"Eine fast magische Anziehungskraft." Goethes 'Wahlverwandtschaften' und die Chemie seiner Zeit (review)

342 Book Reviews nostalgisch aus der Situation des späten 20. Jahrhunderts in Mignon und dem Harfner ein Goethesches Ideal der Poesie, in der Turmgesellschaft eine Goethesche neurousseauistische Gesellschaftskritik zu konstruieren. Hier setzt Fick die richtigen Akzente. Hier ist ihr Zugang zum Roman balanciert und umsichtig, weil ihre Grundhaltung zum Werk auch mit Goethes Leben, seinen ästhetischen und weltanschaulichen Ansichten zur Zeit der Klassik in der der Roman seine Neugestaltung und Vollendung erfuhr, in Einklang steht. Obwohl Fick die Einlösung ihres Vorhabens, nämlich "die fortlaufende Erhellung der exakten Komposition, der Logik der Figurenführung in ihren feinsten Verästelungen" (263, vgl. auch 48) aus den früher genannten Gründen nur teilweise gelungen ist, haben ihre Einsichten in die Komplexität und Gestalt des Romans Substanz, was man von vielen, im Formalen oder Nichtigen verlaufenden "Dekonstruktionen" nicht behaupten kann. University of Washington Hellmut Ammerlahn Adler, Jeremy, "Eine fast magische Anziehungskraft." Goethes 'Wahlverwandtschaften ' und die Chemie seiner Zeit. Munich: CH. Beck, 1987. In the 2 January 1810 issue oÃ- Zeitung für die elegante Welt appeared Karl August Böttiger's review oÃ- Die Wahlverwandtschaften. In it Böttiger pointed out a fact that was obvious to the educated reader of the time: that Goethe's novel was clearly linked to well-known chemical theories of the late eighteenth century and that concepts from the field of chemistry permeated the novel. But today the chemical theories that gave the novel its title, and that were so familiar to large numbers of contemporary readers, have been forgotten by all but historians of science and are as obscure to the scientist as they are to the literary historian. Adler's primary goal, then, is to place the novel in the context of the time. In so doing, he is intent to prove that the work which has been called the first German social novel, is one that uniquely synthesizes literature and science, and does not merely make artistic or metaphorical use of scientific theory. Adler proceeds in two stages before coming to the relationship between chemistry and the action of the novel: first he traces the little-known and complicated strands of long outdated scientific theory that have to do with "Verwandtschaft" and "Wahlverwandtschaft," and he then pursues the dim pre-history of the chemical concepts as they are to be found in the philosophy of Newton and Descartes. Goethe's own scientific theories, which have several times been analysed in connection with the novel, are not here a central point of discussion since, in Adler's view, Goethe was using — in a very personal way — a general and widely accepted doctrine. The first chapter takes up at the outset Goethe's oft-quoted remarks of 6 May 1827 to Eckermann in which he said: "Das einzige Product von größerem Umfange, wo ich mir bewußt bin, nach Darsteflung einer durchgreifenden Idee gearbeitet zu Goethe Yearbook 343 haben, wären etwa meine Wahlverwandtschaften" (HA 6:643)-Just what that "idea" may be has been the subject of continuing debate but has never been analysed in detail. As Adler points out, it was Robert Gould in his 1971 Princeton dissertation ("Elective Affinities: An Investigation of the Influence of Goethe's Scientific Thinking onDie Wahlverwandtschaften") who demonstrated that the elective affinities were indeed the very kernel of the novel, its central idea. But even this work does not plumb the historical meaning of the term "Wahlverwandtschaft," as it and other studies of the novel regard Goethe's own scientific writings as the chief sources of the theory at the heart of the work. In a detailed survey of the scholarship on Goethe's sources for the concept "Wahlverwandtschaft," Adler shows that the question of sources is at the same time complex and of central significance not only in the Entstehungsgeschichte but also to an understanding of the 'idea' of Goethe's extraordinary novel. False assumptions about the source or sources have led to false conclusions about the relationship of the structure and action of the literary work to this 'idea' alluded to by Goethe late in life. One of the misconceptions about the idea of the elective affinities is that it can...