Goethe Studies

Der Briefwechsel zwischen Goethe und Tieck beginnt im Jahr 1798 und endet am 24. September 1829.  In diesen 31 Jahren ist aber die Beziehung zwischen den beiden Dichtern voller Spannungen und Missverständnissen. Man kann nicht einen Diskurs über Ludwig Tieck beginnen, ohne auf das Verhältnis der Haßliebe zwischen dem romantischen Geist Tieck's und dem olympischen Goethe zu stoßen. Es wird tatsächlich sofort ein Zweifel ausgeraumt, der viel zu lange die Gelehrten geprägt hatte: Der goetische Faust und die zwei Teile des Gestiefelten Katers (der zweite Teil, also Prinz Zerbino, wurde bisher zugunsten des ersten vernachlaßigt) sind zueinander antithetisch zu sehen, wenn auch in gewisser Weise-parallel.

Данная монография - первое в отечественной (и одно из немногих в зарубежной) фонологической науке исследование эволюции едва ли не самого значительного "вечного" образа мировой культуры в литературе новейшего времени. Трансформация гётевского героя в русской и зарубежной словесности XX в., прослеженная на материале творчества десятков писателей, как широко известных (Т. Манн, К. Манн, Г. Гессе, П. Валери, Г. Стайн, Дж. Керуак, Ф. Дюрренматт, М. Горький, Л.М. Леонов, В.Я. Брюсов, И.Л. Сельвинский, М.А. Булгаков, И.А. Бродский и др.), так и менее знакомых массовому читателю, приводит к мысли о кризисе "знакового" персонажа века Просвещения в нашу эпоху разочарования в безусловной правоте человеческого дерзания. Монография снабжена библиографией русской и зарубежной художественной и литературоведческой фаустианы XX в., иллюстрациями и указателем.

Для литературоведов и культурологов, научных работников, преподавателей, аспирантов и студентов, а также всех тех, кого интересует судьба Фауста в художественном сознании нашего времени.

G.V. Yakusheva. Faustus Facing Temptations of the 20th Century. Goethe's Character in Russian and Foreign Literatures. M., Nauka, 2005. 235 p.

Karl Julius Schröer. "The Natural Scientific Writings of Goethe" (1884), translated by David W. Wood.
The following text is Schröer's Foreword to volume one of Rudolf Steiner's edition of Goethe's Natural Scientific Writings. The text is historically notable among others insofar as Schröer introduces  in it the young Steiner to the scholarly world. The German version was published in Kürschner’s Deutsche National-Litteratur = Goethes Werke, Volume 33, 1884, pp. I – XIV.
The following translation is a revised version of a text that originally appeared in Archetype, the journal of the Science Group of the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain (ed. Dr. David J. Heaf), in September 1999, pp. 35-46.
https://sciencegroup.org.uk/journal/

La investigación siguiente se concentra en el artículo de Hans-Georg Gadamer “Prometeo y Pandora”, aparecido originalmente en español en 1949 en el volumen "Goethe. 1749 - 28 de agosto – 1949", editado por la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Cuyo, Argentina. En primer lugar, se ofrece una introducción en la que se presenta el contexto original histórico-intelectual de su edición, traducción y publicación, los antecedentes filosóficos del texto dentro de la obra de Gadamer (conferencias y artículos previos sobre el tema), una presentación breve de las fuentes y de los temas que trata el texto, así como una serie de aclaraciones sobre las correcciones que se realizaron para esta edición crítica. Este ensayo es uno de los dos primeros trabajos de Gadamer que fueron traducidos al castellano y, a su vez, una de las primeras traducciones de las producciones de Gadamer a una lengua extranjera.
/-/The following investigation focuses on the article of Hans-Georg Gadamer entitled “Prometheus and Pandora”, originally published in Spanish in 1949, in the book: "Goethe. 1749 – 28th August – 1949", edited by the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Cuyo, Argentina. Firstly, an introduction is offered in which is presented the original historical-intellectual context of its edition, translation, and publication, the philosophical background of the text within Gadamer’s work (conferences and previous articles on the subject), a brief description of the sources and topics encompassed in the text, as well as a series of clarifications on the corrections made for the current critical edition. This essay is one of the first two works by Gadamer that were translated into Spanish and, in turn, one of the first translations of Gadamer's productions into a foreign language.

