A Study of Goethe

REVIEWS A STUDY OF GOETHE* CARL F. SCHREIBER This is an ambitious book; the most provocative book on Goethe, I dare say, ever published in the English language. He who is well read in Goethe will find himself reweighing all the opinions he has held heretofore; and those to whom Goethe is but a name, may forget the mere name utterly and proceed to enjoy the skilful analysis of one of the greatest minds of modern times. To all intents and purposes this study is a biography stripped of all narrative. There is virtually nothing about Frankfurt, of its people and customs; the father, mother, and sister of the poet are barely mentioned; Friederike Brion, Lili Schoenemann, and Charlotte Buff are mere shadows. Only Charlotte von Stein stands out prominently, perhaps more than is her due. In short this is an "inner biography," as Fairley chooses to call it, "an account of what went on in his [Goethe's] mind in its progress from immaturity to maturity. It is this aspect of Goethe that now calls for attention." But before we consider this aspect of the study something must be said about the form and the style of this unusual book. In the first place, it is completely free from the clutter of scholarship; there are no notes, or nearly none, at the bottom of the pages, nor are they to be found in a lumber-room at the back of the book. References in unscholarly dress, to be sure, are incorporated in the body of the text. The dates of the letters and the names of the recipients carry the reference within them. Unfortunately Fairley has paid token service to the practice of foot-notes. He has indulged himself in as many as nine which I trust will disappear with the next printing. On these nine occasions he has given in foot-notes the German for passages which he has translated or paraphrased for his English readers in a matchless manner. Are these vestigial remains? Throughout the study, except for these few instances, he has woven the German into the English in an amazingly effective manner. The eyes of those ~nacquainted with German will speedily learn to sort out this foreign matter and go unhampered on their way. The Goethe scholar, on the other hand, will find his delight in seeing the translation apposed to the original. I have examined the nine passages with care, and can find no good reason for their special treatment. It is no great matter, but oh! for a scholarly book clean in every respect. Nor are exact references necessary for the few borrowings Fairley has made from Goethe biographers and scholars. By my count he mentions just seventeen, and most of these in passing: Simmel and Robertson, Bruford and Beutler among them. This is Fairley's own book and he makes no *A Study of Goethe. By BARKER FAIRLEY. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press [Toronto: Oxford]. 1947. Pp. viii, 280. ($4.50) 85 86 THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO QUARTERLY bones about saying just that: "My indebtedness to those who have written on Goethe before me, though not great enough, is as great as I was able to make it. If I were to single out a particular debt, it would be to Hanna Fischer-Lamberg for her essay 'Charlotte von Stein, ein Bildungserlebnis Goethes.' " The style has great charm, not only for its even flow, but also for its crystal-clear exposition. It attends to the need and the pleasure of laymen and scholar alike. The latter will be aroused by some statement, only to be quickly assuaged by Fairley's mastery of qualifying phrases of all sorts and kinds. I have selected a few from among the scores scattered throughout the book: "he ends by asking or all but asking"; "never or hardly ever at rest"; "the tim~ he went to Weimar or thereabouts"; "the trouble, if we may call it that"; "Werther says or might have said," etc. I find in the study only two places where I should have preferred that Fairley had practised this art. "At no time in his life did he (Goethe] live in daily contact with...