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in the classical metre , than in a score of the monotonous maxims of Rochefoucault , of which our neighbours are so vain . We may now pass over the classes of the succeeding three volumes with rapidity . The second begins with sonnets , cantata , and Miscellaneous Poems . In this section are met with a
considerable number of his most celebrated poems—the first fruits of his genius , as it exhibited itself before it had undergone a purifying—we do not say emasculating process—during his visit to Italy . In these poems are not found that exquisite polish of versification which distinguishes his later poems : many of them are without rhyme , and recommend themselves rather by the depth of
the thought than the elaborate polish of the style . Here are the Song of Mahomet , Prometheus , Ganymede , and most of those poems on religion and metaphysics , composed while he was associating with those opposite characters , Lavater and Basedow ; and while , as is the case with all young men of strong feelings and great powers of thought , he was endeavouring to solve the mysteries of metaphysical speculation . Infinite are the expressions of his no-knowledge both in serious and comic verses . Another series consists of poems in the antique style , and another addressed to persons . Some of our readers may recollect that , fifty years ago , Magazine poetry had , as a common title—A copy of Verses . Goethe has elaborately vindicated this kind of poetry as originating in matters of fact , and having for its purpose the expression of real feelings and actual relations in life * . There is then a series of poems on Art , to which he had devoted so much of his life , and this class we recommend peculiarly to all to whom either art or the philosophy of the human mind is an object of interest . We have then a further collection of small poems , entitled—parabolic , proverbial , epigrammatic . These are very frequently in familiar rhymes—many in what the Germans term Knittel verse , Cudgel verse . We have nothing precisely like it in English . Its peculiar character is not the Hudibrastic burlesque rhyme , nor yet the Italian versi sdruccioli , or slippery verse . It resembles more nearly the light and rattling lines of Dean Swift , who , when he pleased , was a \ ery correct versifier . A certain negligence and departure from all rules is rather a merit than a fault . The recent ' Devil ' s Walk '
* A few years since , a friend , being- on his way to Rome , observed to him that he should be contented if the carnival gave him half the pleasure which he had had from hi a description—which , by the bye , is one of the most admired of Goethe ' s prose writings . ' Aye , but it won ' t though , ' replied the poet . A To let you into a secret—you cannot imagine how intolerably ennuyant that same carnival was—I was living in the Corso , and the infernal noise made it impossible to work : so , in self-defence , I went to the balcony , and , with my pencil , noted down precisely what occurred . It is all sheer matter of fact . And that is the reason why it was bo successful . ' Goethe was so sensible of the importance of preserving the real things ^ that h $ . h » d in seen travelling , that he carried his habit of preserving memorials so far as to keep play-bills , tavern-bills , and even the hand-bills he read in the street ; his collection Was nvuaierousi which he called tya Actenttucke , ( Documents . )
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Goethe ' s Works . 369
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1832, page 369, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1814/page/9/
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