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Untitled Article
tion ; and it was after the union of these great men , that those master-pieces appeared , the later ballads , the elegies , epigrams , &c , which would confer on Goethe the reputation of being one of the greatest of poets , in the narrower English sense of the word . But the publication which raised a flame throughout the literary world was the Musen-almanach of the year 1797 , by Goethe and Schiller . Instead of consisting of a variety of small poems , to the consternation of all the various classes of dunces , it contained nothing but a collection of epigrams under the name of
Xemena Greek word , meaning the reciprocal presents between hosts and visitors . Presents indeed i A very proscription in the republic of poetry — a declaration of war against all parties . In the subsequent collections of the author ' s works some are acknowledged by Schiller , others by Goethe , and a few remaining unacknowledged may be considered as recanted .
In the pursuit of his purpose to advance , by all imaginable means , the cultivation of the drama / Goethe did not hesitate to translate even two tragedies by Voltaire , Mahomet and Tancred . And we may here add , that it was from and after this period that Goethe revived a nearly forgotten class of dramatic poem , of
which Ben Jonson is the great master—the solitary Comus of course excepted—the mask . A great number of allegorical pieces are found among the later writings of Goethe . It was during this period that all the great dramatic works of Schiller , those which are , after Wallenstein , really his master-pieces , but scarcely known in this country , made their appearance .
: / Among the many projects which Goethe records was an epic poem on the story of Tell , —he yielded it up to Schiller , who . wrought out of it his last best tragedy . It would have been a subject of delightful comparison had Goethe fulfilled his original plan . We know not whether we feel as much regret that Goethe felt himself unable to complete the fragment Demetrius , which
Schiller left at his death ; the intention of doing which was long - the consolation of Goethe after the loss of his friend in the spring ^ ofl 805 . As one of the indicia whicli respects the person of Goethe we mention , what otherwise might seem undeserving notice , that it was in this year he met Dr ; Gall at Halle , when on a visit to his friend the great philologist Wolfe . The
speculations of Gall were consistent with his own , and he does not appa * rently mean to throw discredit on the natural philosopher by informing us , that Gall declared him to be by nature a volks redner , a popular orator . * Then mine has been , ' he observes , * a wasted life among a people to whom there is nothing to be aaid . ' 1806 . —Daring this year , so memorable for the fatal battle of Jena on the 14 th of October , ( Goethe was then residing at Weimar /) he adverts briefly ia his Journal to the events which preceded the day of the battle , and then there is a chasm in the pub-
Untitled Article
304 Goethe .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1832, page 304, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1812/page/16/
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