(1771-1775) Balladen I (cf. Term 1 Lecture 5) Poems with a narrative |
‘Heidenröslein’ (1771) cf. Term 1, Lecture 5  'Das Veilchen’ (1773) ‘Der König von Thule’ (1774) 'Es war einmal ein König’ (1774) |
Sept 1770- April 1771: Goethe meets Herder in Straßburg; influence of Herder’s theories of art (interest in folk-songs as constituents of a national cultural identity) 'Volkslied’ as the very antithesis of a French-influenced rococo/anacreontic aesthetic; (cf. Term 1 Lecture 5)
- Goethe collecting folk-songs in Elsaß
- Goethe’s ‘Volksballaden’ take poetry in a new direction
- usually regular verse form (for singing)
- simple language occasionally using low-brow/dialect forms
- many of these subsequently incorporated into his dramatic project Urfaust
- many concerned with Goethe’s current preoccupations: love, regret, guilt, incontrovertible fate
NB. diffferent style of these ballads of early 1770s compared with those of the Weimar period written from the late 1770s-1786 (cf. Ballads II below) |
‘Die großen Hymnen’ (cf. Term 1 Lecture 4) Philosophical poems; reflections on the relationship between Man and the gods/divinity |
‘Mahometsgesang’ (1772-3) 'Ganymed’ (1774) 'Prometheus’ (1774) cf. Term 1, Lecture 4 and Week 4 Tutorial 'Künstlersabendlied’ (1775 |
14 October 1771: Goethe’s ‘Zum Schakspeares Tag’. Admiration for:
- the way in which all Shakespeare’s plays revolve around ‘das Eigentümliche unseres Ichs’ and the collision of the individual will and the external world.
- nature (rather than ‘artifical’ rococo nature)
Rejection of:
- rococo style
- French ‘rules’ for theatre (‘unities of time, place and action’)
- affectation
- acceptance of ‘nature’
Poems often focus on the ‘great individual/artist’ and the relation of gods and human beings
- concept of the ‘Genie’ ( = ‘Schaffen müssen’)
- poems about ‘great figures’: Mahomet, Prometheus etc.
- emphasis on ‘subjectivity’
- ‘world is subject to ‘Neuschöpfung’
- ‘Entfaltung des Ichs’: ‘Verselbstung’ (Prometheus); ‘Entselbstung’ (Ganymed)
- Genie || Gott || Natur – all one
- Genie not bound by conventional rules
NB. often use free verse forms |
Love & Nature II ‘Lili’ (Lili Schönemann) |
'Neue Liebe neues Leben’ (1775) 'An Belinden’ (1775) 'Auf dem See’ (1775) 'Lilis Park’ (1775) |
1772: legal ‘Praktikum’ in Wetzlar. Goethe meets Johann Christian Kestner and falls in love with the latter’s bride to be, Charlotte Buff [ = ‘Lotte’]. 1772: returns to Frankfurt am Main 1774: publishes first version of Die Leiden des jungen Werthers 1775: Falls passionately in love with the 16 year-old Lili Schönemann. Engaged April but breaks off engagement in the autumn of 1775.
- love poems for Lili Schönemann – different character to the poems associated with Friederike Brion
- monologisch
- reflection of Goethe’s greater experience of love; anticipation of the finite nature of this relationship
Travels in Switzerland. November 1775: goes to the court of Herzog Karl August in Weimar |