Unlock Now Gespräche Mit Goethe Designed By Johann Peter Eckermann Released Through Publication

hated spectacles so much that he went out of his way not to speak to bespectacled people.
Also, you know Harold Bloom's theory of the anxiety of influence What about Thomas Kuhn's theory of the structure of scientific revolutions Yep.
Goethe came up with both of those and they're right here in this book! Thought provoking.
A celebration of curiousity. "Na njemu se videlo da se odmara u samom sebi i da se izdigao iznad pohvale i pokude.
"
Tako da je i svako zvezdičanje sa moje strane nesuvislo i bespredmetno, : If you are interested in the history and culture of Goethe's time, as I am, this is well worth reading.
Having read some of Goethe's works it was interesting to find out about his plans, intentions and influences.


What does make this an occasionally uncomfortable read is the very uneven relationship between Eckermann and Goethe.
After having known each other for three months, having spent most of that time apart and not communicating, Goethe asks Eckermann to stay in Weimar, not just for a while but for his whole life.
And Eckermann accepts because as long as he can have Goethe he'll be happy,

Goethe continues to tell Eckermann what he should and shouldn't do and Eckermann continues to idolize Goethe and fail to see even one tiny flaw in him.
They don't ever come close to connecting as equals, Also despite Eckermann's effort to portray Goethe in the most flattering light possible, Goethe comes across as quite conceited and full of himself at times.
Eckermann faz um trabalho notável ao nos mostrar Goethe com toda a riqueza e complexidade da personalidade do príncipe da poesia alemã.
É um mergulho nos pensamentos, idéias e opiniões de um dos grandes escritores do Ocidente.
Mas, mais do que um escritor, Goethe era um sábio, um homem que conheceu profundamente as pessoas e o mundo ao seu redor, e que, mesmo nos últimos anos de vida, estava sempre aprendendo, sempre buscando compreender, de maneira sensível e inteligente, as questões que lhe eram postas.
Era um dínamo, uma força viva da natureza, que espraiou sua influência sobre as mais diversas pessoas nos mais diversos recantos da Europa.
Uma das maiores personalidades de artista de todos os tempos, senão a maior, Goethe merece todas as nossas homenagens e sincera admiração, It's hard to say what's so great about Goethe, One could list all the arts and sciences that he contributed to, but looking honestly at those contributions, none seems to have really remained of fruitful interest to our time, at least not here in the US.
Perhaps the way his influence is currently most felt here is through Waldorf schools, which are based on Rudolph Steiner's theories, which were elaborations of Goethe's.
But while Waldorf schools seem to do a great job of helping kids turn into good human beings, one can't say they're a major cultural force.
Faust I rarely see references to it selling one's soul to the devil in exchange for pleasure isn't of much concern to a culture that tends to confound pleasure with nearness to God.
Goethe himself believed that his theories about color would be of most lasting value to the world, but these theories seem to be simply irrelevant nowadays, though curiously not disproved.


And yet Goethe was a great man, This will be as clear as a vast and cloudless sky to anyone who reads the conversations that he had with, and that were diligently recorded by, his protege and friend, Johann Eckermann.


The first sign of Goethe's greatness is his enormous capacity to love and attentively notice the works and people whom he perceives as excellent.
Goethe pays homage to writers Schiller, Lord Byron, Voltaire, many others, visual artists most of whom aren't well known now, statesmen the local Duke whom he loved and served, and, bafflingly but especially, Napoleon, and scientists Humboldt, others.
Goethe is sharp in rebuking anyone who suggests that he is, or that anyone but "a thoroughly crazy and defective artist" could be, free from influences, i.
e. "a selfmade man. " Goethe strongly asserts that every act is the result of many influences, and the finer the act the finer the art, the more richly and deeply was it influenced.
The finest act the finest art is indeed hardly attributable to the person who did made it at all, but rather becomes an expression of something superhuman, which he calls "the daemonic spirit.
" This is all discussed with enormous playfulness, geniality, and modesty, the second, third, and fourth signs of Goethe's greatness.
Also there are lots of contradictions here in Goethe's thinking, which he is aware of but doesn't seem to mind terribly: sign of greatness.


