I T 2190 , 6 T62 s 1912 1 1 Ha (famuli W^nixmii^ ^iUm^ THE GIFT OF ..'i.^....CX.MddxoX kmiH ■7 i^kU. 1357 Re^itt ^mtf THE^JOtJRNAI> OF #^(3iaSH j?lND \}',.''i$$^0&miC PHli^OGt%QctobeiV ldl2 Cornell University Library PT 2190.A6T62 1912 Attitude of Goethe and Schiller toward F 3 1924 026 180 160 Professor (rf^IVIpdernLangtiages in Alfred Oniyersity AjThesis Submitted for; the IJegfee of Doctof oif,PI)ilpsopKj' ? Uiliv^rsily of WiscptisJh - " 4911 The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026180160 Reprint from THE JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY of October, 1912 THE ATTITUDE OF GOETHE AND SCHILLER TOWARD FRENCH CLASSIC DRAMA BY PAUL EMERSON TITSWORTH Professor o£ Modern Languages in Alfred University A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Wisconsin 1911 E,V. PREFACE It is here a pleasure and a privilege to acknowledge my indebtedness to Professor A. R. Hohlfeld, of the University of Wisconsin, for his never failing interest and helpful guid- ance in the preparation of this thesis. Professors E. C. L. C. Roedder and H. B. Lathrop, likewise of Wisconsin, have been kind enough to read it in manuscript and to make a number of helpful suggestions. I am also under obligation to the library authorities of Wisconsin and Cornell whom I have always found ready to lend all assistance in their power. Finally, I wish to thank the editors of the Journal for their kindness, and my sister, Helen, for her aid in the preparation of the manu- script for the printers. THE ATTITUDE OF GOETHE AND SCHILLER TOWARD THE FRENCH CLASSIC DRAMA Inteoduction The eighteenth century in Germany witnessed the slow break-up of a literary despotism and the establishment of the principles of a literary democracy which stood for the right to expression of individual — as opposed to collective — experience in suitably flexible forms. Seventeenth century France had bequeathed to Germany, along with social and political ideals, the mistaken notion that there was a set of rules — nearly rigid — by which all literary production was to be regulated. The brilliant literature of the French classic period had im- pressed the Germans, prostrate as they were from the after- effects of the Thirty Years' War, and it was only natural that they should turn to the sister nation for guidance. For more than a century, Germany's literary men sought to assimilate the rules of French composition vainly hoping to bring forth a literature comparable to that of the French. With the opening of the eighteenth century, however, a rival entered the field, which was destined to put French ideals to flight: this was the literature of England. While the French type represented, in general, the formal intel- lectual elements of literary composition, the English ideal emphasized thought and feeling. These two ideals fought for supremacy long and bitterly, first in the strife between Gottsched on the one hand, and Bodmer and Breitinger on the other, later between Gottsched and Lessing. With the publication in 1767 of Lessing 's Hamburgische Dramaturgie, the battle came to be waged most hotly in and about the drama. It was a question of who best represented the spirit of the ancient theater and the theories of Aristotle ; Corneille, Boileau, Racine, and Voltaire, or Shakespeare? Lessing laid about him so stoutly with his criticism of the French ideals that he routed them from their position of domination in German letters, and victory came to rest with the freer, more virile, and more profound spirit of English literature. This movement reached its conclusion in the Storm and Stress Titsworth upheaval, which was simply an attempt to picture forth a world then newly discovered to modern German literature — that of feeling. "When once the Germans had found their bearings, they struck out for themselves to seek their own destiny, and it was no longer a question of the rule of either English or French taste in Germany. In the throes of the Storm and Stress movement, both Goethe and Schiller were born to German letters. Unlike the lesser men of the same period, they recovered their balance and gained a point of view which blended the formal and rationalistic elements characteristic of the French literature and the emotional and contemplative traits of the English. The struggle, then, between form and content, between col- lective and individual experience culminated in them. It is the province of this investigation, in the light of what has been said above, to inquire into their attitude toward the French classic drama. This I have attempted to do by a study of what they said directly of it, and by inquiring into their attitude toward dramatic principles in general which are hostile or friendly to those espoused by the French. The deeper and more subtle question of the indirect influence of French drama and dramaturgy upon their own literary prac- tice, of which they said nothing — and of which they them- selves were beyond a doubt largely unaware — I have no more than touched upon here and there: the adequate considera- tion of such a problem does not fall within the range of this investigation. The discussion has been divided into five chapters : chap- ters one and three take up for Goethe and Schiller respectively their general attitude toward the French classic drama both in its theory and in its concrete form ; chapters two and four deal with their estimate of the individual dramatists and their works; chapter five, the conclusion, compares the opinion of the two men and attempts to arrive at some general conclu- sions concerning their contributions to the history of human ideals.* *As sources for this study, I have used for Goethe the Weimar ed., Weimar, 1887-1909 (in four sections: I. literary works; II. scientific; III. dairies; IV. letters), the revised ed. of conversations by Flodoard v. 6 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama I Goethe's Attitude Toward French Classic Drama In Genbraii Goethe's attitude toward the French classic drama is, at bottom, his attitude toward various kinds of art in general. Pseudo-classicist, realist, classicist, and romanticist as he was in turn, it is natural to expect in his development a varying appreciation of the drama of the classic period of French literature. The following periods, differing widely from each other as regards his estimate of the dramatic productions of this age, stand out in his life, (a) the Frankfurt-Leipzig period, 1759-1770; this was a time when French influence most dominated Goethe: (b) the Storm and Stress period, 1770-1775, which began with his residence in Strassburg and acquaintance with Herder, and in which he protested vigor- ously against hampering limitations of form: (c) the period of silence, 1775-1799, which had no definite boundaries, for it grew gradually out of period (b) and shaded into period (d). This period marked a decided allegiance to classic Greek ideals but in it Goethe did not express any direct, im- portant criticism of the classic art of the French, (d) The period of truest appreciation of French classic drama, 1799- 1832. This period opened in the midst of Goethe's activity as director of the Weimar stage where he was endeavoring to institute a reform of the German theater. Frankfurt-Leipzig Period, 1759-1770. In these years, Goethe was completely under the influence of French ideals. This was very natural, for his native city of Frankfurt was a cosmopolitan center in Goethe's time. Dichtung und Wahr- heit gives a good idea of the various influences at work on the unusually receptive lad. French ideals of culture were not strangers in this city. The French themselves, their language, Biedermann, Leipzig, 1911, and the ed. of Urmeister by Maync, Stutt- gart and Berlin, 1911; for Schiller, the hist-critical ed. by Goedeke, Stuttgart, 1867-1876, the ed. of his letters by Jonas, Stuttgart, Leipzig, and Berlin, n. d., and of his conversations by Petersen, Leipzig, 1911. I have examined all their writings — ^including paralipomena and text- readings — except the purely scientific works of Goethe found in sec. II. of Weimar ed. Titsworth their literature, and their theater were early known to and loved by him. He spoke French with servants, with the French soldiers quartered at his father's house during the occupation of Frankfurt (1759-1763), and he visited assiduous- ly the French plays given in 1759 by a French troupe accom- panying the army.^ His delight in the French theater became a passion that grew with every play he saw, although, return- ing late home to meals, he often had to content himself with what was left on the table and at the same time to meet the strong disapproval of his father who thought his attendance at the plays a waste of time.^ The foreign troupe played comedy much oftener than tragedy. Goethe says that he understood it poorly. That was undoubtedly because of the witticisms in a foreign tongue, the very intimate relation of comedy to the life from which it springs, the merely suggested situations, and the rapidity of the action. On the other hand, the measured movement, the regularity of accent of the alexandrines, and the use of more general expressions made tragedy much easier of com- prehension. The repertory of the troupe contained pieces of such authors as Moliere, Destouehes, Marivaux, La Chaussee, and perhaps also of Voltaire.^ And while there is no direct evidence that the masterpieces of Corneille and Racine were attempted on the stage, it seems probable from the fact that the young Goethe — as will be seen later — took to reading these writers with zeal. He was much impressed with the Hyperm- nestre of Lemierre, a philosophic tragedy, not exactly of the traditional classic type, which was characterized by rapidity of action, considerable pathos, and a rather nervous style. Of all the pieces which he saw, however, the half-allegoric, half-mythological dramas in the style of Piron appealed to him most.* The play stirred him to a wider acquaintance with French literature. He studied Racine and read his dramas ^Dichtung und Wahrheit, I. Teil, 3. Buch; Weimarer Ausgabe, Abteilung I, Bd. 26, 141f. 'D. u. W., I, 3; W., I, 26, 166. ' Ibid, 143 ; also Rossel, Histoire dea relation! littiraires entre la France et I'Allemagne, 532 (footnote). *D. M. W., I, 3; W., I, 26, 167. 8 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama aloud in true theatrical fashion with the greatest vivacity, although not always wholly understanding the words which he spoke. He even learned whole passages by heart and re- cited them.^ And this when he was a lad of about twelve! He went so far as to try his hand at original composition in French. He tells in his autobiography how confidently he handed his first effort over to his companion, Derones, son of one of the members of the French company, for criticism. From him Goethe had heard so much of the three unities of Aristotle, of the regularity and symmetry of the French drama, of the probability of the situations, of the harmony of the verse, and of all that went along with these that he thought him a competent critic. "Er schalt auf die Englander und verachtete die Deutschen ; genug er trug mir die ganze drama- turgische Litanei vor, die ich in meinen Leben so oft musste wiederholen horen. ' ' ^ By a merciless pulling to pieces and an arbitrary substitu- tion of whole passages of his own, Derones completely dis- figured Goethe's literary effort. Strange to say, this disap- pointment fanned rather than quenched the boy's enthusiasm. It aroused his interest in the matter of French dramaturgy. He read Corneille's treatise on the unities and the story of the quarrel over the Cid, but he became disgusted with the whole business. He then turned back with renewed interest to the presentation of the plays on the Frankfurt stage, and more zealously than ever he extended his reading knowledge of the French classics to include the whole of Racine and Moliere, and a large part of Corneille. At this time, too, he, with other children of Frankfurt, gave a presentation of Racine's Britannicus, under the leadership of Schoff von Ohlenschlager. Goethe played the role of Nero and thorough- ly enjoyed it.^ His enthusiasm for French literature now be- came so great at this time that he began a drama in French in the alexandrine meter.* The stay in Leipzig, the ' ' klein Paris, ' ' marked not a wan- ^D. «. W., I, 3; W., I, 26, 142. ^D. u. W., I, 3; W., I, 26, 169. 'D. u. W., I, 3; W., I, 26, 170. ' Bielschowsky, Goethe, sein Leben und seine Werke, 1, 88. 9 Titsworth ing but an intensifying of interest in French drama. He read Boileau, the theorist of this movement, and felt that his own literary ideals owed much to him and that he would be a safe guide to follow in French literature.^ Though forced to the study of jurisprudence, Goethe was drawn by his inclinations more and more to literature.^ On October 10, 1766, the new Leipzig theater was opened and Goethe was present.^ This event undoubtedly gave a new impulse to dramatic in- terest in the Saxon city. It is very likely that the young man was a familiar figure at the playhouse.* Its repertory was largely made up of French pieces — for Gottsched ruled the stage — from such dramatists as Corneille, Moliere, Vol- taire, Destouches^ and in all probability Racine. The result of this contact with French dramatic art was the composition by Goethe of dramas of such thoroughgoing French spirit as 'Die Laune des Verliebten and Die Mitschuldigen, both in alexandrines.* He felt French classic art to be the acme of human effort, its limitations in form as indispensable, and he coveted a clear comprehension of its fundamental principles by which to judge his own works.' t Even before the opening of the next period, however, Goethe had already begun to pull at the moorings of the * Curiously, however, in his earlier drama, BaUazar, he looked rather to English than to French tragedy for his verse form. Letters to Riese, Oct. 30, 1765; and to Cornelia, Dec. 7, 1765; W., IV, 1, 17 and 24. f It is noteworthy, that, in the famous seventh book of Dichtung und Wahrheit — ^the review of the literature contemporary with his younger years, — Goethe mentions French influence in Germany but once. He says that, as a result of the French tastes of Frederic the Great, a vast amount of French culture had come to Prussia, which had proved of negative value to the Germans by arousing them to oppose and offset it. D. u. W., II, 7; W., i, 27, 105f. 1 Letter to Cornelia, May 28 and Sept. 27, 1766; W., IV, 1, 54 and 70. "D. u. W., II, 6; W., I, 27, 50ff. ' Sachs, Goethes Beschaftigung mit franzosischer Sprache und Lit- teratur; Zs. f. fr. Spr. u. Lit., 23, 37. *Witkowski, Goethe, 40. "Sachs, 25, 37; letters to Cornelia, Oct. 13, Dec. 7, (reply to letter of Dec. 6), Dec. 23, 1765; W., IV, 1, pp. 9f, 24, 26, 28 and 32. « Tag- und Jahreshefte, 1764 bis 1769; W., I, 35, 3f. Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama French classic ideals, and by the time of his convalescence in Frankfurt, the poems which he had composed in Leipzig ap- peared to him cold, formal, and extremely superficial in their portrayal of the workings of the human heart and mind.^ Storm and Stress Period, 1770-1775. Because of his in- terest in things French, Goethe chose Strassburg, which was then in French territory, as the place to continue his uni- versity work.^ The months spent in the Alsatian capital, how- ever, marked a decided turning point in the spiritual develop- ment of the young man. So, too, for his estimate of the French classic drama it was the closing of the first period — the time when he was under the influence of French classi- cism — and the opening of the Storm and Stress epoch, when content and spirit, not form, took first place in his literary philosophy. The result of his stay in Strassburg was the exact opposite of what he had anticipated.