On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
His own impressions concerning the revolution seem- much those of Burke , but the development of those impressions was of necessity different . Burke resisted the revolution polemically as an English statesman , we do not say wisely ; Goethe contemplated it as a philosopher , and attempted as a poet to give expression to his feelings ; he was , however , equally unsuccessful ,
and that by his own acknowledgment , in his attempts to ridicule the J acobinical mania in his comedy of the Burger-General ( the Citizen-General ) . A second comedy , Die Aufgeregten ( the In * surgents ) , he dicj not finish . With more success he discussed the topics of the day in his delightful dialogues , * Amusements of German Kmigrants ; ' and at last perfectly succeeded , in his
domestic epos , f Herman and Dorothea / in giving poetical life and form to the sentiments that became a philosopher and a philanthropist . As he was hostile to the French philosophy , because it consisted merely in denying , so he was hostile to the French Jacobinical system , since it consisted in destroying ; and in that feeling , rather than in patriotic interest , the works of Goethe were conceived .
But in the year 1794 an event occurred which , next to the Italian journey , is the most important in his personal history——the arrival of Schiller at Weimar . Goethe , in the preface to one of his least-known periodical works , the Morphologie ( Science of Form ) , has related , with affecting frankness , the history of their acquaintance . During his Italian residence Schiller ' s Robbers made its appearance . If this be poetry and a work of art , and
Germans deem it $ uch , then I shall live to no purpose , thought Goethe . The Robbery was the object of his antipathy . Schiller was an ardent disciple of Kank—tant pi $ I Goethe could not relish Kant . Schiller wrote metaphysical odes to the ideal —* Goethe would not hear of the ideal , he therefore shunned Schiller , and heard with ill-will that he was settled at Jena . They met by chance at Grriesbach ' s—Schiller made advances ; Goethe with ^
drew . They met a second time on some business that could not be avoided , and then , even in the support of opinions to which Goethe was adverse , Schiller ' s honest zeal was infectious : I was fairly caught—there was no resisting him * From that hour I never saw him without loving him mpre and more . Their acquaintance ripened at once to friendship ; they communicated their works to each other . There was a felicitous concordia discora between
them . Schiller looked up to Goethe with the reverence of a youoger brother , and Goethe not down but on him with affection ,-ate admiration . The death of Schiller in 1805 was nearly a death-blow to the survivor . The six volumes of their correspond denpe show the reciprocal services they rendered each other . Schiller was the editor of two periodical works , the Thalia , before he was initiated into the philosophy of Goethe , and also the If wen , ( Hours ) , but Goethe had cm equal share in the produce
Untitled Article
( ftethd . 803
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1832, page 303, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1812/page/15/
-