Goethe

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A fter Je n a
H istorical N otes
on G oethe's Elective Affinities
P eter Joseph Schw artz
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requirements tor the degree
o f D octor o f Philosophy
in the Graduate School o f Arts and Sciences
C O LU M BIA U N IV ER SITY
2002
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Copyright 2002 by
Schwartz. Peter Joseph
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Peter Joseph Schwartz

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Abstract
A fter Je n a
Historical Notes on Goethe's Elective A ffinities
Peter Joseph Schwartz
My dissertation After Jena: Historical Notes on Goethe's Elective Affinities sets Goethe's
novel Die Wahlvenvandtschaften more concretely into relation w ith the historical time in
w hich it was w ritten (1808-09) than any other interpretation to date. The matrix within
w hich I set the text is the history o f socio-political change and reform in Germany after
Prussia’s defeat by N apoleon at the batde o f Jena-A uerstedt in O ctober o f 1806. which
sealed the fate o f the G erm an ancien regime. I describe how the novel alludes to. and
comments on. post-Jena changes in marriage, property and inheritance law; in the socio
political role o f the Germ an provincial aristocracy; in behavioral and legal distinctions
betw een social ranks; and in conceptions o f sovereignty and the sovereign. In addition, I
show how the novel's idiosyncratic n o tio n o f fate, to w hich m any o f G o eth e’s
contem poraries reacted adversely, flows from a conception o f radical contingency bom o f
new insight into the changing conditions o f m odem social, political and econom ic life
after Jena. A final chapter interprets the gestural symbolism o f two scenes from the book
as ambivalent explorations o f the pow er o f pathos to establish a new bourgeois social
order, in the wake o f w hat Jena destroyed. In effect, my w ork shows how Goethe's
novel, long read m ore o r less ahistoricallv, discloses new layers o f meaning w hen referred
to historical context.
A fter Jen a:
H istorical N otes on G oethe's Elective Affinities
Table of Contents
In tro d u ctio n ......................................................................................................................... 1-25
I. W hy did G oethe marry w hen he did,

and w hat does that have to do w ith Elective A ffin ities'............................................ 26-70
II. Eduard's E gotism ........................................................................................................71-107
III. O n the Supposed Amorality o f Elective A ffinities............................................. 108-137
IV. Goethe's Spinozism, After Jena:

T h e C oncept o f Damon, and aN ew Prom etheanism ...................................... 138-162
V. O tdlie vs. Luciane:

Contradistinctions o f Habitus; Divergence from Habitus,
and its C onsequences..............................................................................................163-179
VI. T he Ottilie-ESect:
Ottilie's Anecdote o f Charles I and her R elocation o f the Lusthaus............... 180-204
VII. T h e Failure o f Sacrifice:

Ottilie's "W endung nach oben" and the "Belisarius nach van D y k " 205-244
A ppendix I. Chodow iecki & Lichtenberg*.

"Nariirliche und affectirte H andlungen des L ebens"......................245-251
Appendix II. T h e "Belisar nach van D y k " ................................................................ 252-253
Appendix III. Contem porary illustrations to Goethe's Elective A ffinities 254-259
B ibliography.................................................................................................................. 260-284
Acknowledgements
I owe a special debt o f thanks to my advisor, Andreas Huyssen, for having
read and commented on every one o f the following chapters, some of them more than
once. I am indebted as well to Abigail Beckel, Volker Berghahn, Frank Biess, David
Damrosch, Willi Goetschel, Rosalinde Gothe, Christoph Holzhey, A. Kiarina
Kordela, Kathrin Maurer, Winfried Menninghaus, Dorothea von Mucke, Harro
Muller, Daniel Purdy, Jonathan Skolnik, W. Daniel Wilson and Luciana Villas-Boas
for their helpful comments on drafts o f parts of this manuscript. I have benefited
from the responses of other students in Winfried Menninghaus's Oberseminar at the
FU Berlin (Fall 1996), o f the participants in the Columbia University German
Department dissertation colloquium in the spring o f 2001, and of the panelists and
audience at a special session on Goethe sponsored by the Goethe Society of North
America at the October 2001 meeting o f the German Studies Association, in
Washington, D.C. I am deeply grateful to the DAAD for funding a year of research
and writing in Berlin and Weimar (1996-97); to the reference librarians and the
Interlibrary Loan staff at Butler Library for helping me find and procure distant
books: to my wife, Silvia Beier, for her nearly infinite patience and intellectual
clearsightedness; to my sons, Jacob and Jan, for putting up with me while I wrote; to
Inge Halpert, for many years o f steadfast encouragement and good advice; to Bill
Dellinger, for making life easier; to William E. Metcalf, for answering questions on
classical subjects at odd hours; to my sister, Daisy Livnah, for doing the same on
points o f law; and to my father, James H. Schwartz, for his unwavering support —
ii
financial, emotional and intellectual. I would like to dedicate this dissertation to him,
and to the memory o f my mother, Frances Messik Schwartz (1942-1984).
Chapter II and part o f the Introduction were published in substantially the
present form as an article, "Eduard’s Egotism: Historical Notes on Goethe's Elective
Affinities," in The Germanic Review, Vol. 76, Nr. I (Winter 2001), pp. 41-68. I
thank The Germanic Review and Heldref Publications for permission to reprint this
material here.
I am grateful to the Stiftung Weimarer KJassik, Weimar, for permission to
reproduce the illustrations on pages 255-259.
HI
T o m y father
James H . Schwartz
and to the m em ory o f m y m other
Frances Messik Schwartz
(1942 - 1984)
IV
..comprendre que les evenements modifienc touc.1
Balzac, H onore de. Histoire de la grandeur et de la decadence de Cesar Birotteau. La Comedie humaine. Pierre-
Georges Castex. ed. (Paris: GaQimard/Pleiade, 1977), VL209.
1
A fter Je n a
Introduction
An Vollendung, denke ich, besitzt unsre Literam r niches ahnliches