Not only was the story really all about Snape, and not about, say, Harry. It turns out Snape is a key to many things, as is typically the main character in the  Bildungsroman tradition. Snape is important because he helps us think about the limits of what we can know about the contradictions of liberal educational philosophy, including the politics of aesthetics.

The role of darkness has been overlooked by philosophical theories of color. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Theory of Colors gives a special metaphysical status to darkness, but his romantic-holistic phenomenology applies its principle to color phenomena perhaps too closely, and in the end he misses the opportunity to say anything ontological about metaphysical darkness. On the other hand, in his essay “Eye and Mind,” Maurice Merleau-Ponty critiques the prevailing Cartesian achromatic optics in favor of the aesthetic optics of Paul Cezanne, and goes so far as to introduce what he calls “the dimension of color” (Merleau-Ponty 141) to counter the primacy of the Cartesian res extensa, but misses the opportunity to ground it in the special phenomena of darkness. The place of darkness in Goethe’s Theory of Colors fulfills what was lacking in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of “the dimension of color” (141), and Merleau- Ponty contributes an ontology to Goethe’s Theory of Colors.

This article investigates the intellectual history of the argument for the antiquity of Exodus 34,11–26. In the contemporary debate about pentateuchal theory, a question that remains insufficiently addressed is how and why the idea originally developed that the unit represents an ancient, independent, pre-Deuteronomic legal source. Wellhausen credited the idea to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s “Zwo bisher unerörterte biblische Fragen . . .” (1773). Like Goethe, Wellhausen regarded the unit as a “ritual Decalogue,” in contrast to the “ethical Decalogue” of Exodus 20. The distinction helped Wellhausen consolidate the classical model of the documentary hypothesis: he attributed the cultic Decalogue to the Yahwist and the ethical to the Elohist. Despite the importance of Goethe’s essay to the history of pentateuchal criticism, it is not clear that its arguments have previously been investigated.

Keywords: Julius Wellhausen, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Baruch Spinoza, Zwo bisher unerörterte biblische Fragen, Dekalog, Decalogue, Pentateuch, Exodus, German Jewish history, Christian Jewish relations, Ten Commandments, history of biblical scholarship, German Romanticism, Pentateuchal theory, documentary hypothesis, German intellectual history, Old Testament, cultic Decalogue, ethical Decalogue, ritual Decalogue, Covenant Code, Elohistic source, Yahwistic source, Exod. 34:11-26, Romans 11

Chapter III.2 from "Disziplinäre Dichtung. Philologische Bildung und deutsche Literatur in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts" (Berlin 2013):

With the onset of modernity, the study of poetry emerged as a legitimate academic discipline. Conversely, authors became connected to a specialized discipline that organized and expanded knowledge about German literature. For the first time, the studies in this volume systematically discuss this connection using the philological practice and poetology of expressionist authors and the works of Holz, Mann, Stadler, Broch, Schaeffer, and Borchardt.

Goethe’nin Faust’u insan zihninin ulaşabileceği ve üretebileceği en büyük mucizelerdendir. Eserin en ilginç ve ilginç olduğu kadar da ele avuca gelmez, dolayısıyla belirlenmesi en zor olan kişiliği Mefisto’dur. Bu karakter genellikle kötü bir karakter olarak algılanır ve yorumlanır. Bu kısa yazıda amacım, bu algıyı birkaç açıdan göreli kılmaktır.

