Goethe's Poems

21. wüsten Träumen, of independent existence and happiness. The single elements wanted to be for themselves and atomism would have been the result.

24. ohne Klang, because the elements in their eccentric motion have lost touch with each other. See the highly interesting Cosmogony of the boy Goethe in D. u. W. (21, 126).

26. einsam Gott, love is born out of the pain of solitude. Compare Schiller's Freundschaft:

Freundlos war der große Weltenmeister,

Fühlte Mangel, darum schuf er Geister,

Selge Spiegel seiner Seligkeit.

27. Morgenröte = the symbol of love. Goethe had this conception from Herder who in the Aelteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts (the Genesis) says: "In einem sich täglich erneuernden Factum, in dem Schauspiel des aufgehenden Tages offenbarte Gott dem Verfasser (der Genesis) die Geschichte der Schöpfung." See Haym, Herder 1, 559.

30. erklingend Farbenspiel, as in music we speak of colors so in painting of tones.

31. wiederlieben = concentrisch bewegen.

34. sucht sich, as the result of love, compare Schiller, Freundschaft:

Laß das Chaos diese Welt umrütteln,

Durcheinander die Atome schütteln,

Ewig fliehn (fliegen) sie unsre Herzen zu.

35-42. In the ungemeßne Leben, which now as the product of divine love can unfold itself, there is nevertheless a place left where man, and especially the poet, can act as a creator:

Allah braucht nicht mehr zu schaffen,
Wir erschaffen seine Welt.

For the understanding of these difficult and important lines, which are the expression of what Goethe considered to be the highest vocation of man, compare the following passages. A few days before his death (March 11, 1832), he said to Eckermann: "Gott hat sich nach den bekannten imaginirten sechs Schöpfungstagen keineswegs zur Ruhe begeben, vielmehr ist er noch fortwährend wirksam wie am ersten. Diese plumpe Welt aus einfachen Elementen zusammenzusetzen und sie jahraus jahrein in den Strahlen der

Sonne rollen zu lassen, hätte ihm sicher wenig Spass gemacht, wenn er nicht den Plan gehabt hätte, sich auf dieser materiellen Unterlage eine Pflanzschule für eine Welt von Geistern zu gründen. So ist er nun fort während in höheren Naturen wirksam, um die geringeren heranzuziehen.”

But God does in this way not only help man, he also needs him: "Ich zweifle nicht an unserer Fortdauer, denn die Natur kann die Entelechie nicht entbehren." (Eckermann, Gespräche, Sept. 1, 1829.) See Eins und Alles, p. 145, 1. 7 ff.:

Weltseele, komm uns zu durchdringen!

Dann mit dem Weltgeist selbst zu ringen (as creators)
Wird unsrer Kräfte Hochberuf;

Vorspiel zur Eröffnung des Weimar. Theaters, 1807 (11, 94):
So im Kleinen ewig wie im Großen

Wirkt Natur, wirkt Menschengeist, und beide

Sind ein Abglanz jenes Urlichts droben,

Das unsichtbar alle Welt erleuchtet.

On his journey to Italy he writes, Sept. 8, 1786: “Zu meiner Welterschaffung (his scientific studies) habe ich manches erobert." Similar thoughts we find in Schiller's Punschlied:

Neues bildend aus dem Alten

Stellt sie (die Kunst) sich dem Schöpfer gleich,

and Der Genius:

Wiederholen zwar kann der Verstand, was schon da gewesen,
Was die Natur gebaut, bauet er wählend ihr nach.

Über Natur hinaus baut die Vernunft, doch nur in das Leere. Du nur, Genius, mehrst in der Natur die Natur. Indeed a loftier conception of the final aim of human life and a deeper interpretation of its meaning cannot be found anywhere. 41. morgenroten Flügeln, with the wings of love.

46. musterhaft, typical.

VII. Alter

1. Elegie

Written Sept. 5-9, 1823, on Goethe's return from Karlsbad. The poem discloses Goethe's heroic struggle which accompanied the renunciation of his passionate love for Ulrike von Levetzow. He had met Frau von Levetzow, an old acquaintance of his, and her three daughters at the Bohemian watering-place Marienbad in 1821 and 1822, and had already at this time shown great attention to Ulrike, the oldest of the daughters, born in 1804. But it was during their stay in Karlsbad, Aug. 25 to Sept. 5, 1823, that the poet became fully conscious of his passionate feelings, becoming convinced at the same time that a marriage with the beautiful young girl was impossible and that he must resign himself. There is something extremely tragic in the fact that Goethe, at the age of seventy-four, after numerous love affairs, should discover what true love was and still be debarred from it, "als trieb ein Cherub flammend ihn von hinnen." This renunciation nearly cost Goethe his life. In November, 1823, he became dangerously ill, and for weeks his friends despaired of his recovery. Ulrike remained single. She died Nov. 13, 1899. Goethe's letters to her mother and to her, which in many places read like his letter to Friederike, were given by her in 1887 to the Goethe-Archives in Weimar. They were published in Vol. XXI of the Goethe-Jahrbuch with an excellent introduction and notes by B. Suphan. In the same volume is contained the reproduction of a picture of her, which shows that Goethe was right in calling her "die lieblichste der lieblichen Gestalten." See also G. von Loeper, Goethe-Jahrbuch VIII, 165–186, and Vol. XV of Schriften der Goethegesellschaft, which contains a facsimile print of the manuscript of the Elegie.

The motto of the poem is taken from Tasso. It expresses the idea that he is 'more than human' (compare 'Uebermensch,' Zueignung), because 'a god' (genius) gave to him what is denied to other human beings.

1-6. Discussing the poem with Eckermann, Nov. 16, 1823, who suggests Byron's influence, Goethe said: "Ich schrieb das Gedicht unmittelbar als ich von Marienbad (he means Karlsbad) abreiste

und ich mich noch im vollen Gefühle des Erlebten befand. Morgens acht Uhr auf der ersten Station schrieb ich die erste Strophe, und so dichtete ich im Wagen fort und schrieb von Station zu Station das im Gedächtniss Gefasste nieder. Es hat daher eine gewisse Unmittelbarkeit und ist wie aus einem Gusse, welches dem Ganzen zu Gute kommen mag."

4. wankelsinnig, whether he is to choose paradise or hell, return

to her or leave her.

5. ans Himmelthor = von innen aus dem Himmel heraus.

6. Compare Faust II:

Das Ewig-Weibliche
Zieht uns hinan.

7. im Paradies, i.e., during the previous days.

8. ewig, again in the sense of absolute; compare note to Wonne der Wehmut, p. 56, 1. 2.

9. Absolute peace, which is the sign of true and pure love.

12. sehnsüchtiger Thränen, without this love he has only tears of longing as the manifestation of true life. See line 114: grenzen

22. von hinnen: out of Paradise.

31. Is the world with its beauty not left to me to heal my sorrow? He seems in the following lines to think of the country near Weimar.

35. Große, the sky with its ever-changing cloud-formations.

37-42. Compare his cloud-poetry in the Zueignung and in Faust II, 10055 ff., where Gretchen appears to him in the form of a cloud.

47. zu Vielen bildet eine sich hinüber, a metaphysical thought which finds its explanation in the following lines from the Künstlerlied, p. 135, 1. 17 ff.:

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