in Prosa. Dissertadonen hieriiber sind langweilig, aber w orin diese
VortrefSichkeic zum T eil un d w esentlich bestehc muB man sich
d o c h sagen. u n d so sind alle kritischen Schriften d e r A lten
entstanden.1
T hat Goethe's Elective Affinities reflects the tim e o f upheaval in w hich it was
w ritte n has b een understood since its publication in 1809. T h e author's
contem poraries were prom pt to note the novel's relation to their ow n era. In a letter
w ritten that year, the jurist Friedrich Carl von Savigny, for example, described it as
"der groBartigste Blick auf diese verwirrte Zeit."2 Achim von Amim, w ho disliked the
book, nonetheless saw in it "wieder ein T heil untergehender Z eit tiir die Z ukunft in
treuer, ausfuhrlicher Darstellung aufgespeichert."3 T h e critic Karl W ilhelm Ferdinand
Solger praised its verisimilitude in yet stronger terms: "In diesem R om an ist, wie im
alten Epos, alles was die Zeit Bedeutendes u n d Besonderes hat, enthalten, und nach
einigen Jahrhunderten w urde man sich hieraus ein vollkommenes Bild von unserm
jetzigen taglichen Leben entwerfen konnen."4
From the beginning, however, most readers have understood G oethe's novel
ahistoricallv. As W erner Schwan has shown, the tw o schools o f interpretation that
dom inate its reception —an ethical conception o f the novel as a w arning against the
1 B arthold G eorg N iebuhr to D ore Hensler on. Goethe's Wahlverwandtschafien, 14 N o vem ber 1809.
N iebuhr, Barthold Georg. Die Btiefi Barthold Georg Niebuhrs. D ietrich G erhard and W illiam N orvin,
eds. (Berlin: W alter de Gruyter. 1926), 11.54; also in Die Wahlverwandtschafien. Eitte Dokumentation der
W irkung von Goethes Roman 1808-1832. H einz H ard , ed. (Berlin: A kadem ie-V erlag, 1983)
[henceforward: "H ard"], 75. T he letter is misdated to 15 N ovem ber in b o th o f these sources: the
manuscript is dated 14 N ovem ber [Akademiearchiv, Berlin, Nachlass B.G. N iebuhr, N r. 339-4J.
1 Savigny to Friedrich Creuzer, 25 D ecem ber 1809 = H ard 89
3 A m im to B etdne Brentano, 5 N ovem ber 1809 — H ard 71
* Solger, K -W .F - "U ber die Wahlverwandtschaften,” undated bo o k review o f 1809 o r 1810, H ard 201
hazards o f moral laxity and as a defense o f the marriage bond on the one hand, and a
metaphysical "Auffassung des Romangeschehens als eines schicksalhaft determ inierten,
tragischen Zusammenhangs" o n the o th er — stem from early reviews by B ernhard
R u d o lf Abeken and by K .W .F. Solger, respectively.3 Solger may have professed to see
in the novel "alles was die Z eit Bedeutendes und Besonderes hat, enthalten," b u t he
view ed such detail as a means o f conveying invariant truths regarding fate and free
will.6 Abeken scoffed outright at attempts to read history into the text.' M ost o f the
critics since who have taken historical realia into account have seen them , w ith Solger,
as "das sichtbare Kleid der Personlichkeiten"8 - that is, as a m edium for the expression
o f dmeless truths. In this regard, even W alter Benjamin's classic essay o f 1919-1922,
despite its famous call for attention to the novel's historical "Sachgehalt," echoes
Solgefs relegation o f dated detail to the accessory sphere o f "poetic technique"9 and his
focus on timeless questions o f character and fate.
Those few critics w ho have connected Goethe's text w ith historical fact tend to
avoid Vhistoire evenementielle — the recent foil o f the German ancien regime, for example,
o r N apoleon's then ongoing occupation o f C entral Europe — in favor o f datable
discursive contexts. T hus Elective Affinities has been read as an attack on R om antic
aesthetics'0 and as a critique o f R om antic ideas on the subject o f m arriage.11 T he
’ Schw an. W erner. Goethes " Wahlverwandtschaften." Das nicht erreidtte Soziale (M unich: Fink. 1983), 7;
W inkelm an. John. Goethe's Elective Affinities, .-in Interpretation (N ew York: Peter Lang, 1987), 5 ff.
T h ere is a good review o f the literature up to 1987 in W inkelman. 4-22.
6 H ard 200-1
'H a r d 209
3 H ard 200
* T h e term is Benjamin's, n o t Solger’s. but its sense corresponds to the funcdon that Solger assigns to
G oethe’s use o f detail. Benjam in. W alter. “G oethes W ahlverw andtschaften.” Gesammeite Schrifien.
R o lf T iedem ann and H erm ann Schweppenhauser, eds. (Frankfurt am M ain: Suhrkam p, 1991), L I.
145-6. C £ Solger in H ard 200-1 (#421).
10 W alzel, Oscar. "G oethes >W ahlverw andtschaften< im R ah m en ihrer Zeit." Goethes Roman >Die
Wahlverwandtschafien<. Ewald R osch. ed. (Darmstadt: Wissenschafdiche Buchgesellschaft, 1975), 35-64;
Schings, Hans-Jurgen. "W illkur und N otw endigkeit — G oethes ’W ahlverwandtschaften' als K ridk an
der R o m an d k ." Berliner Wissenschafiliche GeseHscfuft e. V. Jahrbuch (1989), 165-181; Bersier, Gabriele.
novel has been set in relation to innovations in chemical science12 and to fashions in
landscape and graveyard design.13 It has been read as an study in new m odes o f
socialization,14 as a "middle-class cridque o f aesthetic aristocratism,"13 and as a didactic
"text o f m anners."16 It has been taken to represent a sw eeping "disorganization o f
symbolic orders" affecting the turn o f the nineteenth century.17 T h e novel's tableaux
vivants have been traced,18 and its Pendehchtuingungen placed.19 Y et these studies, most
o f them products o f the last tw enty years, have only occasionally integrated their
findings w ith political, social, econom ic and legal data - that is, w ith the material
dynamic o f historical change that shaped the era during w hich G oethe w rote.
"M an tauscht sich wohl nicht," writes Karl O tto C onrady, "w enn m an in den
[Vahlvenuandtschaften insgesamt einen R eflex a u f zeitgeschichtliche Erfahrungen von
der R evolution bis zu r Kriegszeit 1806 sieht, d er fireilich m it Einzelheiten nicht
Goethes Ratselparodie der Romantik. Eirte rteue Lesart der » W a h lverw a n d lsch a ften « (Tubingen: N iem ever,
1997)
11 K luckhohn. Paul. Die Aujfassung der Uebe in der Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts und in der deutscken
Romandk. 3"* ed. (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1966). 612 ffl
A dler. Jerem y. « E in e fast magische Artziehungskraft> >. Goethes < Wahlverwandtschaften > und die
Chemie seiner Zeit (M unich: Beck, 1987); Hoffm ann. Christoph. "'Zeitalter der R evolutioneri. G oethes
W ahlverwandtschaften im Fokus des chem ischen Paradigmenwechsels.” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrifi 67
(1993): 417-450
'3 G em dt. Siegmar. Idealisierte Satur. Die literarische Konlroverse um den Landschaftsgarten des 18. und Jriihen
19. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland (Stuttgart: M etzler, 1981), 145-166; N'iedermeier, M ichael. Das Ende der
[dylle. Symbolik, Zeitbezug, 'Gartenrevolution' in Goethes Roman 'D ie Wahlverwandtschafien' (Berlin: Peter
Lang, 1992); Lindemann, Klaus. " « G e e b n e t » und « v e r g l i c h e n » — d er F riedhof in Goethes
W ahlverw andtschaften. W ied eraufhahm e e in e r D iskussion a us Ju stu s M osers < P atrio tisch en
Phantasien>." Literaturfu r Leser (1984): 15-24
lt K ittler, Friedrich A. "O ttilie H auptm ann." Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften. Kritische Modelle und
Diskursanalysen zum M ythas Literatur. N orbert W . Bolz. ed. (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1981), 260-275
!S Schlick. W erner. Goethe's Die Wahlverwandtschaften: .4 Middle-Class Critique o f Aesthetic Aristocratism
(Heidelberg: C . W inter. 2000)
14 W innett, Susan. Terrible Sociability: The Text o f Manners in Ladas, Goethe & James (Stanford. California:
Stanford University Press, 1993). 97-169
“ W eilbery, David E. "D ie W ahlverwandtschaften." Goethes Erzdhlwerk. Interpretadonen. Paul M ichaei
Liitzeler and James E. M cLeod, eds. (Stuttgart: Reclam . 1985), 291-318
8 T runz, Erich. "D ie Kupferstiche zu den 'Lebenden B ildem ' in den Wahlverwandtschafien." Weimarer
Goethe-Studien (W eimar: Bohlaus N ach£, 1980). 203-217; B rude-Firaau. G[isela). "Lebende B ilder in
den Wahlverwandtschafien. Goethes Journal intime vom O ktober 1806." Euphorion 74 (1980): 403-416
19 C f. A dler ’Eine fa st Magische Artziehungskraft’ 180-187 o n G oethe's interest in th e p endulum
experiments o f the rom antic physicist J.W . R itter.
4
einfach belegt w erden kann; denn hiscorische Ereignisse schilderr d er R om an nicht."20
Indeed, one may certainly docum ent this "reflex" w ith details, as another handful o f
critics have done; but not simply.21
A lthough Conrady refers only to the time up to 1806 —the period before Jena —
Stuart Atkins has plausibly correlated the novel's action "w ith the latter part o f the W ar
o f the T hird Coalition, viz., the w ar o f Prussia and Austria against France in 1806-
1807."22 By Atkins's count (which relies o n m ention o f the batdes in w hich Eduard
fights, and on other details), the first half o f the novel takes place in the year before the
sum m er o f 1806; roughly the last fifteen chapters take place after Jena.
A lthough tim e is treated in Die Wahlverwandtschaften w ith the same verisimilar exactitude
as all other elements, even critics aware o f h o w its carefully measured passage underscores
the symbolic significance o f seasonal changes tail to remark that the novel’s action largely
coincides w ith the latter part o f the W ar o f the T hird Coalition, viz.. the W ar o f Prussia
and Austria against France in 1806-1807. For this w ar Prussia, supported by Electoral
Saxony and Saxe-W eim ar, m obilized its forces as o f 9 August 1806, w hich explains
Eduard's rejoining the Prussian army in late sum m er o f the novel’s first year (1.18). Before
his birthday in m id- or late autum n (IE.3) h e has distinguished him self in a "bedeutende
Kriegsangelegenheit," w hich is identifiable as the first im portant military action o f the war,
the Franco-Prussian engagem ent at Saalfeld (10 O cto b er 1806). (Four days later came
N apoleon’s victory at Jena and Auerstadt; N apoleon occupied Berlin after 13 m ore days
and on 21 N ovem ber issued the Berlin D ecree.) Prussia fought on until the Russian
defeat at Friedland. 14 June 1807, b u t w ithin three weeks had signed th e Treaty o f Tilsit
(supplem ented 12 Juiy by the Treaty o f Konigsberg). O nly the events o f the novel's last
M C o n rad y . Karl O tto . Goethe und die Franzosische Revolution. Insel-AImanach a u f das Jahr 1989
(Frankfurt am Main: Insel. 1988), 130
11 I w ould nam e as the m ost im portant w ork on the social-historical contenc o f Goethe's novel Vaget.
H ans R udolf. "Ein reicher Baron. Z u m sozialgeschichtiichen G ehalt der >W ahlverw andtschaften<.
Jahrbuch der deutschen Schiller-Gesellschaft 24 (1980): 123-161. T h e following w orks address lim ited
aspects o f the problem , o r address the problem in lim ited ways: Baioni. G iuliano, Goethe. Classidsmo e
rivoluzione (Turin: Einaudi. 1998). 245-267; WeDbery’s and Kitrier’s essays: Niederm eier’s, Schwan’s, and
W inkelm an’s books, listed above; Ackins. Stuart. "Die Wahlverwandtschaften: N ovel o f G erm an
Classicism." The German Quarterly 53 (1980): 1-45; B ru d e-F im au , "L ebende B ilder in den
Wahlverwandtschaften"; Faber. R ic h a rd . "P ark le b en . Z u r sozialen Idvllik G oethes." Goethes
Wahlverwandtschaften. Kritische ModeUe und Diskursanalysen zum M ythos Literatur. N o rb ert W . Bolz. ed.
(H ild esh eim : G ersten b erg , 1981), 9 1 -1 6 8 ; G ee rd ts, H ans Ju rg e n . G oethes Rom an ’D ie
Wahlveru/artdtschafien. Eirte Analyse seiner kunstlerischen Struktur, seiner historischen Bezogenheiten und seines
Ideengehalts (Berlin an d W eim ar: A ufbau-V erlag, 1966); G illi. M arita. "Das V erschw eigen der
G eschichte in Goethes W ahlverwandtschaften oder W ie m an d e r Geschichte nicht entfliehen kann”.
» S i e , und nicht W i r « . D ie Franzosische Revolution und ihre Wtrkung a u f das Reich. A m o Herzig, Inge
S tephan, and Hans G. W inter, eds. (D olling u n d Galitz. 1989), 553-566; H offm ann, "'Z eitalter der
R evolutionen’"; Lindemann. " « G e e b n e t » u n d « v e r g l i c h e n » ”; and V ogl. Joseph. "N om os der
O k on o m ie. Steuerungen in Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften." Modem Language Notes 114 (1999): 503-
527.
“ Atkins 3
seven yean can therefore be said to take place in tim e o f peace, established coincidentally
w ith Eduard’s return from the army in late spring after just under a year o f service (IL12).a
If the novel is a "reflex" o f its time, it is therefore one bo th o f the tim e that led
up to Jena, and o f the tim e that followed it. Goethe began Elective Affinities in April o f
1808, less than tw o years after Prussia’s defeat by N apoleon at the battles o f Jena and
Auerstedt on 14 O ctober 1806, which sealed the fete o f the G erm an ancien regime. He
finished the book in O ctober o f 1809, three weeks after his patron Carl August, duke
o f Saxe-W eim ar-Eisenach, published one o f the first G erm an civil constitutions.24
T h e work's composition therefore coincides neady w ith the wave o f domestic political
reform provoked in Saxe-W eimar, as in Prussia and elsewhere, by N apoleon's drastic
reorganization o f Europe's institudonal structures. Does the text reflect these changes?
A nother early reviewer, Karl August Bottiger, thought not: "D u wirst —die Politik
ausgenommen, die nur zu wirklich ist —keinen der M enschheit wiirdigen Gegenstand
a u f dem Standpunkt unsrer W elt- und Menschenansichc darin vermissen."25 But
B ottiger was w rong. Elective Affinities does represent a historically specific socio
political constellation — the whirl o f political, social, econom ic and legal forces
unleashed by the end o f the feudal era —b u t at a fer deeper level o f cause than that o f
Tagespolitik.
I w ould therefore reverse Solger’s genitive and read Goethe's novel as an image
o f history clothed in the "sichtbare[n] Kleid der Personlichkeiten."26 N o t that either
Abeken or Solger was w rong to see ahistorical truths in the book. T here is no reason
a Atkins 3; c£ n. 3, p. 30 on p rior critics’ guesses at the era in w hich the action occurs, and notes 4 & 6,
pp. 30-31, for supplementary information used by Atkins to date it-
24 Sammlung GrojSherzaglicher Sachsen-IVeimar-Eisenacher C esetze, Vemrdnungen und Ctrcularbefehle in
chronologischer Ordnung. Zweyter Theil, Erste Abtheilung. 1811-1819. F. v. GockeL, ed. (Eisenach: Verlag
des Herausgebers. 1829), 241-269; also in Die eumpaisdien Verfassungen seit dem Jahre 1789 bis a u f die
neueste Zeit. Karl H einrich Ludwig Politz, ed. 2“1 ed. (Leipzig: Brockhaus. 1832), 1-2.732-751
25 H ard 107
* H ard 200
6
w hy the appearance o f a given idea at a particular rime and place should entail that its
validity as a truth is historically contingent.27 I w ould simply see the weft o f such
arguments w oven m ore rightly w ith history's warp.
Elective Affinities is a novel about a marriage. In so far as the problems besetting
the marriage o f the provincial aristocrats Eduard and Charlotte were typical o f the time
and the social milieu in w hich the novel's action is set, the book can also be read as a
com m ent on the state o f the legal institution o f marriage circa 1809; as indeed some
critics have read it.28 Y et Elective Affinities is n o t simply a novel about a marriage. As
G oethe adm itted to his friend R iem er, his "Idee bei dem neuen R o m a n " was: "soziale
Verhaltnisse und die Conflicte derselben symbolisch gefafit darzustellen."29 Goethe's
treatm ent o f marriage in the new novel was m eant as part o f a com plex reckoning
w ith a m ore general m om ent o f socio-political flux: th e crisis in social relations
occasioned in Germany by the end o f the feudal age.
Legally, N apoleon had ended that age in the latter m onths o f 1806.
Sociologically, philosophically and econom ically, the end had been brew ing for
decades, and was to continue for decades m ore. If one w ould set Goethe's novel in
historical context, one must therefore consider as context both the precise span o f time
in w hich its action takes place (the years 1806-1807, the m om ent o f French conquest,
occupation and hegemony) and the changes o f longer duree (demographic grow th and
its consequences, the Enlightenm ent, forty years o f cultural self-assertion by Germany's
' 7 C £ Hankins, James. Plato in the Italian Renaissance. Second impression (Leiden: Brill. 1991), [jcvii.
38 Cf. Benjam in 1.1.127 f£; Bloch. Andreas. "Goethes T)ie W ahl-verwandtschaften’ (von 1809) — die
Ehe im W erk u n d in der W irklichkeit." Zeitsckrijt fu r das gesamte Familienrecht 4 0 /1 2 (1993): 1409-1413;
L e im b a c h , C arscen. "D ie G e g e n b ild e r v o n E h e u n d L e id e n -sc h a fte n in G o e th e s
» W a h lv e rw a n d ts c h a fte n « ." Weintater Beitrage 45/1 (1999): 35-52; Schwan 69-103, esp. 75.
25 R iem er Tagebuch 28. August 1808. H ard 32 [33J
rising non-noble elites,30 the French R evolution, and so on) that produced the specific
conditions o f the years 1806-1807. In o ther words, one must think o f the r im e as a
m om ent o f sudden crisis —while placing this m om ent o f crisis w ithin the context o f a
longer continuum o f developm ent. Accordingly, I w ould interpret Goethe's novel
b o th as a reaction to a discrete situation o f crisis, and as a m om ent in the broader
continuum o f Goethe's life and works: as a radically new response to a new situation,
o r as an amplification o f problems, themes and thoughts present in earlier works, and a
harbinger o f ones later differently treated.
Any life, o f course, o r any history, is ju st that: the integration o f present
m om ents into older condnua. W hat is intriguing about this new m om ent —about the
m onths and years after Jena —was its appearance o f radical contingency. T o Goethe
(and no t ju st to G oethe), Napoleon's victory seem ed to have sprung the prevailing
historical continuum . W hen G oethe first developed his concept o f Damon betw een
1807 and 1813, or w hen the philosopher Johann G ottlieb Fichte com posed a short
” I shall be using Jam es J. Sheehan’s term th ro ughout to describe the groups o f com m oners that
challenged th e legitimacy o f aristocratic Hemckafi from roughly 1770 on, as historically m ore accurate as
descriptions o f late eighteenth-century German society than (for example) the designations "middle
classes” o r "bourgeoisie.” C f. Sheehan, James J. German History 1770-1866 (O xford: O xford
U niversity Press/C larendon Press. 1989) on this problem o f definition: "T he m ovem ent o f commoners
into th e rural w orld o f Herrschaft was just one o f several ways in w hich the old aristocracy’s position was
threatened by new groups. In the countryside and at court, in administrative offices and urban drawing
room s, in universities and o n the pages o f periodical publications, the old elites w ere confronted by
people unw illing to accept w ithout question traditional rank and privilege. These people based their
o w n claims to p o w er and prestige o n different grounds: w ealth, political com petence, educational
accom plishm ent, m oral superiority. T hey cam e from various places in society: com m erce and
m anufacturing, th e civil service and free professions, education an d publishing. W hile it is awkward to
refer to th em as 'n o n -n o b le elites', there is no m ore positive term th at adequately describes them .
Burgenum, w hich best fits their nineteenth-century successors, is inappropriate because in th e eighteenth
century it still retained its connections w ith the corporate realm o f traditional urban elites. Middle-dass is
certainly m isleading, since these groups had neithe a co m m o n relationship to th e m arket n o r a
consciousness o f themselves as a collective entity. Bourgeoisie, w ith its participatory, even revolutionary
connotations, is com pletely o u t o f place on the Germ an scene. It may even be a mistake to think o f
these elites as belonging to a social stratum, i f by that one imagines a clearly defined category o f people
'in betw een' th e aristocracy and low er orders. Perhaps their position can best be imagined w ith another
geological m etaphor: neither class n o r stratum, non-noble elites w ere com parable to a vein o f ore
running th ro u g h th e social structure, discontinuous, uneven in quality and strength, often cutting across
and sometimes disappearing into m ore readily apparent strata.” (132)
8
sketch "U eber Zufall, Loos, W under usw.” in 1813,3t b o th m en w ere addressing the
same sudden historical desideratum, w hich Fichte put thus: "Es kom m t darauf an, das,
was m an Zufall nennt, oder die Kraft des Factums recht zu begreifen."32 Although he
does not name Napoleon, one does get a sense w hat kind o f accident Fichte will have
meant from the statement:
N u r legt aber in der Freiheic das Daseyn der Gesellschaft, mic seinen vom ehm sten
Bedingungen. W enn diese nun getahrdet sind, oder w enn ein schlechthin neues Giied des
Fortschritts ein treten muss in den G eschichcszusam m enhang, eine durchaus neue
Offenbarung des Geistes, so isc dies ein D urchbrecben des w iederkehrenden Forrgangs, ein
schlechthin Erstes und Anfangendes, was w eder aus der N atur fortgeht — diese bleibt an
ihren W echsel gebunden —noch a us der Freiheic oder dem (endlichen) Verscande - diese
konnen eigendich niches Neues setzen, in ihnen ist kein eigentlich erfinderisches Princip —
sondem nur aus dem scammen kann, was zwischen N atur und Freiheic talk, geistige Natur
oder Urspriinglichkeit isc.33
W hat Fichte describes is close in kind to w hat G oethe w ould address, in notes o f the
same year, as Damon. In Book X X o f Dichtung und Wahrheit (published posthumously,
in 1833; a diary entry o f 4 April 1813, however, records the schematic "C onception
des Damonischen und Egmonts" to be found there),34 he w rote o f himself as a youth:
Er glaubte in d er N atur. der belebcen u nd unbelebten, der beseelten und unbeseelten