ABSTRACT: "When August, Duke of Weimar, encountered Goethe´s Märchen, which had just been published anonymously in 1792, he send a note to the author, emphatically stating his conviction that “this so-called Fairy Tale must have flown from the same hand that wrote the Apokalypse of John!” Goethe responded, that he completely agreed with the Duke´s seemingly bold thesis, pointing out that the story had “indeed all characteristics of a prophecy, even the most prevalent one, namely to pertain to the present as well as to the past and the future.” Notwithstanding the humorous nature of this exchange, both statements are perplexing. Nothing seems, after all, to be further removed from the spiritualistic otherworldliness and the gloom and doom of biblical apocalypticism than the optimistic and life-affirming Weltanschauung that characterizes Goethe’s work. A closer look, however, reveals unexpected yet substantial similarities between Goethean thought and the basic characteristics of Judeo-Christian apocalypticism. His natural philosophy of Stirb und Werde, which understands the world in terms of polarities, organic cycles, metamorphoses and eternal progression, as well as the symbolic character of his poetic language correspond, in fact, to a large degree with form and content of traditional apocalyptic texts. No other text exemplifies this congeniality better than the Märchen itself, which is probably Goethe´s most enigmatic text. The poet inserted not only many explicit and subtle references to the biblical book of Revelation into this story, but also hinted repeatedly at a mysterious connection between both texts. By examining some of the core elements of the Märchen in the light of biblical eschatology, the study at hand argues that the seemingly absurd conversation between the Duke and poet actually reveals profound literary insight, in that it points our attention to the yet unnoticed implicit apocalypticism in this particular story and in Goethean thought altogether.

Das goethesche Märchen hat von jeher eine unübersehbare Fülle von Interpretationen hervorgerufen. Neben philosophischen, ästhetischen, biographischen, psychologischen und politischen Auslegungsversuchen stehen theologische, alchymistische, anthroposophische und freimaurerische Deutungen. Die Interpretationsgeschichte ist so unüberschaubar, und die Auslegungsansätze so verschieden, dass es nicht verwundert, dass einige Interpreten den Text für prinzipiell undeutbar erklärt haben.  Die vorliegende Analyse versucht, die rätselhafte Natur des Märchens besser zu verstehen, indem sie es in den Zusammenhang mit der biblischen Apokalyptik, insbesondere der Johannesoffenbarung, stellt. Trotz einer Reihe von eindeutigen motivischen Anleihen und trotz mehrerer deutlicher Fingerzeige von Goethe selbst, ist das Verhältnis des Märchens zur apokalyptischen Tradition bisher noch nicht eingehend untersucht worden. Diesem Mangel hilft die vorliegende Analyse ab, indem sie nachweist, dass Bildersprache und Theologie der biblischen Eschatologie als wesentliche Quelle für den Gehalt des Märchens zu gelten haben. Indem das Märchen in die Tradition der Apokalyptik gestellt wird, soll jedoch nicht den bestehenden allegorischen und symbolischen Deutungen des Märchens eine weitere hinzugefügt werden. Es geht vielmehr darum, zu verstehen, in welchem Maße es die symbolisch-allegorische Natur der apokalyptischen Bild- und Gedankenwelt selbst ist, die einerseits mehrere in sich stimmige Deutungen ermöglicht und sich andererseits – sowohl im Märchen wie in der Johannesoffenbarung - einer letztgültigen Deutung prinzipiell entzieht. Indem apokalyptische Bilder, in Goethes Formulierung, sich „auf das Vergangene wie auf das Gegenwärtige und Zukünftige“ beziehen, ist ihr Gehalt ein unendlicher, organisch-wandelbarer und wird von jeder Epoche, ja von jedem Individuum, auf neue Weise gedeutet werden  müssen. Die Einfühlung in die apokalyptische Dimension des Märchens kann somit helfen, die eigentümliche Natur dieser Dichtung und ihrer Rezeptionsgeschichte besser zu verstehen.""