^ The acquaintance with Herder and through him with the world of feeling and throbbing life in Hebrew and folk poetry, Shakespeare,* Ossian, and Homer opened up to the young man, dissatisfied with erudition, new vistas of human experience and hence of the possibilities of literary art.* In comparison, the French literature of the 18th century especially seemed artificial and restrained, and showed decided signs of decay^ — qualities utterly uncongenial to a youthful love of fullness of life. The new ideas meant life and liberty. In the exuberance of revolt against mo- notony, conventionality, timorous restraint, galling shackles, and decrepitude, Goethe fairly hissed forth his contempt for the rash and puny Frenchman, the " Franzoschen, " who had dared to don the armor of the Greeks. The French had mis- * Herder's attitude toward the Elizabethan is well set forth in his essay, Shakespeare, in Von deutscher Art und Kunst (1773). This point of view undoubtedly helped to shape Goethe's Storm and Stress opinion of the Englishman. >Z). u. W., II, 8; W., I, 27, 216. ■■Ibid, III, 11; "W., I, 28, 50f. 'D. u. W., Ill, 11; W., I, 28, 51. *D. u. W., II, 19; W., I; 27, 302-322; Bielschowsky, Goethe, 1, 116f. ^D. u. W., Ill, 11; W., I, 28, 57ff. II Ti^worth understood the spirit of Greek drama and they had based their dramatic literature upon this misinterpreted ancient drama. This was bad enough in itself, but when the Germans had blindly aped the French in this misunderstanding, dra- matic art was indeed in a bad way. Almost nothing short of a new creation would dispel the chaotic darkness of perverted taste. Passages from a speech which Goethe delivered on Shakespeare's Day, October 14, 1771, in Frankfurt, in eulogy of the great Elizabethan, will best give an idea of his atti- tude — and incidentally of the exaggerated style of the ' ' Ge- niezeit:"^ /y^-i^tviy^ ^(P-utv" ' ~ "Ich zweifelte keinen Augenblick dem regelmasigen Thea- ter zu entsagen. Es schien mir die Einheit des Orts so kerek- ermasig angstlich, die Einheiten der Handlung und der Zeit lastige Fesseln unsrer Einbildungskrafift. Ich sprang in die freye Lufft, und fiihlte erst dass ich Hande und Piisse hatte. Und ietzo da ich sahe, wieviel Unrecht mir die Herrn der Regel in ihrem Loch angethan haben, wie viel freye Seelen noch drinne sich kriimmen, so ware mir mein Herz geborsten, wenn ich ihnen nicht Pehde angekiindigt hatte, und nieht tag- lich suchte ihre Tiirne zusammen zu schlagen. "Das griechische Theater, das die Franzosen zum Muster nahmen, war, nach innrer und auserer Beschaffenheit, so, dass eher ein Marquis den Alcibiades nachahmen konnte, als es Corneillen dem Sophokles zu folgen moglich war. "Erst Intermezzo des Gottesdiensts, dann feyerlich polit- isch, zeigte das Trauerspiel einzelne grose Handlungen der Vater, dem Volck, mit der reinen Binfalt der VoUkommenheit, erregte ganze grose Empfindungen in den Seelen, denn es war selbst ganz und gros. "Und in was fiir Seelen! " Griechischen ! . . . "Nun sag ich geschwind hinten drein: Franzosgen, was willst du mit der griechischen Riistung, sie ist dir zu gros und zu schweer. "Drum sind alle Pranzosehe Trauerspiele Parodien von sich selbst. 'Zum Shakespeares Tag; Oct. 14, 1771; W., I, 37, 131-135. (I have followed the spelling and punctuation of the critical editions of the works of Goethe and Schiller throughout.) Goethe, Schiller and the French (Classic Drama "Wie das so regelmasig zugeht, und dass sie einander ahn- lick sind wie Schue, und auch langweilig mit unter, besonders in genere im vierten Ackt das wissen die Herren leider aus der Brfahrung und ich sage nichts davon." Then follows in exaggerated language praise of Shake- speare, great because of his conception of tragic situation and of his fidelity to nature. At the end is this fanfare to Goe- the's deluded countrymen: "Auf, meine Herren! trompeten Sie mir alle edle Seelen, aus dem Elysium, des sogenannten guten Gesehmacks, wo sie sehlaftrunken, in langweiliger Dammerung halb sind, halb nicht sind, LeidenschafEten im Herzen und kein Marck in den Knochen haben, und weil sie nicht miide genug zu ruhen und doch zu faul sind um tahtig zu seyn, ihr Schatten Leben zwischen Myrten und Lorbeergebiischen verschlendern und vergahnen. ' ' Goethe expressed to Salzmann the need of finding a liter- ary genre between the heavy pieces of Gottsched and the horseplay in the pieces of the Hanswurst type. In this spirit he wrote such realistic and defiantly unconventional works ,/ as Ootz, the Vrfaust, and the dramatic satires Das Jahrmarkts- ' fest__ zu Plunder sweilern — a travesty on the French classic drama,^ — Satyros, Pater Brey, and Prometheus.^ Toward the close of this period, however, his feeling toward the classic dramatic art of France had veered several points from the direction which it had taken at its opening. To be sure, he still expressed impatience with the dramatic critics for their continued insistence upon the circumspect observ- ance of form — of length, of unities, and of similar matters — in a literary product. This opinion that almost anyone could bring forth a piece of literature by conscientiously exercising himself in certain mechanical rules, he vigorously repudiated.' In common with the other leaders of the Storm and Stress movement, he believed that the true artist was he in whom the "Genius" dwelt as a living presence and through whom it ' Koster, Schiller als Dramaturg, 246. = Letter to Salzmann, Mar. 6, 1773; W., IV, 2, 66. ' Aus Goethes Brief tasche ; Mercier- Wagner, Neuer Versuch iiber die Schauspielkunst, ca. 1775; W., I, 37, 313 f. 13 Titsworth spoke. Nevertheless, his radicalism of four years before had moderated enough to allow form a place in his literary phi- losophy. It still appealed to him as something unnatural in and of itself but necessary as a burning glass to focus the divine rays from the broad expanse of nature into the heart of man.^ In retrospect, the Goethe of Dichtung und Wahrheit dated this change earlier and saw in the beginnings of a drama on the subject of Mahomet,* if not a return to French classicism, at least a tendency to reapproach the regular form to which he was attracted anew.^ Minor, however, thinks that when G-oethe wrote this passage he was looking through his exper- ience as a translator of Voltaire and therefore very easily came to ascribe to his own earlier plan the regularity of the French drama.^t Period of Silence, 1775-1799. These dates set off a time in Goethe's life during which, with a single exception $ he ex- pressed no direct critical opinion of the French classical drama. It is surprising that a genre which had aroused first his keen interest as the perfection of human artistic effort and * Graf, Ooethe uber seine Dichtungen, II, 4, 519, dates it 1772 (?). f It is noticeable that up to 1'775 (Joethe mentioned but once (letter to Oeser, Oct. 14, 1769; W., IV, 1, 205) Lessing, who, in his Hambur- gisehe Dramaturgie — especially In the SOth and 81st chapters — had driven the French from their place of supremacy over German letters. This is perhaps accounted for when Lessing's attitude toward the Storm and Stress movement and Goethe's Gotz is recalled (Schmidt, Lessing, 2, 55ff). f He saw CrebiUon's Electre in an Italian translation In Venice and it disgusted him as insipid and tedious. (Italian Journey, diaries, Oct. 7, 1786; W., Ill, 1, 275.) In the Esther parody found in Das Jahrmarkts- ftst %u Plundersweilern, he hit off the style of the haute tragSdie of the French, and in 1781, in Das Neueste von Plundersweilern, he had a little fun at the expense of the French tragedy, but these satires hardly con- stitute critical opinion. (W., I, 16, 54.) 'Aus Goethes Brief tasche; Mercier-Wagner, Neuer Versuch iiber die Schamspielkunst, ca. 1775; W., I, 37, 314. 'D. u. W., Ill, 14; W., I, 28, 295. ' Ooethes Mahomet, ein Vortrag, 58. 14 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama then his utter disapproval should be almost unmentioned critically for twenty-four years.* Of course, part of this period — eleven years, from his ad- vent in "Weimar (1775) down to his trip to Italy (1786) — covers the time of his career as a minister at the court of Karl August when he was engrossed in affairs of state and his at- tention was largely drawn away from literature. What, however, was the reason for the silence of the sub- sequent thirteen years ? It could scarcely be fortuitous. "Was it a time of gradual approach to the favorable attitude of the last period, or did the enthusiasm for ancient art force the consideration of that of Prance into the background? The latter alternative seems more likely, but the evidence is by no means one-sided. In general, this period shows a modifying of Goethe's radicalism in all directions. The acquaintance with Fran von Stein and his increasing and intimate interest in the estab- lished order of society as represented in the government of Karl August induced a slowing down of Goethe's Storm and Stress pulse and a calmer outlook on life. It marked the be- ginning of conservatism — a common ground on which it would be more easily possible for him to sympathize with the spirit of institutionalism as opposed to that of his own earlier in- dividualism. In this period the idea of limiting the individual was not so galling to him. Such a point of view would at least make him more open to a truer appreciation of the French classic drama — the product of a highly absolutistic society. Then, another element which might have helped to recon- * Corneille is mentioned twice: — conversation with Iffland, Dec. 22, 1779; Biedermann, Ooethes Oesprdche, 1, 103; letter to Frau v. Stein, Feb. 3, 1781; W., IV, 5, 45; Moligre eight times: — diaries, Feb. 5 and 7, 1777; Oct. 20, 1778; June 10, 1779; Jan. 22, 1798; Apr. 24, 1799; W., Ill, vol. 1, pp. 33, 71. 86, and vol. 2, pp. 197f, 243; letters to Frau v. Stein, Apr. 12, 1782; to Karl August, Nov. 17 and Dec. 8, 1787; W., IV, 5, 309: 8, 294, 306; Voltaire twice: — conversation with Leisewitz, Aug. 14, 1780; B., 1, 107; diaries, Jan. 12, 1799; W., Ill, 2, 229; CrebiUon:— Italian Journey, diaries, Oct. 7, 1786; W., Ill, 1, 275; Destouches once: — diaries, Apr. 16, 1799; W., Ill, 2, 242; and French classic drama in gen- eral twice:— letter to Dalberg, Apr. 10, 1780; W., IV, 4, 207; Das Neueste von PhmdersweiUm; 1781 ; W., I, 16, 54. IS Titsworth cile him with French ideals was the French culture of the Weimar court. ^ In such an atmosphere, French literatupe and French ways of looking at things must certainly again have had an influence upon him. Nevertheless, when Goethe took up his pen again in 1786, he did not express any attitude toward French classic drama although during the two years following he was revelling in classicism in Italy. This visit to the South marked a develop- ment in him of enthusiasm for the noble simplicity, quiet grandeur, and moderation of Greek art, and a growth away from those ideals which produced the impetuous overflow of spirits of a Ootz von Berlichingen to those which found ex- pression in the noble dignity of an Iphigenie. In his essay on Epic and Dramatic Poetry, contained in the Goethe-Schiller correspondence* and written in 1797, Goethe gave expression to his ideas on the rules governing these genres. In some ways he approached the standpoint of the French drama. In his opinion, for example, the action of the piece must be limited in time,^ but he did not restrict it to the conventional twenty-four hours of French tragedy. Tragic action consists, not in "alarums and excursions" but in soul conflicts, that is, the struggle should be an inner rather than an external one, and therefore needs little extent in space.' The characters, too, he said, are best of a certain degree of culture* so as to be capable of a high degree of self-expression. They should be influential, not because they are kings, or priests, or warriors, but because they possess personality. Goethe's Iphigenie is a good type of such a character. On the other hand, he repudiated the French use of the epic ele- ment in the drama, their employment of narration as a sub- stitute for action completely present.^ In 1798-99, in commenting upon Diderot's Essai de la * This essay was originally a supplement to Goethe's letter to Schil- ler, Dec. 23, 1797 (W., IV, 12, 381), W., I, 4P, 521. 'Rossel, 439; Koster, 246. " Pber epische und dramatische Dichtimg; 1797; W., I, 41', 220. 'XJeber epische und dramatische Dichtung; 1797; W., I, 41", 221. * Ibid. "Ibid, 220. i6 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama peinture, Goethe, in opposition to the French writer, empha- sized the idea that rules and forms arise, not from without, but from within the soul of a great genius; they are results, not causes. Utterly futile is the attempt to force genius to conform to art credos developed in other times and other places. No nation has the supreme and only inspired word on art and hence no right to foist upon other peoples as an absolute norm, even the results of their best experience.*^ True, it is of art in general and not of French dramaturgy in particular that he is here speaking, but from this statement it is easy to perceive the real point at issue between Goethe and French classic dramaturgy : the former saw more beauty in content and spirit clothed in appropriate form, while the latter saw the greater beauty in form. The difference between these two points of view is very fundamental and one which Goethe felt throughout his life, except in the Frankfurt-Leip- zig period. It seems fairly certain, then, that Goethe's growing en- thusiasm for the classic point of view in this period, his ap- preciation of French classic dramaturgy increased only in so far as he esteemed it to have caught the spirit of the ancients. * This is a larger development, but in a calmer fashion, of the idea contained in embryo in the Shakespeare speech (cf. above, p. 516) and more explicitly stated in the Mercier- Wagner essay of the same period (cf. above, p. 517). ^ Sie (artists or nations) conveniren nicht iiber diess tmd jenes, das aber anders sein konnte, sie reden nicht mit einander ab, etwas Un- geschicktes fiir das Rechte gelten zu lassen, sondern sie bUden zuletzt die Regein aus sich selbst, nach Kunstgesetzen, die eben so wahr in der Natur des bildenden Genies liegen als die grosse allgemeine Natur die organischen Gesetze ewig thatig bewahrt. Es ist hier gar die Frage nicht, auf welchem Raum der Erde, unter welcher Nation, zu welcher Zeit man dieses Regein entdeckt und befolgt habe. Es is die Frage nicht, ob man an andern Orten, zu andern Zeiten, unter andern Umstanden davon abgewichen sei, ob man hie und da etwas ConventioneUes dem Gesetzmassigen substituirt habe; ja es ist nicht einmal die Frage, ob die echten Regein jemals gefunden oder befolgt worden sind? sondern man muss kixhn behaupten, dass sie gefunden werden miissen und dass, wenn wir sie dem Genie nicht vorschreiben konnen, wir sie von dem Genie zu empfangen haben, das sich selbst in seiner hochsten Ausbildung fiihlt und seinen Wirkungskreis nicht verkennt. Diderots Versuch iiber die Malerei; W., I, 45, 257f. 17 Titsworth He shows no liking for elements typically French ; indeed, he criticises the French writers indirectly for their attitude in believing themselves the only recipients of the inspired word of dramatic law and for their tendency not to represent action as completely present. The points of which Goethe does grow in appreciation in these twenty-four years are: the use of verse in elevated drama,^ the stricter observance of the unities of time and place, the beauty of the inward as opposed to the outward struggle on the stage, the elevated rank of tragic characters, and a general tone of moderation, simplicity, and grandeur — all points found in Greek practice. It was, ap- parently, the necessity of providing a more dignified art for the German stage that gave the impetus in the next period to his more favorable attitude toward French classical drama and broke the silence of a quarter century. Something should be said here of the expressions of opin- ion of the French classic drama in Wilhelm Meisters Lehr- jahre and especially in the first version of this wprk, Wilhelm Meisters Theatralische Sendung, or the V'tmeister. In the latter several pages are taken up with a~Hiieussion of the French dramaturgy — material which was omitted from the final version altogether. For example, during Wilhelm 's convalescence, after the close of the affair with Marianne, Werner visits his friend each evening to divert his attention from his misfortune. Among other things Werner, who has been reading Corneille, is much confused by the quarrel over the rules and unities and expresses a great desire for a stand- ard of judgment in theatrical matters. To help his friend out of the diffculty, Goethe-Wilhelm, who has thought much on such affairs and has acquired a point of view, utters some very sensible words about the troublesome unities : he declares any rule good which is based upon real observation of nature and in harmony with the character of an object and is of its very essence. As to the unities, there are a dozen — ^unity of customs and manners (Sitten), of tone, of language, of char- acter drawing (Charakter in sieh), of dress, of decoration, and of illumination (Brleuchtung) — quite as important as the noted three of the French. He grows enthusiastic over 'Letter to Schiller, Nov. 25, 1797; W., IV, 12, 361. i8 Ooethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama Corneille for his independence and nobility of his characters, for his skill in handling situation, and for the rhetorical quali- ty of his verse.