6 - Goethe's Discursive Writings

Summary

THE VARIETY AND EXTENT of Goethe's expository writing is prodigious. Indeed, one is hard pressed to think of any other writer of modern Europe who has left such a voluminous corpus of treatises, essays, letters, memoirs, journalism, diaries, maxims, jottings, and so on. Given the fact that Goethe was clearly at ease writing in the discursive mode, it is intriguing to register both what he wrote and what he chose not to write. One extraordinary omission stands out: as we have already noted, he did not produce anything remotely resembling a systematic philosophy of life, a circumstantial inventory of his beliefs, convictions, hopes, fears, values. Nor — and this is the second fact that strikes one — did he set out to give an overview over his understanding of art, of aesthetics, of the significance of culture generally. Yet the need to reflect on these matters was a significant part of his creative make-up; it is not as though we have no idea of what he thought under these headings. But we glean what he thought from other contexts, from other modes of statement. Let us put this issue the other way round and ask: what did he produce within the discursive mode? In terms of the principal concentrations of his output there are three fields that consistently attracted his attention: autobiography, letters, and science. We shall look at his achievement in these three forms, particularly because this material gives us a sense of some of his deepest beliefs. These beliefs emerge within a context of considerable indirection, as part of a thinking, communicating process and not as a clearcut system. One feels, in other words, that Goethe is constantly in quest of an understanding of experience, and the dynamic of the quest is more important than the achieved goal: perhaps because the quest is the goal.

A glance at Goethe's fondness for maxims can help to illustrate the theoretical point we are after. It is interesting to note that the two great collections of maxims that spring to mind — the Maximen und Reflexionen and the Sprüche in Prosa — were both collected after his death. In other words: he himself refrained from publishing a volume of his sayings of distilled wisdom. During his life time he did bring out maxims; but he did so not only in his journal Über Kunst und Altertum but also, intriguingly, in the literary work.