Mémoire présenté par :
Erwan MOREAU
en vue de l'obtention du diplôme de :
MASTER 2 RECHERCHE
Domaine : Sciences humaines et sociales
Mention : Ethnologie-Sociologie
Spécialité : SOCIOLOGIE
Préparé sous la direction de M. Jean Bruno RENARD, professeur de Sociologie
Juin 2014
Mention obtenue : très bien


Abstract (French) :

Le synonyme le plus proche du terme "monstre" est l'expression « contre-nature » (Aristote, Saint Augustin, Canguilhem, Lascault, Cuny Le Callet, Valton, etc.). Sentence paradoxale s'il en est quand on sait qu'au niveau biologique, il est entendu que rien de ce que produit la Nature ne peut voir le jour indépendamment du respect de ses lois et qu'il est le propre de l'imagination de pouvoir y créer des exceptions.

Mais parallèlement à la Nature, objet de la biologie et de la physique, se trouve une autre « nature » : la « connaissance ordinaire » (Aristote employait pour sa part le terme de « cours ordinaire », « ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ » en parlant du statut contre-nature du monstre), cette « chose que l'organisme construit dans le but de créer un ordre dans le flux de l'expérience »

Ainsi, tout monstre peut être traduit comme étant ce qui apparaît contraire à une  « connaissance ordinaire », à une réalité sensible, dans son acception la plus large, c'est-à-dire orientée vers l'esthétique (le plus couramment rattaché à une vision anthropocentrée) et/ou vers l'éthique (intolérance idéologique).

Aussi par le partage des affects que met en œuvre une communauté d'esprits (religieuse, laïque, révolutionnaire, impérialiste, etc.), des éléments « contre-nature » peuvent apparaître à un niveau macrosociologique. Éléments émergeant de l'esprit gnostique et de son succédané l'esprit dogmatique, chacun ayant pour spécificité de mettre en exergue le dualisme entre bien et mal, connaissance et ignorance les entraînant ainsi vers l'ère de la déliquescence, de la décadence, en somme vers les temps eschatologiques et leurs abominations monstrueuses.


Abstract (English) :

The best synonym for the word ‘monster’ is the expression ‘unnatural’’ (Aristote, Saint Augustin, Canguilhem, Lascault, Cuny Le Callet, Valton, etc.). That is a paradoxical sentence - if any - when we know that biologically speaking nothing produced by Nature can exist regardless of the respect of its laws. It is among the characteristics of imagination to create exceptions.

But parallel to the Nature as objet of biology and physic is another kind of ‘nature’: the ‘ordinary knowledge’. (Artistote named it the ‘ordinary course’ (ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ) to mention the unnatural aspect of monster), this ‘thing that is produced by the organism to create an order within the experience’s flow’.

Then any monster can be understood as what appears in contrary to an ‘ordinary knowledge’, a ‘sensitive reality’ in every sense, that is to say aesthetics- (mostly associated to an anthropocentred vision) and/or ethicspositioned (ideological intolerance).

And the sharing of affections made by a minds’ community (religious, lay, revolutionary or imperialist, etc.) can reveal some ‘unnatural’ elements at the level of macrosociology. Elements that are emerging from the Gnostic spirit and its substitute: the dogmatic spirit. Each specifically brings out the dualism between good and evil, knowledge and ignorance that leads towards the decay, decline age - in other words towards eschatological times and their monstrous abominations.

Zusammenfassung-Die Aussagekraft des Begriffes des Bildungsromans steht im Zentrum dieses Artikels und wird anhand wesentlicher Momente der Begriffsbildung beleuchtet. Die Absicht dabei ist aufzuzeigen, dass der Begriff nie in exakt geprägt wurde, und dass es daher unvermeidlich wurde, ihn in Frage zu stellen oder gar ganz zu verwerfen, zumindest, was die Forschung zu Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre betrifft. Bildungsromans steht im Zentrum dieses Artikels und wird anhand wesentlicher Momente der Begriffsbildung beleuchtet. Die Absicht dabei ist aufzuzeigen, dass der Begriff nie in exakt geprägt wurde, und dass es daher unvermeidlich wurde, ihn in Frage zu stellen oder gar ganz zu verwerfen, zumindest, was die Forschung zu Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre betrifft.

This paper should analyse few chosen Polish translations of first part of Faust by J. W. von Goethe. The translations were compared with the original work and with other translations.
This paper shows a spectrum of Polish translations since 1826 until 2016.

