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Judgment by Epithet in Goethe's Torquato Tasso

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2020

Mark Boulby
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Abstract

Goethe's Tasso is approached from a fresh angle by an examination of certain recurrent epithets, notably “klug,” “schön,” and “edel.” By comparing in detail passages in which these adjectives occur, and by adducing evidence as to Goethe's usage outside Tasso, new light is shed upon the kernel of the drama, which may be seen as a contest between sets of relative values with the author ambiguously refraining from committing himself to an overriding judgment. The observation that the play is centrally concerned with the act of judging character, illustrated by Goethe's stress upon “kennen” and “erkennen,” makes it possible to penetrate beyond the conventional view of Tasso as an artist drama to the insight that it presents the complex confrontation between two modes of self-consciousness or ways of being. Through the technique of vocabulary analysis within a context of dramatic argument certain recalcitrant problems of Tasso criticism, such as the vexed question of the denouement and the exact nature of Antonio's reversal, are freshly illuminated and the ambivalence and relativity of the various moral and social ideals is conclusively demonstrated. At the same time Goethe extracts from this contest of epithets a tentative positive vision of “Seelenadel.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 87 , Issue 2 , March 1972 , pp. 167 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1972

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References

1 Modern criticism of Torquato Tasso begins with the essays of Elizabeth M. Wilkinson, “Torquato Tasso: The Tragedy of the Poet,” Publications of the English Goethe Society, 15 (1946), 96–127, and “ ‘Tasso—ein Gesteigerter Werther’ in the Light of Goethe's Principle of ‘Steigerung,‘ ” MLR, 44 (1949), 305–28. This paper relies upon her work, and also particularly upon the major contributions of Wolf-dietrich Rasch, Goethes Torquato Tasso: Die Tragodie des Dichters (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1954); Walter Silz, “Ambivalences in Goethe's Tasso,” GR, 31 (1956), 243–68; Emil Staiger, in Goethe, 4th ed. (Zurich: Atlantis, 1964), i, 388–425; Gerhard Neumann, Konfiguration: Studien zu Goethes Torquato Tasso (Munchen: Fink, 1965); and Lawrence Ryan, “Die Tragödie des Dichters in Goethes Torquato Tasso,” Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft, 9 (1965), 283–322.

2 Hofmannstahl speaks of “diese nirgends erschlaffende Bezogenheit aller Teile” (“Unterhaltung iiber den Tasso von Goethe” [1906], in Prosa, n, Frankfurt: Fischer, 1959, 192). This is not to say that there are no flaws. It is a commonplace that during the long period of its gestation Goethe's conception of the work changed a good deal; see Eduard Scheidemantel, Zur Entstehungsgeschichte von Goethes Torquato Tasso (Weimar: Programme, 1896). But the MSS (see Liselotte Blumenthal, “Die Tasso-Handschriften,” in Goethe: Neue Folge des Jbs. der Goethe-gesellschaft, XII, 1950; rpt. in “Zu Tasso und Egmont,” in Beitrage zur Goetheforschung, hrsg. Ernst Grumach, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1959, pp. 143–81, from which I quote) show us only the final, very minor, changes that occurred, and all in all the play which Goethe eventually completed in 1789 has a remarkable coherence of image and word.

3 Neumann offers a most illuminating commentary on Tasso as an example of “Gespràchskultur,” which he calls “das Gesetz des ganzen Dramas” (p. 62). The debt to Castiglione's Il Cortigiano, which Goethe certainly knew, is considerable. The contest of epithet and aphorism is reminiscent of the “jeux des proverbes” of the Précieux.

4 Ewald A. Boucke, Wort und Bedeutung in Goethes Sprache (Berlin: Felber, 1910), pp. 47, 51.

5 See Rasch, p. 136.

6 Antonio observes :

Ich kenn' ihn lang, er ist so leicht zu kennen Und ist zu stolz, sich zu verbergen. (11. 2117–18)

This ill accords with his observation a moment before to the effect that Tasso is “klug” and a master of “Kiinste.”

