2 - Poetry

Summary

IN ORDER TO HAVE SOME MEASURE of structure, this chapter will address Goethe's poetry under various thematic headings: nature, divinity, love, reflectivity. However, we must stress at the outset that these thematic categories are anything but watertight divisions: more often than not, the nature poetry, for example, is inseparable from the love poetry and the love poetry is implicated in the philosophical poetry. This interrelation lies at the very heart of Goethe's poetic oeuvre and makes him perhaps the greatest lyric poet of modern Europe. For him, feeling and mood modulate into thought and concept, and vice versa. For this reason his poetry, taken as a whole, gives us powerful access to his experiential and imaginative world.

As far as his worldview is concerned, even the early poetry prefigures what was to become his mature philosophical stance. The Sesenheim and Frankfurt poems largely bespeak a sense of being at home in the world, being at one with nature. There are somber moments, but more often than not, affirmation gains the upper hand. Thus a poem's conclusion may typically turn its back on troubling reflectivity and assert a conciliatory “und doch” — “and yet.” In “Willkommen und Abschied” (1771, revised 1789), sorrow yields in the last two lines

Und doch, welch Glück, geliebt zu werden,

Und lieben, Götter, welch ein Glück!

[And yet what bliss to be loved,

And to love, you Gods, what bliss it is!]

A similar example is “Warum gabst du uns die tiefen Blicke” (1776), a love poem to Charlotte von Stein. The text abounds in motifs of suffering, yet it ends on a note of reconciliation:

Glücklich, daß das Schicksal, das uns quälet,

Uns doch nicht verändern mag.

[Happy that destiny that torments us

Cannot in fact change us.]

Such structures of affirmation are often accompanied by themes and images of oneness. In “Mahomets Gesang” (1772–73), we find the ever-recurrent image of water, the river merging with countless other rivers, seeking fulfillment in the sea. “Ganymed” (1774) is another famous example: Ganymed, beloved of the god Zeus, seeks union with divine nature. Like Werther, he is cradled by “Blumen” and “Gras,” but his spirit, driven by yearning, strives upwards: “hinauf, hinauf strebt’s.” And the spirit of the divine father responds:

Abwärts, die Wolken

Neigen sich der sehnenden Liebe,

Mir, mir!

In eurem Schoße

Aufwärts,

Umfangend umfangen!