Zwischen Bild und Text: Goethes Werdegang zum Klassizismus (review)

Goethe Yearbook 327 Werther in the literature of the May Fourth Era is the focus of articles by Barbara Ascher ("Aspekte der Werther-Rezeption in China"), Wolfgang Kubin ('Yu Dafu [1896-1945]: Werther und das Ende der Innerlichkeit"), and Adrian Hsia ("Zum Verständnis eines chinesischen Werther-Dramas"). Although familiar to students of modern Chinese literature, the history of this Werther-wave will be interesting news to most Goethe scholars. No less surprising is Barbara Kaulbach's report in "Mignon auf der chinesischen Bühne" that an episode from Wilhelm Meister should have been the inspiration for a powerful work of street theatre, Fangxia nide bianzi (Leg deine Peitsche nieder), which was widely performed during the Chinese struggle against the Japanese (1937-1945). Finally, Gao Zhongfu summarizes "GoetheRezeption in China seit 1976, " indicating a growing interest there in Goethe and in German literature generally. As far as one can tell from these cursory surveys, the theoretical concern in the PRC turns on the question of Goethe's realism. It might be productive to convene an international conference to discuss such a specific issue now that the more general framework Goethe/China has been established. Although the volume has been printed well, it could have been augmented with at least an index of names. Occasional misprints are not serious distractions. It would have been nice to reproduce Feng Zhi's poem more clearly and as a frontispiece. This book should be widely read by Goethe-scholars and by Germanists, for it is most timely. In the debate which has raged recently about the extension of the literary canon in order to include works of world literature is the implicit assumption by opponents that it is a simple matter to carry through such extensions. Buried somewhere beneath that assumption are mistaken notions about "primitive literatures" and "mutual translatability." It is good and proper that an exploration of the relations between Goethe and China, in their complex reciprocities, should be an opportunity for recognizing that bringing world literature out of nationalisms requires not only respect for the texts but also deep knowledge and an awareness of the subtleties whereby literary systems inform each other. Carleton University Arnd Böhm Van SeIm, Jutta, Zwischen Bild und Text: Goethes Werdegang zum Klassizismus. New York, Bern, Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1986 (American University Studies, Series I, Germanic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 48). Its constant attention to the important place occupied by literary elements in art history and criticism and in artistic theory and practice during the period from Goethe's first encounters with drawing and painting until his promulgation of a classical aesthetic in Die Propyläen makes this monograph a valuable addition to what has already been written — the substantial body of material that the text, notes, and impressively comprehensive bibliography demonstrate its author's having 328 Book Reviews scrupulously mastered — about Goethe as collector, critic, theorist, and practicer of the fine arts. By virtue of concentrating, though without disregard of other kinds of artistic expression, on drawing as paramount neoclassical art-form and most highly valued art-like skill in the late Enlightenment period with which it is concerned, it complements previous studies primarily concentrating on Goethe as aesthetician or as artist by examining his "Werdegang [...] zu seinem strengen Klassizismus aus der Sicht kunstrealer, kunsttheoretischer und kunstsoziologischer Voraussetzungen und Bedingungen" (4). The only caveat that might be made is that implicit in this phrase is what may seem, but not be meant as, the incautious thesis that Goethe's aesthetic had become rigidly classicistic by 1800 and would remain so from then on. That neoclassical influences were often decisive for Goethe's artistic practice and theory is, however, cogently argued and convincingly demonstrated, and so, despite a few factual errors and careless inferences, Van SeIm contributes significantly to a fuller understanding of the fine arts for Goethe's life and works. Her first chapter, "Die Erschließung der Zeichenkunst als Mittel der Aufklärung" documents the importance attached to drawing — an aid to cognition as accurate observation and lucid analysis — by eighteenth-century rationalists, and the disjunction of drawing and painting consequent upon this emphasis. (Ci.Dichtung und Wahrheit, Book 4, cited p. 9f...