7 It is Rasch who argues most forcefully that Tasso's paranoia has been much exaggerated by the critics, except perhaps the manifestations in Act v. To stress the ambiguity of the external circumstances in which Tasso finds himself is certainly proper. At the same time, Tasso's sense of persecution already takes on a sinister coloring in the “Orestes”-imagery of Act iv, Sc. i: “Das hàssliche, zwei-deutige Geflugel.” Rasch does not make the all-important distinction between the artistic and the purely neurasthenic personality; Goethe's Tasso is both of these, whereas Werther was only the second. It is difficult not to suppose that in his portrait of Tasso, Goethe was drawing upon his considerable knowledge of such patterns of neurotic behavior, gained from his experience with people such as Plessing, Krafft, and possibly Moritz. And he certainly knew something of this condition personally. As has often been pointed out (see, e.g., Staiger, p. 409), the Princess' warning reference to “einsames Gebüsch” recalls “Harz-reise im Winter.”

8 This term from Johannes Mantey, Der Sprachstil in Goethes Torquato Tasso“ (Berlin: Akademie, 1959), p. 9.

9 Neumann's concept of “configuration,” developed on somewhat different lines from my argument, lends support to the view that the interaction of the epithets is most important: “Der Streit der Meinungen ist maskierte Form . . . Es gibt in diesem Drama keine Stelle, wo die Diskussion eines oder mehrerer Begriffe sich um dieser Begriffe allein willen entspinnt. Begriffliche Auseinandersetzungen haben zwar ihre Geltung im Zusammenhang der Situation, sind aber zugleich und im tiefsten Sinn Vorwand ftir die Ge-staltung der Figuren und ihrer Verhältnisse” (p. 40). As Neumann points out, the epithets in Tasso can rarely be pinned down to a meaning valid for the whole work. For the question of Goethe's own judgment see Staiger: “Ganz unmoglich ware es, in einem Dialog zu bemerken, auf welcher Seite er selber steht, für wen sein Herz am meisten schlägt. Überall ist er ganz beteiligt, und überall schaut er noch wachsam zu. Die auf die fünf Gestalten ver-teilten Gradunterschiede und Gegensätze sind solche seiner eigenen Brust” (p. 418).

10 See Mantey, p. 10.

11 See Mantey, p. 43. The epithet is, however, not listed in Boucke's index, and neither are several other key adjec-tives. Boucke lists “das Schöne,” but not “schön,” nor “edel,” nor “gut.” Fischer, Goethe-Wortschatz (Leipzig: Rohmkopf, 1929), lists all these attributes, but quotes from Tasso only in the case of “edel” and “gut.”

12 A study of the “net” or “web” image would show how what appears, in Iphigenie, as a net of intrigue and lies, re-emerges as the web of Tasso's paranoia in the later play.

13 Dichtung und Wahrheit, in Goethes Werke, 20 vols. (Weimar: Hermann Böhlau, 1887–1919) (abbreviated below as WA, Sec i, Vol 29, p 175.

14 In the context of Torquato Tasso the range of meanings of “klug” is wide, from pejorative implications such as “sly” or “calculating” at one end of the scale (e.g., 1. 1181), through “clever,” “supple” at its center (e.g., 1. 1209), to “prudent” or even “civilized” (e.g., 1. 125) at the other extreme. And within this rough scheme there are many subtleties; in Act iv, Sc. ii, for instance, in a matter of a few lines, Tasso uses “klug” in a sense close to “emotionally desiccated” or “cerebral,” in the sense of “slick,” and in the sense of political craft—three kinds of derogation.

15 See Blumenthal, “Goethes Biihnenbearbeitung des Tasso” in Goethe: Neue Folge des Jahrbuchs der Goethe-gesellschaft, 13 (1952); rpt. in Grumach, from which I quote, p. 203.

16 WA, Sec. i, Vol. 8, p. 260.

17 Cf., e.g., Leonore:

Und wâren sie zu ihrem Worteil klug,

So würden sie als Freunde sich verbinden; (11. 1707–08)

18 Goethe himself uses the term “politischer Mensch.” On the occasion of the dismissal of Kalb he writes : “Als Geschäftsmann hat er sich mittelmässig, als politischer Mensch schlecht, und als Mensch abscheulich aufgefuhrt. Und wenn du nun nimmst dass ich diese dreye wohl mit der Feder sondern kann, im Leben es aber nur ein und dasselbe ist; so denke dir” (To Knebel, 27 July 1782).

