Wege des Heilens: Goethes physiologische Autobiographie Dichtung und Wahrheit by Gabrielle Bersier (review)

As its title suggests, Bersier’s comprehensive analysis utilizes physiology, as understood during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, to examine Goethe’s autobiography both textually and contextually. The purpose of this focus on physiology is twofold: it serves as a critique of the sometimes myopic and derivative scholarship on Goethe’s autobiographical text and as an exploration of a previously unexamined avenue of interpretation. First, Bersier demonstrates in a brief yet thorough survey of scholarship that until recently an exegetical emphasis had been placed on reading the maturation of Dichtung und Wahrheit’s autobiographical protagonist through the lens of Goethe’s own botanical writings, leading many scholars to follow Georg Misch, who adapted the concept of entelechy from plant metamorphosis to human formation. Bersier contends that this perspective lacks the necessary textual support and can be effectively challenged by an investigation of Goethe’s reception of, and participation in, the physiological debates of his age. Second, Bersier argues that such an investigation into Goethe’s activity in the physiological discourse of his time shows that the first twelve books of Dichtung und Wahrheit were conceived as an autobiographical treatise on physiology with the aim of contesting many philosophical theories developed during late Romanticism.

The current volume is divided into three parts, the first of which extensively investigates the development of physiological research during Enlightenment and Romanticism. This examination highlights the predominance of physiology in the natural sciences in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in addition to providing insight into the theories and debates that had a formative effect on Goethe’s scientific and autobiographical writings. Bersier also shows that Goethe’s participation in this discourse did not confine itself to mere intellectual curiosity. Reflecting his interest in physiological theories posited by the likes of the zoologist Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer, Goethe exercised his administrative influence over the University of Jena by arranging an academic position for the young natural philosopher F. W. J. Schelling. Schelling’s early scholarship supported Goethe’s own belief that human physiology was based on the balancing and mediation of three influences: irritability, sensitivity, and the reproductive drive. Bersier adeptly connects these historical and discursive threads in order to establish the extent to which Goethe relied on the physiological discourse of the time while fashioning the narrative of his early life. The second part of Bersier’s analysis is dedicated to a close reading of the autobiography in order to reveal Goethe’s physiological formulations as well as his numerous critiques of his Romantic contemporaries. The analysis identifies the focus on hypochondria, Goethe’s interest in medicine, and the repetitive narrative cycle of health-illness-healing as hallmarks of Goethe’s physiological program. Bersier ably demonstrates that the autobiographical genre suits not only such an exploration of human development but also Goethe’s arguments against Romanticism, ranging from its theories of language acquisition to its writings on the organic nature of the state. The third and shortest part of Bersier’s analysis reveals Goethe’s abandonment of his physiological project after the twelfth book of the autobiography. Bersier contends that in the third and fourth parts of Dichtung und Wahrheit Goethe thematizes the pitfalls and dangers of being a published and criticized author, and that he therefore takes a defensive and apologetic tone toward his personal and artistic evolution.

Bersier has performed a great service for the disciplines of German studies and intellectual history by offering the analysis presented in this volume. The thoroughness of this investigation is attested to by the extensiveness of the primary and secondary sources she consulted, as well as by the ample and detailed information provided in the footnotes. Bersier effectively demonstrates the link between the physiological discourse during Goethe’s lifetime and the composition of Dichtung und Wahrheit. More importantly, she frees this dynamic and in many ways enigmatic work from the interpretive confines that restricted scholarship for so long. My only, minor point of criticism concerns the somewhat...