Goethe und der Islam (review)

Goethe Yearbook 199 own mini-universe with interacting and nurturing layers of existence/signification . ActuaUy, it could have served as the motto for his study, Doctor's Orders, if only he had been interested in the etymological origins of Bildung and in Goethe's own morphological signification of that famous signifier. But, as Tobin acknowledges at the conclusion of his study, the signifier and the signified in general became increasingly disconnected in the early nineteenth century (cf. 189). Similarly, Tobin's own use oÃ- Bildung is disconnected from its origins in Goethe's study of nature. Useful in justifying his approach is Goethe's other maxim about everything in nature being interrelated, even those actions which seem contrary to nature. But Tobin does not refer to it either. AU of the above deserves some recognition by Robert Tobin as relevant to his reading of WUhelm Meister as a mirroring of medical constructs, diagnosis and treatment. Surely, Goethe did not invest so much of his time and energy over almost a half century just to provide the reader with a compendium of medical facts? Many fans of Uterature will want to know what role form plays Ui conveying the message of a novel. Tobin scarcely addresses that question. If the work of Uterature is merely an Abdruck of reality, why not just read a history book? I suppose what I am really asking here is: a German studies approach to the analysis of Uterature is great. But what role does Uterature play in the process other than that of an instrument of healing in the hands of doctors? Thus, whüe I can recommend Doctor's Orders as a significant and stimulating contribution to eighteenth-century and Goethe scholarship, I cannot endorse it wholesale. It needs to address Goethe's concept of reaUsm in literature as a frame for its own thesis of the interconnections between medicine and Uterature here. I wUl, however, recommend it to students and use it in advanced undergraduate and graduate courses with deUght. Vanderbilt University John A. McCarthy Katharina Mommsen, Goethe und der Islam. Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 2001. Katharina Mommsen's Goethe und der Islam is a revised edition of her earlier work, Goethe und die Arabische Welt, published Ui 1988. Like the original , Mommsen's most recent text meticulously traces many of Goethe's Divan poems to specific verses of the Koran or to an array of Arabic and Persian poetry. HappUy, in the new edition the footnotes have become endnotes. This structural change makes for a more hospitable text Ui that the footnotes no longer dominate the page, as they so often do in the original. In addition, Mommsen has made a considerable number of editorial changes, including the deletion and consolidation of certain chapters and the addition of new ones, as well as the reorganization of some sections of the text. Her book is now divided into numbered chapters and she has reworked some of the headings. Perhaps most importantly, Mommsen has changed the title from Goethe und die Arabische Welt to Goethe und der Islam, which caUs attention to her more focused emphasis on Goethe's life-long interest Ui and preoccupation with the Koran and Islam. Mommsen locates traces of Koran verses in such early works as Götz von Berlichingen (1772), stresses Goethe's positive evaluation of Mohammed in the Mahomet-Fragment and the poem Mahomets Gesang (1773), originaUy intended to be part of the drama, and 200 Book Reviews finaUy focuses on Goethe's intensive study of the Koran, Hafis' Divan, biographies of Mohammed, and a variety of Persian and Arabic poetic texts during the composition of the West-Östlicher Divan (1814-1819)· Mommsen emphasizes the potentiaUy iconoclastic significance of Goethe's project. She provides an overview of the west's almost exclusively negative reception of both Mohammed and Islam, which began not long after the birth of Islam and lasted weU into the nineteenth century. She cites Friedrich Megerlin's translation (1772), the first German edition of the Koran, as representative of the general pejorative attitude toward Islam prevalent at that time. Megerlin entitled his work, Die Türkische Bibel, referred to the Koran as a...