^ These sentiments do not necessarily reveal Goethe's atti- tude during the years 1777ca-1782, the period of composition of the Urmeister, but they seem rather his feelings of the Frankfurt-Leipzig period as modified by the point of view of the later Storm and Stress f for it is apparent that these recol- lections are tinged with a mature and more liberal view of art than Goethe had attained in either the Frankf urt-Ijeipzig or in the early Storm and Stress period. Nor can the decidedly pro- French attitude of the Lehrjahre proper and the admiration for Racine' especially be definitely stamped as a product of the early Weimar years, but it seems to have its roots in the boyish enthusiasm for a brilliant court life and for the French drama. Period of Truest Appreciation, 1799-1832. "The chief lack of our theater and the reason that neither players nor spectators get a proper idea of what it should be is, in general, the variegated nature of what appears on our boards and the default of suitable limits by which one can form one's taste. It seems to me to be no advantage that we have widened out our theater to take in, as it were, the limitless spectacle of nature. Neither directors nor actors, however, can set nar- rower limits until the taste of the nation itself shall mark out the proper bounds. Every good society can exist only under certain conditions; so it is, too, with a good theater. Certain manners and ways of speech, certain subjects and sorts of behavior must be excluded. One does not become poorer for limiting one's household."* Possibly it was while confronted with the practical prob- lems of theatrical management that Goethe wrote the above words in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. It was a time, in Ger- many, when the ideals for the drama in the modern sense were 'Maync, Goethe. Wilhelm Meisters theatralische Sendung, 76. ^ Billeter, Wilhelm Meisters Theatralische Sendung, Einleitung, 6-10; cf. above p. 517. " Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, III, 8; W., I, 21, 288f. 'Lehrjahre, V. 16; W., I, 22, 232f. 19 Titsworth in process of formation. Goethe longed for a more artistic type than was prevalent and it was the increasing sense of this lack which formed for him the connecting link with the classic dramatic art of the French. When Goethe had first taken over the direction of the court theater in 1791, he felt little interest in his task. As time went on, however, and es- pecially under the impulse of the friendship with Schiller, he manifested an increasing determination to make this stage the home of a dignified art,^ but he found himself confronted by two problems which put his ideals for the drama to a severe test; first, how to get his actors to speak their roles in a dis- tinct and dignified fashion ; and second, how to wean the public from a taste for vapid realism, crass naturalism, rant, and diseased passion to an appreciation of a more elevated, re- strained and dignified drama.^ By 1796, however, a long hoped-for visit of Iffland gave a new impulse to correct acting, and in 1798, Schiller came to his friend's aid with a noble ex- ample of dramatic art in verse, Wallenstein.' These begin- nings were excellent, but only a small part of what was needed. It was in this time* of appreciation of a regular and elevated drama and in his hour of need as a theatrical manager that he received Wilhelm von Humboldt's letter from Paris. Here Humboldt set forth soundly and at considerable length the merits and defects of French histrionic and dramatic art, lay- ing especial emphasis on what the Germans might learn from their neighbors in the way of an artistic drama. He also indica- ted that -the French had more passion and "Leb^nsgefiihl" in their dramatic literature than had been supposed.* This letter impressed Goethe profoundly and helped him, as he says, to a clear conception of French classic drama.^ Here in the one-time despised literature he found an art — not the noblest to be sure, but a worthy and lofty one° — which • August 1799. ^ Devrient, Oeach. d. deut. Schauspielkunst, 2, 71flF. " Wahle, Das Weimarer Theater unter Ooethes Leitung, 71fF. ' Ibid, 60ff, 96ff, 132. *Propylaen, 3, 66-109. "Letter to v. Humboldt, Oct. 28, 1799; W., IV, 14, 209. ' Eimige Szenen aus Mahomet nach Voltaire; ca. Oct. 15, 1799; W., I, 40, 67f. Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama could very well serve his purpose for the Weimar stage, and which gave opportunity to re-introduce verse as the proper medium of tragedy/ — a reform which lay very near his heart. Enlightened and made enthusiastic by Humboldt's letter, he prosecuted more vigorously^ the translation of Voltaire's Ma- homet, which had been begun at the request of the Duke.^ Goethe's reawakened interest in the French classic drama was thoroughgoing: he not only read it again with increased pleasure,* but the next year he began staging French classic pieces, among them Moliere's Avare, Corneille's Cid and Bode- gune, Racine's Mithridate and Phedre, and Voltaire's Zaire, Mort de Cesar, Mahomet, and Tancrede.^ Of these dramas Goethe himself translated the last two.* On the whole, throughout this period, Goethe manifested no variation from this moderately but genuinely appreciative attitude toward the classic drama of the French. To be sure, * Of the seventy-nine foreign dramas played on tlie Weimar stage during Goethe's directorship, thirty-six, or nearly one-half were French. H«ne, Die Awsldndischen Dramen im Spiel/plane des Weimarischen Theaters unter Ooethes Leitung, Zs. f. vgl. Lit.-Gesch., N. F., 4, 314. 'Wahle, 135. "Dieser Aufsatz, (Humboldt's letter, Propylaen, 3, 66-109) welcher sdir zur rechten Zeit kam, hat auf mich und SchiUern einen besondern Einfluss gehabt imd unser Anschauen des franzosischen Theaters voUig ins Klare gebracht. Durch eine sonderbare Veranlassung iibersetzte ich den Mahomet des Voltaire ins Deutsche. Ohne Ihren Brief ware mlr dieses Experiment nicht gelungen, ja ich hatte es nicht unternehmen mogen. Da ich das Stiick nicht allein ins Deutsche, sondern, wo mog- lich, fiir die Deutschen iibersetzen mochte; so war mir Ihre Charakter- istik beyder Nationen iiber diesen Punct ein ausserst gliicklicher Leit- stern und ist es noch jetzt bei der Ausarbeltung. So wird auch die Wirkimg des Stiicks auf dem Theater Ihre Bemerkimgen, wie ich voraus- sehe, viillig bekraftigen. Letter to W. v. Humboldt, Oct. 28, 1799; W., IV, 14, 209. ' Briefwechsel Karl Augusts mit Goethe, 252. *Seitdem mir Humboldts Brief imd die Bearbeitung Mahomets ein neues Licht iiber die franzosische Biihne aufgestellt haben, seitdem mag ich lieber ihre (the French) Stiicke lesen und habe mich jetzt an den Crebillon begeben. Letter to Schiller, Oct. 23, 1799; W., IV, 14, 203. 'Heine, 4, 317ff; Burkhardt, Das Repertoire des Weimarischen Theaters unter Goethes Leitung, 1791-1817; Theatergeschichtliche Forschungen, 1, 35-104. Titsworth there are several statements of his which might be quoted to prove the contrary, for Goethe's sensitive nature reacted dif- ferently toward this, as many another subject, under varying moods and in different presences. "With one person he might point out its defects, with another he might dwell on its merits. To illustrate this apparently unstable attitude let me juxta- pose some statements which seem to approach contradiction of each other. When Frau von Stael visited Weimar in 1804, he felt heartily out of sympathy with the restricted form and unnatur- al pathos of the French classic drama* and he declared that the Germans would rather do without the kernel of value in French drama than thresh over a mass of worthless straw.^ In a more appreciative mood, in a letter to Schiller the following year (1805), he felt that in their treatment of French literature either as a model or otherwise, they had re- garded it as too stiff.^ Again, in 1808, saddened by the sight of so many young and promising German talents shipwrecking on the rocks of Romanticism with its lack of form and tech- nique, he felt that, in the mastery of form,^ in many of the limitations,* and in the unity of idea although mechanically interpreted,^ there were qualities which should not be con- sidered too unkindly and which should to a certain degree be coveted. *• ' Writing to a Frenchman, de "Vitry, in 1824, Goethe de- clared that it would always be a pleasure to feel himself some- what in accord with French literature which he had always * This was perhaps due to the personality of Frau von Stael herself, with whom he had little patience. "Es ward abermals klar, der Deutsche mochte wohl auf ewig dieser beschrankten Form, diesem abgemessenen und aufgedunsenen Pathos entsagt haben. Den darunter verborgenen hiibschen natiirlichen Kern mag er lieber entbehren, als ihn aus so vieler nach und nach darum gehiill- ten Unnatur gutmiitig herausklauben. Biographische Einxelheiten; 1804, W., I, 36, 262. 'Letter to Schiller, Feb. 28, 1805; W., IV, 17, 263. 'Letter to C. F. v. Reinhard, Mar. 80, 1827; W., IV, 42, 112. 'Conversation with v. Humboldt, Nov. 17, 18, 1808; B., 2, 5. 'Conversation with S. Boisser^e, Aug. 7, 1815; B., 2, 320. "Conversation with Falk, Feb. 1810; B., 2, 67. Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama highly appreciated and to which he owed so much/ The fol- lowing year (1825), he assumed a less sympathetic attitude. He saw in French literature not the expression of the uni- versal, but rather many elements of the unusual which would cause it to age.^ Again, in 1828, he asserted that much of the Frenchman's admiration for his drama was worship of ar- istocracy of dramatic convention, and that this regard caused him to forget that he was in reality greatly bored.^ But, again, compare with these last two expressions of opinion a statement to Kozmian in 1830 that the masterpieces of the French stage will remain masterpieces forever.* Stephan Schiitze reports a conversation* with Goethe in which this very changeableness of attitude is brought out:' "One must not at all believe that Goethe always remained fixed in his views. No ! but it was the very fact that he was always open to conviction and continually subjected things to new investigation and that which for the time being seemed to him certain to new tests, which made him receptive for such different things. His doubting and his accepting often went to strange lengths. He said to me once: 'I don't know after all but that the French (in their classic tragedy) were on the right road. ' Perhaps he said this in his own interest since in his own dramas, because of the increasing epic serenity of his own nature, he let his characters give full expression to them- selves — which of course is the main thing — in long speeches and with little display of physical action. That, in this way, he could produce no theatrical effects, he recognized after- wards and said, 'I have written against the theater' ". As to a strict interpretation of the unities, Goethe was in the main never very friendly ; yet on some occasions he seemed to value them more highly than on others. In 1808, Napoleon, discussing with him the French theater, reproached the Ger- * At the home of Johanna Schopenhauer. ^Mar. 29, 1824; W., IV, 38, 97. ^Conversation with Eckermann, June 11, 1825; B., 3, 210f. ' Franzosischer Haupttheater; 1828; W., I, 40, 134. * Conversation with Kozmian, May 8, 1830; B., 4, 270. nSOe, 1807, and later; B., 2, 240. 23 Titsworth mans with laxity in this respect. Goethe replied, "Sire, les unites ehez nous ne sont pas essentielles. " ^ In his Maximen und Beflexionen uber Literatur und Ethik* he declared that there was nothing to be said against the three unities when the subject was very simple. Even a larger number ("drei mal drei Einheiten"), cleverly employed, might on occasion be effective.^ In the mask, Mahomet, in 1818, he asserted that the drama in all its plenitude of incident must limit itself in time, place, and action as in the French and Greek theater.' Then, in a different mood, he spoke of the ScylLa of the three unities and declared that it mattered little where or how one admitted the improbable on the stage as long as there had to be improbabilities if there was to be any drama at all.* Dis- cussing the same point with Eckermann in 1825, he said that the French had misunderstood the spirit of the Greek drama, had divorced the unities from their cause, and had come to worship them as good in themselves, and had overlooked the fact that with the Greeks the proper presentation of a dra- matic subject was more than the observance of any rules. In other words, the unities are useful in so far as they aid in making a drama more comprehensible. Unfortunately, the French, in their over-anxiety to follow rules of thumb, sin against the very eomprehensibility which they desire, by sub- stituting narration for action.^ This is apparently the crux of the whole matter in Goethe's mind, as far as the question of the unities is concerned.! * I could find no date for this other than that of Kunst und Alter- tum, 1817-1827. 'Conversation with Napoleon, Sept. 30 and following days, 1808; B., 1, 541. 'Maximen und Beflexionen uber Literatur und Ethik; Aus Kunst und Altertum; W., I, 42^ 159. (1817-1827). "Maskenzug von 1818, Mahomet; W., I, 16, 279. 'Conversation with v. Miiller, May 8, 1822; B., 2, 571. = Conversation with Eckermann, Feb. 24, 1825 ; B, 3, 162f. t In this connection, Goethe's changing attitude toward Shakespeare and the Englishman's disregard of the unities is interesting. In 1815 he denied the Elizabethan the unity of idea which the French observed, but mechanically (conversation with Boisserfie, Aug. 7, 1815; B., 2, 320), and deemed him epic and philosophic rather than dramatic (conversation with BoisserSe and Thibaut, Sept. 20, 1815; B., 2, 343f). In 1818, he felt 24 Goethe, Schiller and the french Classic Drama In a word, Goethe's final attitude toward the French classic drama was that, in so far as it represented artistic self- control and not artistic malnutrition, it was true art. It was his belief that the dramatic genius, at first avoiding all limitations as unnatural, tended more and more to produce according to rules, developed from his own experience and thus to approach nearer the strictness of form of French tragedy. He regarded the Greek drama not as an arbitrary- model but as the acme of dramatic production — and therefore to be followed — because the insight of the ancient Greeks into the nature of the drama had been so keen that none had yet surpassed their discoveries in this field. He did not bow down to worship these forms because they bore the stamp of the authority of an Aristotle or of a French Academy, but be- cause he felt that these rules, rightly understood, sprang from the nature of the drama itself. Here is the essential differ- ence between Goethe's point of view and that of French clas- sicism : he refused recognition to any rules of literary creation imposed by tradition or convention, acknowledging only those arising from inner necessity.