ecwas zu encdecken. das sich nur in W iderspruche manifestirte und deBhalb unter keinen
BegrifF. noch viel weniger uncer ein W ort gefaBc w erden konnce. Es w ar nicht gottlich,
d en n es schien unvem iiftig; niche m enschlich, denn es hacte keinen Vetscand; nicht
teuflisch, d enn es war wohlchatig; niche englisch, denn es IieB auch Schadenfreude
m erken. Es glich dem Zufall, denn es bewies keine Folge: es ahnelce der V orsehung,
d en n es deucece a u f Z usam m enhang. Alles was uns begranzt schien tu r dasselbe
durchdringbar. es schien mic den nochwendigen Elem enten unsres Daseins wiHkiirlich zu
schalten; es zog die Z eit zusammen und dehnte d en R aum aus. N u r im U nm ogiichen
schien es sich zu gefallen und das Mogliche mic Verachcung von sich zu stoflen.35
A lthough G oethe developed the them e o f Damon here in relation to his early play
Egmont, and Fichte's "neue Ofrenbarung des Geistes" clearly alludes to the German
31 Fichte, Johannn Gottlieb. "U eber Zufall, Loos, W under usw." "Politische Fragmente aus den Jahren
1807 und 1813." Fichte’s Sammtliche Werke. J. H . Fichte. ed. (Berlin: Veit, 1846), VII. 590-596
32 Fichte Op. dr. 590
33 Fichte "U eber Zufall, Loos, W under usw." 594-5
M C £ C hapter IV; W A I 29. 195 for 1813 end date.
9
revolt o f 1813 against the French occupation rather than to N apoleon him self still the
inclination o f both to regard th e u npredicted event as "ein D u rch b rech en des
w iederkehrenden Fortgangs" is doubdess an outgrow th o fjen a, that m om ent in which
the heretofore unthinkable occurred: the defeat o f the Prussian army, the occupation
o f W eim ar and Jena and then o f Berlin, and for G oethe the "schreckliche Nacht" o f
14 O ctober 1806,36 during w hich m arauding French soldiers led him to fear for his
life, his estate, and his w ork as never before. T h e relevance o f this fear (and o f
G oethe's reactions to it) to the novel Elective Affinities will be the subject o f my first
chapter.
W hat Goethe —unlike the G erm an Idealists, including Fichte —did not do, was
subsume this new sense o f contingency to eschatology. "W enn Schiller, und mit ihm
Hegel, in der W eltgeschichte das W eltgericht sah, so wuBte G oethe es anders: Damit
sie alle einander ermorden/ ist der jiingste Tag vertagt geu/orden."2" As a response to Jena,
Elective Affinities retains a respect fo r contingency, imbalance and disparity in history —
for w hat R einhart Koselleck has pleasingly called "der Zufall als M otivationsrest in der
Geschichtsschreibung" — that the H istoridst school o f the nineteenth century w ould
quickly eclipse w ith its teleological construction o f G erm an n ationhood as "eine
durchaus neue O ffenbarung des Geistes."38 T here is nothing revealed, in this quasi
religious sense, in Elective Affinities. T h e boo k is an effort to represent, and thus
understand, a radically new state o f affairs in the world; it does n o t pre-em pt diagnosis
w ith eschatologies, prescriptions, o r pre-established harmonies, w hether religious or
secularized.
33 Dichtung und Wahrheit X X = W A I 29. 173 26-174 14

