A Symbolic-Mystic Monstrosity: Ideology and Representation in Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre

Summary

IN A SHORT EXCURSUS IN Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit (1962), Jürgen Habermas points to a letter in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795-1796) as an example of the end of feudal, rankbased representation (repräsentative Öffentlichkeit) and of the beginning of a new, bourgeois public sphere. In the letter, the novel's protagonist Wilhelm Meister explains to his friend Werner the reasons for his ambition to become an actor. In the theater he believes he will find satisfaction for his penchant for poetry and education of the spirit: “Du siehst wohl,” Wilhelm writes, “daß das alles für mich nur auf dem Theater zu finden ist, und daß ich mich in diesem einzigen Elemente nach Wunsch rühren und ausbilden kann” (291).

The world of theater, Habermas argues in his study, is a world of the aristocracy, which he identifies with “Öffentlichkeit in ihrer repräsentativen Gestalt.” This admiration of the aristocracy, however, is only a pretense for the introduction of the ideals of the bourgeoisie: “In unserem Zusammenhang,” Habermas continues, “ist Goethes Beobachtung wichtig, daß das Bürgertum nicht mehr repräsentieren, sich von Haus aus eine repräsentative Öffentlichkeit nicht mehr erwirken kann.” Wilhelm's ambition to become an actor, he concludes, must fail, since the spectators, members of the upcoming bourgeoisie, are bearers of this new form of public life, which differs from the outdated representative form of personal display, embodied by the theater. Habermas' ambition, then, is to show how a new division between public and private is born with the modern, bourgeois society.