was accompanied by his first teen infatuation whose name was Gretchen - a name he will immortalize with tragic and mournful beauty in Part One of his Faust. And the Emperor will find his way into Part Two of Faust - the eponymous character will serve as an adviser in the court of the Holy Roman Empire!!!
But Anna, you say, please stop stressing the fact that Goethe was middle class!!! He sports that giveaway aristocratic "von" before his last name!!! Yes, that came much later, at the age of 30, when he reached the highest civilian honor at the Weimar court where he was ennobled and appointed privy councilor - which gave him the opportunity to participate in the full spectrum of court activities!!! Are you seated?! The future author of Faust was the duke's adviser and confidant, court writer who composed poetry and plays for official court functions (often acting in his own plays!!!), the director of the Weimar court theatre till his death - for 10 of these years jointly with his dear friend, the great playwright Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) - AND IN ADDITION - was in charge of road construction AND mining operations in the state of Weimar!!! Those of you who read Faust - NOW you understand the origin of talking rocks in Part Two!!!
But all this will come much later!!! Let's first follow Goethe from his native city of Frankfurt, wealthy, mercantile, and business oriented, to Leipzig, the cultural and academic center in the east of Germany where Goethe's father received his law training and where the teen Goethe was dispatched by his prosperous family to follow in his father's footsteps. He arrived with splendid clothes, stayed in pleasant accommodations, and spends ENDLESS evenings in the Auerbachs Keller partying with fellow students!!! Yes, it is here that he begins conceptualizing Faust - Scene V of Part One takes place in the midst of Leipzig students consuming copious amounts of Tokaj wine (my favorite - I visited the Tokaj region in Hungary last summer!!!). Today, every square inch of the walls of the Auerbachs Keller in Leipzig is covered in murals depicting scenes from Faust!!!
What is it about this predisposition towards law studies by numerous future writers who never finish their law degrees - Tolstoy, Flaubert, AND Goethe… Life in Leipzig left Goethe rudderless - he failed his classes and became gravely ill - the concerned family demanded his return to Frankfurt. Long months of recuperation followed, interspersed with solitary introspective brooding (we are FINALLY getting close to Werther!!!) AND alchemy experiments with his doctor, the Goethe family friend and physician!!! This dabbling in alchemy will eventually find its way into Faust - as well as an incident that involved Goethe’s doctor, who was called to supervise a young woman sentenced to death by sword beheading for committing infanticide… Goethe witnessed this execution in Frankfurt after his return from Strasbourg - he abandoned the field of law shortly after this incident - AND immortalized the final moments of the condemned woman in Faust…
After his health improved, Goethe was sent by his family to Strasbourg - to finish his law studies closer to home - AND improve his French. The city of Strasbourg serves as the perfect case study for the French-German Charlemagne ruled European core - since it was once an integral part of the unified France-Germany - and has been the apple of discord ever since. Strasbourg was a free imperial city within the structure of the Holy Roman Empire at the time of the Thirty Years’s War and became a French city in 1681, after it was conquered by the forces Louis XIV. After the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 it joined the newly formed German Empire - and returned to France in 1918.
The rich blending of languages, cultures, and histories Goethe encountered in Strasbourg were revelatory!!! To the point that he scrapped his plans to travel further into France and reach Paris. I find it absolutely stunning that Goethe never visited Paris!!! Neither did Byron - and between the two of them they invented both the quintessential Romantic hero AND the cult of the celebrity author!!! Yes, 40 years prior to the 1812 publication of Child Harold's Pilgrimage which made Byron, by his own admission, a cultural celebrity overnight, the 1774 publication of The Sorrows (or Sufferings - depending on the translation) of Young Werther made Goethe an international cultural phenomenon!!! AND landed him that life-altering job at the Weimar court which he accepted at 25 - and kept till his death in 1832 at the age of 82 (he and Tolstoy died at the same age...)
Did Strasburg produce the desired law degree?! Not at all!!! Goethe decided to write his law dissertation on the MOST INAUSPICIOUS topic imaginable - considering the Thirty Years' War was a religious battle between German speaking Catholics and German speaking Protestants, choosing to write a dissertation on the religious clauses of the Peace of Westphalia, which ended that catastrophic conflict, was sheer folly!!! Some of the professors wanted the dissertation BURNED!!! This definitely puts getting a "C" for a paper into perspective!!! Goethe left Strasbourg without becoming a law professor - he was content with a law license which allowed him to make a living until the life altering invitation from Weimar!!!
One event from his Strasbourg days should receive our attention. In 1770 a 14-year-old princess stopped in the city on her way to Paris. Goethe witness the ceremonial reception of the future queen of France onto French soil. Yes, she was the daughter of Maria Theresa, sister of the Holy Roman emperor Joseph II whose coronation Goethe witnessed 5 years earlier, the lovely and vivacious Marie Antoinette!!! Goethe himself was barely out of his teens - and all was well with the world!!! France and Austria were getting married again (the wife of Louis XIII was Austrian too - more on the subject all summer long during 100 Days of The Three Musketeers!!!), hostilities between France and Austria were over... During the Thirty Years' War Catholic France was funding German Protestants against Austrian Catholics - no, this is not a typo!!! Between 1618 and 1648 the two Catholic giants of Europe, France, and Austria, used post-Reformation German contradictions for a proxy war against each other - which in the long-run weakened Austria, made France the most powerful state in Europe - and destroyed Germany which fell apart into dozens of disunited and feuding dukedoms, principalities, and kingdoms. THIS is the land that birthed Goethe who, along with his brilliant contemporaries Schiller, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Johann Gottfried Herder, Alexander von Humboldt, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Sophie von La Roche, August and Friedrich Schlegel, Bettina von Arnim, to just name a few, created the explosive German speaking culture that constructed a sense of cultural unity in the absence of political unity between 1648 and 1871.
After Strasbourg, Goethe returned home, helped his father with his law practice, and immediately became the more active and intellectual partner. In 1771 a law case brought him to the town of Wetzlar 60 miles north of Frankfurt where he met a young lady whose name was Charlotte... The rest is history!!!
NOW you understand why I insisted so vehemently that you should NOT read any biographical facts OR introductions!!! Please please please don't till we are finished with the book!!! Werther is completely autobiographical!!!
What do we make of Werther whose sufferings we are about to witness? Written in 5 weeks in the Frankfurt home of his parents in February and March of 1774 - thus our commemorative reading to mark the 250th anniversary of composition - the book brought Goethe instant fame - and remained till the end of his life the composition that was most readily associated with him. More in Part 2 of today’s post!!!
Angelika Kauffmann, 1741 - 1807, Portrait of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1787, now housed in Weimar, at the Goethe National Museum. Painted during Goethe’s stay in Rome (1786 - 1788), after Goethe’s introduction to one of the greatest woman artist of his age, the internationally renowned Maria Anna Angelika Kauffmann, who was one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in London in 1768!!
