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Untitled Article
of remark , that it was here , with a club of German students , he conceived a distate for the prevalent philosophy , which Voltaire had so successfully and widely spread . The dishonesty of the philosopher towards his religious adversaries roused the young Germans ; books publicly burnt , though made , on that account , attractive , produced no effect on the minds of him and his young
friends . ' I will mention one for all , Le Systeme de la Nature , — we took it up out of curiosity , and could not comprehend how it could be dangerous ; it appeared to us so Cimmerian grey and death-like that we shuddered at it as at a ghost . ' The French drama was as little liked by the knot of literary aspirants . Shakspeare was already become the object of our young poet ' s idolatry . He had become acquainted with Dodd ' s beauties even at Leipsic , the perusal of which , he says , was one of the most
delightful epochs of his life . Such selections , by the bye , Goethe recommends for the use of young persons , who , before they can comprehend the plan of a whole poem , are delighted with the maxims of wisdom , traits of humour , and bursts of eloquence in detail . The clowns of Shakspeare were the especial favourites and objects of imitation to the young students . Herder , however , prized Swift above all , and had , in consequence , the nickname of Dean from his companions .
On the 6 th of August , 1771 , Goethe , took his degree as LL . D ., having adopted a singular thesis—* The right of the state to impose an exterior cultus in religion binding both on the clergy and the laity . ' This , it may be recollected , is conceded by Rousseau ,, in his Profession de foi du Cure Savoyard , and was not supposed to involve any restraint on opinions ! Goethe next . visited Wezlar , the seat pf one of the great imperial courts , and a
sort of college for lawyers ; but he was never in earnest in the study of law , but only in submission to his father . In the meanwhile , the literary seeds which were cast in his mind at the Universities ripened with singular celerity . The universality of his taste rendered indeed the adoption of any one course to the exclusion of others difficult : he at one time thought of following ^ landscape painting as a profession , and , like Lord Herbert of Cherbury , had recourse to an act of superstition to determine his
choice , —throwing , for the purpose , a valuable knife into the Rhine . The result was ambiguous . At length the Rubicon was passed . In 1773 , Goethe published his Gotz v . Berlichingen , a tragedy in prose , which attracted universal attention , rather from its matter than its form . A romantic period in German history
was represented in striking colours ; the generous resistance of the knights ( a sort of compound of sovereigns and freebooters ) to the higher nobility , the bishops in particular , was the attractive theme ; the corruptions of the imperial court ; the influence of intrigue , political and sexual , were all blended with a spjritraltogether new in modern literature . We are not surprised , therefore , that it was
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29 ( 1 Goethe .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1832, page 296, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1812/page/8/
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