Goethes Erzählwerk. Interpretationen (review)

356 GOETHE SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA Geduld, die Feinheit zu verlieren" (S. 7). Niemand wird sich gegen die Kunst gut zu lesen wenden, in Neumanns Praxis geraten diese Prinzipien jedoch oft zu einer Rückkehr in die Germanistik der 50er Jahre. Diese scheiterte aber gerade an einem, wie vom Autor ja auch an verschiedenen Stellen vermerkt, überaus modernen Text wie dem Faust II. Eine Verlängerung der werkimmanenten Lektüre um strukturalistische und poststrukturalistische Methoden hätte es zum Beispiel ermögUcht, Un poetischen Detail des Faust-Textes nicht nur dessen Harmonien zu erkennen sondern auch seine Lücken und Brüche. Daß diesen Text die letzteren genau wie die ersteren kennzeichnen, ist ein Teil seiner Modernität, auf den schon Goethe wiederholt hingewiesen hat. Bei allen Verdiensten um genaue Detailanalysen einzelner Aspekte dieses Themas verfallt Neumanns Studie, ex negativo, letzten Endes Karl Robert Mandelkows Verdikt aus der Einleitung zu Goethe im Urteil seiner Kritiker, Teil IV, 1918-1982: "AUe großen Leistungen der Goethe-Interpretation der Vergangenheit und der Gegenwart waren und sind solche gewesen, die die blicköffhende und erkenntnissteigernde Möglichkeit der Perspektivierung ihres Gegenstandes durch neue ästhetische Erfahrungen im Umgang mit der Avantgarde ihrer Zeit genutzt haben" (S. xl). Wellesley College Jens Kruse Goethes Erzählwerk. Interpretationen, edited by Paul Michael Lützeler and James E. McLeod. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jua, 1985). CoUective volumes can present difficult tasks for reviewers since the variety in topic, caliber, and style of contributions comprising them frequently gives little indication why material of such diverse quality should have been assembled to form a book. I am happy to say that this volume presents no such difficulties: its topic is clearly circumscribed, contributions maintain a high scholarly standard, differences in style never compromise lucidity of expression, and, with one exception, editorial arrangement foUows chronological order. The exception is the first of fifteen contributions since it, unlike die others, is dedicated to a general theme rather than to a particular work. Its author is Eberhard Lämmert, whose apt choice of title, which attributes to Goedie an "empirischer Beitrag zur Romantheorie," is meant to express his opinion diat the novels themselves are statements of tfieir theoretical contexts, and if there be a theory in its own right, it must be derived and stated by the critical reader. The entire essay serves to exemplify the efficacy of diis thesis as its author approaches his texts with practiced skill in order to determine the theoretical range to which they bear witness. In a careful and lucid analysis he traces Goethe's progression of ever greater independence from the prevailing fashion of recognizing the drama's dominance over narrative prose. Progressive independence in this respect means a progression from protagonists bent on personal self-realization to protagonists Increasingly practiced in forms of self-denial ("Entsagung") that would aUow for social seff-realization. Thus Géza von Molnár 357 Lämmert is able to situate Goethe's "empirical contributions" within a tiieoretical context that extends from concepts current in the later phase of the Enlightenment to those that inspire the art of Fontane's social novels. This is an attractive conclusion; however, the basis on which it rests, the categorical juxtaposition of the concepts of self-realization and self-denial, seems open to question, a question I intend to explore more fully below in my discussion of Helmut Koopmann's contribution to diis volume. Just as Lämmert drew on his previous work in the field to deal widi his topic, Hans Rudolf Vaget relies on his studies on Goethe and dilettantism for his excellent and provocative essay on Werther. Werther, Vaget argues, suffered from an illness that had already claimed a number of victims and was to reach epidemic proportions, a process aided in no small measure by the protagonist's infectious example. This Ulness was characterized by an overly developed receptive sensitivity to aU manner of aesthetic stimulation and by a corollary impotence, be that as an artist, a lover, or quite generaUy as a socially responsible individual. It was an illness leading to death, and Goethe, who had himseff been highly susceptible to it in his youth, remained continuaUy aware of the...