The sixth sign of Goethe's greatness is his belief in what must be called,

for lack of a more precise word, magic.
It seems that Goethe didn't commit to any particular religion, nor did he make up one of his own, yet he certainly wasn't a materialist.
I think he didn't see a reason to codify, or even to discuss at any length, what for him was a living experience.
He simply took pleasure in his sense of "the divine" in nature and rejoiced in others' ability to do so too.
Thankfully, this "divine in nature" never becomes overwrought or forced, but always feels quite simple and even somewhat peculiar, as it should, given the differences between the land from which he arose and that of most readers.


The seventh sign of Goethe's greatness is that he could become hilariously surly when discussing his detractors, but he preferred, and usually attained, serenity.
I especially enjoyed his comments when asked why he didn't help defend Germany during the Napoleonic wars.
This is clearly a sour subject for Goethe, but he doesn't try to weasel out of it.
He says that he did more than enough for his country by writing great poems, and that, furthermore, a great poet like himself is a citizen of the world so can bear no enmity toward other nations, especially a nation as cultured as France.
This surely unpopular explanation for his pacifism is actually scoffed at in an editorial footnote in my edition of Conversations and might still be controversial today.


Also relevant to today are Goethe's criteria for judging art, though we would apply to movies his thoughts about theater and to pop music his thoughts about poetry.
Goethe again with many contradictions loved what was excellent, genuine, and uplifting, He was the first to distinguish classical and romantic art: "I call the classic healthy, and the romantic sickly.
Most modern productions are romantic not because they are new, but because they are weak, morbid, and sickly.
And the antique is classic, not because it is old, but because it is strong, fresh, joyous, and healthy.
" But later: "Classic and romantic, . . are equally good: the only point is to use these forms with judgment, and to be capable of excellence you can be absurd in both, and then one is as worthless as the other.
" Eighth sign of greatness: developed this fascinating trope but was unenslaved by it,

So there are my eight signs of Goethe's greatness I'm sure a more perceptive reader could add to the list.
Conversations with Goethe is worth the occasional minor eyeglaze caused by many references to people most of us won't have heard of.
It's a lively encounter with a great man in the last year of his long, deep life.
Perhaps his views will see a resurgence in popularity someday, That would not be a bad thing for any of us, ECKERMANN'S CONVERSATIONS WITH GOETHEFROM THE WORLD LITERATURE FORUM RECOMMENDED CLASSICS AND MASTERPIECES SERIES VIA GOODREADSROBERT SHEPPARD, EDITORINCHIEF

For those of us who come from the Englishspeaking world the best initial path of approach to Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe is to think of it as the German equivilant to James Boswell's epic biography, The Life of Life of Samuel Johnson.
Both works are hailed as not only invaluable accounts of their respective great men of letters, but have come to be valued as great masterpieces of literary biography and independent literary works in their own right.
In addition, for those of us with a special interest in World Literature, Eckermann's Conversations also records Goethe's definitive delineation of his concept of the emergence of World Literature, using the German term he coined to define his concept "Weltliteratur.
"

Johann Peter Eckermann, like James Boswell came to his calling as a witness and literary biographer of Goethe as a young unknown man encountering a longrenown literary titan towards the end of his life and career.
Boswell met Johnson in a London bookshop owned by a mutual friend in, when Boswell was just twentyfour years old and Johnson was internationally famous at the age of fiftyfour.
Eckermann met Goethe at Weimar inwhen he was just dropping his studies in law at the University of Gottingen at the age of thirtyone in hopes of finding a literary career, and Goethe was at seventyfour the acknowledged universal genius of European letters for half a century.
Both men became intimate friends and scrupulous recorders of the conversations of their principals, in Boswell's case for the nextyears until Johnson's death, and in Eckermann's case for an ensuingyears until Goethe's death inof which he gives a moving account.