36 W A III 3, 174 5
37 Koselleck. Reinhart. "Goethes unzeitgemafie Geschichte." Goethe-Jakrbuch 110 (1993): 32
10
G oethe's omission o f any telos seems to have b o th ered som e o f the novel's
earliest readers. W hereas som e (like A chim v on A m im ) w ere pleased w ith its
representation "ein[es] Theil[s] u n terg eh en d er Z e it fu r die Z u k u n ft in treuer,
ausfuhrlicher Darsteilung aufgespeichert,”39 those w ho hoped for a fictional resolution
o f historical tensions still unresolved in reality w ere inclined to be disappointed.
O ften, this disappointm ent was voiced as discomfort w ith G oethe's handling o f the
problem o f fate in the novel; or, conversely, as protest that the book lacked (in
Madame de Stael's words) "un sentim ent religieux, ferme et positif."40 M y ow n aim,
in Chapters III and IV, has been to show that such evidence o f the w ork’s having
strained its first readers' horizon o f expectation shows the prescience o f Goethe's
response to the historical changes occasioned by Jena. This response is comparable, in
certain respects, to that o f Voltaire to the Lisbon earthquake o f 1755: it distilled into
literature the radical moral consequences o f a previously unim aginable event. It is
therefore not by accident that in the complaints o f early critics one perceives remnants
o f an insistence on the theodicy doctrine first challenged head-on by Voltaire, o r that
in the so-called "fatalism" o f Goethe's text —or, m ore precisely, its Spinozism —one
hears echoes o f his early revolt against the same doctrine.
"Schiller w ar der Erste," observed an early review er, Karl August Bottiger,
displeased, "der das Fatum aus d er heidnischen in die christliche W elt, die hohere
W iirde des M enschen in dieser verkennend oder nicht achtend, iibertrug, u n d ihm
folgt hierin, zu unserm Erstaunen, H err v. G oethe."41 T o be sure, the w ord Schicksal
had been used in G erm an literature before Schiller's Wallenstein (1798-99) and Die
38 F ich te "U e b e r Z ufall, Loos, W u n d e r usw ." 594-5; KoseQeck. R e in h a rt. "D e r Z ufall als
M odvadonsrest in d e r G eschichtsschreibung." Vergangene Zukunft. Z u r Sanantik geschichtlicher Zeiten
(Frankfurt am M ain: Suhrkamp, 1989), 173 fE
39 A m im co Bectine Brentano, 5 N ovem ber 1809 = H ard 71
40 D e StaeL Germaine. De VAUemagne (Paris: Gamier-FIammarion. 1968), 11.47
11
Braut von Messina (1803), the plays o f w hich B ottiger will have been thinking.42 Yet
Bottiger was correct in perceiving an innovation. In earlier texts (including, up to this
point, Schiller's ow n), the workings o f "fate" conform ed to the logic o f Christian
providence m ore than to the ancient conceptions o f tragedy that B otdger thought
G oethe was approaching.43 T h e novelists and playwrights o f eighteenth-century
Europe w ere inclined to portray a Christian world in w hich poetic justice was served,
subscribing in the main to the moral-didactic purpose projected for drama by (for
example) the English critic Jo h n Dennis, in 1701: "Every Tragedy, ought to be a very
Solemn Lecture, inculcating a particular Providence, and shewing it plainly protecting
the G ood, and chastizing the Bad, o r at least the V iolent [..-I-"44 O f course, this
opinion was subject to debate throughout the century, even in Dennis’s time. Indeed,
one m ight construe the opinion's expression at all as a sign that the premises on which
it was based —that G od was all-knowing, all-powerful, and benevolent, and that it was
the province o f art to say so —had ceased to be self-evident. Such ideas w ere hardly so
to Joseph Addison, for example, w ho dismissed poetic justice, in 1711, as "a ridiculous
D octrine." Despite his disagreement w ith champions o f poetic justice such as Dennis,
Addison recognized the relation o f an author's supposed obligation "to an equal
D istribution o f R ew ards and Punishments, and an impartial Execution o f Poetical
Justice" to the theological problem to w hich G ottfried W ilhelm Leibniz, in 1710, had
just given the name theodicy. "W e find," Addison objected, "that G ood and Evil
happen alike to all M en on this Side o f the Grave, and as the principal Design o f
Tragedy is to raise Commiseration and T erro r in the Minds o f the Audience, we shall
H ard 194
42 Cfl W iese. Benno von. D ie deutsdie Tragbdie von Lessing bis Hebbel (Hamburg: H o ffm a n n und Campe,
1961). 256 £
43 CC von Wiese 17
12
defeat this great End, if w e always make Virtue and Innocence happy and successftd."45
It is no coincidence that Addison's rejection o f poetic justice as a dramatic desideratum
followed o n his implicit repudiation o f the logic o f theodicy. In the thinking o f the
period, the two notions implied one another. Thus in a letter o f 1713 on the subject
o f novel-w riting, Leibniz construed the same correlation o f cosmic and poetic justice
as Addison did; attaching, however, to both, unlike Addison, a positive aesthetic and
metaphysical valence. "Es ist ohne dem eine von der R om an-M acher besten kiinste
alles in V erw irrung fallen zu IaBen, und dann unverhofft herauB zu wickeln. U nd
niem and ahm et unsem H e rm beBer nach als der Erfinder von einem schohnen
R om an."46 Like John Dennis, Leibniz expected the novelist to act as the deity o f his
fictional w orld, directing events in accordance w ith the dictates o f a benevolent
justice, as theodicy presumed the Christian G od to do.
For G oethe, a century later, this was expressly a misguided expectation. "Die
poetische Gerechtigkeit sei eine Absurditat," his friend R iem er reported him saying, in
M arch o f 1809. "Das ailein Tragische ist das injustum und praem aturum . N apoleon
sehe dies ein, und daB er selbst das Fatum spiele."47 According to one nineteenth-
c en tu rv scholar, Jacob M in o r, an e n tire dram atic genre — th e R o m a n tic
Schicksabtragodie — ow ed its existence to G erm an agreem ent w ith N apoleon's self-
assessment. Calling the genre a product o f the "U ngluck des Jahres 1806," M inor
argued: "erst in dieser Z eit wusste auch das vollig entm uthigte und niedergeschlagene
** D ennis 1701, cited in Zach. Wolfgang. Poetic Justice. Theorie und Geschichte enter literarischen Doktrin.
Begriff— [dee — Kamodienkonzeptian (Tubingen: Niem eyer, 1986), 75
45 Addison. Joseph. The Spectator N o . 40 = 16 April 1711. Addison, Joseph. R ichard Steele et aL The
Spectator. G. Gregory Smith, ed. (London: D ent. 1930), 1.147
46 Leibniz to A nton Ulrich. letter o f 26. April 1713, cited in KimpeL D ieter. Der Roman der Aujkldmng
(Stuttgart: M etzler. 1967), 9 (this spelling); also in R o tzer. Hans Gerd. Der Roman des Barock 1600-
1700. Kommentar zu eirter Epoche (M unich: W inkler. 1972), 87-88.
47 to R iem er, 11 M arch 1809 = R iem er. Friedrich W ilhelm . Mitteilungen iiber Goethe. A rthur PoEmer,
ed. (Leipzig: Insel, 1923), 302
13
V olk keine andere Zuflucht als bei den fetalistischen Ideen."48 Y et the fatalism o f the
Schicksabtragodie was not Goethe's fatalism. As I shall argue in C hapter III, the fatalism
that B ottiger perceived in Elective Affinities was never G oethe's ow n, b u t rather an
object, for Goethe, o f novelistic representation, the fictional im age o f a fashion o f
th o u g h t typical o f the period. Eduard's fatalism may approach that o f the
Schicksabtragodie; G oethe's did n o t. N o r do O ttilie's d eath an d am biguous
sanctification offer redem ption in faith and grace as relief from a cruel fatality, as did
the plays o f (for example) Goethe's erstwhile R om antic friend Zacharias W em er. T he
conception o f cragedy that informs this "tragic novel" —if Friedrich Hebbei’s term is to
be trusted49 - does not include Minor's idea o f refuge from history, nor Hegel's
G etuhl d er Versohnung, das die T ragodie durch den Anblick der ew igen G erechdgkeit
gew ahrt, welche in ihrem absoluten Walcen durch die relative B erechdgung einseitiger
Z w ecke und Leidenschaften hindurchgreift, weil sie niche dulden kann. daB der Kontlikt
u n d W iderspruch der ihrem Begriffe nach einigen sittlichen M achte in d er wahrhafren
W irkiichkeit sich siegreich durchsecze und Bestand erhalte.50
Such "Konflikt und W iderspruch der ihrem Begriffe nach einigen sittlichen
M achte" is precisely what Goethe's novel —u n l i k e Hegel's philosophy —does tolerate.
Its subject is the damage done by forces that cannot be reconciled: social, historical,
18 M inor. Jacob. Die Schicksab-Tragodie in ihren Hauptvenretem (Frankfurt am Main: R u tte n & Loening,
1883), vii. O f itself. M inor’s p o in t is banal. T h e Schicksabtragodie is a product o f the years 1809-1825.
and on e can assume some sort o f connection a priori. (M inor dates the genre's efflorescence "in runder
Z ah l” b etw een 1815 and 1825, b u t he judges from publication dates; Saskia Schottelius includes
perform ance dates, w hich start w ith Zacharias W erner’s Der vierundzwanzigste Februar ac C oppec
(10/1809) and at W eim ar (2/1810) [Schottelius, Saskia. Faturn, Fluch und Ironie. Zur Idee des Schicksab in
der Literatur von der Aujklarung bb zu r Romantik (Frankfurt am Main: P eter Lang, 1995), 512 fE]) W hat
M in o r fails to do is explain th e nature o f the connection in any detail. H e simply assumes it is chere;
and th e logic o f his assumption dearly owes m ore to a Grunderzeit rhetoric o f national hum iliation and
hope reborn — a discursive co n text that gave rise to its o w n substantial body o f thinking on fate, as
H arry Liebersohn has show n [Liebersohn, H arry. Fate and Utopia in German Sociology, 1870-1923
(Cam bridge: M IT Press, 1988)] —than to any attem pt to mediate texts w ith historical context. Minor's
basic idea —that Germ an literary approaches to th e problem o f fate w ere altered by changes in political
conditions after 1806 — is thus b o th self-evident, and in need o f dem onstration. Inexplicably, M inor
does n o t do as m uch him self H aving m ade this point in the introduction to D ie Schidcsab-Tragodie in
ihren Hauptvenretem, he drops it completely in the body o f his text.
** C £ von W iese 567.
14
political, and libidinal forces. U n lik e H egel, the im possibility o f Versohnung,
conciliation, was w here G oethe saw the essence o f tragedy: "Alles Tragische beruht
a u f einem unausgleichbaren Gegensatz. Sowie A usgleichung ein tritt o d er moglich
w ird, schw indet das Tragische."31 Late in life, he adm itted, how ever: "Was die
Tragodie betriSt, ist es ein kitzlicher Punct. Ech bin nicht zum tragischen D ichter
geboren, da meine N atur conciliant ist [.~]."32 Although both o f these dicta — and the
second one in particular — have the benevolently revisionist rin g o f m any late
G oethean utterances, still they accurately describe th e tw o poles o f his novel's
approach to the post-Jena crisis: its objective depiction o f an unresolved constellation
o f social tensions, and some subjective hope for —bu t no positing o r description of! —
these tensions' conciliation. N ow here, o r nearly now here, does the author confuse his
o w n hopes w ith the conditions he docum ents. T h e resu ltin g fundam ental
indeterm inacy o f Elective Affinities is a them e to w hich I shall recur in nearly every
chapter below, and which I shall articulate in relation to G oethe’s reception o f the
philosophy o f Spinoza, for reasons that should becom e clear.
If Elective Affinities is a novel about a marriage, still its subject is n o t simply
marriage. M y ow n subject is n o t prim arily marriage, b u t rather the cultural and
political disintegration o f the Standeordnung, the late feudal corporate system o f social
caste and aristocratic privilege that shaped German law and politics until defeat in war
first shook it in 1806 and finally broke it in 1919.53 Although in the republic o f letters
50 H egel, G .W .F. Vorlesungert fiber die Asthetik III. Werke. Eva M oldenhauer and Karl M arkus Michel,
eds. (Frankfurt am M ain: Suhrkamp, 1970), XV.526
35 G oethe to M uller, 6 Ju n e 1824, in M uller, Kanzler von. Unterhaltungen mic Coethe [Kleine Ausgabe].
Ernst Grum ach. ed. (Weimar: Bohlaus N ach£, 1959). 107
a W A [V 49, 128 1-3
u "O fientlich-rechtliche V orrechte o d er N achteile der G eburt oder des Standes sind aufzuheben." Die
Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs vom 11.8.1919. H erm ann M osler, ed. (Stuttgart: R eclam , 1988), Art.
15
this system was under attack from below from roughly 1770 on, its m om ent o f deepest
political crisis came with Prussia's defeat by N apoleon at the batde o f Jena-A uerstedt in
O cto b er o f 1806. I will argue, in short, that Elective Affinities depicts th e crisis o f
socio-political legitimacy that such G erm an provincial aristocrats as E duard and
C harlotte freed in the years after Jena; and that the novel addresses this crisis by linking
its treatm ent o f the issue o f marriage w ith a review o f certain related questions o f
property and inheritance.54
Curiously, almost none o f the scholarship on the novel has view ed Goethe's
treatm ent o f marriage from the perspective o f German legal history.35 T h e conflict o f
passion w ith objective social order o r Sittlichkeit that G oethe proclaim ed the book's
m ajor them e36 has never been viewed in relation to discrete laws, o r construed as a
product o f concrete changes in legislation. Several critics have linked the novel with
contem porary philosophies o f marriage.57 Yet the "D enkart d er Zeit" to w hich (for
example) the bourgeois Cehulfe appeals on behalf o f his wish to marry O ttilie across
class lines38 was never simply a philosophical issue. It was a questioning, too, o f
existing civil laws in an era o f social, political and legislative upheaval —an era forced
by N apoleon upon a defeated Germany, after Jena.
109. pp. 36-7. "Im Juni 1920 hob ein Preufiisches Gesetz ausdriickiich die noch bestehenden adligen
Scandesvorrechce auf. d arunter das R e c h t eigener G esetzgebung u n d G erichtsbarkeit, das der
besonderen Vertrecung in Korperschaften des offentlichen Rechts. das d er besonderen Strafschutzes and
Gerichcsscandes sow ie die B efreiung von ofientlich-rechdichen Pflichcen u nd Abgaben." Carscen,
Francis L. "D er preufiische Adel und seine Scellung in Scaac und Gesellschaft bis 1945.” Europaisdier
Adel 1750-1950. Hans-Ulrich W ehler. ed. (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & R uprecht, 1990), 121
u T h e w ord Legitimitdt entered German usage in 1815 (used by G entz, taken over from Talleyrand); it
was conditions after 1806 that first gave the term relevance in G erm any. W urtenburger, Thom as,
"Legitirnitat, Legalitat." Geschichtliche Gmndbegrijje III.708
“ exception; Bloch, whose article is very thin
36 G oethe to R iem er, December 1809 = Goethe iiber seine Dichtungen. Versuch einer Sammlung oiler
Aufierungen des Dichters uber seine poetischen W ake. Erster Teil. Die epischert Dichtungen. E nter Band. Hans
G erhard Graf. ed. (Darmstadt: Wissenschafdiche Buchgesellschafc. 1968). 427
3/ e.g. Benjamin. Kluckhohn. Schwan
38 “ [W Jenn zwischen ihnen einiges MiBverhaltniB des Standes war. so glich sich dieses gar Ieichc durch
die D enkart der Z e it aus.” H.7 = W A I. 20, 287 28 —288 2
16
N o r have che tw o themes o f marriage and Stand been related in concert to the
legally closely related complex o f problems attached w ith new urgency in this period
to the issue o f land ownership. Goethe’s text, how ever, links Eduard's and Charlotte's
marital instability consistendy w ith a weakening o f their hold on their landed property,
both thematically and symbolically. T he union o f these provincial aristocrats declines
together w ith a gradual loss o f control o f th eir land th at is pardy the result o f their
egaremznts du coeur et de Vesprit. This loss o f control is signalled continually throughout
the course o f che novel: by Eduard's decision to sell a parcel o f his estate in 1.6, for
instance; by the landslide in 1.15; by a local nobleman's legal challenge to Charlotte's
rearrangem ent o f che cem etery adjoining the local church in II. 1; by the couple's
gradual loss o f interest in che landscaping projects chat fill che book's early chapters; by
Ottilie's m anagem ent o f their household after 1.6, h er choice o f a site for che Lusthaus
in 1.9, and h er deploym ent o f a corps o f child landscapers in 1.17; and by the ending o f
Eduard's bloodline and line o f succession w ith the death o f the child O tto, in 11.13.
T he end o f this marriage is thus related clearly to a loss o f property, influence and
progeny by aristocrats. It is by making explicit the novel's implicic legal discursive fa m e
—the project, particularly, o f Chapters I and II —that I m ean to describe how G oethe
construes such losses as a consequence o f these aristocrats' thoughtless negotiation o f
changing legal conditions.
T o a certain degree, both the passage o f tim e and the text's integration o f the
episodes I have m entioned into a dense sym bolic m esh has obscured che legal-
historical im port o f such episodes, and their essential interconnectedness, from critical
view. M any a reader has noted the symbolic appositeness o f descriptions o f landscape
—o f plane trees and poplars, village and m anor house, lake and mill, paths, graveyards,
hills, valleys and orchards —to the progress o f the novel's tragic conflict o f moral duty
17
and passion.59 Few have conceived o f rhfs landscape as property subject to changing
legal conditions o f ownership. Y et questions o f property law are raised explicitly as
such in tw o o f the episodes just m entioned: in 1.6, w h en Eduard decides to sell off a
farmstead for cash to meet the rising costs o f landscaping w ork elsewhere on his estate,
and in II. 1, w h en C harlotte's reorganization o f th e local churchyard is legally
challenged by a neighboring noblem an. These tw o events are m ore than simply
indicative o f the dilettantism and social recklessness o f tw o self-centered aristocrats —
although they are certainly that. T h e legal issues they raise are distinct, and very m uch
signs o f the tim e that the novel depicts.
As I shall demonstrate in C hapter II, Eduard’s choice to sell a farmstead for cash
to a non-noble buyer includes him am ong the many G erm an provincial aristocrats