*^ II Goethe's Attitude Toward French Classic Dramatists in Particular Corneille. Goethe refers to Corneille but few times and only twice at length. Although he had read him largely as the same lack (Maskenzug von 1818 Mahomet; W., I., 16, 279), but in 1825, he acknowledged that, in spite of this defect Shakespeare's pieces are easily understood while those of the French, with their Pharisaic observance of the law, are not. (conversation with Eckerman, Nov. 24, 1824; B., 3, 143). * In this connection should be mentioned Goethe's attitude toward A. W. Schlegel's criticism of French drama. In the beginning he felt in fullest accord with his statements — and perhaps continued to be so with reference to French tragedy — ^but later Goethe took umbrage at his low estimate of Moli6re and declared this critic an unsafe guide. (Let- ters to Eichstadt, Nov. 18, 1807; W., IV, 19, 459f; to Frau v. Stein, Nov. 19, 1807; ibid, 19, 461; to v. Knebel, Jan. 10, 1810; ibid, 21, 161; conversation with Eckermann, Mar. 28, 1827; B., 3, 359f.) •Cf. p. 521, note 1, also letter to Reinhard, Mar. 30, 1827; W., IV, 42, 112. 25 Titsworth early as 1761,^ he mentions by name but three of his dra- mas : the Cid five times,^ Ginna twiee,^ and Nicomede once.* The earliest mention at any length, — found in the Urmeister, — (above, p. 14) shows Goethe very enthusiastic over the power- ful situations, the noble characters, the simplicity, beauty, grandeur, and naturalness of his pieces and also over the dramatist's own nobility of soul shining through his situa- tions and personages. "Ich bewundere, was iiber mir ist," says Goethe, "ich beurteile es nicht . . . Eine tiefere in- nere Selbstandigkeit ist der Grund aller seiner Charaktere, Starke des Geistes in alien Situationen ist das Liebste, was er schildert. Lass auch, dass sie in seinen jiingern Stiicken manchmal als Rodomontade aufschlagt und in seinem Alter zu Harte vertrocknet, so bleibt es immer eine edle Seele, deren Aeusserungen uns wohl thun."* Something of the same exalted opinion he expressed to Eckermann in 1827 : he saw in Comeille a man of noble mind, fitted to inspire heroic souls, one at once prolific and pos- sessed of a potent and lofty spirit manifest in all his work, although less felicitously in those of his youth and of his later years. It was this quality in Corneille which appealed to Napoleon, who needed a stout-hearted people, and caused the Emperor to say that, if the poet were living, he would make him a prince.^ A short statement in Maximem und Beflexionen iiber Li- teratur und Ethik also sheds light on Goethe's estimate of him. "Durch die despotische Unvernunft des Cardinal Rich- elieu war Corneille an sieh selbst irre geworden. ' " This very evidently refers to the quarrel over the Cid and the way in which Corneille had been turned aside from the dramatic pro- ^D. u. W., I, 3; W., I, 26, 171. = Ibid; also conversation with Iffland, Dec. 22, 1779; B., 1, 103; diaries, Oct. 5, 1799 and Jan. 30, 1806; W., Ill, 2, 263 and 3, 116; Franzoaisches Haupttheater (Lesarten) ; 1828; W., I, 40, 420. 'Letters to Frau v. Stein, Feb. 3, 1781; W., IV, 5, 45; Maync, Wil- helm Meisters theatralische Sendimg, 79. 'Diaries, Oct. 27, 1807; W., Ill, 3, 289. •■ Maync, 80. ° Conversation with Eckermann, Apr. 1, 1827, B., 3, 365. 'Aus Kunst und AUertum; 1817-1827; W., I, 42^ 118. 26 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama gram started in that drama and had been forced into the strait- jacket of the rules, into an art form essentially un- congenial to him.^ Moliere. In the previous chapter, it was seen that Goe- the's attitude, favorable or otherwise, toward French classic drama was almost altogether an estimate of its form. This feature did not play so large a role in his judgment of comedy, for this type of drama does not need as much breath- ing space as tragedy. Goethe was not disturbed, therefore, by the vexatious questions of the observance of rules in his relationship with Moliere. It was as an artist and as a per- sonality that Moliere attracted him. The relation of Goethe to the great comedy writer rises and stays, undisturbed, on a higher plane than that between him and any other French dramatist, or many great literary men, for that matter. In the case of Moliere and Goethe, it was one man speaking from the depths of his experience and insight through the mediimi of a finished art to a fellow artist and a fellow man of ex- traordinarily sympathetic temperament.^ Of all writers of the French classic period, then, Goethe felt most attracted to Moliere, quoting from him frequently, referring to his works very often, and devoting some time every year to re- newing his inspiration at this unfailing source.' No such compliment does he mention paying to any other man. "Per- sonne en AUemagne n'a jamais voue a Moliere un culte aussi ardent."* Goethe had read all Moliere 's works as early as 1761. At the first, his pieces did not especially impress him." By 1769, however, he had studied him very closely," and felt compe- tent to make some selections for Cornelia, his sister, to read.'' A presentation of the Tartuffe appealed to him because of the * Petit de Julleville, Histoire de la langue et de la litterature fran- gaiae, IV, 1, 280f. "Ehrhard, Us ComHies de MoliSre en AUemagne, 305-368. 'Tag- und Jahreshefte; 1805; W., I, 35, 189; conversation with Eckermann, May 12, 1825; B., 3, 209; ibid, 358. 'Ehrhard, 306. »Z). M. W., I, 3; W., I, 26, 143. » Tag- und Jahreshefte; 1764 bis 1769; W., I, 35, 4. 'Letter to CorneUa, Dec. 1765; W., IV, 1, 28. 27 Titsworth truth in the drawing of the hypocrite: "Neulich sah ieh Tartliffen. Top ! da fiel mir ein Kerl ein der ebenso aus- sieht. . . Bin Sehurke, wie der andere."^ Three times Goethe speaks of his interest in Moliere as life- long and of reading some of his pieces every year. This is probably true, even for the Storm and Stress years. There was little or no conflict between the spirit of the "Geniezeit" and that of Moliere, and despite Lessing's cool and some- what supercilious attack in the Dramaturgie, he probably suf- fered very little under the general contempt into which French classicism fell during the years 1770-1775.^ In Goethe's later years, he speaks very often to Eckermann of his high esteem for the Frenchman and of the great debt which he felt he owed him. He read him over and over again to keep Moliere 's greatness fresh in his mind and at each re-reading he felt increasing admiration for the genius of the playwright and for his unique personality. To him, Moliere 's comedies bordered on tragedy.^ He placed Moliere among the greatest men of France,* in the front rank of comedy writers,^ and he named him with Shakespeare and the Greeks as being the classics most worthy of study." This is because Moliere was more than a mere successful stager of comic situations. To Goethe, he was in addition a man of culture in the very highest sense of the term. "Es ist nicht bloss das voUendete kiinstlerische Ver- fahren, was mich an ihm entzlickt, sondern vorziiglich aueh das liebenswiirdige Naturell, das hochgebildete Innere des Dichters. Es ist in ihm eine Grazie und ein Takt ftir das Schiekliche und ein Ton des feinen Umgangs, wie es seine angeborene sehone Natur nur im taglichen Verkehr mit den ^ Ibid, 26. " Rossel, 435, sees influence of Tartuffe on Pater Brey, and on the Gross-Oophta of a later period, 441. Ehrhard sees resemblances between Don Juan and Famst, 351; also Minor, Ooethes Famst, 1, 164. This of course does not exhaust traces of Molifere's influence on Goethe that various critics have pointed out. 'Conversation with Eckermann j May 12, 1825; B., 3, 203. 'Conversation with Eckermann; May 3, 1827; B., 3, 386. ' Franzosisches Scha/uspiel in Berlin; 1828; W., I, 40, 131. "Conversation with Eckermann; Apr. 1, 1827; B., 3, 365. 28 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama vorziigliehsten Menschen seines Jahrhunderts erreichen konnte."! Or again he says, "Was kann man mehr von einem Kiinst- ler sagen, als dass vorziigliehes Naturell, sorgfaltige Ausbil- dung und gewandte Ausfiihrung bei ihm zur vollkommen- sten Harmonic gelangten?"^ Le Misanthrope, a favorite with Goethe,' seemed to him, in content and treatment, tragic. In it is found the conflict between an extreme individualism on the one hand and the vapidness and deceits of society on the other. Moliere pro- poses the question, How far must each give up in order to come together on a working basis? Goethe saw in the figure of the hero the uncorrupted instincts of Moliere him- self in the toils of the artificialities of the court life in which he moved, and a man who, unspoiled by the superficial ele- ments of society, has remained sincere with himself, and would have only too gladly been so with others. Never, to Goethe's mind, had an author portrayed his own soul more completely and more attractively than Moliere has done in this piece.* Goethe expressed himself in much the same fashion about the Avare and the Medecin malgre lui. Disgusted at the signs of disease in contemporary literature, he found com- fort in reading and studying Moliere. He again felt im- pressed with the soundness of his nature and with the tonic effect of his plays : " Es ist an ihm nichts verbogen und ver- bildet. Und nun diese Grossheit! Er beherrschte die Sitten seiner Zeit . . . Moliere ziichtigte die Menschen, indem er sie in ihrer "Wahrheit zeichnete."° Not only as a man of ideas, of culture, and of sound in- stincts did Goethe recognize Moliere but he perceived in him an eye for the theatrically effective and in his dramas the best modern theatrical practice. ""Wenn wir . . . f iir unsere ^Conversation with Eckermann; Mar. 28, 1827; B., 3, 358. ' Franzosisches Schauspiel in Berlin; 1828; W., I, 40, 131. 'Conversation with Eckermann, Mar. 28, 1827; B., 3, 358. * Notice sur J. Taschereau's Histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de Moliire; 1828; W., I, 41^ 334. "Conversation with Eckermann; Jan. 29, 1826; B., 3, 254. 29 Titsworth modernen Zweeke lernen wollen uns auf dem Theater zu be- nehmen, so ware Moliere der Mann, an den wir iins zu wen- den batten. ' ' ^ He cites as further proof of this perfect knowl- edge of the tricks of the playwright's trade the scene in the Malade imaginmre (II, 11) where he used retardation to such good purpose to keep up the suspense.^ Naturally enough, then, A. "W. Schlegel's belittling crit- icism of the comic dramatic poet* was a blow to Goethe.^ "With his criticism of French classic tragedy, Goethe had been at first in fullest accord,' but for his disparagement of Moliere he could not forgive him. This, with the fact that Schlegel was one of the founders of the Romantic school, un- doubtedly helped to put Goethe out of sympathy with him.* He criticised him harshly and accused the Romanticist of lacking a sound basis for his criticism and of having failed utterly to understand the import of Moliere 's work. Goethe recognized that Schlegel knew a mass of facts and had read an enormous amount, but he denied that these things could take the place of sound judgment. He wound up by saying : "In the way in which Schlegel treats the French theater, I find a formula for a poor reviewer, who lacks every sense of what is excellent and who passes over a great personality as though it were chaff and stubble. ' ' ° Racine. There are quite a few references to Racine in Goethe's works, t but only four in which he expressed himself critically on this French dramatist. Goethe early knew and venerated Racine. As a lad of twelve he had read him entire and the French tragic poet had * In general, Schlegel's criticism of MoliSre was that he was a con- scienceless and unskilled borrower of plots and tricks, a buffoon, a cari- caturist; that he wrote much trash; that he was clumsy in handling sit- uation; that he was unsound in his motiving. He denied him nearly every right to the praise of his 'countrymen. Vorhsungen iiber dra- matische Kunst und Litteratttr, 22. Vorlesung, 6, 103-124. 1 1 have foimd twenty-two such references. ^Conversation with Eckermann, Mar. 28, 1827; B., 3, 358. 'Letter to Zelter, July 27, 1828; W., IV, 44, 229. = Cf. p. 529, (footnote). * Conversation with W. v. Humboldt, Nov. 17 and 18, 1808; B., 2, 5. 'With Eckermann, Mar. 28, 1827; B., 3, 359f. 30 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama become his ' ' Abgott. " ^ It was seen above (p. 4) how as a child, Groethe had enjoyed playing the role of Nero in Britan- nicus. Recalling this period sixty-nine years later (1830) he testified to a great interest in this dramatist and added that, under his inspiration, the idea of writing dramas had first come to him.^ Goethe saw in Racine a "feinfiihlenden Fran- zosen" and a realistic portrayer of the complicated life of a great court. In the third book of Wilhelm Meisters Lehr- jahre, "Wilhelm expresses the following appreciation of the dramatist. t He tells the Prince that "he holds the French theater in very high esteem and that he reads the works of the great masters with delight, and with especial joy had he heard that the Prince fully appreciated the great talents of Racine. 'I can easily imagine,' he continued, 'how persons of high rank and superior breeding must hold a poet in high regard who portrays so artistically and correctly the circum- stances of their lofty station. Corneille, if I may say so, has delineated grand and noble characters; Racine, persons of patrician rank. When I read his pieces, I can always picture to myself the poet who lives at a brilliant court, in the presence of a great king, holding constant intercourse with the most distinguished persons, and penetrating into the secrets of human nature, as it works concealed behind the gorgeous tapestry of palaces. When I study his Britannicus or his Berenice, it seems to me as if I were transported in person to the court, were introduced to the ins and outs of these dwellings of the earthly gods, and saw through the eyes of a Frenchman of delicate sensibilities kings adored of a whole nation, courtiers envied by thousands, in their natural bearing, with their faults and their troubles'."^ t After a careful study of Goethe's general attitude toward Racine, I feel justified in citing this passage as his point of view put into Wil- helm's mouth. Whether or not it was altogether typical of Goethe's atti- tude toward Racine in the years 1794-1796 — ^when the greater part of the Lehrjahre was written — is not certain. Cf. Billeter, Einleitung, pp. 6-10; also Creizenach, Einleitung zu Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahren, Goethes SamtUche Werke, Jubilaums-Ausgabe, 17, xxvfF. ^D. u. W., I, 3; W., I, 26, 170. = Conversation with Kozmian, May 8, 1830; B., 4, 270. 'Lehrjahre, III, 8; W., I, 21, 288f. 31 TitswortJi Voltaire. Goethe's attitude toward Voltaire is not like that toward any other French classic dramatist. It has been noted that he esteemed Corneille for his noble sentiments, Moliere for the soundness of his nature, for his culture, and for his unsurpassed artistic skill, and Racine for his pene- trating and psychologically subtle portrayal of court life; but Voltaire he appreciated rather as a master of form, as an author of dramas occupying a middle ground between the naturalism prevalent on the German stage and the classic idealism which, during his directorate of the Weimar stage, he came to covet for it. While he appreciated these other men more or less throughout his life, he was interested in Voltaire as a dramatist only for a few years beginning with September, 1799. Goethe knew Voltaire as a playwright as early as his first year in Leipzig (1765).