The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1893-02-21
Goethe and Schiller.

OCSo@]S %~-~N~ N~o-~~~-S~'
Mr.. Bellows devoted his fifth s'talk"
in the series of conversations upon the
Great Periods in Literature to the two
MASTERPIECES of Germany. There are
several interesting comparisons to be
made between them. Schiller is the
more passionate-the poet of freedom,
"a brave soldier in the liberation war of
humanity" Goethe is the wise teacher,
whose theory of life is the highest posi-
BILE culture of the individual for las we
seen in the second Faust) the good of
humanity. Schiller is sometimes higher,
but Goethe is broader, sees more of life,
and goes deeper. Schiller is the foe of
young people; Goethe of middle and old
age. He, if ever man did, guessed one
meaning, at least, of the 'alnintelligable
world" The chief incidents in the life of
Schiller were narrated, with their bearing
upon his intellectual career. In his
"storm and stresp'' period he wrote
s'The Robbers as Goethe in his cor
responding period wrote Gotz of the
Iron-hand. An extract was read from
this drama, which in its passionate re-.
volt reminds us of Byron's or Shelleys
clamorous cutlery against 'the facts of
life and the constitution of the universe"
A passage from the MAID of Orleans"
and selections from ''William Tell illus
trated Schiller's enthusiasm for liberty,
and his fine patriotic spirit. His ballads
are full of life and fire, and possess much
of the genuine simplicity and ueroe of
the old ballads.
Goethe largely lives for us not only
in his writings. but also in the reported
conversations of Eckermann, the Chan
cellor Won Miller, the words of Rahel,
Heine and others. From these we gain
the impression of great, serene nature,
in which the discipline of life had at last
effected a reconciliation between himself
and the universe. He is not indeed, like
Dante. holy, but he is inconceivably wise.
Yet he has had his period of passion and
Iowlessness, of which the ''Werter'' is
the expression. But after his return
from Italy, where he gained new inspi-
ration and a principle by which he re-
lated everything in one essential unity,
he wrote the Wilhelm Meister, which is
a vision of life, wherein man-like Saul
seeking his fathers asses and finding a
Kingdom-comes at last, through low
pleasures and much of baseness to the
self-conuuest and domain over the I'M
regulated forces of his nature. (This, in
one sense, is also the lesson of Faust).
Even in his scientific discoveries-as OF
| the intermediary bone, and the develop
ment of the plant from the leaf, Through
which Mr.. Lewes, his biographer, claims
Goethe as precursor of Darwin), the
great German was ever seeking the prin-
ciple of unity-which was the ruling law
of his life.
Selections were read from Goethe's
lyrics-so perfect in their form that they
almost.defy the translator to render them
into English-and few wise words
freighted with meaning from the Tasso
and the Iphigenia.
The lecturer then passed to a consider
alton of Faust, which is the story OF
man progress through the world--in
one sense, though religious people have
not so recognized it, veritable pill
grim's progress''-through sensuality,
through pedant learning, through love,
the discipline of art, the life of politics
and society, into final reconciliation and
peace. For Faust is at lastaawon, through
| his endless aspiration, into disinterested
service of his fellows, and it is only then
that he says to the passing moment
''stay, thou art SO fair Then, accor-
ding to his compact with Mephistopheles,
| the devil is to have his soul. But then,
by his unselfish throwing himself into
the larger life of humanity, and by his
constant longing for something better
and higher than he has secured, he has
| really saved his soul, which is borne in,
| to heaven where he is welcomed by that
Margaret whom he had wronged, but
whose "woman-sour' which ever should
| guide man upward, has been uncon-
sciously drawing him all the way. Inc
Faust has thus a certain analogy in spite
of it's great differences in treatment, with
the Divine Comedy-in which also
woman is apotheosized.
Mr.. Bellows next lecture will be Feb
l ,,,orx- OH ar, tho aua of T.apis YTV.