w ho by 1809 had alienated the social and econom ic bases o f their political pow er by
selling o r m ortgaging noble estates to burghers o r peasants in response to the rising
pressures o f a new agricultural market.60 H ow m uch a sign o f the times this sort o f
choice was is reflected in the fact that by 1800 nearly half o f the value o f the Rittergiiter
o f Prussia's Kurm ark had passed, by sale o r by mortgage, into non-noble hands —even
as Junker continued to hold circa ninety percent o f the tides to these lands. Further, the
way in w hich Eduard chooses to sell o ff family land to r cash entails a cancellation o f its
Lehnsnexus. o f the feudal rights and obligations invested in the land. O bliquely, the
novel suggests the harmful political consequences o f such a forfeit. By liquidating the
nexus o f m utual social obligation that hinds him to his land and its population, Eduard
59 e.g. Killy. W alther. "W irkiichkeit u n d K unstcharacter. G oethe: > D ie W ahlverw andtschatten<."
Wirkiichkeit und Kunstcharacter. Seun Romans des 19. Jakrhunderts (M unich: C .H . Beck. 1963), 22 21
60 Cf. M artiny, Fritz. Die Adelsfrage in Preufien als politisdtes und soziales Problem, erldutert am Beispiele des
kurmdrkischen Adels (Stuttgart-Berlin: K ohlham m er, 1938), 9 -46. esp. 30. & T ab. B I, p. 114-115;
R osenberg, H ans. "T h e Pseudo-D em ocritization o f the Ju n k e r Class." The Social History o f Politics:
Critical Perspectives in W est German Historical W riting since 1945. G eorg [ggers, ed. (Leam ington
18
ultimately does him self the econom ic disservice o f reducing his property holdings,
w hile evading the social duties that G oethe (and not only G oethe) considered the
birthright and the political vindication o f the nobility. His reckless choice to break up
his ancestral estate (and partly to liquidate its feudal nexus) reveals Eduard's inadequacy
as a steward o f the land, hinting as w ell at one com m only-cited source o f the
w eakened political legitimacy o f the Germ an provincial aristocracy in the years after
Jena: the irresponsible egotism o f the German aristocracy.
Eduard's and Charlotte's descent into misery may thus be gauged partly in
relation to their departures from such measures o f aristocratic socio-political self-
interest as the laws o f the G erm an anciert regime guaranteed; or, conversely, as a
function o f the degree to which they fail adequately to adapt to such change to che old
legal order as several o f the occupied Germ an states —Prussia forem ost (and W eim ar
included) am ong them —saw fit to undertake at this point in che way o f m odernizing
reform. T he historical crajectory o f socio-political change effected o r retarded by legal
means in this period will be a constant frame o f reference for the arguments o f che
chapters chat follow. Yet not all o f che behaviors chat lead to the novel's calamities can
be caughc wich the nec o f legal history. There is also the no less significant question o f
everyday sociable behavior, o f manners. Elective Affinities is a novel o f manners,
comparable in m any respects to those o f Jane Austen.01 O nly here — unlike in Jane
Austen —we have a novel about a failure o f manners, an argum ent (to quote Jane K.
Brow n) chat "no kind o f manners can hold society to g eth er in che face o f the
Spa/D over. N H /H eidelberg: Berg, 1985), 86; also Nipperdey, Thom as. Deutsche Gesdiichte 1800-1866.
Burgenvelt und starker Stoat (Munich: Beck. 1983), 146 21
t,t Cf. B row n. Jane K. "D ie Wahlverwandtschaften and the English N ovel o f M anners." Comparative
Literature 38 (Spring, 1976): 97-108 [Mansfield Part]; Leacock. N ina Kathleen. "IVild M annerC haracter
19
destructive forces at w ork in the novel."62 As Susan W in n e tt has noted, the
m odification o f conventional social manners is a dom inant them e o f the book.63
Following David E. Wellbery's argument that the "geschichtlich-kulturelle Vorgang,
den die Wahlvenvandtschaften inszenieren, [...] sich als d er Z usam m enbruch des
Symboiischen, als dessen Desorganisation verstehen [laBt],"64 W in n ett has suggested
that Goethe's novel represents "the process through w hich the self-conscious world o f
manners is given access through the symbolic to its ow n unconscious, even as it relies
for its intelligibility on the conventionality undone by the action it charts."63 1 believe
that this interpretation ignores the crucial dimension o f socio-political conflict through
too exclusive a reliance on Freudian-psychological and sem iotic analysis. By
construing O ttilie as no more than a function —as the vehicle o f "a symbolic process
that brings together and points toward aspects o f experience that convention holds to
be discrete and incompatible"66 — and by com prehending the object affected as a
solipsistic com posite o f "the self-conscious w orld o f m anners" and "its ow n
unconscious," W innett fails to note that what caused that w orld o f manners to change
was som ething m ore than simply a psychological o r a symbolic process. Certainly,
O ttilie is a vehicle o f the change to aristocratic conventions described in Elective
Affinities. She works as a semantic transformer, and a destructive one. B ut she is not
reducible simply to a semantic operation: her alternate m odel o f manners has a
sociologically and historically specifiable content, and th e nature o f that content is
in the S rouel o f the Romantic Era (Ph.D. Diss.. University o f California. Irvine: 2000) [Pride and Prejudice.
Persuasion].
a2 B row n 104-5
13 W innett Terrible Sociability 104 51
** W eflbery 292
^ W in n ett 106. Alexander Gelley. approaching the m atter o f Ottilie's effect from a non-psvchologicai
perspective, abstractly identifies O ttilie's "appropriate sphere, [anj other dim ension w hich is now here
specified b u t w hich is hypostatized by h er nature and h er relations to th e social w orld," b u t foils to
establish th e Stand-specific nature o f that sphere, o n w hich I w ould insist. Gelley, Alexander. "O ttilie
and Symbolic Representation in Die Wahluerwandtscktfien" Orbis Litterarum 42 (1987) 248-261]
20
essentially related to the nature o f h er transformative function. She does negotiate
changes in the behaviors o f o th er characters, b u t the challenge w ith w hich she
confronts existing convention stems n o t from the "unconscious" o f such convention,
b u t rather from an existing alternative register o f convention in statu nascendi: that o f
Germany's rising non-noble elites.
Hans R u d o lf Vaget has observed that o f all the characters in G oethe’s novel,
O ttilie, an orphan yet an aristocrat by birth, displays “das problematischste Verhaltnis
zu ihrem Stand.”07 She is (for example)
die einzige. die mic der alten Standes tradition, wonach Adelige keinen biirgerlichen B eruf
ausuben diirften. zu brechen bereit ist. D enn indent sie sich dem Lehrberut* w idm en will,
scheint sie sich von der eigenen Klas.se ab- u nd der biirgerlichen Sphare zuzuwenden.
Vaget denies, how ever, that O ttilie is properly to be understood as a representative o f
bourgeois values. "Abgesehen von diesem [...] Ausbruchsversuch laBt das Verhalten
O ttilies keine spezifisch biirgerlichen Tendenzen erkennen.”09 O n e aim o f my fifth
and sixth chapters is to show that this assessment is incorrect. I will not, however,
follow Jo h n W inkelm an in inserting O ttilie, as a symbol for "the civilian population,"
into a quasi-allegorical m odel o f equivalences that holds Eduard to represent "the
nobility," the Captain "the military establishment," and Charlotte "the bourgeoisie."70
T h e sociological specificity o f these characters is n o t one o f essence, but one o f
practice —or o f habitus, to use the sociological term .'1 T he practices that O ttilie afreets
are socially typological ones, behaviors o f a sort that m arked and perpetuated
“ W in n ett 106-7
Vaget "Ein reicher Baron" 136
08 Vaget 137
09 Vaget 136 ff., 141
70 'W inkelman 57-61
T erm used loosely by Elias, N orbert. liber den ProzeB der ZSviltsadon (Frankfurt/M : Suhrkamp, 1997),
passim; term defined ac length by Bourdieu in B ourdieu, Pierre. The Logic o f Practice. R ichard N ice,
21
distinctions o f social rank in late feudal Germany. T h e practices o f h er ow n through
w hich she affects the behavior o f others are equally typological; w here che conventions
they modify are aristocratic in nature, they themselves are either recognizably n o n -
aristocracic, or they refer to symbolic values (e.g., nature, humanity, Bildung) essential
at the tim e to che cultural self-understanding o f Germany’s rising gebildeten Stande.
This is noc to say that O ttilie is bourgeois, o r in her person a symbol o r allegory o f a
bourgeoisie that was not defined yet as such. Indeed, one can identify aspects o f noble
and non-noble habitus in all four o f che novel's protagonists. Whac is significant is
Ottilie's amplification in ochers o f behaviors that do not belong to cheir native habitus;
a divergence that can be measured only against the class specificity o f discrete moments
o f social behavior, as I shall do in Chapters V and VT. Such interaction is no less a
question o f symbolic re- or disorganization than Wellbery and W innett have suggested
it is. M y poinc overall is chat Ottilie's modifications o f habitus proceed by a process o f
contradistinction, through the sort o f progressive redefinition by polar concrasts
described, for example, by N o rb ert Elias o r R einhart fCoselleck,72 in w hich the
opposite term to convention is not "the unconscious o f convention," b u t rather the
qualitatively new symbolic order o f Germany's rising non-noble elices. Thus I would
argue that O ttilie is che same kind o f conduit upward for a non-noble habitus as che
masonic lodges were, in Koselleck’s account; a Trojan horse, so to speak, for che type
o f hidden alternative moral (sittliche) standard to w hich the late eighteenth-century
G erm an nobility increasingly found itself adhering —and losing.
trans. (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1990), 52-65, and Bourdieu, Pierre. La distinction. Critique
sodale dejugement (Paris: Editions de M inuit, 1979), 189 fEL
'2 Elias Uber den Prozefi der Zivilisation 89-131; KoseQeck, R e inhart. "Z u r historisch-politischen
Sem antik historischer Gegenbegriffe." Vergangene Zukunjt. Z ur Semantik geschichtlicher Zeiten (Frankfurt
am M ain: Suhrkamp. 1989), 211-259; KoseQeck. R einhart. Kritik und Krise. Eine Studie zu r Pathogenese
der biirgerlichen W elt (Frankfurt am M ain: Suhrkam p. 1973); L uhm ann, N iklas. "Interaktion in
O berschichten. Z u r Transform ation ihrer Sem antik im 17. un d 18. Jahrhundert.1' CeseUsckafisstmktur
22
G oethe's ow n life — or, perhaps m ore exactly, the construction o r narrative
structure he put on that life —is the third historical continuum (after the philosophico-
dram atic discourse o f fate and theodicy, and che socio-historical v ecto r o f che
Verburgerlichung o f Germany) in relation to w hich I will read Elective Affinities. It has
b een com m on practice for nearly tw o centuries to interpret G oethe's w orks as
expression o f stages in his life and thought overall, and hence in relation to previous
works, to contemporaneous and subsequent ones, as well to statements in letters and to
friends. I consider this practice legitimate, if hermeneutically perilous. Its origin was,
after all, in Goethe's ow n self-interpretation: Dichtung und Wahrheit is the grandfather
o f the paradigm. Y et this is precisely w hat legitimates che practice — provided one
does noc confuse biography, as text, with life as lived. W hy, then, do I begin this
dissertation w ith an account o f w hat Goeche did in the days after Jena? T he particular
virtue o f Goethe's so-called "confessional” mode o f writing was its capacity to integrate
life w ith literacure: to put a literary construction on life, to construe it as meaningful
process. It is noc so much w hat G oethe did in his life, as w hat sense he made o f his
doings, that is o f relevance to his works. In C hapter I, I interprec certain o f Goethe's
actions after Jena as signs o f his understanding o f w hat Jen a m eant: as interpretadons,
themselves, o f events, in the m edium o f acdon. I th en propose to read Elective
Affinities as a further developm ent, in prose, o f insights first gained after Jena. T he
m ajor them es o f the novel — its quesdons regarding m arriage, property, and
inheritance; fete and Damon: issues o f class, and o f sovereignty —are all to be found, in
nuce, in its author's initial reactions to che "terrible night" o f 14 O cto b er 1806.
und Sem antik. Sludien zu r Wissenssoziologie der modemen Geselbchaft. V ol. I (Frankfurt am M ain:
Suhrkamp, 1980), 72-161
23
Naturally, there is risk in believing w hat anyone says about himself; there are
also ways o f extracting truth even from grossly inaccurate self-descriptions. T here is
an equal o r greater am ount o f risk in believing w hat anyone says about others; in the
same vein, there are ways o f extracting truth even from grossly inaccurate literary
criticism. I w ould add as a corollary to these axioms that there is m uch to be learned
from the irritated reactions o f authors to w hat they perceive as inaccurate criticism.
G oethe’s statements concerning his works sometimes mystify m ore than they
clarify — particularly in the later years o f his life, and exceptionally in the case o f
Elective Affinities, regarding w hich one is apt to sense a special evasiveness. Y et both
the substance and the tenor o f this evasiveness have a coherent logic. T he epistolary
and anecdotal record reveals very clearly b oth Goethe's fears that his novel's "eigentlich
intentionirte Gestalt"73 w ould be misunderstood, and an inclination to irony —nearly
to peevishness —in dealing w ith misunderstandings as they occurred. W hatever their
accuracy in describing the works they are m eant to describe, these utterances have a
heuristic value. Just as misreadings may sometimes expose latent meanings in texts (as
well as the special concerns, the presuppositions and prejudices o f readers),'4 so also do
Goethe's responses to what he considered incom prehension promise insight —into his
novel, and into the historical context in and for w hich he w rote it. In such critiques
and replies, one senses the strain that the novel exerted on the current horizon o f
readerlv expectation; and from this, one can sometimes ju d g e m ore o f w hat was at
stake in the novel's com position than the text alone will easily reveal. For these
reasons, I w ill make extensive use in the follow ing o f H einz Hard's remarkable
73 Goethe uber seine Dichtungen [Graf] [.393
24
anthology Die Wahlverwandtschajien. Eine Dokumentation der Wirkung von Goethes Roman
1808-1832. T he very existence o f such a collection o f readers' responses to a single
w o rk suggests that although there are novels th at critics feel com fortable reading
w ithout help from other commentators. Elective Affinities is n o t one o f them. In my
final chapter —C hapter VII —I will treat the contem porary illustrations to the novel
reprinted by H ard as interpretations in their ow n right, w ith the heuristic aim o f using
them as guides through the tangle o f iconographic leitmotifs w ith w hich the novel
supplied their artists. 5
Elective Affinities can be read, on its surface, as a novel about four people who
ruin their lives in ways that any o f us could ruin ours. Y et som ething about the novel
demands deeper digging. O n I June 1809, G oethe w rote to his friend Zelter o f the
w ork still in progress: "Ich habe viel hineingelegt, manches hinein versteckt. Moge
auch Ihnen dieB ofienbare GeheimniB zur Freude gereichen."'6 A com m ent like this
could seem license for all kinds o f Geheimnisschnuffelei — it has been taken that way bv
some scholars — but G oethe had som ething in m ind w hen he described the novel’s
secrets to Z elter as open." It is n o t an esoteric w ork, even i f G oethe did expect the
m ajority o f his readers to misunderstand it. Stefan Blessin is right, in a sense, to
observe that G oethe uses "in seinen R o m a n en keine Svm bole, die n u r ein
riefschiirfender, polvhistorisch gebildeter Leser richtig verstehen kann."78 Y et W alter
* Carlo Ginzburg has pur this insight to very fruitful use in The Night Battles. Witchcraft and Agrarian
Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. John and A nne Tedeschi, trans. (Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press. 1992).
*s See Appendix II.
76 W A IV 20. 346 1-3
77 "Offenbares G eheim nis. D ie fu r den spateren G [oethe] fast toposhafte. paradoxe Formel steht in
B ezug zu seinem SymbolbegrifF, d er das G em einte im w eitesten Sinn verschleiert und gleichsam im
Abgianz andeutet, o hne es direkt auszusprechen oder aussprechen zu konnen." W ilpert, Gero von.
Caethe-Lexikon (Stuttgart: Kroner, 1998). 785
78 Blessin, Stefan. Goethes Romarte. Aujbruch in die Modeme (Paderbom: Schoningh, 1996),
25
B enjam in was right as well co insist that "d er W ahrheitsgehalt eines W erkes, je
bedeutender es ist, desto unscheinbarer u n d inniger an seinen Sachgehalt gebtmden
ist."79 T h e question may come dow n in the end to w hat one is trying to understand,
and w hat one estimates correctness o f understanding. T here are aspects o f this novel
that some o f the author’s closest friends did n o t understand "correctly" - to G oethe’s
great irritation. His text includes symbols as well whose meaning may be deepened by
reconstruction o f their original context — if only because w hat may have been self-
evident to the average reader o f 1809 is no longer so to the reader today. For m y part,
I will be pleased if my analysis o f w hat Benjam in called the text's Sachgehalt, the
material it ow ed to its time, sheds new light on its Wahrheitsgehalt o r "truth-content" —
as I believe it is the task o f any historical inquiry to do to r its object. Failing that, I
will be satisfied if I have managed concretely to express, if only in passing, wherein this
novel's "Vortrefflichkeit zum Teil und wesentlich besteht."*0
79 Benjamin 1.1. 125