^ Even at this time when Shake- speare had not yet assumed for him the importance which he later did, and while the young German was most sympathetic toward French classicism, he recognized that the intellectual and spiritual capacity of the Englishman was cast in a larger mold than that of Voltaire.^ In the Storm and Stress period, Voltaire did not escape Goethe's iconoelasm; indeed, it seems that it was the French literature of the eighteenth century represented by Voltaire, its senility and its conventions which had first cooled Goethe's sympathy for French culture, in the Strassburg time. Not until 1799 did Goethe's interest revert to the "Pa- triarch of Ferney." This return was brought about not by reading Voltaire's dramas but by Karl August's request for him to stage a Voltairean piece. "Als er jetzt, unfreiwillig und ohne besondere Lust, ja, wie Karl August reeht gut erkannte: gegen seine Natur und Ueberzeugung, an die Ar- beit ging, war es nicht der Stoff, sondern nur die Form, die ihm allmahlig ein tieferes Interesse abgewann. "^ In the midst of this unpleasant prospect, as we have seen, Goethe •Letter to Cornelia, ca. Dec. 6, 1765; W., IV, 1, 26. = Letter to Oeser, Oct. 14, 1769; W., IV, 1, 205. 'Minor, Ooethes Mahomet, 43; Briefwechsel Karl Augusts mit Goethe, 252. 32 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama received great encouragement for his task from Humboldt's letter on the French theater.^ He began the translation of Mahomet in September, 1799, and finished it by October 11 ; and the drama was represented January 30, 1800.^ The un- dertaking, although an experiment,^ proved of great value to the Weimar stage by helping to clinch the reforms in acting and in dramatic style already begun by Iffland and Schiller. The experience gained in this presentation prepared the way for the heavier and more difficult pieces which soon followed.* The success of Mahomet warranted doing Tancrede into German. He began it July 22, 1800 and finished it December 24, of the same year." Mahomet was translated almost as literally as the change from Alexandrine to pentameter blank verse permitted, but Tancrede was worked over in a freer fashion :' it was given a less bombastic diction and relieved of some of the restraint of the original. Goethe himself con- sidered the drama of much theatrical merit and an addition in many ways to the repertory of the Weimar stage and he had no doubt of its wholesome effect.'' It might be asked why Goethe played more of Voltaire's dramas on the Weimar stage than of any other French classic dramatist, and why he translated his pieces for this purpose and not those of any other French dramatic poet. Carel tries to answer the question by saying that Voltaire combined with the French theories of structure a keen sense of what is suited for presentation on the stage.^ Mahomet, Goethe tells us," was played to drill the actors in word for word memori- zing, in declamation, and in dignified action ; its general inter- 1 Cf. above, p. 524. 2 Diaries, 1799; W., Ill, 2, 262ff; Tag- und Jahreshefte; 1800; W., I, 35, 85. 'Letter to v. Knebel, Nov. 7, 1799; W., IV, 14, 217. * Tag- und Jahreshefte; 1800 ; W., I, 35, 85. » Diaries, 1800; W., Ill, 2, 302-315. "Rossel, 446 (footnote); letter to SchiUer, July 29, 1800; W., IV, 15, 91. 'Letters to SchiUer, July 25 and 29, 1800; W., IV, 15, 89, and 91. ' Carel, Voltaire und Ooethe, part IV, 20. ' Einige Szenen mis Mahomet nach Voltaire j ca. Oct. 15, 1799; W., I, 40, 68. 33 Titsworth est, its clearness, its pathetic situations, and the fewness of its characters made it in every way suitable for his stage. A number of Goethe's friends expressed surprise and regret that he had dropped original work and taken up the translation of French drama.^ Much later (1819), C. F. Zelter, in the same mood, was inclined to reproach Goethe for spending his time on such a task, for he felt that Mahomet and Tancrede lacked tragic significance, although he was fully aware of Voltaire's beautiful French and the symmetry and harmony of the dramas as a whole.^ In reply to his friend's criticism, Goethe stated the whole purpose of his staging French dramas: /'Was du iiber Mahomet und Tan- crede sagst, ist voUkommen: richtig ; doch waren mir der- gleichen abgemessene Muster zu meinen Theaterdidaskalien hochst nothig und haben mir unsaglichen Vortheil gebracht, weswegen ich ihnen nicht f eind seyn kann. " ^ Or as Schiller said, "Nicht Muster zwar darf uns der Franke warden, . . . ein Fiihrer nur zum Bessern."* tos purpose was, then, a pedagogical one : this idea he reitmites a number of times.^ Minor Dramatists. Crebillon. With the revival of interest in the French classic drama, Goethe turned his attention to this French writer with the hope of possibly finding some- thing serviceable for the Weimar stage. He said of this dra- matist that he treated the passions of his characters like a deck of cards and that he produced astonishing situations by simply shuffling them together. Thus they did not change in the least by contact with each other nor did they manifest any reactions toward their fellows.* » Tag- und Jahreshefte; 1801 ; W., I, 35, 91. " Riemer, Briefwechsel zwischen Goethe und Zelter in den Jahren 1796 bis J8SB; 3, 41ff. 'Letter to Zelter, Oct. 7, 1819; W., IV, 32, 52. ^An Goethe, als er den Mahomet von Voltaire auf die Buhne brachte; Jan. 1800; G., 11, 325. 'Letters to Hufeland, Dec. 30, 1799; W, IV, 14, 238; to Wolf, Nov. 15, 1802; ibid, 16, 141; to Voss, Nov. 30, 1802; ibid, 16, 147; to Zelter, Feb. 23, 1817; ibid, 27, 350; to same Oct. 7, 1819; ibid, 32, 52; conver- sation with David, Aug. 20, 1829; B., 4, 165. "Letter to Schiller, Oct. 23, 1799; W., IV, 14, 203f. 34 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama Of Crebillon's pieces Goethe mentions the Electre ^ and Bhadamiste et Zenolie. In the latter he saw the acme of French classic mannerism, in comparison with which Voltaire's drama was pure nature.^ Destouches. As a boy Goethe held Destouehes in high esteem for his portrayal of manners, but this playwright had fallen into disrepute by the time of Goethe's Strassburg per- iod and he no longer mentioned him for fear of being called provincial.^ By way of summary, let me point out that as regards Corneille, it was the spirit and not the form of his works that Goethe valued; his content of ideas and his dramatic skill contributed nothing vital and lasting to the German poet. In spite of the enthusiastic mention of Corneille, the fewness of references to him seems to indicate that Goethe's appreciation was intellectual and that the French poet was a statue to be admired from a distance rather than a friend to be taken to his heart. Moliere, on the other hand, was an intimate acquaintance whom he admitted to the holy of holies of his affection, a free spirit like himself which could laugh at lifeless ideals and rise above them. To Goethe, he towered above all other French classic dramatists and took his place among the first literary men of the ages. Goethe's relation to Racine — like that to Corneille — was one of thorough acquaintance merely and not that of intimacy and companionship as in the case of Moliere. He appreciated ^ this French dramatic poet for his artistic sincerity and for the truthfulness of his dramas. In connection with his dis- cussion of Racine, he says nothing of matters of form and nothing of the unities of the French drama. This is surpris- ing, for Racine is the consummate artist of French tragedy. Of all classicists, he best accommodated himself to the limiting traditions of French classic dramaturgy. Goethe's renewed interest in French classic drama was 1 Italian journey, diaries, Oct. 7, 1786; W., Ill, 1, 275. 2 Letter to SchUler, Mar. 19, 1802; W., IV, 16, 58. »D. u. W., Ill, 11; W., I, 28, 63. 35 Titsworth due to Humboldt's letter, the translation of Mahomet^ and his need for dignified pieces for his stage. Perhaps he would have remained indifferent to it except for these impulses. Voltaire bridged the gulf to the better understanding of French drama. Two reasons induced Goethe to use him as a model; first, because he was nearly contemporary and had wielded an enormous influence on the century ^ — ^two facts which made the appeal of his pieces greater; and second, be- cause his dramas, while they observed the limitations of French classicism, betrayed a greater practical knowledge of what was theatrically effective than did the pieces of Cor- neille and Racine. As for Crebillon and Destouches, Goethe found in them no great artists but rather the stragglers of the classic movement. It is evident that Goethe's attitude toward the French clas- sic dramatists as individuals, does not allow the same divi- sion into definite periods as does his estimate of the drama in general. On the whole, he never spoke of the French dramatists themselves with acerbity and rarely with dis- paragement. Of them all, Voltaire came nearest to passing through the same stages in Goethe's appreciation as did the school to which he belonged. While Corneille and Racine received almost no critical mention in the Storm and Stress time and the period of silence (1770-1799), Goethe's regard for them, in its recorded expression, suffered practically no change ; that is, the value he sets upon them in the last period is his estimate of them in the Frankfurt-Leipzig years. On the other hand, his esteem for Moliere as artist and man ap- pears to rise in a steady crescendo culminating in the expres- sions of admiration in the conversations with Eckermann. Ill Schillee's Attitude Toward French Classic Drama In General In Schiller's life there are no variations of attitude toward French classic drama sufficient to warrant dividing his career > Letter to Schiller, Oct. 23, 1799; W., IV, 14, 203. ''Conversations with Eckermann, Feb. 13, 1829 and Jan. 3, 1830; B., 4, 68 and 186f. 36 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama into periods. His school days were passed in a very French at- mosphere, but the French point of view took such slight hold upon him that in later life it seems to have influenced him very little, if at aU, in his judgment of the French ideals for the drama. When he arrived at Castle Solitude and thus came under the domination of the pedagogical ideals of Duke Karl Bugen, he entered a world thoroughly French.^ The Duke's own education had been French; and when he came to rule in Stuttgart, he modeled his court after that of Versailles.^ Wlien he caught the fever of reform, he set up a school copied after French institutions ^ where the French language was given greater prominence than in any other German schools of the time.* Native French teachers were employed. Thus it came about that Schiller was well instructed in the French type of the philosophy of the Enlightenment,^ and had a better reading and speaking knowledge of French* than of any other foreign idiom." With such surroundings it is certain that he became acquainted with the masters of the French classic stage, t If he had left an autobiography, as did Goethe, we might know definitely what he became ac- quainted with and how it impressed him. Whatever he may have read or seen, however, left no deeply vital impress upon his literary consciousness. To those acquainted with the career of Schiller, it is well * To be sure, one gets no very favorable idea of Schiller's attainment even in French; in the school records for the years between 1776 and 1778, we find his grade only "fairly good" (ziemlich gut). Minor, Aus dem Schiller- Archie, 18. t He apparently knew little of Voltaire as a dramatist untU 1799. Letter to Goethe, May 31, 1799; Jonas, Schillers Brief e, 6, 35. 1 Conversation with Genast, May 13 and 14, 1800; Petersen, Schil- lers Oesprache. Berichte seiner Zeitgenossen iiber ihn, 298; Schanzen- bach, Franzosische Einfliisse bei Schiller, 5; Berger, Schillers Leben, 1, 99. ' Schanzenbach, 5. ' Ibid, 6. * Ibid, 7. = Ibid, 9. » Ibid, 7f. 37 Titsworth known that his school life in the ducal military academy was not the happiest. The rigorous restraint and suppression of the individuality of the pupils approached brutality.^ It is not astonishing, therefore, that, relieved from such confine- ment, he underwent a period of violent reaction. In the iconoclastic drama, Die Bduher, published in 1781, this reaction first finds in Schiller vehement expression. In it and in its preface, he announces his Storm and Stress plat- form containing both social and literary planks. This piece of work is not only a protest against social decay and tyranny, but it treads ruthlessly on some of the sacred conventions of the French stage by its setting in the present, by its boister- ous action, by its use of a robber band as the protagonist, and by its disregard of the unities of time and place. Schiller feels his own literary consciousness to be a safe enough guide in his literary self-expression, and so, like Goethe in his period of revolt, he throws oil the yoke of tradition and in- stitutionalism and demands to see and feel for himself. To this young disciple of Rousseau, French classic drama has removed itself so far from nature that it is worthy only of scorn. Theoretically, as well as practically, he criticises both the spirit and the form of French drama. To the German dramatist, drunk with the spirit of a newly found liberty, no sorrier fate can befall a hero than to appear some day in the strait-jacket of French tragedy.* In the preface to Die Bduier, Schiller pointed out some of the reasons why French drama is so stiff and repelling. To his mind, the French lack to a large degree a sense of what is truly dramatic when they substitute such a large element of narration for action on their stage. It is here that he first took issue with this narrative element in the French classic * Karl Moor, denouncing the enervation and decrepitude of the age, cries out to Spiegelberg (Die Riiuber, I, 2 ) : "Schoner Preiss f iir euren Schweiss in der Feldschlacht, dass ihr jetzt in Gymnasien lebet, und cure Unsterblichkeit in einem Biicherriemen miihsam fortgeschleppt wird. Kostbarer Ersaz cures verprassten Blutes, von einem Niirnberger Kra- mer um Lebkuchen gewickelt — oder, wenns gliicklich geht, von einem franzbsischen Tragodienschreiber auf Stelzen geschraubt, und mit Drath- faden gezogen zu warden. Hahaha!" Goedeke, Schillers Werke, 2, 29. » Berger, 1, 62flF. 38 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama pieces and asserted that tragedy must portray its world as present and the passions and secret sentiments in the hearts of its characters hy their own words and actions. This art of direct representation is lost to the French and consequently their drama is so much the weaker for it.^ The following year (1782), in strong words typeial of Storm and Stress exuberance, he poked fun at the affected and blase spirit of French tragedy: it was too self-conscious and too calculating, too fearsome and too mincing to appeal to him. "Die Menschen des Peter Korneille sind frostige Be- horcher ihrer LeidenSchaft — altkluge Pedanten ihrer Em- pfindung. Den bedrangten Roderich hor ieh auf offener Biih- ne iiber seine Verlegenheit Vorlesung halten, und seine Ge- miithsbewegungen sorgfaltig, wie eine Pariserin ihre Grimas- sen vor dem Spiegel, durchmustern. Der leidige Anstand in Frankreieh hat den Naturmenschen versehnitten. — Ihr Ko- thurn ist in einen niedliehen Tanzsehuh verwandelt. . . Zu Paris liebt man die glatten zierlichen Puppen, von denen die Kunst alle kiihne Natur hinwegschliff. Man wagt die Em- pfindung nach Granen und schneidet die Speisen des Geists diatetisch vor, den zartlichen Magen einer schmaehtigen Mar- quisin zu schonen."