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surpass the purity or the tenderness of Marianne * It may be said here , once for all , that no poet eyer surpassed Goethe in the det-Velbpement of the purest affections and graces of the female character , whenever he pleases : but then he has equal delight in the developement of other , characters also . Mahomet—a tragedy , after Voltaire .
Tancred—a tragedy , after Voltaire . After his juvenile imitations of the French comedy , Goethe , by other , and far greater works , contributed largely to drive altogether from the German theatre the French drama ; the only one known there until Leasing , in his critical works , and Wieland , by his translations , introduced Shakspeare . But on being engaged afterwards as manager , not poet , in the formation of a school for acting , he thought it
necessary to familiarise the German actors , with a view to theatric declamation , with the rhetorical language of the French tragedy 5 and , for that purpose , in the year 1802 , he published these two translations . He has not adopted the French Alexandrine rhyme , but uses the German ten-syllable blank verse . The comparison of the original with the version of so great a master , must be highly interesting , particularly to all students of the German language ;
but , we confess , we have not yet found leisure to do so . Vol . 8 . —We are now arrived at the first work by which Goethe laid the foundation of his fame ; his play Gotz v . Berlichingen , of which , though we have already spoken , ( p . 296 ) it is incumbent on us to say something more , though it may be known to our readers by Walter Scott ' s translation . It is an historical play , having for its subject the political and moral state of Germany at the time
of the peasants' war . Schlegel declares that Shakspeare has furnished us with the best history of England during the civil wars of the white and red roses ; and we may , in like manner , assert , that this play contains the best representation of the state of society in that tumultuous age . The manners of the times are displayed , not with the mere antiquarian fidelity which manifests itself
in the length of a spur or the dimensions of a ruff , but with that poetical truth which unfolds the eternal passions of our nature , modified by the accidents of time . We have here , in rich variety , the emperor Maximilian in person forced to declare against the rebels , though aware of the extreme provocation they have
sustained from the semi-barbarous , yet corrupt , princes of the empire ; the knights , a compound of petty sovereign and highway robber , such as our one-handed hero and Hans v . Selbitz , the one-legged ; the sly bishop of Bamberg and his courtly instrument the lady Adelheid , the Dalilah of the piece , but whose hateful charms
only throw a stronger light on the purer attractions of tjie wife and sister of the hero ; the weak and voluptuous Wejslingen , vacillating between the principles of good and evil , and ultimately ensnared to his destruction by Adelheid ; the sensual ana stupid abbot of Fulda ; Dr , Olearius , the pedantic jurist ; and ( a de-
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512 Goethe ' s Works .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1832, page 512, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1818/page/8/
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