New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1880-12-24
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
cprNus IrcT1TREs ON GOETHE.

pp. 500. Boston Little. Brown Co.
The American reader will seek first in this excel
lent translation of Grimm's lectures for an answer
10 the auestion-is Goethe's influence de-
elaiugi Tlis question. asked first in Ger
many by scep.ieal people who thrust their inter-
rogation points into everything commonly held as
settled and sacred in religion, history, science and
literature naturally finds echo in this country. 1t
Is now more than n century since Goethe burst like
ameteor upon the sluggish world of German thought
1t is almost century since his greatest work was
published. Nearly half o century has passed
since that March day when he fell asleep at Weimar
and woke no more. All the contemporaries of his
fruitful years are gone. great change clearly
fVreseen by him. has come over the German people,
powerfully affecting their ways of life and Thought
The time has therefore come, it would seem, when
the great personal influence of tho poet has faded
away, aud when the permanency OF his Work
may be tested to some extent at least by its power
over the minds Of generation which knew him not
and has grown up under conditions widely differing
from those which surrounded him. We must ask
our question to Goethe's place IN litera-
fure of his own countrymen, for VIC must
acknowledge that the acquaintance OF English
speaking countries with him is by no means
thorough. Since he went to Weimar Ill 177o, his
genius like lighthouse set upon hill, has domi-
mated and illumined the whole sea OF German
tbOugnt, out III mas SnOuo upOu uo SuiChJ
through the lamps of own writer's who have
borrowed oil from his great store. 1t would be SAFE
10 say that pine-tenths of well-read Americans and
EnClishmen know Goethe rather from the books and
magazine articles written about him than from the
study of his own works, although good transations
may be had of all of them. Most cultivated people
read the first part of Faust" but how many read
the "Iphgenia" or the Italian Elegies," or the
"Dichtung ind Wahrheit " and how many have
any sort of familiarity with Goethes prose wri tings
beyond The Sorrows of Young Werther'7 What
ever theory may hold as to the future extension
of Cioethe's influence, must admit that he is the
poet of one nation and one language and not OF the
whole world like Shakespeare The action of his
cenins outside of the Teutonc lands is reflex. not
direct
Grimm believes that Goethe stands with Homer,
Dante and Shakespeare, as the poet of all times
ESch generation, he says, will believe that IL COM
prehends his nature better than any that has gone
before Opinions in regard to his work will vary:
he will appear to stand nearer further from the
German people according 10 the character OF the
times: but he will never be wholly dethroned, never
be resolved into himself-never melt as
glacier OF which when the last drop has
ran away nothing remains. - If however" Grimm
goes ON to say, that should happen, which has
happened to Homer, that after the lapse of thou
sands of years. when our German has ceased to be
living language wholly distant generations NAV
NOT be able TO conceive that II single man should
have created so many and such various kinds OF
woIks-then may the learned men, who will GER
tainly for time he believed. affirm that Goethe is to
be interpreted only a mythical name under which
the entire intellectual work of LIS age was compe-
hended.'
Grimm places Fa1st far above all the other
productions of Goethe lie says it Is GOethe's most
f,l audm O imDOrtaut work that
which he began the first. and which in conception
reached on beyond his death To no other can the
expression Hfe-W0rk be applied with such truth.
Faust" he saws. " is the poem OF poems Pat not
only all Goethes other poems but our entire poetic
literature INTO the other scale and wait (which
snksi The person of Faust appears to rs to-day as
q natural, indispensable product of German life"
Further on in the same lecture he says:
Faust is to us Germans the sovereign in the host
OF all the creations of German literature Hamlet,
Achilles Hector iassO. the Cid, Fnthiof. Siegfred
Fingal-all these forms seem to lose something of
their life-likc freshness when Faust appears The
hight which rests upon them Is pale, like moon |
light, while Faust stands III the full blaze OF the
sun. Their language has TO our ears something OF
foreign sound while Faust speaks so AS to 10 under
stood in everyone of his faintest accents. The
bseath of these heroes is not the bracng mountain
which streams from the lips OF Faust. Ihelr
spirit however wide It's scope has not the expansive
wing on which he scars above the world and us
phenomena, that he may describe everything with
his eagle glance
The characters in Faust" Grimm tells us, were
all suggested by persons in real life. lie is himself
the hero Of the poem. 70 the struggles. and prob
lens Of his own life he sought TO give symbolic
form For this reason the poem was carried for
ward almost to the day of his death. Until lis last
hours Goethe transferred TO Faust" his every
thought. Faust is the incarnate spirit of Goethe.
TO whom no range is too vast, experience impossi
bic Mephstopheles. usually identified with Goethe's
friend Merck. Grimm thinks is Herder who first
made him experience the fightlul power o. the cold,
q snteTested, but merclless critic. Margaret Is his
first love, FrcdeTika, the daughter OF The Alsatlan
pastor, whose acquaintance he made during his
student days at StTds burg. The ldyl OF the Sesen-
helm parsonage ran on smoothly until Goethe be-
coming convinced tnat his love was matter OF the
imagination only rudely broke II on. bidalng the
poor girl good by without dlsmounting frop his
horse and telling her TO get over III as Dest she
could The affair was innocent enOugh, save Tor
the wound it lift in the heart of sensitive roman
TIC maiden. but Goethes imagination carried 1t for
ward easily found tie way from Frederika to
Gretchen, and developed from the simple pastoral
tragedy Of sin and suffering
Mrs Adamss translation made in Berlin and
has the advantage OF the cordial approval Of the
author expressed III a note 10 her. Orllnm says III
this note that although he grew up III the study OF
Goethe and had much intercourse Win those who
knew am personally, he indebted to Emerson tor
the historical view of the poet which taught HIM
TO regard Goethe a. the great phenomenon IN Tie
universal development OF mankind For this reason
he feels very much indebted TO America.
IHlLlp OODDhlDOEs ~ ~. Df tiAhLIS oiANfchD
ID u. limo pp. 1913. Ncw-York: A. c. Armstrong |
4, Son.
Dr. Doddridge survives in the life rather than in
the knowledge of the modern church He was a
prominent figure in the religious history of England
in the last century. He yolumnOus and pop
ular writern the brilliant period comprising the
reigns of William ILL.,. Anne, and the first two
Georges an able Christian apoogist in the era OF
the trencbant deism of Chubb. Bolingbroke and
Shaftesbury; effective and pain-spoken preacher
and man of sincere and deep piety, in an age of
general religious stagnaton. Ho would scarcely be
named in the cotcrie of poets which included Pope
Parnel Prior and Thomson, vet twenty at least of
his lyrics have passed into the hymnOlogy OF Eng