^ As early as this same essay, Ueher das gegenwdrtige deut- sche Theater, however, and in connection with one of his most drastic criticisms of the French theater, Schiller announced a principle by which he stood throughout his life, namely, that the German stage must find a middle course between the over-refinement of the French on the one hand and the over-coarse and realistic art of the English on the other. It is the duty of the dramatist to give all the truth and propor- tion of the wall-painting on the smaller scale of the miniature. "We human beings, he says, stand in the presence of the uni- verse like ants before a majestic palace. It is an enormous structure of which our insect gaze takes in but the one wing. We perhaps find its columns and statues chaotically arranged while the eye of a higher being can perceive also the opposite wing whose statues and columns, corresponding to the first, ^Erste Vorrede zu den Raubern; 1781; G., 2, 4. ^ trber das gegenwdrtige deutsche Theater; 1782 ; G., 2, 343f. 39 TitsivoHli give the building a symmetry which we thought lacking. Let the poet depict for the insect eye if he wiU, but let him bring also into our field of vision, in miniature, the other half of the whole. Let him prepare us for the harmony of the mass through that of the detail, for the symmetry of the aggregate through that of the part. A neglect in this regard is an in- justice to the eternal Being who demands to be comprehended from the totality of the world and not from single, isolated fragments. '^ By 1784, the Storm and Stress hardness of heart toward things French had modified sufficiently for Schiller, in the Bheinische Thalia, to grow enthusiastic over a situation in Corneille's Cinna. This is the scene (V, 3) where the em- peror, Augustus, forgives the conspirator, Cinna, for his designs on the imperial power. To Schiller's mind, such an occurrence presented on the stage could not but stir the springs of magnanimous action in the hearts of the spectators.^ The idea of discovering a mean between the extremes of the French and of the English drama grows on him. It is in this same year (1784) that he extends his reading acquaint- ance with French literature in order to gain a broader basis for a theoretical knowledge of the theater: at this time, too, he finds enough value in the French drama to begin to cher- ish the idea of translating pieces of Comeille, Racine, Cre- billon, and Voltaire for the Mannheim theater.' His early dramas — Die Bduber, Fiesco, Eabale und Liehe — had been written in prose, but by 1786, he had proceeded far enough from Storm and Stress carelessness of form and the realism of the middle-class tragedy to use blank verse — iambic pentameter.* — in his Don Carlos. In his preface, he ex- pressed his conversion to the justice of Wieland's demand that * Lessing, following in the footsteps of Shakespeare, had set the first successful example in his Nathan (1779) for the use of verse, and particularly of this meter, in the German drama. ^Vber das gegenwdrtige deutsche Theater; 1782; G., 2, 344f. 'Bheinische Thalia; 1784; G., 3, 516. •Letter to Dalberg, Aug. 24, 1784; J., 1, 207. 40 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama drama requires the added poetic quality of verse.* On the other hand, he discarded rhyme as an unnatural ornament and a substitute for an harmonious diction.^ In the essays on esthetic and literary subjects, written in the late eighties and early nineties, Schiller defines his atti- tude toward several sacred dramatic dogmas of the French. While he did not always mention these dogmas, the enuncia- tion of the following five principles must certainly show how he regarded them in the practice of the French classic tragedy. First. The demand of the French that the dramatist ad- here closely to the facts of history or of legend. One of the fairly inflexible rules of the French classic stage was that the dramatist do no violence to history or legend in the composi- tion of the play.^ Schiller feels that the insistence on such a rule is shooting beside the mark. It is a very short-sighted theory of art which would thus clip the wings of poetic ima- gination. It is the dramatist's business to aim at esthetic effects and it makes not an iota of difference whether he ob- serves the sequence of facts of history and legend as long as he attains the highest possible poetic truth. "Die poetische Wahrheit besteht aber nicht darin, dass etwas wirklich ge- schehen ist, sondem darin, dass es geschehen konnte, also in der Moglichkeit der Sache."^ Second. Narration versus action in tragedy. The limita- tions prescribed by the unity of time and the tendency to debar almost aU action — especially violent scenes — ^necessi- tated that a large part of the action be unrepresented on the stage and be communicated mediately to the spectator by nar- ration and description. Schiller insists that such a procedure is essentially undramatic and lacks the attention-compelling * In the TeuUche Merkur, Oct. 1782, 29, 83, in the second letter "An einen jungen Dichter," Wieland, influenced by French tragedy, had de- manded verse and rhyme for German tragedy. Schiller agreed with him on the first point but not on the second. A. W. Schlegel had also proved experimentally the importance of verse. See Koster, 87. ^Einleitung zu Don Carlos; 1786; G., 5S 3f. ' Corneille, Discours de la tragSdie. Oeuvres, ed. Marty-Laveaux, 1, 77iF. Racine, Introductions to Bajazet and Mithridate. Oeuvres, ed. Rggnier, 2, 488f and 3, 16. 'Vom Erhabenen; 1793; G., 10, 173f. 41 Titsworth power of the highest type of tragedy.* The sufferings of the tragic hero, their causes and degree must be given not by narration but by action.^ Otherwise the play becomes simply a "five-act conversation." Schiller demands that the hero must not only suffer keenly but that he must be allowed to give full expression to what he feels, in order that the moral victory of his better self may be the more glorious. If the sharpness of the struggle be softened, it is impossible to tell whether he acts from deep moral conviction or not. "Dies leztere ist der Fall bei dem Trauerspiel der ehemaligen Fran- zosen, wo wir hochst selten oder nie die leidende Natur zu Gesicht bekommen, sondern meistens nur den kalten, dekla- matorischen Poeten oder auch den auf Stelzen gehenden Komodianten sehen. "^ Third. Demand for drawing-room manners on the stage. In Schiller's opinion French tragedy suffers from an over- straining after dignity in language and in the bearing of the characters. Its style is cold and declamatory, appealing to the head rather than to the heart. This is partly due to the fact that the characters are too self-conscious: they are psy- chologists examining their own states of soul. They are — ^to use Schiller's terminology — sentimental rather than naive in- dividuals. They never let themselves go, forgetful of all else but elemental passions. They prefer to be dignified rather than full-blooded men and women. The kings, princesses, and heroes never forget their rank: they resemble the kings and emperors of the old picture books, "die sich mitsamt der Krone zu Bette legen. ' ' ^ Fourth. Persons of rank alone are suitable subjects for tragedy. French classic dramaturgy demanded that tragic characters be taken from the highest ranks of society. Here the French mistook the point entirely. The Greeks portrayed mostly kings and heroes in their tragedies out of the dramatic necessity of finding tragic heroes capable of complete expres- * In working over Egmont for the stage, in 1795, Schiller puts this principle into practice. In this revision, therefore, "was Goethe erzahlt, das steUt Schiller vor die Augen des Zuschauers." Koster, 6ff. ' f?6er die tragische Kunst; 1792 ; G., 10, 29f. ' Vom Erhabenen; 1793; G., 10, 151. 42 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama sion of human experience. Schiller appreciated this point for he asserts that it matters little from what stratum of society the tragic character be taken as long as he be capable of forceful self-expression. Baseness is not necessarily concomi- tant with humbleness of rank : a slave or person of low degree may be as capable of noble self-assertion as a king and if so, the former is as worthy of being the subject of tragedy as the latter.^ * Fifth. The drama must portray a single situation. The limitation of time tended to make French drama one of a single situation. While in the Shakespearian tragedy there is a gradual rising action, climax, falling action, and catastrophe, and character development, generally in its French fellow the play begins only shortly before the climax: it omits the gradual development of the situation, substituting narration for action, and either begins almost immediately with the turning point or crowds events in such a fashion that the French sin as much in their own way against dramatic ver- isimilitude as does Shakespeare in his.^ In his essay, Veber die tragische Kunst, Schiller expresses the feeling that tra- gedy demands more fullness and completeness of treatment than the French drama gave it, that threads of human will and fate, which lead up to tragic results are longer in spin- ning than the conventional twenty-four hours of French dra- matic theory.^ The preceding five principles are the backbone of Schil- ler's criticism of French classic dramaturgy. Later he * Lessing, following Diderot's example in France, had instituted the middle class tragedy in his Miss Sara Sampson, in 1755 (Schmidt, Les- sing, 1, 300iF). Schiller also employed this type of drama in Kahale und Liebe in 1783 (Kiihnemarai, Schiller, 226ff). It is interesting to notice, however, that in most of his subsequent dramas — Don Carlos (1786), WaU lenstein (1799), Marie Stuart (1800), and Die BroMt von Messina (1803) — ^he reverted to the general practice of the Greeks and to the demands of the French, and chose his tragic personages from the highest ranks of society. ' Gedanken iiber den Gebrauch des Gemeinen und Niedrigen in der Kunst; 1802; G., 10, 213. ^Cf. CorneUle's Cid and Horace, and Racine's Phedre and Andro- maque. ' Vber die tragische Kunst; 1792; G., 10, 35f. 43 Titsworth touches upon other points, some of them of lesser importance, but his later statements can all find a basis in the general attitude which he adopts in his literary and philosophical essays. While the German dramatic poet re-wrote his Wallenstein in rhymeless iambic pentameter and thus definitely conformed to the ideal of verse for tragedy,^ he feels that the French alexandrine arranged in couplets destroys the fullest appeal of verse and satisfies the intellect alone: "Die Bigenschaft des Alexandriners sich in zwey gleiche Halften zu trennen, und die Natur des Reims, aus zwey Alexandrinern ein Couplet zu machen, bestimmen nicht bloss die ganze Sprache, sie be- stimmen auch den ganzen innern Geist dieser Stiicke, die Charactere, die Gesinnung, das Betragen der Personen. Alles stellt sich dadurch unter die Regel des Gegensatzes und wie die Geige des Musicanten die Bewegungen der Tanzer leitet, so auch die zweyschenkligte Natur des Alexcmdriners die Be- wegungen des Gemiiths und die Gedanken. Der Verstand wird ununterbroehen aufgefordert, und jedes Gefiihl, jeder Gedanke in diese Form, wie in das Bette des Procrustes ge- zwangt. ' '^ In 1799, Schiller's interest in French dramatic and his- trionic art is further aroused by Humboldt's instructive let- ter from Paris.^ Like Goethe, Schiller had been urged by the Duke to translate French pieces for the Weimar stage* and this letter cheers him to the task. The aim of this translation of French classic pieces for the German theater, he sums up in his poem, "An Goethe, als er den Mahomet von Voltaire auf die Biihne brachte." In it, he first expresses mild sur- prise that Goethe, who has freed the Germans from the shack- les of the "rules," is now sacrificing to the French muse; he feels, however, that his friend, by this innovation, has no in- tention of putting German drama back under the thrall of French dramaturgy. Real art can be born only in free souls 'Letter to Cotta, Nov. 14, 1791; J., 5, 286; cf. above,^ (footnote). "Letter to Goethe, Oct. 15, 1799; J., 6, 96. • Cf. above, p. 524. * Kbster, Einleitung zu Phadra, Schillers Samtliche Werke, Saku- lar-Ausgabe, 10, vif. 44 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama and not under a despotism such as dominated the period of Louis XIV. Not eloquence but truth to nature is the aim of art. Passion must be portrayed. Beauty must spring from the truth of a drama and not from its form alone. Al- though French classic drama never attains the height of real art, its elevation, harmony, order, and charm may serve excellently as an antidote for the crass naturalism of the then German stage as ruled by Kotzebue and Iffland. In con- clusion, he sums up the whole purpose of the translation of French pieces by saying : "Nicht Muster zwar darf uns der Franke werden, Aus seiner Kunst sprieht kein lebend'ger Geist, Des falschen Anstands prunkende Gebarden Versehmaht der Sinn, der nur das Wahre preist, Ein Fiihrer nur zum Bessern soil er werden, Br komme wie ein abgeschied 'ner Geist, Zvl reinigen die oft entweihte Scene Zum wiird'gen Sitz der alten Melpomene."^ The French prided themselves on being heirs of the ancient classic dramaturgy, but instead of being the perpetrators of pure classic tradition, they have become its pharisees. In a letter to Goethe in 1797, Schiller points out that they have missed the spirit of the ancients in a desire to follow the letter of dramatic law. Even Aristotle, whom they recognized as final dramatic authority, was far more concerned about the content (Wesen) of the drama than about the outer form. He believes that Shakespeare with all his laxity is nearer the spirit of the author of the Poetics than are the French.^ He proceeds unmercifully against some of their reasoning. He shows how fallacious is their demand for an action in a play whose prototype in actual life shall not exceed the "two hours' traffic of the stage." The French declared that it was ridic- ulous to represent on the boards the whole life of an indi- vidual: that demands too great a stretch of imagination on the part of the spectator. Schiller reminds them, however, that the daylight and the architecture — and he might have said the location — on the stage are not real, but artificial, and that the metrical language is not that of even the most edu- ^An Goethe, etc.; G., 11, 325. '■Letter to Goethe, May 5, 1797; J., 5, 188. 45 Titsworth cated persons. Why, then, insist that, in the midst of all this illusion, the action alone be so like actuality that it will not tax the imagination ?^ This is the position he takes in 1803 when he attempts a piece — Die Braut von Messina — in the classical style. He feels deeply how eminently untrustworthy are the French in their interpretation of the Greek spirit. He scores them for having done away with the ancient chorus, — with the Greeks it had added to the concreteness of the drama — and having substituted therefore "die charakterlose langweilig wieder- kehrende Figur eines armlichen Vertrauten. "^ He shows how the Greek drama had taken its rise from the chorus ; and holds that this lyric element gave the ancient drama its ele- vated tone and is the only justification for such a tone. The French have attempted to imitate the dignity of the Greeks, but, having cast aside the chorus, this dignity becomes forced and unnatural.^ Even in this period when Schiller is conforming his own dramatic production to some of the limitations of classical tradition, he maintains a very frosty attitude toward the French drama.* True, in 1802 and 1803, he works over Picard's two comedies, le Moyen de parvenir and Encore des Menechmes into Der Parasit and Der Neffe als Onkel, and later, in 1805, he translates Racine's Phedre but with greater reluctance than Goethe did Voltaire 's Mahomet and Tancrede.