19 See Iphigenie, 11. 1398–99: “Und haben kluges Wort mir in den Mund / Gegeben …”

20 Fischer, p. 379. Fischer cites Iphigenie, 1. 1398.

21 “Das iibrige lasse ich euren Klugheiten,” he writes to his family from Weimar when advising discretion on the forthcoming visit to them of Oberstallmeister v. Stein (To Johanna Fahlmer, 19 Feb. 1776).

22 “Zu Tasso und Egmont,” p. 161

23 See “ein listig Herz” (1. 2496). In this speech the word is highly pejorative. However, it is used earlier (1. 434) in association with “Des Feldherrn Klugheit.”

24 See Rasch, pp. 65–68.

25 Pp. 81–90.

26 According to Silz, Goethe's late reading of the Serassi biography resulted in a portrait of the unhappy “historical” Tasso being superimposed upon the earlier one, which was “presumably in much lighter colors, inasmuch as it reflected the ardent, happy phase of his love for Charlotte von Stein” (p. 245). Silz's arguments are a necessary and valuable corrective to Rasch's refusal to concede the possibility of contradictions in the play. However, there is a sense in which Goethe exploits these contradictions. Ambivalence is of the essence of his dramatic technique (unlike Schiller's). As Neumann observes: “er konzipiert Charaktere vielmehr nach dem elliptischen Prinzip der Doppelbrennpunkte” (p. 182).

27 An example of the latter: “Hier dieser Mann, beruhmt als klug und sittlich” (1. 1419).

28 Her statement to Tasso about Antonio's view of him: “Er spricht mit Achtung oft genug von dir” (1. 2307) is a lie. We need only compare the previous conversation between Leonore and Antonio.

29 Esp. with what comes later (v.i). The contradiction between this conversation (between Alfonso and Antonio) on the one hand and Leonore's remarks above might seem to be one of the most flagrant in the play. Evidently the observations of Antonio and the Duke are based on Goethe's reading of Serassi, and are therefore a late accretion to the portrait of the poet. At the same time, both this scene and Leonore's belong to the earliest surviving “Handschrift,” Vogel's copy of Oct./Nov. 1788, which consists of the whole of Act v and Act iv less Ses. iv and v. That Goethe did not notice the contradiction is therefore surely inconceivable. Why he let it stand becomes clearer once we perceive the relativity of all the judgments made in this play. There is no overriding view of Tasso any more than there is an overriding meaning attributable to any of the key epithets.

30 We may compare Antonio's use of “Taumel” (1. 1515). The other most striking instances in Goethe are probably those in Faust i.

31 See Boucke, p. 87. I.e., without changing the sense conveyed.

32 Goethe's admiration for “Kunst des Lebens” is documented in his eulogy of Gräfin Jeanette-Louise v. Werthern-Heiligen (To Charlotte v. Stein, 11 March 1781). There is some similarity to the portrait of Leonore Sanvitale.

33 Winckelmann, WA, Sec i, Vol 46, p. 28.

34 That she attributes “ein Verdienst, das ausserirdisch ist” to Tasso's poetry does not affect this argument, for she means, as the following expressions show (“Lüfte,” “in Tönen nur,” “umgaukelt,” “leichte Bilder”), something lacking the substance of reality.

35 Antonio, called by Goethe his “prosaischer Kontrast” (Eckermann, 6 May 1827) to Tasso, might be summed up as a competent dilettante in matters of art appreciation. In his Ariosto eulogy he refers to a madness which hin und her zu wühlen scheint Und doch im schÔnsten Takt sich mässig halt. (11. 732–33)

Antonio's “measured madness” ( ! ) epitomizes the courtly attitude to art; what he speaks of is the furor poeticus, suitably brought to heel.