Both are sometimes chided for looking on their respective great men with the idolizing eyes of comparative youth, rather than the more seasoned eyes of a true contemporary of similar age and equal experience.
While undoubtedly true in some respect, even this supposed fault may be seen as a strength rather than a weakness as their sense of awe fixated and concentrated their energies over many years and imbued each with a weighty mission charged with a sense of responsibility to history and the world, inspiring them to keep meticulous verbatim notes of conversations, records of life events and intimate recordings of their own impressions and observations of their subjects and their respective milieus.


Eckermann's first meeting with Goethe was both dramatic and the most fateful event of his life.
He came from a poor family and served as a soldier in the Napoleonic wars, After mustering out of the army with little education he obtained a scholarship that allowed him to complete the Gymnasium and enter the University of Goettingen to study law at his father's urging.
Like Goethe, however, he discovered that literature and not law was his personal calling and he abandoned that career when his scholarship moneys came to an end.
Having written his first unpublished book on poetry, including Goethe's contributions to German poetics, he send the manuscript to Goethe seeking assistance in its publication.
After waiting long months and having no response and his money coming to a final end he sold his possessions and abandoned his flat and set out on foot to seek a personal interview with the sage in Weimar, sending a letter in advance but receiving no appointment.
It was for Eckermann a reckless last chance,

Upon arrival he gained entry to Goethe's home and was told to wait in the common room.
After two hours, the seventythree year old European icon entered the room in an elegant blue frock coat and sat opposite him, saying: "I have just come from you!"meaning that he had just come from reading Eckermann's manuscript which he had not had time to look at before.
Eckermann began to try to explain his work, but Goethe stopped him, saying "There is no need to explainI have been reading your work all morning and it needs no recommendationit recommends itself and I accept both it and you.
"

Forthwith, without having made any request of him Goethe informed Eckermann that he was not only arranging for his Gespräche mit Goethe's immediate publication but offering him a position as his private secretary and putting him in charge of his library and managing his literary papers and records.
He informed Eckermann that he had already sent to the town to arrange housing and effects for him, effectively taking charge of his life! For the next nine years until Goethe's death he would be in daily contact and conversation with the great Sage of Weimar and record not only their own conversations, but the long literary conversations Goethe undertook with his endless visitors, many them the greatest minds and writers of the age, producing an invaluable near verbatim record of innumberable historic dialogues with the faithfulness and fervor that Plato recorded the words of his revered Socrates.


I deeply recommend reading this seminal work, hailed by even a mind as profound as Nietzsche as the finest work he had read.
Here are Goethe's thoughts on Byron, Carlyle, Delacroix, Hegel, Shakespeare, and Voltaire, as well as his views on art, architecture, astronomy, the Bible, Chinese literature, criticism, dreams, ethics, freedom, genius, imagination, immortality, love, mind over body, sculpture, and much, much more.
Eckermann's Conversations allows Goethe to engage the reader in a voice as distinct and authentic as it is entrancing, along with the not inconsiderable insights, observations and reflections of the biographer himself.


World Literature Forum also recommends the Conversations from its special perspective, as one of the most seminal and influential works in our canon introducing and delineating the very concept of World Literature, or "Weltliteratur," as Goethe termed it.


