Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Special Section on Goethe and the Postclassical: Literature, Science, Art, and Philosophy, 1805–1815
- Helena, Then Hell: Faust as Review and Anticipation of Modern Times
- Histrionic Nationality: Implications of the Verse in Faust
- Die Wette in Goethes Faust
- Ecocriticism, the Elements, and the Ascent/Descent into Weather in Goethe's Faust
- Grablegung im Vorhof des Palasts: Groteske Anschaulichkeit in den vorletzten Szenen von Faust II
- Goethes Gnostiker: Fausts vergessener Nihilismus und sein Streben nach Erlösungswissen
- The Unconscious of Nature: Analyzing Disenchantment in Faust I
- Forms of Figuration in Goethe's Faust
- Goethe's Morphology of Knowledge, or the Overgrowth of Nomenclature
- Paraphrasis: Goethe, the Novella, and Forms of Translational Knowledge
- Dramas of Knowledge: The “Fortunate Event” of Recognition
- gegen: Bewegungen durch Goethes “Der Mann von funfzig Jahren”
- “Offenbares Geheimnis” oder “geheime Offenbarung”? Goethes Märchen und die Apokalypse
- Goethe's Green: The “Mixed” Boundary Colors in Zur Farbenlehre
- For Heaven's Sake, I Will Have You Walk into the Dark: Grillparzer's Containment of Beethoven and the Ambivalence of Their Melusina Project
- Imitation, Pleasure, and Aesthetic Education in the Poetics and Comedies of Johann Elias Schlegel
- Feindlich verbündet: Lessing und die Neuen Erweiterungen der Erkenntnis und des Vergnügens
- Juvenalian Satire and the Divided Self in Goethe's “Das Tagebuch”
- Book Reviews
For Heaven's Sake, I Will Have You Walk into the Dark: Grillparzer's Containment of Beethoven and the Ambivalence of Their Melusina Project
from Special Section on Goethe and the Postclassical: Literature, Science, Art, and Philosophy, 1805–1815
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Special Section on Goethe and the Postclassical: Literature, Science, Art, and Philosophy, 1805–1815
- Helena, Then Hell: Faust as Review and Anticipation of Modern Times
- Histrionic Nationality: Implications of the Verse in Faust
- Die Wette in Goethes Faust
- Ecocriticism, the Elements, and the Ascent/Descent into Weather in Goethe's Faust
- Grablegung im Vorhof des Palasts: Groteske Anschaulichkeit in den vorletzten Szenen von Faust II
- Goethes Gnostiker: Fausts vergessener Nihilismus und sein Streben nach Erlösungswissen
- The Unconscious of Nature: Analyzing Disenchantment in Faust I
- Forms of Figuration in Goethe's Faust
- Goethe's Morphology of Knowledge, or the Overgrowth of Nomenclature
- Paraphrasis: Goethe, the Novella, and Forms of Translational Knowledge
- Dramas of Knowledge: The “Fortunate Event” of Recognition
- gegen: Bewegungen durch Goethes “Der Mann von funfzig Jahren”
- “Offenbares Geheimnis” oder “geheime Offenbarung”? Goethes Märchen und die Apokalypse
- Goethe's Green: The “Mixed” Boundary Colors in Zur Farbenlehre
- For Heaven's Sake, I Will Have You Walk into the Dark: Grillparzer's Containment of Beethoven and the Ambivalence of Their Melusina Project
- Imitation, Pleasure, and Aesthetic Education in the Poetics and Comedies of Johann Elias Schlegel
- Feindlich verbündet: Lessing und die Neuen Erweiterungen der Erkenntnis und des Vergnügens
- Juvenalian Satire and the Divided Self in Goethe's “Das Tagebuch”
- Book Reviews
Summary
I
ON MARCH 26, 1827, the day Ludwig van Beethoven died at the age of fifty-six, Franz Grillparzer, who was two decades younger in age than the composer, wrote a long-form poem to honor Beethoven, indicating his reverence as much as reflecting the intimidation he felt in his presence. In the poem, an invisible narrator celebrates Beethoven's ascendance into heaven and, once he has arrived, imagines a dialogue between him and fellow composers Bach, Handel, Gluck, and Haydn. Yet it is the encounter between Mozart and Beethoven that intrigues the narrator most. Mozart, the “Meister,” who entered the scene “im Siegeskranz,” welcomes Beethoven as equal to all of them: “Gleich den Besten sei geehrt!” Nevertheless, Mozart's praise contains a hint of critique; a benevolent one since an agent is missing: “Rechtes, ohne Maß und Wahl, / Zeugt verderbenschwangre Qual.” Furthermore, Mozart is also lenient towards Beethoven; for violating the rules, he holds responsible only those who attempt to imitate the master. He does not accuse Beethoven of this himself: “Nach es ahmen in Geduld, / Ihnen ist, nicht uns die Schuld.” Yet Beethoven's implied misstep seems in need of a quasi-theological pardon: “Doch kein Tadel folgt Verklärten, / Und der letzte Schritt auf Erden / Macht den letzten Fehler gut.” Following Mozart's welcome speech, such luminary authors as Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, and Klopstock greet Beethoven as well. In the end, however, it is Lord Byron, “der Feind der Knechte,” who wishes to bond with Beethoven when the narrator has him speak the last lines: “Sieh dort dunkle Buchengänge, / Laß uns miteinander gehn!”
On the whole, Grillparzer's assessment of Beethoven's legacy on the day of his death constitutes a surprisingly ambivalent sort of reverence: while in a semi-private act Grillparzer felt compelled to write a poem in which he imagines the deceased in an artists’ heaven, his admiration is tempered by restraint. Unlike Mozart, who appeared in a “double aurora,” Grillparzer wants to have Beethoven guided into the darkness, out of sight. In a symbolic configuration Grillparzer temporarily puts Beethoven in the foreground only to ultimately place him in the background.
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- Goethe Yearbook 17 , pp. 275 - 302Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2010