During the 300 years of the Renaissance, that is, from the beginning of the 14th century to the beginning of the century, many important writers and works appeared, and many thinkers and artists could be called giants. But without Shakespeare, our assessment of the Renaissance might be different than it is now. This shows that Shakespeare was of particular importance in the Renaissance. He represented the peak of that period. We can also say that in the 200 years from the end of the Renaissance in the early 17th century to the early 19th century, if Western literature did not have Goethe and "Faust", then our evaluation of these 200 years of literature would be different. In this sense, Goethe and Shakespeare are equally important. As of the beginning of the 19th century, Western literature had four major milestones, namely: the "Homeric Epic" of ancient Greece, Dante's "Divine Comedy", Shakespeare and his tragedies, and the fourth milestone is what we are going to talk about now, Goethe. "Faust". It represents the convergence of three main literary trends in the 200 years from the early 17th century to the early 19th century, especially neoclassical literature, enlightenment literature, and romantic literature that emerged in the early 19th century. It is the condensation of three literary trends of thought. of crystallization.
Goethe was born in 1749 and died in 1832. He lived to be 83 years old. He was one of the three longest-lived writers in modern Europe. The other two are Hugo (83 years old) and Leo Tolstoy (82 years old). Among these three long-lived writers, Goethe was the one who wrote for the longest time. Regarding Goethe's own experience, you can find it in various works on the history of Western literature. It is easy, so we will not go into details. His representative works are first of all lyric poems, some of which are popular and widely circulated, such as "Song of the River and Moon", "Reunion and Parting", and "Mignon". They are widely circulated, partly because of their good poetry, and partly because famous musicians composed music for them, which still makes people fascinated when they sing them. His novels are mainly "William Meister's Age of Wandering" and "William Meister's Age of Learning". He also wrote an autobiography "Poetry and Truth", a novella "The Sorrows of Young Werther", etc. He spent the most energy and took the longest time to write the poem "The Poetry and Drama".
He wrote such a sentence in his "Aphorisms and Random Thoughts", which is very important for our understanding of Goethe and other great figures. This sentence is: "The greatest man is always connected with his century through a weakness." A great man shows his superiority through his greatness and his advantages, and through his weaknesses It is related to this century and reflects the characteristics of this century. Great people all have outstanding advantages that are beyond the reach of ordinary people. These advantages make them great. But great figures often have more weaknesses than ordinary people. Through these weaknesses, they are connected with the century in which they live and reflect the characteristics of the times. So what are the merits that made Goethe great? We can use the opening paragraph of his "Autobiography" to illustrate: "The ever-striving, introverted and extroverted, constantly active poetic cultivation and impulse formed the center and foundation of his existence." This passage has three key points: The first is to always work hard. Goethe was always striving, working, thinking, and struggling. He lived to be 83 years old, and he continued to write "Hu Shi De" until he was 82 years old. It is remarkable that an 82-year-old man is still writing and has completed such an epic work. He is a person who is always working hard, constantly thinking, constantly improving, and constantly producing results. Second, he is both an introvert and an extrovert. Writers are often introverted and pay more attention to thinking and research on the spiritual world. The difference with Goethe is that he is not only introverted, but also extroverted. He was committed to various social practice activities and actively participated in political activities. He once served as a minister of the Principality of Weimar and moved around the officialdom. He also liked the natural world and made very careful observations and research on the animals and plants in the natural world. , so he also made achievements in natural science; he not only paid attention to spiritual thinking, but also paid attention to external practical activities. He paid more attention to life itself than those writers of his generation. His thinking about the spiritual world was often related to real life. Together, this also constitutes what made Goethe greater than his contemporaries. Third, he has innate understanding, high qualifications, poetic cultivation and impulse, and his temperament is closer to poetry. He often relies on intuition, making discoveries based on his keen senses, and elevates them to rationality. This is also where he differs from, or is superior to, many of his contemporaries. These three points constitute Goethe's greatness.
But Goethe also had his weaknesses, and he used these weaknesses to connect with the century to which he belonged. What is Goethe's weakness? According to me, the main thing is cowardice. This cowardice manifests itself in many ways. In a museum in Norway, there is an oil painting painted by an unknown artist called "Beethoven and Goethe". On the screen, we see the back of the Queen of Norway, who is walking towards the depth of the screen with her servants; on the other side of the screen, Goethe takes off his hat, bends down, and respectfully sees the queen off. ; And Beethoven occupies the main part of the oil painting. He is a frontal image, with his back to the queen, with an unruly expression. This painting is based on a real record, rendered and exaggerated in an artistic way. Beethoven was indeed dissatisfied with Goethe, although he and Goethe were friends.