Speaking to his young disciple in January, the seventysevenyearold Goethe first used his newly minted term "Weltliteratur," which upon publication of the Conversations passed into common international currency:

"I am more and more convinced," Goethe remarked,"that poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere and at all times in hundreds and hundreds of men.
. . I therefore like to look about me in foreign nations, and advise everyone to do the same.
National literature is now a rather unmeaning term the epoch of world literature is at hand, and everyone must strive to hasten its approach.
"

Indeed, for Eckermann Goethe becomes the living embodiment of world literature, even of world culture as a whole.
In the same passage he records Goethe's remark that "the daemons, to tease and make sport with men, have placed among them single figures so alluring that everyone strives after them, and so great that nobody reaches them" Goethe names Raphael, Mozart, Shakespeare, and Napoleon as examples.
"I thought in silence,"Eckermann adds, "that the daemons had intended something of the kind with Goethehe is a form too alluring not to be striven after, and too great to be reached"

Notwithstanding all his pride in his own achievements and those of his countrymen like Schiller, Goethe had an uneasy sense that German culture was in fact provincial, lacking a great history, and as he lived before German unification after,lacking political unity.
He can't afford to grant "national literature" too much meaning, since he didn't even live in a proper nation at all, and he saw all of Europe and the world globalizing rapidly beyond even that anticipated acheivement.


He urged his fellow German writers to be more international and global in their perspectives: "there is being formed a universal world literature, in which an honorable role is reserved for us Germans.
All the nations review our work they praise, censure, accept, and reject, imitate and misrepresent us, open or close their hearts to us.
All this we must accept with equanimity, since this attitude, taken as a whole, is of great value to us.
"

Going even further, Goethe was one of the first great Western minds to take a truly global perspective.
Eckerman records one episode:

"Dined with Goethe, 'Within the last few days, since I saw you,' said he, 'I have read many things especially a Chinese novel, which occupies me still and seems to me very remarkable.
'"

"Chinese novel!" said I "that must look strange enough, " "Not so much as you might think," said Goethe "the Chinese think, act, and feel almost exactly like us and we soon find that we are perfectly like them, except that all they do is more clear, pure, and decorous, than with us.
"

"With them all is orderly, citizenlike, without great passion or poetic flight and there is a strong resemblance to my Hermann and Dorothea, as well as to the English novels of Richardson.
"

"'But then,' I said, 'is this Chinese novel perhaps one of their most superior ones'"

It was then in reply to this reservation that Goethe shared with him the concept of Weltliteratur quoted above:

"By no means," said Goethe "the Chinese have thousands of them, and had when our forefathers were still living in the woods.
. . I am more and more convinced," he continued, "that poetry is the universal possession of mankind.
. . the epoch of world literature is at hand, and everyone must strive to hasten its approach.
"

Eckermann's final entry in the Conversations centers on discussion of the Bible, He had just bought a copy but was annoyed to find that it lacks the Apocrypha.
Goethe commented that the Church erred in closing the canon of scripture, as God's creative work still continues, notably in the activity of great spirits like Mozart, Raphael, and Shakespeare, "who can draw their lesser contemporaries higher," an observation perhaps applicable to other selfenclosed fundamentalist sources such as the Koran, Torah and Sutras.
Following these wordsthe last words of Goethe's that Eckermann recordsa oneline paragraph appears: "Goethe fell silent.
I, however, preserved his great and good words in my heart, "


What then does Goethe, speaking through Eckermann's Conversations have to teach us in the Englishspeaking world of thest Century

Just as he tried to teach the Germanspeaking world of theth Century, he urges us to outgrow our national provincialisms, join in forging a global perspective, an openness to the traditions and genius of all the world's cultures and literatures while preserving the unique roots and inherent genius of each and our own, and to take intellectual leadership in forging a common World Literature as the common heritage of mankind and a central contribution in our era of Globalization, to the forging and participation in the Universal Civilization and common culture of our planet.





For a fuller discussion of the concept of World Literature you are invited to look into the extended discussion in the new book Spiritus Mundi, by Robert Sheppard, one of the principal themes of which is the emergence of World Literature:

For Discussions on World Literature and Literary Criticism in Spiritus Mundi: sitelink/>
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Robert Sheppard

EditorinChief
World Literature Forum
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Author, Spiritus Mundi Novel
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