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CHARLES A. GRAIR Goethe, Faust and Sardanapalus: The End of an Age ι When news reached Weimar in the late summer of 1830 that the French had deposed another king, Goethe was convinced that his world was coming to an end. His fears were based on the prevaüing domino theory. PoUtical insurrection in France would touch off revolts in HoUand, Germany, Poland and Italy, and eventuaUy culminate in a social revolution which would transform the existing cultural and spiritual values in Europe. According to this view, the mad struggle for poUtical control fti Paris endangered not only the princes and kings of the Restoration, but the very civilization which they embodied. For Goethe, this was tantamount to a cultural catastrophe. His work on Faust LL during the year foUowing the revolution presents clear images of his poUtical anxieties and his fears for the future. Although most Faust scholars have read these sections of the drama as an aUegorical commentary on the first French revolution, I wiU show that they deal not with past history, but with an impending age of cultural decline.1 Goethe considered the July Revolution the last great poUtical chaUenge of his Ufe. He remarked to Kanzler von MüUer that it was "die größte Denkübung... ,die ihm am Schluße seines Lebens habe werden können ."2 His subsequent "mental exercises" as recorded in his conversations and in Faust IL present a model of rebeUion and destruction that was typical of the views of many conservative thinkers. like aU of his generation, Goethe's understanding of the July Revolution was influenced by his memory of the devastating events of forty years past. In fact, he immediately feared a "Reprise der Tragödie von 1790. "3 His response to the poUtical unrest of 1830, however, was markedly more pessimistic than his earUer views, which had been those of a cautiously reform-minded monarchist . His works from the 1790s, such as Der Groß-Kophta (1791), Der Bürgergeneral (1793) and Die Aufgeregten (1793), depict social and poUtical conflicts as the machinations of swindlers and misguided idealists who incite confused masses to disorder until a tense situation can be dis- Goethe Yearbook 239 armed by the pacifying intervention of a higher authority. From the perspective of 1830, however, the revolutionary threat appears more insidious and much more dangerous. The forces of rebeUion seem to have become entirely destructive, irrational and uncontainable, and no form of authority seemed sufficiently powerful or resolute to confront the challenge directly. Goethe beüeved the revolutionary fervor unleashed in Paris would overflow the borders and deluge Germany with the violence and devastation of social anarchy. Although, as history would show, his fears were greatiy exaggerated, at the tftne such alarmist views were neither uncommon nor entirely unfounded. Protests and riots in the German territories foUowed quickly fti the wake of the July Revolution, confirming for Goethe and others the prophecy of the English Lord Canning that a single spark was aU that was needed for the whole of northern Europe to catch fire.4 The ensuing conflagration, it was generaUy beUeved, would sweep away the good with the bad, leaving only chaos and barbarism behind. The conviction that western European culture was nearing a point of crisis graduaUy crystallized fti Goethe as he foUowed the escalation of conflict in Paris and the spread of protests in Germany fti the late summer and faU of 1830. Although he occasionaUy refused to read the newspapers because of the distraction they caused him, friends and visitors kept him weU informed of events and recorded his comments concerning the conflicts at home and abroad.5 Images and metaphors of catastrophe appear frequently fti these letters and conversations, especiaUy the image of a flood sweepftig away the accompUshments of past centuries. He also speaks of the revolution as an earthquake, a wUdfire and a volcanic explosion—fti other words, as a natural disaster whose destructive effects wül spread quickly to surroundftig areas.6 In the midst of such turmoU, Goethe turned to Faust LL as a refuge from his fears—fti his own flood imagery, as a "Schwimmwams" to keep himself afloat in troubled times.7...

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