Of the sentiments, sentences and quotations dealing with Sterne, there are twenty which are translations from the Koran, in Loeper’s edition of “Sprüche in Prosa,”[71] Nos. 491–507 and 543–544; seventeen others (Nos. 490, 508–509, 521–533, 535) contain direct appreciative criticism of Sterne; No. 538 is a comment upon a Latin quotation in the Koran and No. 545 is a translation of another quotation in the same work. No. 532 gives a quotation from Sterne, “Ich habe mein Elend nicht wie ein weiser Mann benutzt,” which Loeper says he has been unable to find in any of Sterne’s works. It is, however, in a letter[72] to John Hall Stevenson, written probably in August, 1761. The translation here is inexact. Loeper did not succeed in finding Nos. 534, 536, 537, although their position indicates that they were quotations from Sterne, but No. 534 is in a letter to Garrick from Paris, March 19, 1762. The German translation however conveys a different impression from the original English. The other two are not located; in spite of their position, the way in which the book was put together would certainly allow for the possibility of extraneous material creeping in. At their first appearance in the “Ausgabe letzter Hand,” five Sprüche, Nos. 491, 543, 534, 536, 537, were supplied with quotation marks, though the source was not indicated. Thus it is seen that the most of the quotations were published as original during Goethe’s lifetime, but he probably never considered it of sufficient consequence to disavow their authorship in public. It is quite possible that the way in which they were forced into “Wilhelm Meister” was distasteful to him afterwards, and he did not care to call attention to them.
Goethe’s opinion of Sterne as expressed in the sentiments which accompany the quotations from the Koran is significant. “Yorick Sterne,” he says, “war der schönste Geist, der je gewirkt hat; wer ihn liest, fühlet sich sogleich frei und schön; sein Humor ist unnachahmlich, und nicht jeder Humor befreit die Seele” (490). “Sagacität und Penetration sind bei ihm grenzenlos” (528). Goethe asserts here that every person of culture should at that very time read Sterne’s works, so that the nineteenth century might learn “what we owed him and perceive what we might owe him.” Goethe took Sterne’s narrative of his journey as a representation of an actual trip, or else he is speaking of Sterne’s letters in the following:
“Seine Heiterkeit, Genügsamkeit, Duldsamkeit auf der Reise, wo diese Eigenschaften am meisten geprüft werden, finden nicht leicht Ihresgleichen” (No. 529), and Goethe’s opinion of Sterne’s indecency is characteristic of Goethe’s attitude. He says: “Das Element der Lüsternheit, in dem er sich so zierlich und sinnig benimmt, würde vielen Andern zum Verderben gereichen.”
The juxtaposition of these quotations and this appreciation of Sterne is proof sufficient that Goethe considered Sterne the author of the Koran at the time when the notes were made. At precisely what time this occurred it is now impossible to determine, but the drift of the comment, combined with our knowledge from sources already mentioned, that Goethe turned again to Sterne in the latter years of his life, would indicate that the quotations were made in the latter part of the twenties, and that the re-reading of Sterne included the Koran. Since the translations which Goethe gives are not identical with those in the rendering ascribed to Bode (1778), Loeper suggests Goethe himself as the translator of the individual quotations. Loeper is ignorant of the earlier translation of Gellius, which Goethe may have used.[73]
There is yet another possibility of connection between Goethe and the Koran. This work contained the story of the Graf von Gleichen, which is acknowledged to have been a precursor of Goethe’s “Stella.” Düntzer in his “Erläuterungen zu den deutschen Klassikern” says it is impossible to determine whence Goethe took the story for “Stella.” He mentions that it was contained in Bayle’s Dictionary, which is known to have been in Goethe’s father’s library, and two other books, both dating from the sixteenth century, are noted as possible sources. It seems rather more probable that Goethe found the story in the Koran, which was published but a few years before “Stella” was written and translated but a year later, 1771, that is, but four years, or even less, before the appearance of “Stella” (1775).[74]
Precisely in the spirit of the opinions quoted above is the little essay[75] on Sterne which was published in the sixth volume of “Ueber Kunst und Alterthum,” in which Goethe designates Sterne as a man “who first stimulated and propagated the great epoch of purer knowledge of humanity, noble toleration and tender love, in the second half of the last century.” Goethe further calls attenion to Sterne’s disclosure of human peculiarities (Eigenheiten), and the importance and interest of these native, governing idiosyncrasies.
These are, in general, superficial relationships. A thorough consideration of these problems, especially as concerns the cultural indebtedness of Goethe to the English master would be a task demanding a separate work. Goethe was an assimilator and summed up in himself the spirit of a century, the attitude of predecessors and contemporaries.
C. F. D. Schubart wrote a poem entitled “Yorick,”[76] beginning
“Als Yorik starb, da flog
Sein Seelchen auf den Himmel