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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.
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Gdethes Work * . 745
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sophy , including his diversified views of human life , which the leisure of half a century has enabled him to accumulate , we can give nothing . The poem is now introduced by some most pathetic stanzas , called a Dedication—but to whom , does not appear—written on his resuming the work after a pause of many years , and in which the poet seems painfully impressed with the deep significance of his
poem . He even intimates a desire to die—a sentiment not to be found elsewhere in his works . Then follows a * Prodrama on the Theatre '—the characters , the Manager , Dramatic Poet , and lustige JPerson , i . e . Mr . Merryman , as the clown is still called at our shows at fairs . The manager complains of poverty , and applies to the
poet for aid , which is refused ; for the poet is full of all the elevated ideas and disinterested passions which his divine art generates as it is produced by them . Here the author shows on the stage that which is seen equally in life . The noblest of arts , like the subiimest of truths and the most exquisite productions of talent and genius , are made subservient to the lowest of purposes—personal gain . Shakspeare ' s plays are performed , that shillings may
be collected at the door ; and Christianity is preached , that parsons may collect tithe . Mr . Merryman interposes , taking care to assert the importance of his part in all such undertakings . —* He who has skill to do rightly what is to be done , will take care not to oppose the humour of the people Set your fancy at work with all its choruses—reason , understanding , feeling , passion ; but harkye , not without folly / In the end the manager announces Faustus .
Then follows the * Prologue in Heaven , ' about which it is difficult , in a few words , to do justice to the author , yet those few words are the more necessary as Lord Levison Gower has thought it prudent to omit it in his translation . We are much less inclined to find fault with his Lordship for what he did not than for what he did . But Goethe was dissatisfied with the omission . He said to a friend of ours , three years since , * I cannot comprehend why the prologue was omitted—sie ist so
ganz unschuldig '— ' it is so entirely innocent . ' Innocent we are persuaded it was in the author ' s mind , and innocuous , too , in the mind of every reflecting reader . Goethe meant , assuredly , no irreverent parody on the introduction to the Book of Job . He rather thought the example of a poet of the remotest antiquity , the piety of whose sentiments , as well as the lyrical and moral beauties of whose work , had gained it a place among the sacred writings , the
chronicles , prophecies , and moral and devotional poems of his countrymen , was an authority for the use of the same imagery . The best excuse for Lord Levison Gower * s omission is , that the version of this scene by an infinitely greater man , a real poet , — the late Mr . Shelley , —is exceptionable . His translation is more offensive than the original , nor has the translator been always able to express the deep sense of the author .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1832, page 745, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1824/page/25/
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