One of the most significant moments in the development of German idealism is Schelling's break from his mentor Fichte. On account of its significance, there have been numerous studies examining the origin and meaning of this transition in Schelling's thought. Not one study, however, considers Goethe's influence on Schelling's development. This is surprising given the fact that in the fall of 1799 Goethe and Schelling meet every day for a week, to go through and edit what came to be Schelling's most path-breaking work. This paper considers Goethe's influence on the development of Schelling's thought, and argues that it was by appropriating Goethe's idea of metamorphosis that Schelling was able to put forth a conception of nature as independent from the mind.

This summer/fall 2018 issue of Environmental & Architectural Phenomenology includes the following items:
• A “book note” on the recently published 2nd edition of philosopher Jeff Malpas’ groundbreaking Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography, originally published in 1999. This expanded version includes a new chapter on place and technological modernity, “especially the seeming loss of place in the contemporary world.”
• A “book note” on EAP editor David Seamon’s recently published Life Takes Place: Phenomenology, Lifeworlds and Place Making, which gives particular attention to the generative aspects of place and locates six place processes that Seamon identifies as place interaction, place identity, place release, place realization, place intensification, and place creation.
• An essay by the late philosopher and science educator Henri Bortoft, who focuses on ways of thinking holistically, including the conceptual efforts of proto-phenomenologist Wolfgang Johann von Goethe; physicists Niels Bohr and David Bohm; and philosophers J. G. Bennett, Edmund Husserl, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
• An essay by retired environmental educator John Cameron, who begins a new series of essays on the lived relationship between interiority and exteriority, particularly as qualities of the natural world and place contribute to that relationship.

Starting from Walter Binni’s article of 1959, Gigante looks at the influence that Christoph Martin Wieland’s Socrates out of his Sense or Dialogues of Diogenes of Sinope had on Foscolo’s early prose, namely on the first edition of Ultime Lettere di Jacopo Ortis and on il Sesto tomo dell’Io.
The present article, which is subdivided into four parts, deals with a number of issues: after examining the hypothesis that Foscolo may have been familiar with other editions of Socrates besides the Italian one published in 1781, Gigante goes on to analyse common points running through the Rousseau-inspired Diogenes in the Wieland novel and the first edition of Jacopo, in which it is possible to trace the Transalpine sentiments that Foscolo nurtured in those years. After examining the character of Teresa, who in the first edition of Jacopo Ortis reads several novels (not only Wieland's one), the author considers the possible relationship between Diogenes’ political thought, which can be inferred from Wieland's imaginary reconstruction, and Foscolo's one, as can be traced in the latter's earliest writings.

Prendendo le mosse da un intervento di Walter Binni del 1959, nel contributo si indaga sull’influsso che il Socrate delirante di Christian Martin Wieland ebbe sulle opere in prosa del giovane Foscolo, il primo Ortis e il Sesto tomo dell’Io. Diviso in quattro parti, nell’articolo sono affrontate diverse questioni: dopo aver indagato sulla possibilità che Foscolo avesse conoscenza di altre versioni del Socrate oltre quella italiana del 1781, l’autore procede a un’analisi delle affinità tra il Diogene russoviano del romanzo di Wieland e il primo Jacopo, in cui si riflettono gli umori d’Oltralpe del Foscolo di quegli anni. Dopo essersi soffermato sul personaggio di Teresa, nel primo Ortis lettrice di vari romanzi (non solo di Wieland), l’autore propone un’interpretazione del rapporto possibile fra il pensiero “politico” di Diogene, quale si può inferire dalla ricostruzione immaginosa di Wieland, e quello che si desume dalle opere foscoliane di prima giovinezza.

Este trabalho busca esclarecer como as leituras espinosanas de Goethe afetaram o cerne de sua produção literária, especialmente no que respeita a seu período clássico. Ele se inicia abordando a controvérsia sobre o espinosismo na segunda metade do século XVIII alemão, para paulatinamente atingir uma perspectiva apropriada a partir da qual se possam reavaliar certos pontos de vista normalmente aceitos sobre a relação entre Goethe e a filosofia de seu tempo. No século XIX e na primeira metade do XX não houve muitas dúvidas sobre o valor do corpus espinosano para Goethe, mas por décadas este assunto foi raramente contemplado com rigor. Assim, o presente trabalho toma como foco a afinidade entre ambos, desde a perspectiva da obra literária de Goethe.