^ It was an irony of fate that some of the last work Schiller ever did was that on Phedre when one sees the severely crit- ical attitude which he maintained toward French classic drama throughout his literary career. To sum up : Schiller, brought up in school in a French atmosphere, and nurtured in French ideals received no vital impress from any typically French element in the drama: "^ Einleltung zu der Braut von Messina; 1}ber der Oebrauch des Chors in der Tragodie; 1803; G., 14, 7. nWd, 7f. » Ibid, lOf. * Letter to Sophie Mereau, Mar. 1802; J., 6, 370; to G. Korner, Jan. 20, 1805; ibid, 7, 206; conversation with Charlotte von Schiller, Dec. 15, 1803; P., 369; and other references. " Koster, Einleitung zu Phadra, 10, vii, f . 46 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama whenever he leaned toward ideals for which the French stood (verse, characters of exalted rank, unities of time and place), he was drawn to them by laws arising from the nature of the drama itself as it had naturally developed in the practice of the Greeks. With two exceptions,^ he never gave the French classic drama unqualified praise, and for the most part he showed himself out of sympathy with it. Because of the in- tellectual elements of dignity, harmony, and order, he grudg- ingly accepted it for the Weimar stage in lieu of the more distasteful naturalistic drama prevalent in Germany.^ In this foreign genre he found no emotional truth — except in the one ease of Cinna, — only one tragic conflict of a high type — in the Cid, — and no great characters. In short, Schiller felt that the French drama was essentially an intellectual product with an appeal to the head only.^ Because to the Germans, perhaps above other nations, the element of human feeling is not only as important and as worthy to be depicted as the intellectual element, but also is the very source of art, Schil- ler was right in saying that on the whole, for them, the French drama lacked depth.* * * In his essay, Ueber die tragische Kunst (1792), Schiller enun- ciated most fully his theory of tragedy. In a word it is this: Pleasure in tragedy arises from witnessing, between the moral man and his sen- suous self, a keen struggle in which the hi^er nature, the moral dig- nity of humanity, eventually comes off victorious. To produce such pleasure, tragedy must portray motived and present action, not unre- lated events, past action, nor fleeting emotional states. This conflict must be bitter and the sufi'ering of the tragic hero great and fully ap- parent to the spectators so that the final victory may be the greater. It was because he held such a point of view, that he saw in French dramaturgy a superficial interpretation of the laws of dramatic pro- duction. ^Rheinische Thalia; 1784; G., 3, 516; tfber die tragische Kunst; 1792; ibid, 10, 26. What he appreciated in Cinna and the Cid was nothing that was characteristically French. "Tag- und Jahreshefte (Lesarten) ; 1804; W., I, 35, 313. ' Vber den Grund des Vergniigens an tragischen Oegenstdnden; 1792; G., 10, 16. •Letter to Goethe, Apr. 25, 1805; J., 7, 239. 47 Titsworth IV Schiller's Attitude Toward French Classic Dramatists In Particulab Corneille. Of the French classic dramatists, Corneille re- ceived most attention from Schiller, but that attention was mostly derogatory criticism. The German dramatist found the work of the Frenchman typical of the striking general weaknesses of French tragedy. Schiller cites Corneille many times to illustrate how the French had failed to understand not only the nature of dramatic art but even the spirit of the ancient dramatic pieces. It is apropos of Corneille 's works that Schiller was impressed, as early as 1781, with the need of a drama portraying by present action, and not by narra- tion, the conflict of passions and ideals, and presenting the spectacle of visible and natural tragic suffe«?ng. He com- pares the theatrical pose of Diego, in the speech beginning, "0 rage! 6 desespoir!" (Cid, I, 4) as the old man realizes that he is too infirm to avenge his honor, with the simplicity of Macduff's cry, "He has no children" (Macbeth, IV, 3) when the old warrior learns that the king has murdered his family. Schiller is convinced that Corneille was incapable of reading the human heart and of giving expression to real emotion on the stage.^ In 1796, in a Xenion, he pokes fun at the "divine Peter." Like that King Salmoneus of old of whom we read in the Aeneid, who presumptuously aped Zeus, the thunderer, and was hurled into Tartarus for his rashness, Corneille had tried to ape genius but had been consigned to the realms of oblivion and punishment for his presumption.^ In a letter to Goethe of May, 1799, — hence but a short time before the arrival of the famous Humboldt letter from Paris — Schiller attacks some of Corneille 's most famous pieces with a savageness at least equal to, if not exceeding, that of Lessing in the Dramaturgie. After reading Polyeucte, Pom- pee, and Bodogune, he leaves scarcely a timber standing in the structure of these plays and is no less severe in regard to their spirit : ' ' Ich bin liber die wirklich enorme Fehlerhaf tig- * Erste Vorrede zu den Baubem; 1781 ; G., 2, 4. ' Xenien, 1796; Schriften der Ooethe-Oesellschaft, 8, 54. 48 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama keit dieser Werke, die ich seit 20 Jahren riihinen horte, in Erstaunen gerathen. Handlung, dramatische Organisation, Charaktere, Sitten, Sprache, alles selbst die Verse bieten die hochsten Blossen an." Schiller thought that Corneille was the initiator of French classic drama and that many of his defects must be charged to the immaturity of the art form. Even this, however, can not suffice to excuse all his many faults. The German dramatist found nothing happily treated except the heroic element and even this — a rather scanty in- gredient — monotonously handled. His pieces were character- ized not only by poor taste but also by poverty of invention, lack of imagination in the treatment of character, coldness of emotions, stiff and halting action, and a lack of the interestiag throughout.^ This is the most drastic and sweeping criticism that he makes of any French classic dramatist. As we have seen, most of these defects he feels in all French classic drama.^ To Schiller's mind, the characters in Corneille have the same flaws as are inherent in French tragic personages in general : they lack naturalness and fuU-bloodedness. They are cold-blooded spectators of their own emotions, blase psycholo- gists of their own sensations.^ Self-forgetfulness is not one of their virtues : they are not real men and women struggling without consciousness of self against odds opposing them, but show-figures fully aware that they are on parade, conse- quently never failing to act in a very dignified fashion.* In contrast to these severe criticisms, there are only a few passages in which he is at aU appreciative of this French dramatist. Only twice does he give him unqualified praise : in 1784, he was enthusiastic over the scene in Ginna (V, 3) where Augustus, the Emperor, shows his magnanimity to the conspirator, Cinna. Schiller felt this scene worthy to illus- trate how the theater may stir to great-hearted action;^ and in 1792, he felt that the situation in the Cid was interesting •Letter to Goethe, May 31, 1799; J., 6, 35. = Cf. above, pp. 543, 551. ' Cf. above, p. 543. * Cf. above, p. 546. " Cf. above, p. 544. 49 Titsworth and of a very high tragic quality because it represented a conflict between different kinds of equally justifiable duties. From this point of view, he considered this drama the master- piece of the French classic tragedy ; in fact, as far as the com- plication of the plot was concerned, of all tragedy.^ It should be noted that these points which aroused Schiller's enthusiasm were not elements of form characteristic of French dramatic art but were situations which might have appeared in the drama of any nation. Outside these two statements of appreciation, then, Schil- ler's attitude toward Corneille's work is, in general, cool, sometimes contemptuous. His criticisms were directed in part against defects inherent in French tragic manner — the conventionalized, blase, self-analytical characters, the demand for perfect drawing-room manners on the stage at the cost of truth, the lack of any intense tragic suffering, and the decla- matory style — and in part against defects in the poet himself — poverty of invention, and the monotonous treatment of the heroic element. Moliere. Schiller has no feeling of spiritual kinship with Moliere such as Goethe felt. "We have seen that the latter esteemed the French comic playwright as a genius of the very first rank, and appreciated him for his consummate artistic skill and his uncorrupted humanity.^ Schiller, however, has the least to say of Moliere of any of the French classic drama- tists. He bestows upon him neither great praise nor great blame. Schiller probably became acquainted with the works of Moliere in Stuttgart.^ But there is no record to show what pieces they were nor how they impressed him. Throughout all his writings he mentions but three of Moliere 's comedies: I'^cole des femmes,^ le Tartu ffe,^ and I'Avare.^ He speaks ' 1}ber die tragische Kunst; 1792 ; G., 10, 26. ^ Cf. above, p. 533. » Berger, 1, 99. * Letter to Goethe, Mar. 20. 1802 ; J., 6, 372. " Vher das gegenwdrtige deutsche Theater; 1782 ; G., 2, 341 ; Tra- godie und Comodie; Nachlass; G., 10, 544. "Rheimsche Thalia; 1784; G., 3, 518. 50 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama of the French playwright as one who portrays types rather than individuals.^ While he appears to classify the French classic poets as "sentimental," he speaks of Moliere as ex- pressly a "naive dramatist.^ In the essay, TJeher naive und sentimentaie Dichtung, in expressing the opinion that the comic poet, whose genius draws most of its material from actual life, is most exposed to becoming insipid, he asks "mit welchen Trivialitaten qualen uns nicht Lope de Vega, Moliere, Regnard, Goldom?"^ The Tartuffe Schiller criticised as not being a comedy. A character like the hero who always excites disgust is not adapted to the merriment demanded of comedy. The genius of comedy had abandoned Moliere when he wrote this drama.* I have found no direct statement of appreciation of any of Moliere 's works, although Schiller seems to have thought I'Avare a great comedy.^ Racine. Schiller mentions only three of the pieces of this tragic poet: Mithridate," Iphigenie/ and Phedre? Although he speaks once in actual disparagement of Racine 's art* and is only faintly laudatory of the Mithridate,^" he is most attracted to him of any of the French dramatic poets — which, to be sure, is saying little. Recognizing the effeminacy of Racine and seeing in him all the defects of the French manner, he still feels this man's works to be unquestionably nearer the dra- matic ideal than those of his co-laborers on the French clas^^ sic stage. ^ In 1803, Schiller gives in to the wishes of the Duke and ^ Bramatische Preisaufgabe In Propylden; 1800; G., 10, 540. 'Vber naive and sentimentalische Dichtung (footnote); 1795; G., 10, 453f. ' tfber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung; 1795; G., 10, 497. *Tragddie und Oomodie; Nachlass; G., 10, 544. 'Bheinische Thalia; 1784; G., 3, 518. 'Letters to Goethe, Jan. and Jan. 17, 1804; J., 7, 110 and 115. 'Amnerktmgen zu Iphigenia in Aulis; 1788; G., 6, 229. 'Conversation with L. v. Wolzogen, 1797; P., 282; letters to Iffland, Jan. 5, 1805; J., 7, 199f; to Cotta, Jan. 18, 1805; ibid, 205; to Korner, Jan. 20, 1805; ibid, 206; to W. v. Humboldt, Apr. 2, 1805; ibid, 227. ' Letter to Goethe, May 31, 1799 ; J., 6, 35. "Koster, Schiller als Dramaturg, 267. 51 Titsworth looks through some French pieces with a view to translating them for the "Weimar stage. Director Goethe was also anxious to gain pieces for his repertory which should serve the Ger- mans as models in the matters of form and manner.^ With a view to meeting both these wishes Schiller chose Phedre.* Because of its many points of merit, Schiller worked on it carefully and sympathetically as a play not unworthy to be transplanted to the German stage.^ He criticised Racine's Iphigenie for being on a lower ethical plane than Euripides' drama of like name. Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon, is to be sacrificed to appease the gods so that they will grant the Greeks favorable winds for the expedition against Troy. In Euripides, Achilles, out of human feeling pure and simple, intervenes and saves the girl from her fate, while in Racine Achilles is the lover of Iphigenia and rescues her from death for selfish reasons. This substitution of a love motive for one of broad humanity lowers the tone of the piece and by so much does the French drama fall short of the tragic serious- ness demanded by the Greeks.* Undoubtedly this is one of the points which SchiUer had in mind when he declared Racine to be on the whole weak.* Voltaire. When Schiller became acquainted with Vol- taire as a dramatist, it is hard to say. In a letter to Goethe, May 31, 1799, he says, "Nun bin ich in der That auf Voltaires Tragodie sehr begierig, denn aus den Critiken, die der letztere iiber Corneille gemacht, zu schliessen, ist er iiber die Fehler desselben sehr klar gewesen."* From this it would seem that he knew none of Voltaire's dramatic works until 1799, about the time when both Goethe and himself were casting about them to see how they could comply with the wishes of Karl August. On the other hand, as we have seen, he expressed a desire back as far as 1784 to translate French pieces — among them Voltaire's — for the Mannheim theater^ — which might * He also started a, translation of Britannicus in 1804 but got no farther than the first scene. Koster, 269. ^ Koster, Schiller als Drommturg, 271. 'Letter to Iffland, Jan. 5, 1805; J., 7, 199f. ' Anmerkungen zu Iphigenia in Aulis; 1788; G., 6, 229. * Letter to Goethe, May 3, 1799 ; J., 6, 35. "Letter to Dalberg, Aug. 24, 1784; J., 1, 207. 52 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama imply that he was acquainted with them. Again, in 1793, in his essay, Vom Erhaienen, etc., he says that the kings, prin- cesses, and heroes of Corneille and Voltaire never forget their rank even in the most violent suffering.^ All in all, however, it seems very probable that Schiller knew Voltaire as a dramatist as early as 1784 and certainly by 1793, in spite of his apparent ignorance in 1799 of what he was like. He mentions the dramatist Voltaire nine times ;^ of these references, four are general, four are to Mahomet, and one to Tancrede, i. e., the plays which Goethe translated. He first refers by name to one of his plays (Mahomet) in October 1799, and the last mention of Voltaire's tragedies is in De- cember, 1800 — the two years when Goethe was translating Mahomet and TancrMe, and he himself Racine's Phddre. In spite of this paucity of attention to Voltaire, he agrees with Goethe's choice of these pieces for the Weimar theater — ^if French pieces are to be given at all — because of the interest of the first and its freedom from the unpleasant French dra- matic manner,' and because the second will serve the dramatic purposes well, which Goethe and Schiller had in mind, and will give another play in the more elevated theatrical style which they were trying to graft on to the German stage.* Considering the fact of Schiller's education in the ducal military academy of Karl Bugen, of Goethe's knowledge and appreciation of Voltaire as a dramatist, of the prominence of Voltaire" both as publicist and author of tragedies, of Schiller's knowledge of the Frenchman's version of the story of the Maid of Orleans,' and of Schiller's supposedly wide ' Cf. above, p. 546. 'Vom Erhabenen; 1739; G., 10, 151; An Goethe ah er den Mahomet von Voltaire auf die Biihne brachte, 1800; G., 11, 322ff; letters to Dal- berg, Aug. 24, 1784; J., 1, 207; to Goethe, May 31, 1799; ibid, 6, 35; same, Oct. 15, 1799; ibid, 95; same, Oct. 18, 1799; ibid, 99f; same, July 26, 1800; ibid, 176; to Iffland, Dec. 18, 1800; ibid, 230; to Goethe, Apr. 25, 1805; ibid, 7, 239. ' Letter to Goethe, Oct. 15, 1799 ; J., 6, 95. *Samfi, July 26, 1800; J., 6, 176. " Goethe in conversation with Eckermann, Jan. 3, 1830 ; B., 4, 186f. "Letter to Wieland, Oct. 17, 1801; J., 6, 308. 