w Barthold G eorg N iebuhr to D ore Hensler. 14 N ovem ber 1809 = H ard 74-6
26
Chapter I
14 October 1806 and the Consequences, or

Why did Goethe marry when he did and
What does that have to do with Elective A ffinities?
14 O ctober 1806 and the C onsequences
In his essay on Goethe's Elective Affinities, W alter Benjam in has suggested — I
think accurately —that G oethe "doch niche, wie Mittler, die Ehe begriinden, vielm ehr
je n e Krafte zeigen [wollte], w elche im Verfall aus ihr hervorgehn."1 Y et marriage is
no t the only institution depicted by G oethe in a state o f flux. His novel o f 1809
shows oth er pillars o f the traditional Germ an social order in crisis, and it portrays their
disintegration as equally pregnant w ith noxious effect. Goethe's project, I think —pace
B enjam in - was to explore the ramifications o f an unravelm ent greater than simply
that o f the institution o f m atrim ony. After all, the "verwirrte Zeit" that Savignv saw
so well represented here was a time o f general upheaval.2 T h e years after Prussia's
defeat at the batde o f Jena in 1806 w ere the m om ent o f Germany’s first tentative jum p
towards social, political, econom ic and legal m odernity, a move provoked by French
conquest, French pressure and French example. All o f these changes w ere reflected in
the legal reforms undertaken by, o r im posed upon, G erm an governm ents in this
period. It is not by accident that the three m ajor spheres o f law reform ed by the
French civil legal code o f 1804, in parts o f occupied Germany as in France - marriage
1 B enjam in. W alter. "G oethes W ahlverwandtschaften." Cesantmelte Schriften. R o lf Tiedem ann and
H erm ann Schweppenhauser. eds. (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991). 1.1.130.
' Savigny to Friedrich C reuzer, 25 D ecem ber 1809. C ited in: D ie W ahlveru/andtschaften. Eine
Dokumentation der Wirkung von Go elites Roman 1808-1832. H einz H ard, ed- [henceforward: Hard}
(Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1983), 89
27
law, property law, and che laws o f inheritance —receive poinced attention in Elective
Affinities.5
This is not to say thac Goethe's novel is simply a com m ent on the N apoleonic
C ode, o r on such native Germ an equivalents as the Prussian reforms o f 1807-11. It
w ould be more accurate to call it a sketch o f some possible consequences o f that
w hich che Code Civil heralded, and o f w hich it was often considered a symbol: the end
o f the feudal order in Germany.4 Benjamin's thesis might then be usefully broadened
to fit the end put by Jena to the G erm an ancien regime as a w hole. N o w h ere does
Goethe's novel justify the feudal social, econom ic and legal structure o f th e ancien
regime. Instead, ic shows w hat forces G oethe thought apt to em erge from that
structure's dissolution.
If the theme o f marriage occupies pride o f place in this portraic o f an age, it is
noc because marical problems make tor a better novel than do questions o f property
rights and succession. G oethe’s use o f the w ord Verhdltnisse —relations —in describing
che novel’s "idea" suggests that che marriage o f his provincial ariscocracs Eduard and
C harlotte is meant as a m etonvm for social relations in general —that is, not simply for
Liebesverhaltnisse: "Idee bei dem neuen R om an Die Wahlverwandtschaften sei: soziale
Verhalcnisse und die Conflicte derselben svmbolisch gefaBt darzusteUen."3
3 "[...L]es sujets qui diviseronc les Iegislateurs pendant quinze ans: ecat civil, m anage, divorce, enfants
natureis. auconce pacemeile. donations, succession et heritage." Goy. Joseph. "C ode civil.” Diaionnaire
Critique de la Revolution. Franfatse. Institutions et Creations. Francois Furet and M ona O zouf. eds. (Paris:
Flammarion. 1992), 134-5.
4 O n th e Code Napoleon as a sym bol, see C arbonnier, Jean. "Le C o d e N apoleon e n cant que
phenom ene sodologique (Conference du 6 mars 1981)." Revue de la Recherche Juridique — Droit Prospectif.
1981 (3): 327: "Le C ode N apoleon a ere un symbole. La preuve, c’est qu’il tu t haL" C £ W inkelm an,
Joh n . Goethe's H ective Affinities: A n Interpretation (N ew Yoric: Peter Lang, 1987), 48 fE
3 R iem er Tagebuch 28 August 1808 = Hard 33
28
W hen the w ord Verhaltnis is em ployed in the novel (as it is frequently:
seventy-five times, by com puter count),6 its object tends to be ambiguous, o r very
general. This vagueness is a function o f the novel's system o f internal symbolic cross-
references — as evidenced for example in 1.4, the chapter that sets o u t the novel's
central chemical simile, its ostensible m aster trope for "social relations and their
conflicts." T h e relations here discussed are chemical and social at the same time:
Goethe's characters take the former to signify the latter. Yet their interpretations vary
as to w hat order o f social relation the chemistry signifies. Eduard sees in this chemistry
only a simile o f potential love-relationships, w hile his wife C harlotte perceives an
im age o f interrelations b etw een the social ranks that m ake up th e G erm an
Standeordnung.
Es tehlt nich t viel. sagte C harlotte, so sieht m an in diesen einfachen F orm en die
M enschen. die man gekannt hat; besonders aber erinnert man sich dabei der Societaten. in
denen man iebte. Die meiste A hnlichkeit jed o c h m it diesen seelenlosen W esen haben die
M assen. die in d e r W e lt sich e in a n d e r g e g e n u b e r stellen . die S tan d e. die
Berutsbesammungen, der Adel und der dritte Stand, der Soldat und der Zivilisc'
This difference in perception confirms Charlotte's earlier maxim that m en are inclined
to think about details, w hile w om en consider the broader connections in fife.3
W om en, C harlotte explains, are m ore likely than m en to look at such broader
c o n n ec tio n s "w eil ih r Schicksal, das Schicksal ih re r Fam ilien, an diesen
Zusam m enhang gekniipft ist, und gerade das Zusammenhangende von ihnen gefordert
w ird."9 Because her ow n social and legal position as a w om an depends o n it.
9 "V erhaltnis" 33X ; "Verhaltnisse" 33X ; "V erhaltnissen" 8X ; "Verhaltnisses" IX . G o eth e. Die
Wahlverwandtschajien. L eeds G e rm a n D e p a rtm e n t T ext D a ta b a s e =
h t t p : / / 129.11.193.35/litarch/w vnq.htm
7 1.4 = W A 1 20, 50 13-20
* I .l = W A I 20. 8 19 fr.
9 1.1 = W A I 20, 8 21-27
29
C harlotte comprehends the deeper ramifications o f marriage, a relation that Eduard
perceives in a far more cavalier manner.
Indeed, the spouses are using a com m on m etaphor to view a single historical
m om ent o f social upheaval from tw o different angles. Elective Affinities is a novel about
a marriage; it is also a book about interactions betw een the Germ an Stande. In places,
it is explicidy about both - as for example in II.7, w hen the Schoolmaster imagines
that the "MiBverhaltnis des Standes" betw een him and O ttilie, w hom he w ould like to
marry, "sich [...] gar leicht durch die D enkart der Z eit aus[gliche]."10 And here -
w here it is about both — the tex t brings th e issues o f property law and succession
significandy to bear. In this case, the w om an w ith an eye for the broader connections
is the adulterous Baroness, w ho encourages the Schoolmaster’s intentions so as to make
O ttilie — as the text puts it. w ith exquisite irony — "durch eine V erheiratung den
Ehefrauen unschadlicher."11 T h e Baroness tans the Schoolm aster's hopes w ith a
curiously detailed observation regarding property and inheritance:
Auch hatte die Baronesse ihn w o hi fohlen lassen. dafi O ttilie im m er ein armes M adchen
bleibe. M it einem reichen Hause verw andt zu sein. hieB es. kann niem anden helfen: derm
m an w urde sich selbst bei d em groBten V erm ogen ein G ew issen daraus m achen,
denjenigen eine ansehnliche Sum m e zu entziehen. die dem naheren G rade nach ein
vollkom m eneres R e c h t a u f ein B esitzthum zu haben scheinen. U n d gewiB bleibt es
wunderbar, dafi der M ensch das groBe V orrecht. nach semem T ode n och iiber seine Habe
zu disponiren, sehr selten zugunsten seiner Lieblinge gebraucht und, w ie es scneint. a us
A chtung fur das H erkom m en n u r diejem gen begunsdgt, die nach ihm sein V erm ogen
besitzen wiirden. w enn er auch selbst keinen W illen hatte.1'
This reasoning, too, reflects a "D enkart d e r Z eit." W hat the Baroness means to
convey is the unlikelihood o f O ttilie ever inheriting Eduard's estate, given the
im pending advent o f the direct heir (O tto) to be b o m to C harlotte in the next
:0 II.7 = W A I 20, 288 1-2

11 11.7 = W A I 20, 287 17-18. T h e irony in this b it o f free indirect th o u g h t is fierce: T h e Baroness
herself had been an adulteress before h e r divorce and is an accessory to the C ount's adultery; she feels
threatened by O ttilie not as the C ount's wife, b ut as his lover.
30
chapter. In other words, she (falsely) imputes to Eduard respect for the feudal tradition
o f prim ogeniture, the aristocracy’s safeguard against the disintegration o f its holdings in
land, and hence o f its pow er.'3 H er assumption, how ever, is given the lie b o th by
Eduard's implicit threat co deny his ow n son a portion o f his i n h e r i t a n c e (”[W ]ir sind
reich genug, um m ehrere K inder zu versorgen, und es ist keineswegs Pflicht noch
W ohlthat, a u f Ein Haupc so viele G iiter zu haufen"),u and by the eventual death o f
O tto, his only heir.15 As w e shall see, Eduard’s respect for tradition is in fact notably
weak.
T h e Schoolmaster's discussion w ith Charlotte turns on precisely this point o f
inheritance law, and on che unlikelihood o f Eduard's choosing to preserve the integrity
o f his property. T he "D enkart der Zeit" that they agree Eduard is likely to indulge is
che inclination to Testierfreiheit — co free cestamencarv disposition over property co be
bequeached. Such freedom was a quality indigenous co R o m an law. Traditional
Germanic law tended co privilege succession ab intestat (that is, automatically co blood
descendants) over such testamentary freedom. This began co change w ith the German
reception o f R om an law from the late 15“ century onwards, but even the G erm an
civil law o f today adheres co the principle chat che legal o rd er o f succession cakes
precedence over testamencary disposition.16 Noc so the French civil code. Like the
German law, French customary law had privileged intestate succession. T h e Code civil,
12 W V U.7 = W A I 20. 288 3-17

13 Cf. Bloch, M arc. Feudal Society t: The Growth o f Ties o f Dependence. L.A. M anyon. crans. (Chicago:
Universicv o f Chicago Press. 1961), 199 tE» esp. 203 61
'* W V 11.12 = W A I 20. 346 12-15
‘3 O tto is b o m in the following chapter (II.8). C harlotte m ust therefore be visibly pregnant in II.7. T o
be sure, the sex o f the child is still undeterm ined; b u t the Schoolmaster's "prophecy" co C harlotte in ET.8
that she will bear a son seems an unw itting reflex o f this very sense o f the Baroness's suggestion. In any
case, this w ould n o t have affected che likelihood o f a bequest (or autom atic intestate succession) to a
direct rather chan to O ttilie as an indirect descendant. O n e can easily imagine th e Baroness pointing
surreptitiously at Ottilie's belly for the Schoolmaster's benefit.
31
how ever, gave precedence co che cescamenc —an innovation designed co reduce che
pow er o f che landholding nobility.17
In chis concexr, Charlotte's conversation w ith the Schoolm aster amounts co
oblique com m entary on che reladve pow er che Code civil granced che individual will in
ics laws o f inhericance —and, by extension, on the iadtude that the age chat it ushered
in gave co che individual will in general.18 T he tw o are discussing the avenues o f call
linden crees and formal flower-beds planced in che French classical style by Eduard's
father, w hich had flourished well "in dem Sinne desjenigen der sie pflanzte," but
w hich no one seems any longer to visit o r speak o f 19 W hen C harlotte suggests chat
this is a sign o f the dmes —”[wir] glauben," she says, "aus uns selbsc zu handeln, unsre
Thadgkeit. unsre Vergniigungen zu wahlen; aber freilich, w enn w ir es genau ansehen,
so sind es nur die Plane, die Neigungen der Zeit, die w ir m it auszufiihren genochigt
sind" —che Schoolmaster responds by casting the issue as a generational problem:
D ie Z e it riickc fort und in ihr Gesinnungen. M einungen. V oturtheile u nd Liefahabereien.

Fallt die Jugend eines Sohnes gerade in die Zeit der U m w endung, so kann man versichert
sein. daB er m it seinem Vater nichts gemein haben wird. W enn dieser in einer Penode
Iebte. w o m an Lust hatte. sich manches zuzueignen. dieses E igentum zu sichem , zu
beschranken. einzuengen und in d er A bsonderung von d er W elt seinen Genufl zu
befestigen, so w ird je n e r sodann sich auszudehnen suchen, m itteilen. verbreiten und das
Vetschlossene erdShen.21
16 H agem ann, H .-R -. "Erbrechc." Handworterbuck zu r deutschen Rechtsgeschichte. A dalbert E rler and
Ekkehard Kaurm ann, eds. (Berlin: Erich Schmidt, 1971), 975; O n dating o f reception, see Eisenhardt,
Ulrich. Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte (Munich: Beck, 1984), 89 f£
I- C f. P oughon, Jean-M icheL Le Code civil (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1992). 62 SI;
Fehrenbach. Elisabeth. Traditionale Gesellschaft und revolutionises Recht. Die Einfuhmng des Code S'apoleon
in den Rheinbundstaaten. 3rd ed. (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprechc, 1983), 36 61
:s T h e m atter is complicated by the presence o f R om an-Iaw areas and custom ary-Iaw areas in old-
regime France. T h e Code civils emphasis on testamentary freedom, how ever indebted it may have been
co the R om an-Iaw tradition, was still new. C f Poughon 62 81. esp. 63 & 71 SI
19 W V 11.8 = W A I 2 0 ,2 9 4 U SI
31 W V [1.8 = W A 1 2 0 ,2 9 5 10-20
32
This problem o f generational difference is historically characteristic.21 T he period "wo
man Lust hatte, sich manches zuzueignen, dieses Eigentum zu sichem, zu beschranken,
einzuengen und in der Absonderung von d er W elt seinen GenuB zu befestigen" is
clearly the feudal age, ju st com e to a legal end in 1806, and here represented by
Eduard's father and his classical gardening style, a legacy o f the French old regime, the
regime that produced Versailles. T he phrase "jener[, der sich sodann] auszudehnen
such[t], m itteilen, verbreiten und das Verschlossene eroffnen" points to Eduard and his
English style o f gardening. This was the style that Schiller and G oethe had associated,
in their notes on dilettantism o f 1799, w ith the "herrschende[n] U nart der Zeit, im
asthetischen unbedingt und gesetzlos sevn zu w ollen [...].”“ T h e ir w arning against
lack o f aesthetic restraint had a clear political object as well, in the French R evolution.
W ith his final response to Charlotte's observation that "Ganze Zeitraum e [...]
diesem Vater und Sohn [gleichen], den Sie schildem,"23 and to her question "H aben
Sie w ohl einen Begriff, m ein Freund, daB m an aus diesem in einen andem , in den
vorigen Zustand zuriickkehren konner"24 th e Schoolm aster integrates the paternal
systole o f consolidation o f property w ith the filial diastole o f its dispersion into a
typically Goethean spiral development over time:
W arum mcht? [..J Qjeder Zustand hat seine Beschweriichkeit, der beschrankte sowohl als
d er losgefaundene. D er Ietztere setzt UberfluB voraus u n d tiihrt zur V erschw endung.
Lassen Sie uns bei Ihrem Beispiei bleiben, das aufrallend genug ist. Sobaid d er M angel
ein tritt. sogieich ist die Selbstbeschrankung w iedergegeben. M enschen, die ihren G rund
u nd B oden zu nutzen genothigt sind, fuhren schon w ieder M auem u tn ihre G arten ant,
dam it sie ihrer Erzeugnisse sicher seien. Daraus entsteht nach un d nach eine neue Ansicht
d er D inge. Das N iitzliche erhalt w ieder die O berhand, un d selbst der Vielbesitzende
m eint zuletzt auch das alles nutzen zu miissen. Glauben Sie m ir. es ist m oglich. daB Ihr
21 C om pare Schotske, Carl E. Fin-de-Siede Vienna: Politics and Culture (N ew York: Vintage, 1981), on
generational politics in Vienna after 1866 as a "collective oedipal revolt" (phrase from xxvi).
22 "U ber den Diletrandsmus” = W A I. +7, 310
23 W V II.8 = W A I 20, 295 21-2
24 W V 11.8 = W A 1 20, 296 9-11
33
Sohn die samtlichen Parkanlagen vemachlassigt u nd sich w ieder hinter die em sten M auera
u n d uncer die ho hen Linden seines GroBvacers zuriickzieht.25
T h e Schoolmaster expects a return to consolidation, b u t one to arise from the needs o f
a new econom y. As I shall show in C hapter II below , such consolidation w ould
becom e part o f the utopian program declared by the landow ning "O heim " o f the
Wandeijahre?b It is safe, I think, to hear G oethe here speaking his m ind on responsible
stewardship o f the land —and objecting to Eduard’s inclination, w hich was that o f his
tim e, to disperse holdings in landed property.
For the provincial aristocracy o f eighteenth-centurv Germ any, marriage law
and the legal strictures on ow nership and succession o f landed property w ere
necessarily interdependent. In Germany's agricultural economy, the political pow er o f
the nobility depended to a significant extent upon its ownership o f land, and therefore
upon its ability to retain the land in its collective possession. Preservation o f land and
the pow er it gave was the aim not only o f laws that restricted to b o m aristocrats the
right to ow n noble estates (Ritterguter), but also o f proscriptions on marriage across class
lines, as well as o f sanctions that denied inheritance rights to the children o f mixed
marriages in the case o f exceptions to such proscription. By the end o f the eighteenth
century, it was clear to many (and n o t only to non -n o b le critics o f aristocratic
privilege) that these rules and restrictions made Iitde econom ic o r moral sense. "Dieser
K astendiinkel u nd zahllose M iBbrauche,” writes H ans-U lrich W ehier, "bildeten
bevorzugte Ziele der Adelskritik, an der es in der zweiten Halfte des 18. Jahrhunderts
nicht gefehlt hat."27 From m id-century onward, European economists had perceived
25 W V n.S = W A I 20, 296 12-28