This paper argues that Cassirer's thinking about the relationship between the different symbolic forms is best elucidated via the paradigm of "organic harmony." Although Cassirer did not use the term himself, the harmonious cooperation between the parts found in the organic world provided him with a welcome alternative to traditional accounts of order (i.e. identity or hierarchy). This paper will give three examples of "organic harmony": Goethe and his idealistic morphology, Wilhelm von Humboldt's account of language, Herder's account of history. The thought of all three example key characteristics of "organic harmony": holism, particularism/perspectivism, and subjective judgment. This paper will show that Cassirer's own "organic harmony" is indebted to these thinkers. From the perspective of "organic harmony" we can make better sense of the pluralistic spirit of Cassirer's PSF as well as providing it with greater theoretical articulation. This paper also shows how the motif of organic harmony is the normative moment in his own challenge to 20 th c. fascism. Finally, this paper argues that the Cassirerian emphasis on finding a coherence which does justice to the uniqueness of particulars-i.e. harmony-is an ethical injunction relevant for our times.

This article examines analogies and differences between the Prometheus' myth of Plato Protagoras and the fifth Act of the Second Part of Goethe's Faust. While Goethe thinks that natural pressure is sufficient and necessary condition to build the political community, the Protagoras´ myth values this pressure as a necessary but not as a sufficient condition. To obtain a political community the sufficient condition is the political virtue, given by Zeus and distributed by Hermes. Protagoras is a democrat and Goethe has reticence to democratic thinking. In Protagoras there is a naive confidence in human being, in Goethe a bitter consciousness of its limits.

Keywords: Myth, Democracy, natural pressure, shortage, political virtue, private sphere, public sphere, political community, solidarity, human nature, human condition

Physicist, philosopher, and science educator Henri Bortoft died on December 29, 2012, at his home in England. He was 74 years old. Bortoft’s work has an important conceptual and applied connection to this special issue of Phenomenology + Practice because it speaks to a particular mode of environmental encounter that might be called a “phenomenology of the natural world.” His work is central to “environmental practice” because he presents an empathetic way of engaging the phenomena of nature whereby they “reveal” themselves in an accurate and comprehensive way. Here, I offer my recollections of the man and his work. My aim is to describe some first-hand encounters with Bortoft and to suggest some of the ways that his work offers fruitful possibilities for “environmental phenomenology and environmental practice.”

The present article deals with the role of gardening in Goethe’s works (especially "Die Leiden des jungen Werthers", "Der Triumph der Empfindsamkeit" and "Die Wahlverwandtschaften"). Goethe’s use of the garden symbol is put into its literary context (the garden symbol in Matthias Claudius and Friedrich Nicolai) as well as into its social and horticultural context (the evolution of the so-called jardin anglo-chinois and of the German landscape gardens, most notably Wörlitz). The different garden styles are interpreted as expressions of different life views and identities.

O texto ensaia as noções de natureza e paisagem assimiladas na primeira semana de viagem de Goethe à Itália (de 3 a 10 de setembro de 1786). Nesses primeiros dias do itinerário percorrido ainda em terras germânicas, ambas as categorias orbitam no universo reflexivo do poeta: enquanto que a natureza dá voz a polaridades afins – empiria e sensibilidade, unidade e multiplicidade, objetivo e subjetivo – a paisagem seria um recorte da natureza apreendido sensivelmente, um quadro da natureza formulado pelo olhar (sentidos) treinado de um observador atento e localizado sobretudo no âmbito da estética. Busca-se, portanto, compreender a paisagem contemplada por Goethe para além das descrições geográficas dos lugares visitados e visualizados, mas privilegiando a conversão da natureza em arte.