53 Titsworth knowledge and catholic appreciation of all dramatic literature, his neglect of reference to Voltaire strikes me as unaccount- able. In his last letter to Goethe, Schiller criticises his friend's estimate of Voltaire in the Anmerkungen zu Bameaus Neffen as follows: "Freilich wird es sehwer sein dem VoUairischen Proteus einen Character beizulegen. Sie haben zwar, indem Sie Voltairen die T i e f e abspreehen, auf einen Hauptmangel desselben hingedeutet, aber ich wiinschte doch, dass das, was man G e m ii t h nennt und was ihm sowie im Ganzen alien Franzosen so sehr fehlt, auch ware ausgesprochen worden."^ In Voltaire, then, as in the other French classic drama- tists, he misses the element of true and deep feeling which goes into the make-up of a fully developed harmonious per- sonality. Minor Dramatists. Of the minor dramatists, Schiller men- tions only Regnard and Crebillon. Of the latter 's pieces, he refers only to the Bhadamiste et Zenobie, which evidently Goethe had thought for a while to translate for the Weimar stage. Apropos of this, Schiller writes his friend in March, 1802, "Gott helfe Ihnen dureh dieses traurige Geschaft."^ Thus we can see that Schiller felt no spiritual kinship with the French classic dramatists as men and found only a modicum of value in their works. For him they have added nothing new of worth either to the drama as an art-form nor have they increased our knowledge of the workings of the human heart. V Conclusion First of all, in comparing Goethe and Schiller as regards their attitude toward the French classic theater, let us note the differences in their opinion of it. We have seen that Goethe's life falls into four clearly defined divisions in re- gard to this great foreign dramatic literature. In contrast to this, Schiller's career offers no periods with their varying ap- preciations: excepting some exaggerations of statement in 'Letter to Goethe, Apr. 25, 1805; J., 7, 239. "Same, Mar. 17, 1802; J., 6, 366. 54 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama the Storm and Stress years, his attitude was announced in the preface to Die Rduber (1781) and remained at bottom the same for the remainder of his life. Even the friendship of the two men, which brought a modification of the views of each in many other subjects, had, as far as I can discern, no effect on either in the matter of the French drama. Then again, it is especially worthy of note that, in the period of their activity as translators of French pieces for the ducal stage, while Goethe gained a more genuine and a more just opinion of French classic drama,^ Schiller, although by the nature of the case forced to express himself more often about these for- eign pieces, gave them a very qualified approval that revealed the same spirit as that of his earlier utterances. Goethe was far more widely and thoroughly acquainted with this dramatic literature. In his first period, he had read all of Moliere and Racine and a good part of Corneille. He mentions by name twenty-seven French classical pieces: of Moliere, 10; Racine, 7; Voltaire, 5; Corneille, 3; and Crebil- lon, 2. Schiller on the other hand, nowhere mentions having read any French authors entire, although in 1784, he extended his knowledge of the French drama considerably. In toto, he mentions by name only fourteen : of Corneille, 5 ; Moliere and Racine each 3 ; Voltaire, 2 ; and Crebillon, 1. It is strange that Schiller as a dramatist should have known less of a great dramatic literature like that of the French than did Goethe, who was not so much of a dramatist as a lyric poet. Nevertheless, we must recall that Goethe was connected\ with the Weimar stage for twenty-six years as its manager^ and we must also remember how much longer he lived than his friend, and how much more we know of his life and opin- , ions — from the autobiography, diaries, conversations, a noveV like Wilhelm Meister that includes much of Goethe's expei( ienee, and from a vast number of letters. Set over against this^\ large amount of biographical material for Goethe, we have , only the letters and a small volume of conversations for Schiller. 'Goethe's more sympathetic attitude toward French classic drama was undoubtedly induced in the last period by his hopes for a world literature. "Die Vorstellung einer Weltliteratur gewinnt fiir Goethe Be- deutung seit der Mitte der zwanziger Jahre." W. I., 42', 491. 55 Titsworth It seems, then, to be perfectly within the truth to say- that Goethe was more lenient and catholic in his taste than Schiller. On occasion, he was as caustic in his comment as the younger man,^ but he was also more willing to see the merits of the French drama.^ SchiUer adopted the scientific point of view in his criticism while G-oethe was both scientific and impressionistic. There were only two things in French dramatic literature which thrilled Schiller, there were many which did Goethe. Schiller was interested in this literature as drama merely — he discussed its shortcomings as an art form and compared it very unfavorably with the Greek and with the ideal demands of dramatic art: Goethe, while he criticised it as a whole on some of the same points as SchiUer — too strict interpretation of the unities and over-insistence upon form and not enough leeway to the genius of the dramatist, — looked behind some of the dramatic work to the personality of the author. Goethe saw in Racine a man very sensitive to the artistic, in Corneille a noble soul, and in Moliere a great man and artist in whom culture and natural instincts had blended into an harmonious whole. Schiller mentioned none fot these things : he says only that the dramatic characters of Corneille and Voltaire are too sophisticated, incapable of feel- ing deeply, and over-refined; while Moliere is frequently trivial and makes but little appeal to him. While Goethe was much more hearty in his estimate of French classic drama in general than Schiller, the greatest difference between the two men is seen in their attitude toward Moliere. Schiller puts him aside with a few words : his Tartuffe is a failure as a comedy, being instead tragic in its treatment : his work is too realistic and for Schiller lacks ser- iousness. For Goethe, Moliere, by his knowledge of stage- craft, belongs in the company of Shakespeare and the Greeks, and he esteems him highly for his rich personality. Such are some of the differences in the attitudes of the two men toward French classic drama. Now let us notice some of the things in which they were alike. ^Cf. above, p. 516f.; die Bauber, I, 2; G., 2, 29. ' Cf. above, pp. 529f, 534 flf. 56 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama They were alike in seeing in Greek dramatic art the su- - preme expression of dramatic genius because it combined dignity and significance of content with artistic form. In so far as the French had succeeded in attaining this dramatic point of view, the two German poets, in varying degree, ap- preciated them and found them of use in opposing an un- dignified art rampant in the Germany of their day. They were, however, of one opinion that a large part of the drama- tic traditions of the French which the latter had supposedly taken directly from the ancients were unhistoric and un- dramatic. In regard to the French point of view they as- sumed an attitude which might be surmnarized under three heads. First. The French had misinterpreted the spirit of Greek drama. Their theorists had taken the best usage of the Greeks, as noted by Aristotle, to be as unchangeable as an imperial fiat and had thought that to follow such formulae was to insure dramatic success. Goethe and Schiller saw that the laws practiced by the Greeks were not a Procrustean bed but were the natural form which their dramatic production as- sumed. Goethe, especially, pointed out that the unities find their raison d'etre only in making a drama unified enough to be easily comprehended. If they become hindrances to com- prehensibility, it is ridiculous to consider them so sacred that they can not in whole or in part be laid aside. He showed how even the Greeks did not always comply with them, for a good drama was more to them than the sanctity of any dramatic tradition. He concluded by saying/ "Die franzosischen Dich- ter haben dem Gesetz der drei Binhmen am strengsten Folge zu leisten gesucht, aber sie siindigen gegen das Fassliche, in- dem sie ein dramatisches Gesetz nicht dramatiseh losen, son- dern durch Erzahlung. " ^ ) Second. The French were at fault in considering them- selves the only true interpreters of Greek dramatic usage. Goethe and Schiller attacked them for the position which they assumed that they alone had grasped the principles of Aris- totle's Poetics and for not recognizing a piece as a true drama that did not follow their interpretation. The offtcial inter- ' Conversation with Eckermann, Feb. 24, 1825; B., 3, 162f. 57 Titsworth preters of French dramaturgy had quarrelled with Comeille over the Cid and forced him in subsequent dramas to shoulder the yoke of dramatic convention and consequently had stifled his best self. Goethe and Schiller in common with Lessing, held that, with all his laxness, Shakespeare is nearer the spirit of the Greeks. Third. The French failed to recognize that genius may produce a drama with little regard to established rules. From the French point of view dramatic theory was deductive and dramatic art static: from the point of view of Goethe and Schiller dramatic theory was inductive and dramatic art evolutionary. Goethe, in discussing rules in art in general, said that nations and artists do not agree among themselves to consider some ridiculous convention as law in art bjiL "sie bilden zuletzt die Regeln aus sich selbst, nach Kunstgesetzen, die ebenso wahr in der Natur des bildenden Genius Hegen als i die grosse allgemeine Natur die organisehen Gesetze ewig^ tatig bewahrt. ' ' ^ Schiller acknowledged the same principle, i. e., the possibility of development in art, in his essay on tragedy in 1792. Here he laid down the principle that when art can portray the hero of tragedy as seeing in his own individual fate, not a blind, unfeeling necessity, but a small part of the good and great order of the universe, it has reached a higher development than tragedy had even among the Greeks. "Zu dieser reinen Hohe tragischer Riihrung hat sieh die griechische Kunst nie erhoben, well weder die Volks- religion noch selbst die Philosophie der Griechen ihnen so weit voranleuchtete. Der neuern Kunst, welche den Vortheil geniesst, von einer gelauterten Philosophie einen reinern StofE zu empf angen, ist es aufbehalten, auch diese hochste Foderung zu erftiUen und so die ganze moralische Wiirde der Kunst zu entfalten. Miissten wir Neuern wirklich darauf Verzieht thun, griechische Kunst je wieder herzustellen, wo nicht gar zu iibertreffen, so diirfte die Tragodie allein eine Ausnahme machen. ' ' ^ Schiller also assumed the same attitude in practice when he strove to create a German drama, not one copied after the ancients, but one which should occupy a middle ground be- ^Diderots Versnch iiber die Malerei; 1798-1799; W., I, 45, 257f. ' Dber die tragische Kunst; G., 10, 27. 58 Goethe, Schiller and the French Classic Drama tween the extremes of the French and the English theater. He shaped his drama to suit the temperament of the Germans, who demanded more life and emotional fullness than they could find in the French drama. This evolutionary position of Goethe and Schiller may be looked at in another way. The hard and fast lines of French dramatic convention were part and parcel of a larger point of view, which suffused the entire life of the French people, namely, the feudalistic idea of institutionalism. From this point of view, the mass was the unit and the individual was a negligible quantity. Over this mass were a few persons or a single individual who did the thinking and feeling for the crowd. The individual's political thinking was done by the state, and his faith was dictated by the church : he had little autonomy. It was this same point of view pervading litera- ture which gave the rules of French dramaturgy such author- ity. Once fixed they must be obediently and blindly fol- lowed, as Corneille had learned. Lessing, first, had revolted against French authority in German letters in his Dramaturgic (1767), where he conten- ded that the French had misunderstood and misinterpreted Aristotle. Goethe and Schiller* had based their disapproval of French practice very little upon the interpretation of theories but rather upon the usage of the Greeks, of Shake- speare, and upon their own instincts. They revolted against any imposition of arbitrary, outside authority in dramatic art. This point of view was an inheritance of the Storm and Stress movement which, under Herder's leadership, had boldly declared the freedom of German literature from the leading strings of any such authority. Goethe and Schiller outgrew, of course, the exaggerations of the "Geniezeit," but they always stood for the freedom of the literary conscience, for the liberty of the dramatic genius to form the rules for literary production from within himself. Although disturbed * It is surprising that Goethe and Schiller have so little to say of Lessing and his liberation of German literature from French ideals. They both fully acknowledge his critical ability and his service (for Goetiie's opinion, cf. letter to Oeser, Oct. 14, 1769; W., IV, 1, 205f; and conversations, 1809; B., 2, 107: for Schiller, cf. letter to Goethe, June 4, 1799; J., 6, 37), but the paucity of references makes their exact atti- tude toward him problematical. 59 Titsworth by the license to which such a point of view led in a movement like the Storm and Stress and later in Romanticism, in their own theory and practice they represented a liberal democracy in literature. Lastly, Groethe and Schiller felt that the French were slaves to their intellect and that it limited them in their ap- preciation of the totality of human experience of which the feeling is an essential part. To this characteristic they seemed to lay their failure to comprehend the spirit of the Greek drama. The beauty of their pieces was in form — ^harmony and regularity of verse, rhetorical language, and symmetry and clearness of the whole — and not in emotional truth or in ideas. After they had gone over a piece with their intellectual rule and callipers, if they found it wanting in any of the tra- ditional requirements, they discarded it, whatever revelation of spiritual truth there might be in it. Schiller says, ' ' Gleich- giiltig gegen den Inhalt werden diese (art connoisseurs like the French) dureh die Form befriedigt. . . Diese Art Kenner suehen im Riihrenden und Erhabenen nur das Scho- ne; dieses empfinden und priifen sie mit dem richtigsten Ge- f iihl, aber man hiite sich, an ihr Herz zu appellieren. ' ' ^ Goethe 's criticism is pitched in the same key, ' ' Die Franzosen bleiben immer wunderlich und merkwiirdig ... sie mils- sen erst alles was es auch sei sich nach Ihrer Weise zurechte machen. Ihr unseliger Respekt fiir den Caleiil bornirt sie in alien artistischen, asthetisehen, literarischen, philosophischen, historischen, moralischen, religiosen Angelegenheiten, als wenn das alles dem unterworf en sein miisste. Sie merken gar nicht, dass sie hier auf die niedertrachtigste Weise Knechte sind. ' ' ^ In a word, then, since man is as truly part emotional as intellectual, and since those in whose veins Teutonic blood runs demand that art shall present the whole man, Goethe and Schiller, in their maturity, felt that French classic drama, despite artistic excellencies, lacked the power of bringing be- fore our eyes human nature in convincing fullness and in its truest relations. Paul Emerson Titswoeth. Alfred University. ' Pber den Grund des Vergniigens an tragischen Oegenstanden; 1792; G., 10,16. " Diaries, June 7, 1831 ; W., Ill, 13, 86f. 6o DATE DUE