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
600 Goethe ' s Works .
Untitled Article
ever delightful object he meet with . Equally significant is the legend that he who is in pursuit of a talisman in a wilderness is not to look to the right or left , &c . But the deed was done ; and the favourite scenes were to haunt me in future like spirits in bondage , ever returning and demanding deliverance / This was never done : and Falk , in a very curious posthumous work which
has appeared since Goethe ' s death , on his intercourse with the poet , relates that in 1813 he in vain tried to rouse him to a completion of his work . He threw the blame of the publication and performance of the first part on Schiller , but said he was so dissatisfied with himself , that he purposed destroying all his own written plan , that ho unbefugter—* no unqualified person—should attempt to execute it . '
The contemplative character and purpose of this play is indicated even by the dramatis persona . As his object was to show the different classes of society in a state of conflict and to represent rather ranks and orders than individuals , the persons of the play have no names . They are entitled : —King , Duke , Count , Secretary , Secular Priest , Counsellor of Justice ( a sort of judge ) , Governor , Monk , Governess , and Abbess * Only the heroine , by an euphemy , is entitled Eugenia—the Well-born—as the Furies , by the Greeks , were called the 2 ? wmenides . The tragedy opens
with a scene between the king and his uncle , the duke , who , having been for a time in opposition to the court , unexpectedly comes forward as a friend to accept a favour from his sovereign , and for that purpose he intrusts to him the important secret that Eugenia is his daughter by a deceased princess of the royal family : he begs that she may be received at court with the honours due to her birth . Eugenia is a bold rider , and , in all respects , heroic ; and news is , at that moment , brought of an
accident by which her life is threatened . She has escaped , and appears at once as an object of excessive love to her father and of admiration to the rest of the court : her lofty destiny is announced to her , which she receives with the spirit of one not unworthy the rank to which she is to be raised . The act closes triumphantly , and the only disturbance to the feeling of joy on the part of father and daughter is , that the duke betrays his secret grief at being cursed with a worthless and profligate son .
The second act commences with opening the conspiracy that is to blast this promised felicity . Eugenia ' s governess is * not a malignant but a weak woman , under the power of her lover , the secretary ( the evil spirit of the piece ) , and from him she learns that Eugenia is to be instantly kidnapped and transported to the colonies , and her consent to be an instrument in the plot is
produced by the assurance that this is the only means of preserving Eugenia ' s life : her immediate death will follow the slightest disclosure . This dismal * note of preparation' is followed by a scene of a very opposite character : Eugenia enters full of triumphant
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1832, page 600, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1820/page/24/
-