At that time, many people felt that Goethe was so thoughtful and his thoughts could be said to be beyond his time. However, in real life, he knelt down to the princes and nobles and showed a kind of mediocrity of the citizens. When he was most energetic, it was when the earth-shaking bourgeois revolution was taking place in France. Goethe's attitude was against this revolution. In fact, he absorbed a lot from the French Revolution, but those were ideological factors. Politically, he always avoided the word revolution. Even in such a great work as Faust we see this weakness. His cowardice in politics is also connected with his cowardice in life. Goethe was a rather lustful person, and there are written records that he fell in love at least seven times. Every time he fell in love, he left many beautiful and passionate poems dedicated to the woman he loved. But when it came time to talk about marriage, he immediately turned around and ran away. He is particularly afraid of getting married, so when it comes to love, which occupies a very important position in life, he often has no beginning or end. Also, he liked to observe the natural world, which was influenced by the social atmosphere at that time. In the 18th century, Europe was stimulated by the Industrial Revolution, and various sciences prospered and developed unprecedentedly. Therefore, many people had a strong interest in the scientific discoveries of that time, and Goethe was no exception, even more so than others. He himself engaged in a lot of research: on animals, on plants, especially on colors, and made many unique discoveries. He spent a lot of time on this. Others thought that he spent so much time studying animals and plants instead of writing tragedies. He said: Even if the time I spend studying nature could be used to write six tragedies, I still think it is more worthwhile to use it in the study of nature. He attaches so much importance to the study of nature, but he also shows his cowardice in the matter that he attaches so much importance to. He said something like this, which roughly means: I long for the light brought to us by natural science, and I look forward to the arrival of this light, but in the face of this dazzling light, I have to look away. This is also a cowardice that we find difficult to understand.
The cowardice shown by Goethe is related to the reality of German society at that time. We have mentioned that after France launched its passionate revolution, although there were fierce young people's movements in Germany such as the Sturm und Drang movement, these movements quickly fell into decline because they had no roots. As for the entire German society, it is a society controlled by feudal forces and filled with the mediocrity of the small bourgeoisie. A very special manifestation in this society is that intellectuals absorbed a lot of nutrients from the outside world, especially from the French Revolution. Many of their metaphysical thoughts are very advanced, such as Kant and Hegel. These two philosophers have made great contributions to philosophy, especially Hegel's dialectics. According to Hegel's dialectics, everything that exists will perish, and nothing lasts forever. This is the core of dialectics. But Hegel actually said in the university lecture hall that the Prussian dynasty was eternal. What can we use to explain it? Such a contradiction in his thinking is also a kind of cowardice. This kind of cowardice was a quite common phenomenon among German intellectuals at that time.
Emil Ludwig, the author of "The Biography of Goethe", once summarized Goethe's character in his youth:
He was both emotional and rational, crazy and intelligent. Vicious and sinister yet childish and naive, both overconfident and resigned. What complex and unstoppable emotions there are in him!
When bidding farewell to his youth, Goethe made the following reflections on his creation, scientific research and personal life, including "The Sorrows of Young Werther":
I am at peace He looked carefully at his past life, at the turmoil, turmoil, and desire for knowledge, and at his youth when he was running around trying to satisfy his desires. Secret situations bring me a special, vague, imaginary satisfaction. How I came superficially to scientific problems and then threw them away! What abject satisfaction permeated everything I wrote during that period! How short-sighted I have been in the cause of all men and of God! How much time have I wasted! ——This time is not used for useful thinking and creation, but for emotions and illusory enthusiasm that can only take away time.
This is a sign that Goethe bid farewell to his youth and moves toward maturity. But this maturity does not mean the purification of the soul, but the addition of new factors to the already complex character. As Engels pointed out: in his heart, the cautiousness of the genius poet and Frankfurt city councilor was often carried out. The struggle between his son, the venerable Privy Councilor of Weimar; the former resented the vulgarity of his surroundings, while the latter had to compromise and accommodate to this vulgarity. Therefore, Goethe was sometimes very great, sometimes extremely small; sometimes he was a rebellious, mocking genius who despised the world, and sometimes he was a cautious, contented, narrow-minded mediocre person. Through the inner world of this poet, we can almost see the entire Germany at that time. Various opposing factors were concentrated in one person. They competed with each other and reflected each other, forming an intricate inner universe.