It was impossible for Goethe, while occupied so much with science and public affairs, to devote his best energies to imaginative creation. He did not, however, wholly neglect literature. In 1776 he planned a great prose drama, “Iphigenie,” and in 1779 it was written to his dictation. The play was represented with brilliant success at the Weimar Court, Corona Schröter taking the part of the heroine, and Goethe himself that of Orestes. It is wholly different, both in conception and execution, from his earlier dramas. It contains no violent outbursts of passionate feeling; the diction is measured and dignified; and the utmost pains are taken to secure that the various parts shall each have the place that properly belongs to them in the general scheme. It has often been said that the change in Goethe’s method, from the frank, glowing style of the works by which he established his fame, to the consciously artistic style of his mature writings, was wholly due to the impressions derived during his visit to Italy. In reality, as the prose “Iphigenie” shows, it began long before he went to Italy; and no doubt we must to some extent associate it with the change which passed over his character as a whole. Goethe’s aim was, above all things, to master himself, to have every element of his nature under control; and it was inevitable that the strenuous efforts he made to attain this object should leave their mark on his art as well as on his practical life.
In 1777 Goethe began “Wilhelm Meister;” and, stimulated by Frau von Stein, whom the work greatly interested, he returned to it again and again during the following eight years. He also wrote a part of a prose play, “Torquato Tasso,” and various minor prose dramatic pieces, intended for the amusement of the Court, before which they were represented. To this period, too, belong various powerful poems, one of the most remarkable of which is the “Harzreise im Winter” (“The Harz Journey in Winter”), presenting his thoughts and feelings on the day when he climbed to the top of the Brocken in the winter of 1777. In another poem of this time, “Ilmenau,” written in 1783 as a birthday-gift for the Duke, Goethe showed how high and sacred, as he conceived them, were the duties owed by a ruler to his subjects. A third poem, “Die Geheimnisse” (“The Secrets”), begun in 1784, is unfortunately only a splendid fragment. If completed, it would have given form to all that Goethe had thought about the relations of the great religious movements of the world to man’s deepest spiritual needs.
While he was slowly working out a new ideal, both in his character and in his art, the intellectual movement in Germany, of which he had been considered the chief representative, retained all its original characteristics. In 1781 Schiller began his career with his wild play, “The Robbers;” and other young writers, with little of his power, found it easy to imitate his extravagance. To Goethe the prevailing tone of the literature of the time—although he himself was in some degree responsible for it—became deeply repugnant, and he turned from it with more and more dislike, finding refuge in the calmer realms of philosophy and science. Even his friend Jacobi contrived to displease him. Jacobi’s “Woldemar” appeared in 1779, and its sentimentalism—reproducing the sentimentalism of “Werther”—seemed to Goethe so ridiculous that one day, in the Park at the Duchess Dowager’s residence at Ettersburg, he climbed a tree and nailed the book to a branch as a warning to literary evil-doers. Unfortunately Jacobi heard of this mad prank, and took serious offence. After some time, however, Goethe wrote to him in a tone of such sincere, although indirect, apology that Jacobi understood at once that less had been intended than he had thought. In 1784 he came to see Goethe at Weimar, and their friendship was never again interrupted.
When Goethe had been about ten years at Weimar, he began to feel that some change of life was absolutely essential. He had worked hard, steadily, and loyally in the fulfilment of difficult duties, and longed for a time of relief, during which his mind might expand freely and be enriched by fresh impressions. From early boyhood he had often wished to visit Italy, and this yearning was now revived with almost painful intensity. At last he decided that, at whatever cost, his desire should be gratified. Late in July, 1786, he went, as he had repeatedly gone in previous summers, to Carlsbad, where he met Frau von Stein, Herder and his wife, and the Duke; and a little more than a month afterwards he started on his travels. He had accompanied Frau von Stein a part of the way back to Weimar, but even to her he had said nothing about his approaching journey. Nor, in writing to the Duke for leave of absence, did he speak of his destination. He had a kind of superstitious feeling that if the secret were let out his scheme might be thwarted.
Simultaneously with the return of his desire for Italy Goethe was conscious of a reawakening of his poetic genius. He began to think seriously of his unfinished plans, and to dream of new achievements. Finally he arranged with Göschen, a Leipsic bookseller (the grandfather of Mr. Göschen, the English statesmen), for the publication of a collected edition of his writings in eight volumes. The contents of four of these volumes he prepared for the press before quitting Carlsbad.
CHAPTER VI.
HARDLY had Goethe set foot on Italian ground when he began to feel something of the joy and elasticity of temper for which he had been longing. He was absolutely his own master again, and all around him was the sunny land which he greeted as, in some sense, the true home of his spirit. The people, too, with their natural grace and courtesy, delighted him, and their speech fell softly and pleasantly on his ears. He had never had keener pleasure than he felt in looking forward to the happy days and weeks that were before him.
During his visit to Italy he wrote a large number of letters, most of which were addressed to Frau von Stein. Long afterwards he issued some of them, carefully edited, as one of the supplements of his autobiography, giving them the general title, “Italienische Reise” (“Italian Journey”). These letters have all the freshness of immediate impressions, yet we find in them only so much detail as is necessary to give brightness and animation to his pictures of the central elements of interest that meet him on his way. In every letter we feel the influence of a deep enthusiasm, but it is an enthusiasm that never distorts his vision or injures the noble simplicity and purity of his style.
He entered Italy from the Tyrol, and the first important town at which he stopped was Verona. From Verona he went to Vicenza, and so, through Padua, to Venice. At Venice he remained three weeks, allowing its splendours to impress themselves deeply on his imagination. He then went to Bologna, which he ever afterwards associated with the charm of Raphael’s St. Agatha. In his thoughts about Italy it had always been Rome of which he had chiefly dreamed, and now his longing to be there became so overwhelming that he hurried over what remained of the journey, staying only three hours at Florence. In view of the joy that was to come he was scarcely conscious of the inconveniences of travel. “If I am dragged to Rome on Ixion’s wheel,” he wrote, “I will not complain.”
On October 29, 1786, he drove into Rome through the Porta del Popolo. “Yes,” he wrote a day or two afterwards, “I have at last arrived at the capital of the world!... All the dreams of my youth are now realized. The first engravings I remember—my father had hung the views of Rome in an entrance-hall—I see now in reality, and all the things I have long known from paintings and drawings, from copper-plates and wood-cuts, from plaster casts and cork models, stand together before me. Wherever I go, I find an acquaintance in a new world; it is all as I had conceived it, and all new. The like I may say of my observations, of my ideas. I have had no new thoughts, have found nothing quite strange, but the old thoughts have been so defined, they have become so thoroughly alive, they have been brought into such harmonious relation to one another, that they may pass for new. When Pygmalion’s Elise, whom he had formed absolutely in accordance with his wishes, and to whom he had given as much truth and reality as were within the scope of art, at last came to him, and said, ‘It is I,’ how different was the living woman from the sculptured stone!”