26 Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (Book I, C hapter 6) = W A I 24, 100 14-24
27 W ehier. H ans-U lrich. Deutsche GeseRschafisgeschichte. Erster Band. Vom Feudalismus des Alten Reiches bis
zu r Defensiven Modemisierung der Reformdra 1700-1815 (M unich: Beck, 1987) [= W ehier I], 146-7.
Indeed, in any legally developed society, marriage law, the laws o f succession, and th e legal strictures on
34
th e w orld's traditional agrarian systems and rural social relations as a hindrance to
econom ic developm ent. This "great frozen ice-cap [that] lay above the fertile soil o f
econom ic grow th," Erie Hobsbawm has observed,
had ac all costs to be m elted, so that th e soil could be ploughed by the forces o f profit-
pursuing private enterprise. This im plied three kinds o f changes. In the first place land
had to be turned into a com m odity, possessed by private owners and freely purchaseable
and saleable by them. In the second place ic had to pass into the ow nership o f a class o f
m en willing to develop its productive resources for th e market and impelled by reason, i.e,
enlightened self-interest and profit. In the th ird place th e great mass o f the rural
population had in som e way to be transformed, at least in part, into freely m obile w age-
* * 28 *
workers for the growing non-agricultural sector o f the economy.
Goeche had traced the parameters o f this problem as early as 1795 —in Book
VIII, C hapter 2 o f Wilhelm Meisters Lehrfahre. H ere the enlightened aristocrat Lothario
demands "die rechdiche Gleichstellung des adligen, biirgerlichen und bauerlichen
Besitzes, fem er die freie Disposition fiber die adligen Landgfiter, die A ufhebung der
Lehen und Fideikommisse u.a."29 "W ie wird es aber m it den Zinsen unseres Kapitals
aussehen?" W ilhelm's friend W erner asks him . "U m nichts schiimmer!" Lothario
answers,
w en n uns der Staat gegen eine billige regelmafiige Abgabe das L ehns-H okus-Pokus
erlassen, und uns m it urtsem G utem nach Belieben zu schaiten eriauben w ollte, dafi w ir
sie nicht in so grofien Massen zusammenhalten mufiten. dafi w ir sie u n ter unsere K inder
gleicher vertheilen konnten. um alle in eine Iebhafte freie Thatigkeit zu versetzen. statt
property are necessarily interdependent. Cf. Hull, Isabel V. Sexuality, State, and C ivil Society in
Germany, 1700-1815 (Ithaca, N Y : Cornell U P . 1996), 30-31 —who says that this was the case, b u t not
w hy. W eber. M ax. Economy and Society: A n Outline o f Interpretive Sociology. G uenther R o th & Klaus
W ittich . eds. (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1978), 370 SI on econom ic change causing
change in marriage & inheritance patterns; W eber 302-7 o n class & Stand; also Koselleck, R einhard.
PreujSen zwisdten Reform und Revolution. AJlgemeittes Landrecht, Verwaltung und soziale Bewegung von 1791
bis 1848 (M unich/ Stuttgart: D T V /K lett-C otta. 1989), 70.
3 H obsbaw m , Eric. The Age o f Revolution 1789-1848 (N ew Y ork: R andom H ouse/V intage, 1996),
149-150; c£ R adbruch, Gustav. "W ilhelm Meisters sozialistische Sendung." Cestalten und Cedanken
(Leipzig: K oehler & Amelang, 1944), 107; Borchm eyer. D ieter. Hdfsche Gesellschaft und franzosische
Revolution bei Goethe. Adliges und burgerliches Wertsystem im Urteil der Weimarer Klassik (K onigstein/Ts.:
A thenaum . 1977), 169-170.
39 Borchm eyer 169
35
ihn en a u r die beschrankten u n d beschrankenden V orrechte zu hinterlassen, w elche zu

genieBen w ir immer die Geister unserer Varfahren hervorrufen mussen.30
Ac lease one reader clearly perceived the relation o f Lothario's econom ic program to
the problem o f interclass marriage: Friedrich Schiller. In a letter to G oethe o f 5 July
1796, Schiller com m ented: "M anchem w ird es w underbar vorkom m en, daB ein
R om an, der so gar nichts » S a n scu lo ttisch es« hat, vielm ehr an m anchen Scellen der
A ristokratie das W ort zu reden scheinc, m it drei H euraten endigt, die alle drei
M iBheuraten sind." And he rem arked o f Lothario: "bei ihm fallc die Mesalliance am
starksten auf."31
Charlotte's rearrangem ent o f the churchyard in 1.2 flows from a m otivation
similar to the one behind Eduard's land sale o f 1.7 ff., which I shall treat in detail in the
following chapter. Like Eduard, she disrupts a traditional legal order applying co land
in order to gratify sencimenc and taste. This disruption is challenged later on in che
book, in terms that derive explicitly from che feudal legal and social order. T he
sentim ent and taste that Charlotte w ould gratify is Eduard's. H er landscaping w ork is
an answer co his habit o f avoiding che churchyard. This associates the churchyard w ith
several objects chat Eduard notably shuns, reconstructs, o r attempts co ignore: the lake,
his father's orchards, and the direct lines o f sight from che Lusthaus to che m anor house
and village forfeited in 1.7. All o f these objects signify loci o f ancient o r traditional
o rd er. Eduard's avoidance o f th em signals che same evasion o f craditional
responsibilities (and hence the same forfeit o f political legitimacy) as is manifest in his
30 W A I 23. 146 11-23. Carl August’s constitution o f 1816 aim ed at such "rechtliche Gleichstellung":
cf. Sammlung GroSherzoglicher Sacksen- Weimar-Eisenacher G esetze, Verordnungm und Circularbefehle in
chronologucher Ordnung. Ztueiter Theil, Erste Abtheilung (1811-1819). F. v. Gockei, ed. (Eisenach: Veriag
des Herausgebers, 1829), 245 (§14). C £ also G oethe’s paralipom enon to his report o f 1795 "U ber die
verschiedenen Zweige der hiesigen T haagkeit”: "Landesdkonocnie Zerschiagung herrschaftlicher und
B Jttergiiter Ausgleichung der T riften. d e r F rohnen E rhohung der Preise ailer V iktualien zum
V ortheil des Landmanns." W A I 53, 489 25-28
36
choice to sell land. H e, too, w o u ld abolish dependence on the "G eister unserer
Vorfahren" shunned by Lothario.
Like th e question o f m ethods o f property transfer, the issues o f graveyard
organization discussed in II. 1 are historically topical, a reflection o f debates o n the
nature o f property sparked by the French R evolution. As A m aldo M om igliano has
w ritten (in a discussion o f the historian Fustel de Coulanges): "It has becom e well
k n o w n from Philippe Aries's pioneering b o o k L'Homme devant la mort th at the
regulation o f cemeteries was a m atter o f special anxiety after the French R evolution,
and was proposed as a subject for an essay com petition by the Institut de France in
1801. At least one o f the essays subm itted on that occasion correlates respect for the
tombs w ith respect for private property - [a] notion [that] became central to Fustel's
thought w hen he was w riting La Cite antique”52 M omigliano elaborates elsewhere:
"Fustel saw in the w orship o f the dead the first justification o f private property."33
Indeed, G oethe m ade this correlation before Fustel de Coulanges, in B ook IV o f
Dichtung und Wahrheit, where he construes the Biblical Abraham's need to choose a site
for the grave o f Sarah as the occasion for his claim to possession o f C a n a a n -
Sara stirbt, u n d dies gibe G elegenheit, dafi Abraham von dem Lande Kanaan vorbiidlich
Besitz nimmc. Er bed ari eines Grabes. und dies ist das erste M ai. dafi er sich nach einem
Eigencum a u f dieser Erde umsiehc. Eine zweitache Ho hie gegen dem H am M am re mag
e r sich schon fruher ausgesuchc haben. Diese kauft er m it dem daran stofienden Acker,
u nd die Form R echtens, die er dabei beobachtet, zeigt, w ie w ichdg ihm dieser Besitz ist.
E r w ar es auch. m ehr als e r sich viefleicht denken konnte: denn er. seine Sohne und Enkei
sollten daselbst ru h en . u n d d e r nachste A nspruch a u f das ganze Land, sow ie die
im m erw ahrende N eigung seiner Nachkommenschaft, sich hier zu versam m ein, dadurch
34.
am eigentlichsten begrundet werden.
31 Schiller to G o eth e, 5 July 1796. Der Briejwechsel zwischert Schiller und Goethe. Em il Staiger, ed.
(Frankfurt am M ain: Insel. 1977), 231-2: c f Borchm eyer on Lothario. 164-179
32 M om igliano, A m aldo. "N e w Paths o f Classicism in the N in eteen th C entury." Studies on Modem
Scholarship. G .W . Bow ersock and T.J. Com elL eds. (Berkeley: U niversity o f California Press, 1994),
243. C f Aries, Philippe. L ’homme devant la mort (Paris: Editions du SeuiL 1977), 499 f f
37
N o t only is the institution o f property here traced to the practice o f burial o f the dead:
it is related as well, once again, to the question o f marriage. Abraham grounds his
claim to the land o f Canaan, as well as the future claims o f his progeny, on the need to
bury his wife. Abraham's wish that he, his sons and grandchildren should someday rest
there too warns o f the dangers im plicit in Charlotte's disregard for the com plaint o f
local parishioners that the rearranged gravestones may w ell show "w er begraben sei,
aber nicht w o er begraben sei, und a u f das W o kom m e es eigentlich an [...]."3s As I
have argued elsewhere, G oethe was apt to consider "das W o" an essential condition o f
any existing legal order.36
This episode, too, involves the issue o f class distinctions in its linkage o f
marriage and property law. As Klaus Lindemann has shown, G oethe frames the entire
graveyard debate o f II. 1 in terms borrow ed direcdy from an essay o f 1774 by the
O snabriick publicist Justus M oser ("Die Ehre nach dem T ode"), in w hich "der
Schreiber [...] a u f eine neue M ode der Friedhofs- und G rabgestaltung ein[geht]" -
clearly the fashion Charlotte is following —
die im Gefolge d er empfindsamen A neignung Rousseauscher N aturvorstellungen und

