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11 GOETHE AND DARWIN CULTURE I cannot conceive how it’s possible for man to entertain a more vain and ridiculous thought, than to imagine, when he writes on any art or science, he shall be able to escape all sort of censure, and obtain the good opinion of every reader. —Jean de la Bruyère, The Characters of Theophrastus, 1688 Du Bois-Reymond’s addresses on literature and art engendered as much controversy as his writings on politics and history.The first of these, delivered on 26 March 1874, proposed the establishment of an “Imperial Academy of German” to counter the effects of wealth and power in the capital. Prussia’s victory over France had spiraled into conceit, but for du Bois-Reymond Berlin remained a city of intellect where the university , the museum, and the library shielded culture from the “insidious toxin of utilitarianism .” This was as it should be, for politics could never be the sole measure of civilization.“What artist could be blamed,” du Bois-Reymond asked,“for ranking the Cinquecento higher than the American Union?”An Academy of German would show that Prussia’s wars had been fought for something other than gain.1 It would also do much to improve style. Germans preferred their truths plain, a tendency that made them insightful in religion and philosophy but didactic in literature and art. They had much to learn from the English, who prized good diction in all manner of communication, and from the French, who attended to rhetoric in everything . The Germans spoke as they pleased, borrowed foreign words at will, and expressed themselves with difficulty. These deficiencies could be traced to several sources. Institutionally, they failed to teach decent writing at school; culturally, they looked to other nations, learning French, English, and Italian before mastering their own tongue; intellectually, they suffered from the pernicious muddle of philosophy; stylistically, they owed too much to verse, which, even in the poetry of Goethe, lacked 234 CHAPTER 11 rigor, logic, and economy. How much better the German language might have become, du Bois-Reymond wondered, had Berlin resembled London or Paris—its fiction would have drawn from fresher material, its oratory would have undergone greater polish, and its prose would have benefited from a larger market. Rather than putting off foreigners with its infelicities, it might have grown to match the greatness of German culture.2 As du Bois-Reymond saw it, the answer was an institution designed along the lines of the Académie française. Election to it would confer national honor, and awards from it would foster literary excellence.The Académie hadn’t hindered linguistic innovation in France, and much could be learned from England as to “how the greatest personal independence is compatible with willing submission to salutary, if occasionally irksome, statutes.” Du Bois-Reymond concluded by joking about how much finer a German Academy would be at praising the Emperor.3 Public opinion split over his address.The Standard in London reported that it “met with approbation from a few of those best acquainted with the present state of the German language and its requirements.” The Neue Freie Presse in Vienna called it a masterpiece.The Spenersche Zeitung in Berlin endorsed it wholeheartedly. Julius Rodenberg wanted material like it for the Deutsche Rundschau.A German politician borrowed its argument. A Dutch botanist endorsed it. Compliments even arrived from France and England.The National-Zeitung, however, remained neutral, and other writers ridiculed the scheme—notably Friedrich Nietzsche (who considered elegance an insult to the German spirit),Theodor Mommsen (who expected that the establishment would attract a “bouquet of mediocrities”), and Alfred Dove (who scoffed at the prospect of German academics’ ever agreeing on anything).A skilled writer, Dove claimed that du Bois-Reymond and Humboldt had found each other guilty of “stylistic excess” and contended that the academy would degenerate into a “language police.” His attacks killed the project. In 1874 the Academy of Sciences voted down du Bois-Reymond’s plan to set aside a special class for German, and in 1888 the government rejected his second petition for an academy, no doubt influenced by widespread hostility to any “Imperial Ministry of Language.”4 After this defeat, du Bois-Reymond recalled that the course of events had furnished him “with a better reply to my opponents than any which I could have devised”: Not long after my proposal had been more or less contemptuously thrown aside, a “German Orthography” was introduced...

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