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  • Goethes Verhältnis zur Romantik
  • Erlis Wickersham
Hartmut Fröschle, Goethes Verhältnis zur Romantik. Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2002564. pp.

This book is a major scholarly effort. It contains clear expositions, a logically organized table of contents, an excellent index and a bibliography arranged by subjects and personalities. Detailed footnotes embellish the text, giving it a richness rarely encountered in contemporary scholarship. Despite the author's thoroughness in the areas of inquiry that he undertakes, he argues persuasively for additional avenues of inquiry. This is another strength of an excellent book.

Part 1 presents a truly exhaustive analysis consisting of 164 pages, tracing the history of scholarship about Goethe's relationship with his Romantic contemporaries. This maximal extension of the "dreaded first footnote" will be invaluable for serious students. It is followed by detailed chapters on Goethe's utterances, the written references in his own writings and those of his contemporaries and Goethe's personal acquaintance with every Romantic writer of note. It has thirteen chapters, dealing with the Romantics in roughly chronological order, including not just the expected figures like the Schlegels, Tieck, Brentano, Bettina Brentano, and Kleist, but also Zacharias Werner, Karolina Günderode, the "lesser" Berlin Romantics, and finally, the Romantics of various regions, along with Romantic dramatists and Heinrich Heine.

Part 3 addresses "Goethes Verhältnis zur romantischen Germanistik." Comprising five chapters, it concerns the Grimms, Büsching and van der Hagen, Romantic orientalists and others. Thus, the author documents Goethe's opinion of most, if not all, of the figures connected to this literary, artistic and philosophical movement. The author offers not only his own analyses but also engages with other critical opinions. Sometimes he recommends an early work, or refutes a contemporary view, always evaluating with balanced and thoroughly documented arguments.

The volume may be read as a reference work, since it is a simple matter to find the particular personality in whom a reader may be interested. If the book is read as written, with the emphasis on a succession of authors and cultural figures, fascinating patterns emerge, since each personality inevitably fits into a different part of Goethe's life. The practical result is that one may be reading about the 1820s and quickly find that the next theme involves the century's first decade. The author explains why a strict chronology is impractical here and he is certainly correct. In fact, the resulting kaleidoscope of lively and interesting facts adds greatly to the reading experience. Fröschle's methodology succeeds, in part, because he continually refers to the historical, personal, philosophical or cultural context in which the events he describes are occurring.

Perhaps incidentally, one is struck by the sociability of the era, the extensive exchange of letters, the impromptu or carefully scheduled visits, the guests who [End Page 222] overstay their welcome, sometimes by days at a time, the frequency of diary entries on the part of everyone concerned, the exchange of published materials, the number of times that Goethe is asked for his opinion before a piece is published, even by established companies like Cotta. Goethe's genius is revealed here as consisting in part of being able to absorb such a panorama of literary and cultural publications while keeping his air of bonhomie and polite reserve.

Another attractive impression a reader gains is an overwhelming sense of Goethe's generosity to others, even those with views quite different from his own. One is struck by the perspicacity with which he expressed his opinions, the tactful language in which he couched both praise and hesitation, the consciousness on his part of being a figure whose every utterance would some day be weighed and analyzed. On the other hand, in his relations with Varnhagen and Rahel Levin Varnhagen, for example, a reader also sees that Goethe was not consistently the towering figure in his own day that current readers may assume. Expressions of gratitude on his part for the faithful devotion of a woman like Rahel are strangely moving, particularly in the light of subsequent events.

Although each reader will have favorite aspects of the text, one of the most interesting is the discussion of...

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