1. Leipzig IN the autumn of 1765 Goethe, as a boy of sixteen years, entered the University of Leipzig. It must be admitted that Leipzig was not the proper place for a youth of Goethe's sensuous and passionate nature and his wonderful susceptibility to all impressions. The social and moral corruption which at that time, emanating from Paris, was noticeable in every part of Europe, had extended to Germany also, where numerous princes, secular as well as ecclesiastical, set the example by imitating the vices of the French court. Similar conditions were found in the larger cities like Frankfurt and Leipzig, where colonies of French emigrants had settled after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1685. Among these cities Leipzig enjoyed the unenviable reputation of comparing most favorably with Paris as far as the laxity of public morals was concerned. Goethe himself describes these conditions in his early comedy Die Mitschuldigen, and it is worth noticing that in this drama he appears a mere observer of the social evils which Schiller so unmercifully condemns in his tragedy Kabale und Liebe. One of the most pernicious effects of French influence upon the social life of Germany manifested itself in the frivolity and superficial levity with which the theme of love was treated in literature." Indeed, little else but petty love affairs was deemed worthy the thoughts and the life of a man. While the deep and truly Germanic conception of love which Klopstock proclaimed in his poetry was gradually winning back the better element of the nation, the majority of the educated still admired shallow rhymsters of the type of C. F. Weisse, who says in one of his Scherzhafte Lieder: Das wenigste hab ich gefühlet, Das meiste sang ich blos aus Scherz. A knowledge of the social conditions which form the background of Goethe's earliest lyrics is indispensable for their full appreciation. How Goethe was affected by the poisonous atmosphere surrounding him can be seen from these songs as well as from his contemporary letters. But these lyrics will show also how he, who was called to become the great leader of his nation, triumphed › over the surrounding influences. His powerful instinct for truth, together with the awakening in him of true feeling, was the compass which guided him in the struggles of his better nature. A remarkable document of his struggling is the poem Wahrer Genuss, in which the young poet-philosopher discovers that 'true enjoyment' of love is found in sentiment and not in mere gratification of sensuality, the current French conception of the enjoyment of love. In the following poems we have the first intuitive expression of a number of important ideas which, afterwards developed, form essential parts of Goethe's world of thought. Thus in No. 5 he discovers the process of idealisation (unmerkliche Bethörung) by which we add from within what makes the object dear to us, and the enjoyment of the moment is transformed in the same poem into eternal love. In No. 6 unconsciousness as the true source of happiness is touched upon, and in No. 7 the deepest of these early songs, he finds the great truth that illusion (Schein) alone produces the beautiful. 1. Zueignung Da sind sie nun! Da habt ihr sie! Sie singe, wer sie singen mag! Halb scheel, halb weise sieht sein Blick, Ein bisgen naß auf euer Glück, Und jammert in Sentenzen. Hört seine lezten Lehren an, Ihr seufzt, und singt, und schmelzt und küßt, Und jauchzet ohne daß ihr's wißt, Dem Abgrund in der Nähe. Flieht Wiese, Bach und Sonnenschein, Schleicht, sollt's auch wohl im Winter seyn, Ihr lacht mich aus und rufft: der Thor! Verschnitt jezt gern uns alle. 30 2. Der wahre Genuß Umsonst, daß du ein Herz zu lenken Was ist die Lust die in den Armen Sen ohne Tugend, doch verliere 5 10 15 20 |