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HG. Haile 231 Goethes "Genie" als Dichter. Muschg erblickt es in dem Bestreben, "im tiefsten Reiz der Kunst den Anreiz zur Lebenskunst fortzupflanzen." Die wenigen Seiten dieses Vorworts gehören sicher zum Gehaltvollsten, was im Jubiläumsjahr über das leidige, doch unabweisliche Thema "Goethe und wir" geäußert worden ist. Muschg ist hier eine Goethe-Miniatur gelungen, die einerseits unsere Distanz zu Goethe kritisch reflektiert (kritischer als der Hauptteil dieses Buches) und andererseits dem Werk und der Gestalt Goethes ein Maß an Aktualität abgewinnt, das neugierig macht und auch den skeptischsten Zeitgenossen zur Lektüre überreden sollte. Smith College Hans Rudolf Vaget Zischka, Gert A., Goethe. Tageskonkordanz der Begebenheiten, Tagebücher, Briefe und Gespräche in acht Bänden. Band 7: 1823-1832. Wien: Verlag der Brüder Hollinek, 1980. Steiger, Robert, Goethes Leben von Tag zu Tag. Eine dokumentarische Chronik. Band I: 1949-1775. Zürich und München: Artemis Verlag. 1982. "In the realm of biography there is always place for work that is not so much a creation as a chronicle, that is to say, for the work that is a careful assembly of material by someone in possession of the facts"—Dorothy Anne Dorelone was here reflecting her AngloAmerican heritage of biography as an important literary genre. In Germany, such creative recovery of personality was early overshadowed by the monumental achievements of positivism. Aside from brief, ill-starred episodes like the Gundolf school (which distracted in its own way from the purely human qualities of its subject), Goethe biography has been routinely assumed to offer "not so much a creation as a chronicle." The two multi-volume works announced above initiate the most recent in a long line, beginning already during the poet's lifetime and abetted by him, of efforts in behalf of a definitive, detailed chronicle. To be merely "in possession of the facts" about this energetically comprehensive existence would be an accomplishment indeed. Zischka will correlate our extensive documentation of Goethe's life on a day-to-day basis. This first volume to appear covers the last decade (thus leaving about a decade each for volumes I through VI). A final volume will provide an introduction and user's aids including index. Zischka's pages all bear the identical grid, seven (for each day of the week) by six. Three of these latter columns orient by day, place, and event. The remaining three categorize sources in Goethe's own daily records, in reports from others, and in Goethe's letters. Although neither compiler takes note of the work of the other, Steiger is obviously applying his own Zischka-like concordance in order to construct a day-to-day narrative. Where Zischka is laconic, consisting largely of blank boxes with abbreviated references, Steiger gives a running story connecting quotations from Goethe and his contemporaries—more rarely, excerpts from recent secondary literature (e.g., a page-long quotation from Ernst Beutler), all organized by day as far as it goes, then by approximations like "ab Ende Januar." When finally concluded, so Steiger avers, his "edition" will supplant an entire Goethe library. 232 GOETHE SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA It is certainly true that, beside the classics, also the grand edifices of scholarship arise as cultural monuments in their own right. Steiger's remarkable collection, reminiscent of expansive polyhistorical compendia of earlier ages, will quickly become a much-used handbook. An adequate description of Zischka will have to await his eighth volume, but something more must be attempted on the basis of Steiger's Volume I. It represents perhaps the final consequence of a peculiarly German genre attesting both profound admiration of genius—indeed adoration—and yet at the same time a resolve, through dynamic assiduity of the Famulus Wagner, to measure up to the object of such esteem. The genre has roots in das Gespräch, tracing back to diaries maintained by Martin Luther's associates as they sought to capture that worthy's day-to-day existence, above all in his precious sayings. Collected and edited ten years after the great doctor's death as "Table Talks," these notebooks exerted major influence on German, indeed on Protestant intellectual development during subsequent centuries. Compilations...

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