Goethes Freunde in Gotha und Weimar by Sigrid Damm (review)

Goethes Freunde in Gotha und Weimar, Sigrid Damm's seventh "Goethe book," opens by asking us to imagine what Goethe's life might have been like had he gone to Gotha on his return from Italy, as was rumored he might, rather than to Weimar. Thus, "stellen wir uns vor" (10), Damm's hermeneutic method, which shows affinities with a masterwork of this narrative style, Christa Wolf's Kein Ort. Nirgends. Since Damm was born in Gotha, it is not surprising that she would be drawn to speculate concerning Goethe's relationship with the neighboring duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg.

The relationship can be divided into two phases. The first lasts from 1779 until 1806, during which there occur increasingly cordial relations with both Duke Ernst II (1745–1804) and his brother, Prince August (1747–1806). The Gotha Fourierbuch documents frequent visits, during which Goethe lodged at Friedenstein castle itself. As Damm writes: Goethe was "ein gern gesehener und umworbener Gast und Gesprächspartner" (12–13).

The second phase extends from 1806 to 1825. It begins with the assumption of power by Ernst II's first son, Emil August, who ruled until 1822, and ends with the death of his second son, Prince Friedrich (Duke Friedrich IV). Something of Goethe's caution toward the capricious, extravagant, and effete Emil August can be discerned in a diary entry of August 1, 1808, from Karlsbad: "Beabsichtigter Spaziergang mit den Kurländischen Frauenzimmern, durch den Herzog von Gotha aufgefangen und aufgehalten" (155). Only a single visit by Goethe to Friedenstein is reported during his reign, although he was fond of Prince Friedrich, whom he met frequently in Karlsbad and Weimar.

Everything is here, indeed, every last thing, but to what effect? Why is Goethes Freunde in Gotha und Weimar so disappointing? The problem lies in Damm's abandonment of her characteristic narrative method, with its imaginative re-creations of scenes for which documentary material is scarce. For instance, in Cornelia Goethe (2005), the fictionalization—maybe Damm would call it "speculation"—included occasionally specious, indeed libelous, imputations concerning Cornelia's husband, Johann Georg Schlosser. Perhaps influenced by Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, it portrays Cornelia as a gifted woman who was held back, both by society and by the men in her life, somewhat like Mozart's sister (Damm makes the comparison). Christiane und Goethe: Eine Recherche (1998), a double biography, is much more palatable. Damm's archival research turned up splendid results. Alongside diaries, letter registers, account books, and many contemporary notices regarding the twenty-eight-year relationship, Damm also had six hundred letters from the two parties to draw on. It is a valuable addition to the extensive number of Goethe "lives."

Damm's "stellen wir uns vor" method might have made Goethes Freunde in Gotha and Weimar a brilliant study. For decades Goethe was a favorite, even an intimate, at a leading ducal court. In August 1801 he spent eight days in Gotha, residing with Prince August, who reported on the celebration of Goethe's birthday: "Mein Bruder bat mich soeben, zu Ehren des Herrn Goethe und des Herrn [Heinrich] Meyer ein Mittagessen zu geben. Er nahm an diesem selbst teil, eben-so seine Exzellenz und Lady Fifry. Wir waren nur sechs Personen zu Tische. Der Abend verlief in derselben Weise." (Lady Fifry was Friederike von Frankenberg, wife of privy councillor Sylvius Friedrich von Frankenberg.) The next day the same party viewed the duke's paintings in his quarters. Damm ventures: "Die Gesellschaft, die durch die Räume wandert. Bei welchen Gemälden mag sie länger verweilt haben?" (135). Indeed. Which ones? Damm uncharacteristically restricts herself to quoting from Goethe's infuriatingly undetailed accounts. What one would have liked is speculation about how the process of mutual enrichment worked itself out. But most of all: what was it about Goethe that they loved? Damm lets us down.

Although not foregrounded as such, a contrasting portrait of two dukedoms over half a century emerges from...