36 Blumenthal, p. 153.

37 Alone, she recognizes something of what the crowning means to him. See 11. 521–26.

38 Ryan shows how the Princess is dependent on “das Dichtertum Tassos—als Ermöglichung des Arkadien-traums” (p. 300).

39 LI. 519, 762.

40 Rasch, p. 76. The state of the “schöne” or “reine Seele.” However, the “schöne Seele” in its eighteenth-century incarnations before Goethe was often seen as being subject to error (as, for instance, in Agathori). Goethe is concerned, though, with a deeper issue than external error, namely the ambiguity of innocence and passion, objective truth and subjective fantasy.

41 See Hans Schmeer, Der Begriff der schÔnen Seele (1926; rpt. Nedeln, Lichtenstein: Kraus, 1967). Usages of previous writers, while they no doubt provided the basis of the poet's vocabulary, are not in themselves particularly germane. It is how Goethe's characters use these adjectives in the dramatic conflicts of judgment and misjudgment that is germane. Extraordinarily interesting is the discussion of the concepts “edel,” “gut,” and “schÔn” undertaken by Karl-Philipp Moritz in Uber die bildende Nachahmung des Schönen (Braunschweig: In der Schulbuchhandlung, 1788). Moritz' work arose, as Goethe said (WA, Sec. i, Vol 32, p 302), out of their conversations in Rome.

42 This estheticism was deeply embedded in the sources of the term “schÔne Seele” in the eighteenth century, in Shaftesbury, Richardson, Rousseau, and even Zinzendorf. In the sublimest sense of “edel” in Torquato Tasso Goethe pushes to transcend such estheticism, so ironically threatening in the Princess, the very mouthpiece of the moral ideal.

43 The history of the concept of “Seelenadel” is, of course, long and complex. See, for this topos, Ernst Robert Curtius, Europdische Literatur und Lateinisches Mittelalter (Bern: Francke, 1948), pp. 186–87. In the eighteenth century the term was particularly current in pietistic authors. See, e.g., August Langen, Der Wortschatz des deutschen Pietismus (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1954). The matter is complicated further by certain anachronisms of feeling in Torquato Tasso—nobilitas mentis was a commonplace in the literature of the Italian Renaissance, but generally without the “inwardness” the Princess gives it; Alfonso and Leonore at times come closer to the Renaissance concept and its classical sources.

44 See, e.g., the phrase “ein edler Furst” (1. 2958).

45 This concept appears elsewhere, however, in this period, for instance, in Elpenor (1783).

46 For a detailed discussion of Goethe's use of aphoristic antithesis and of the formal structure of such courtly conversations, see Neumann, pp. 135–45.

47 “Das GÔttliche,” which of course antedates the Kritik der praktischen Vernunft by several years, has been called that poem of Goethe's which expresses the nearest thing to a Kantian moral imperative: see Erich Trunz, in Goethe, Werke, 8th ed. (Hamburg: Wegner, 1966), i, 538–39.

48 Guarini's well-known capping of Tasso's “S'ei pace, ei lice” (in Aminta) with “Piaccia, se lice” (in his Pastor Fido) (see Kuno Fischer, Goethes Tasso, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: C. Winter, n.d., p. 277) comes close to the idea of spontaneous control. The Princess' “Erlaubt ist, was sich ziemt” is more obscure but expresses, in effect, the same view as Guarini's.

49 This is the true significance of the parallel drawn by Tasso here, and the point is certainly cardinal to the whole discussion. In this Goethe is close to Wieland and Rousseau, for both of whom the “beautiful” or “noble” soul was a spontaneous generation of nature and not a product of education or experience or self-development; equally Goethe differs here from Shaftesbury and Schiller. The menace of the passions (“Neid”) is compared in this speech most aptly to the spider's web, the purity of the self to the sanctum of the Duke's palace.

60 This view, to which our consideration of the epithets leads us, accords with that of Rasch who notes of Antonio's behavior in this last scene: “Er hat zum erstenmal ein reines, unbeschrànktes Mitgefiihl mit Tasso ohne gonner-hafte Herablassung” (p. 165). The study of the epithets enables us to spell out a little more precisely what is involved.