N atiirlichkeitsideale a u f d er einen un d d er Einfliisse d e r englischen P ark- u nd
G artenbaukunst a u f d e r anderen Seite darauf verzichtet, das einzelne Grab besonders
hervorzuheben und es m it einem individueilen Grabstein zu versehen.37
33 M om igliano. A m aldo. "T he Ancient C ity o f Fustel d e Coulanges." Studies on Modem Scholarship.
G .W . Bowersock and T J . Cornell, eds. (Berkeley: University o f California Press. 1994), 165
M Dichtung und IVahrheit IV = W A I 26. 216 12-26
35 W V 11.1 = W A I 20. 201 12-19
36 ~
Schw artz. P eter J. "An unpublished Essay by G oethe? 'Staatssachen. U b er m iindliche deutsche
R echtsptlege in D eutschland’." The Germanic Review, VoL 73, N r. 2 (Spring 1998): 107-31. H ere I
describe G oethe’s "sensitivity to the objective conditions o f sovereignty obtain[ingl w ithin a spatially
concrete sphere o f jurisdiction" (p. 125). T he printed text reads "obtained'* thanks to an editor's error.
37 L in d em an n . K laus. " « g e e b n e t » u n d « v e r g l i c h e n > > — d e r F rie d h o f in G oethes
W ah lv erw an d tsch aften . W iederaufnahm e e in er D iskussion aus Ju stu s M osers < P atrio tisch en
Phantasien>." Literatur ju r Leser (1984):15. M oser. Justus. "D ie Ehre nach dem T ode." Westphalische
Beytrage 41. Stuck. 8.10.1774, 323-328; reprinted in M oser, Justus. Patriotischen Phantasien von Justus
Moser, Zweitcr Theil. J . W . J. v. Voigt, geb. M oser, ed. N eu e u n d verm ehrte Auflage (Berlin: Friedrich
Nicolai, 1778), 318-322
38
M oser objected to this fashion, fo r socio-political reasons: he feared lest the false sense
o f social equality implied by the eradication o f individual differences at burial upset the
system o f class distinctions upon w hich the late absolutist Standestaat rested.38
A fter Jena, o f course, it was precisely this system o f class distinctions in
G erm any (along w ith the feudal econom y it supported) that seemed threatened by
abolition. N apoleon was the agent, and the French Code civil the m ajor vehicle, o f
such change. W here the conquering French did n o t impose revolutionary civil law (as
they did in the occupied territories west o f the R h in e after 1794, w here, as in France,
the droit intermediate was replaced by th e Code civil in 1804), they either encouraged the
occupied G erm an states to adopt it themselves (in the form o f the Code Sapoleon, as
some o f the states o f the Rhenish Confederation [Rheinbund\ did, and others opted not
to do, after the Peace o f Tilsit, o f July, 1807), o r looked o n as such principalities as
Prussia, Bavaria and Saxe-W eimar-Eisenach engaged in the "defensive modernization"
o f self-generated administrative and legal reforms.39
”[E]st-ce bien le C ode C ivil de 1804," asks the legal sociologist Jean
C arbonnier, rhetorically, "qui a transforme la societe europeenne? La transformation
n’etait-elle pas deja acquise une dizaine d'annees plus tot? N 'est-ce pas la R evolution
Franâise, la legislation intermediate, qui a ete une choix de societe?"''0 O n e could ask
further: Was n o t the R evolution lo n g in the making, n o t simply in France, b u t
* Lindem ann 16; cf. "Beknon. GroBherz. Ober-Konsiscoriums zu Eisenach vom 12. Januar 1830 [ . . . J
die Einrichtung des Kirchhots betreSend. §1. AUe Leichen, welche niche in Erbbegrabnissen, sondem
a u f dem aUgemeinen BegrabniBplatz zur Erde Bestattet w erden soilen. miissen v o m 1. Januar 1830 an,
o h n e alien U ncerschied des Scandes durchaus strenge d er reihe nach begraben w erden." Sammlung
GroJSherzoglicher Sachsen- Weimar-Eisenacher G esetze, Verordnungen und Circularbefehle in chronologiscker
Ordnung. Dritter T h a i (1827-1832). F. v. G ockel. ed. (Eisenach: Verlag des Herausgebers. 1832). 211;
"F ried h o fs-O rd n u n g vom 11. Januar 1842" in Sammlung Grofiherzoglicher Sacksen-Weimar-Eisenacher
G esetze, Verordnungen und Circulatbefehle in chranologischer Ordnung. Achter Theil (1840-1842). F. v.
G ockel. ed. (Eisenach: Verlag des H erausgebers, 1843), 546 SI: "§2. Aile L eichen sind. o h n e
U nterschied des Scandes und Geschlechcs. d er R.eihe nach zu bestatten [..J."
35 C £ Sheehan German History 256 SI
40 C arbonnier, Jean. "Le C ode Napoleon en cant que phenom ene sociologique." 327
39
throughout continental Europe, its occurrence and spread events that flowed from a
confluence o f long-term developments? From a blundy materialist p o in t o f view, it
could perhaps even be said (as in Carbonnier's cridcal paraphrase): "Les changements
dans les rapports economiques de production a la fin du X V IIIeme, au debut du X BC” ',
au ro n t determ ine le passage de I’ancien droit au droit nouveau" — irrespective o f
w hether o r not that transition had taken the form o f N apoleon’s Code civil. O n such a
view , "I'econom ie feodale [aurait] recule progressivem ent d ev an t I'econom ie
capitaliste" — m aking the C o d e N apoleon simply ’T expression ju rid iq u e de la
bourgeoisie triomphante."41
T o a degree, as much can be said as well o f the legal and administrative reforms
enacted by Prussia, Bavaria, and the duchy o f Saxe-W eimar-Eisenach after 1806. The
G erm an reforms, like Napoleon's C ode, gave legal form and sanction to econom ic and
social trends already several decades underway. T h e alienation o f noble land in which
Goethe's fictional Eduard participates was historically the consequence partly o f legal
allodification (conversion to freehold) o f feudal terrain in the first decades o f the
eighteenth century, pardv o f debts incurred by Ju n k er speculation in an inflated land-
and grain-m arket between roughly 1767 and 1806, and —after Jena —a product as well
o f deliberate legal and adm inistrative reform . In Prussia, r h is m ean t that the
"Standesgrenze zwischen Adel und der kapitaflcraftigen biirgerlichen O berschicht [...]
wirtschaftlich sozusagen osmotisch gew orden [war]” —even before Jen a.42 In Saxe-
W eim ar, the Standesgrenze was even m ore porous in th is regard.43 In 1818, 34 o f
W eim ar's 55 Ritterguter w ere in bourgeois hands (though they rem ained Lehenguter,
properties subject to feudal law), while fully 80% o f the duchy belonged allodially to
*' C arbonnier 328-9

*2 C £ W ehier 1.151 ff.; KoseQeck Pmtfien 83
43 Cf. Gockel 11.245, §14 (1816).
40
the peasantry.44 T h e econom ic osmosis produced by such relaxation o f social
restrictions contributed not only to the political rise o f Germ any’s middle classes that
characterized the last three decades o f the eighteenth century, but also to the social,
professional and cultural seepage o f the same period betw een bourgeoisie and nobility
for which classical W eim ar is reknowned.
T o be sure, some Germans had sought social reform for the sake o f economic
progress even before 1806. As I have noted, there is evidence that G oethe had seen
the need for such change by 1795.45 In Prussia, the question o f Bauembefreiung —o f the
abolition o f serfdom and other oppressive forms o f feudal obligation, together w ith the
legalization (indeed, the legal imposition) o f peasant ownership o f land in freehold -
lay for reasons both econom ic and political "seit dem Regierungsantritt von Friedrich
W ilhelm II [recte: III] 1797 [...] sozusagen a u f dem Tisch u n d beschafcigte die
staadichen Instanzen. D er K onig selbst identifizierte sich personlich m it diesen
Bemtihungen.”46 Y et how ever widespread the alienation de facto o f noble real estate
may have becom e in the late eighteenth century, neither bourgeois n o r peasant tide to
44 This does n o t m ean chac the peasantry was tree o f feudal obligation. Cf. G othe, Rosalinde. "Adel
und B auem in T huringen. KonsteDationen und Entw icklungen im 18. Jahrhundert,” Genealogie in der
D D R . Heft 1. ProtokoUband des HI. Gertealogietrejjens Friedrichroda, 8. - 9 .4 .1 9 8 9 (Erfurt: K ulturbund der
D D R , Gesellschaft fur H eim atgeschichte. Bezirksvorstand Erfurt. 1989), 34-43; G othe. Rosalinde.
"W ieland u n d die G em einde OBm annstedt (1797). Projekte in einer U m bruchzeit." Genealogisches
Jahrbuch, ed. ZentralsteQe fur Personen- und Familiengcschichte (Neustadt a.d. Aisch: Degener. 1990)
X X X : 73-84; Bloch Feudal Society 1.248 on Saxon ailodialism generally. Find figures tor change from
m id-century; Eberhardt. Hans. Weimar zu r Goethezeit. Gesellschajh- und Wirtschaftsstruktur (W eim an
Staatsmuseum W eimar, 1988), 38 o n R itter- 8c Freighter (inclusion o f Freighter skews figures!); Sammlung
Groftherzoglicher Sachsen- Weimar-Eisenccher G esetze, Verordnungen und Circularbefehle in chronologischer
Ordnung. Zu/eiter Theil, Erste Abtheilung (1811-1819). F. v. G ockel. ed. (Eisenach: V eriag des
Herausgebers. 1829), 585-6 for W eim ar 1819.
45 Cf. G othe, R osalinde. "G oethe, C arl August u n d M erck. Z u r Frage d e r R eform ansatze im
Agrarbereich," Goethe Jahrbuch 100 (1983): 203; Hartung, Fritz. Das Groftherzogtum Sachsen- Weimar-
Eisenadt unter der Regierung Carl Augusts 1775-1828 (W eiman Bohlaus Nachf., 1923), 74 SI
46 Heuss, Alfred. Barthold Georg Niebuhrs wissenschaftliche Anjange. Untersuchungen und Mitteilungen iiber die
Kopenhagener M anuskripte und zu r europdischcn Tradition der lex agraria (loi agraire) (G ottingen:
V andenhoeck & R uprecht. 1981). 400; c£ Valjavec, Fritz. Die Entstehung der politischen Strdmungen in
Deutschland 1770-1815 (M unich: O ldenbourg, 1951), 376 SI
41
Ritterguter was perm itted in Prussia de jure (except by special dispensation) until the
Freiherr vom Stein's reformist "Oktoberedikr" o f 1807, w hich decreed:
§1. Je d e r E inw ohner U nsrer Staaten ist. o hne alle Einschrankung in Beziehung a u f dan
Staat, zu m eigenthfim lichen u n d Pfandbesitz unbew eglicher G rundstficke aller A rt
berechdgt; der Edelm ann also zum Besitz nicht bios adelicher, sondem auch unadelicher,
biirgerlicher und baueriicher Gfiter aller Art, u nd d er B urger un d Bauer zum Besitz nicht
bios b iirgerlicher, baueriicher u n d an d e re r u n ad elich er, so n d em au ch adelicher
G rundstiicke, ohne da£ der eine oder d er andere zu irgend einem Gfiter-Erw erb einer
47
besonderen ErlaubniB bedart
In W eim ar, equivalent legislation was n o t passed until 1826 — even though Carl
August's unpublished constitution o f 20 Septem ber 1809 and his Grundgesetz iiber die
Landstandische Verfassung des Grofiherzogthums S. Weimar-Eisenach o f 1816 both took the
initial step o f differentiating the Stande by property held, not by birth:
§.8: D ie D epudrten aus der Klasse der Gutsbesitzer konnen eben sow ohl tuchtadeligen als
adeligen Scandes seyn. [...] In d er R egel w erden [Landrathej aus den w irklichen
Gutsbesitzem, adeligen oder niche adeligen Scandes, genom m en. [1809]
§.2. D rey Stande sind in d em G roB herzogthum e Sachsen W eim ar-E isenach als
Lands tande anerkannc: der Stand d er Rittergucsbesitzer, der Stand der Burger, und der
Stand der Bauem. [1816]48
Y et, as Fritz H artung has observed, "Es entsprach n u r dem Iangst beobachteten
Brauch, w enn die Einteilung der Stande fur die Zusam m ensetzung nicht nach der
*' "Edikt den erleichterten Besitz und den fieien G ebrauch des Grundeigentum s so w ie die personlichen
V erhaltnisse d e r L and-B ew ohner betreffend v o m 9. O k to b e r 1808." Dokum ente zur deutschen
Veifassungsgeschichte. Band I. Deutsche Verfassungsdokumente 1803-1850. Ernst R u d o lf H uber, ed. 3rd ed.
(Stuttgart: K ohlham m er, 1978), 41-43: Heuss N iebuhr 400 o n B auem betreiung in den preuBischen
Staatlichen D om anen seit 1763/7; c f Koselleck Preufien 81 tE o n the A L R as sodaEy reactionary in this
regard.
18 G ockel 11.241; "D ie standischen B eschrankungen des Erw erbs von G rundeigentum w u rd en im
G roB herzogtum Sachsen durch das ’Gesetz vom 17. M ai 1826, fiber die Erw erbung Iiegender Gfiter*
beseitigt. Dies Gesetz ist ein bedeutsam er D enkm al daiur. w ie lange die m ittelalterliche schroffe
Scheidung d er Stande bestand gehabt hat.” Bockel, Fritz. D ie Crundeigentumsiibereignung in Sachsen-
Wetmar-Eisertach (Breslau: M & H . Marcus. 19t 1), 262. C f A nhang II S. 321 = G ockel II, 2. 1474 ff. &
cit. U n g e r Privatrecht (??). "C onstitution d er vereinigten Landscbaft d er herzogiich W eim ar- und
Eisenachischen Lande, m it EinschluB der Jenaischen L andespom on. jed o c h m it AusschluB des Amtes
Ilm enau vom 20. September 1809," in Europaische Verfassungen seit dem Jahre 1789 bis a u f die neueste Zeit,
Enter Band Zweite Abtheilung. K .H X . Politz, ed. (Leipzig: Brockhaus. 1832), 732-751
42
G eburt, sondem nach dem B eruf etfolgte."49 C ad August's 'Gesetz vom 17. Mai 1826,
liber die Erw erbung liegender G uter' thus legalized a process that had been going on
de facto for some dme. This law also followed on legal reforms (or attempts at reform)
o f the period after Jena that had effected, in the civil sphere o f property law, a social
equalization first proposed for the sphere o f public law (Staatsrecht) in the duke’s
unpublished constitution o f 20 S ep tem b er 1809 and first en acted in 1816.30
M eanwhile, the legal bulwark against misalliance31 remained firm, o r was strengthened
in practice: "Werm das O ktoberedikt auch das standische B odenrecht aufgehoben
hatte, w urden die Standesschranken sozialer Exklusivitat eben deshalb um so
entschiedener verteidigt."32 Legal restrictions on marriage across class lines were not
revoked in Prussia until 1869; Saxe-W eimar-Eisenach had to wait until 1919/1920.33
In Prussia in 1807-8, as in W eim ar in 1809 (and to a lesser extent in 1816), it
was therefore a confluence o f social, econom ic and political interests, pressures and
vacuums that occasioned reform de jure o f conditions already subject for decades to
change de facto. After Jena, Friedrich W ilhelm's and Carl August's governments each
seized the goddess o f political occasion, so to speak, by the forelock. "Die beispiellose
49 H artung 298; cf. G othe on OBmannstedc.

30 O n non-publication & question o f w h eth er this constitution was ever p u t legally into effect see
H artung 222-3 (according to Politz, it wasn’t; according to Hartung, it was).
C f G othe "OBmannstedt" 75 on 1826
codified, w ith notable social conservatism, in th e Prussian AUgemeines Landrecht o f 1794: ALB. 11. 9 §
3; ALR. II. 1 § 30; ALB. II. 1 § 94; ALB. H .l §§ 835 f f C £ C onrad, H erm ann. Individuum und
Gemeinschaft in der Privatrechtordnung des 18. und beginnenden 19. Jahrhunderts (Karlsruhe: C .F . M uller,
1955), 14
52 W eh ler, H ans-U lrich. Deutsche Gesellschaflsgeschichte. Zweiter Band. Von der Reformara bus zur
industriellen und politischen » D eu tsch en D oppelrevolution«. 1815-1845/49 (M unich: C .H . Beck, 1996)
[= W ehler II], 153.
53 W e h le r 1.148; cf. W ilson, W . D an .il. Das Goethe-Tabu. Protest und Menschertreckte im klassischen
Weimar (M unich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1999), 9 f f on individual earlier challenge (1795) &
reference to supposed Prussian precedent. Inform al rules continued even after 1919 to regulate
m arriage am ong th e higher aristocracy o f Sachsen-W eim ar-Eisenach: see K uznitzky, Liselotte. Das
deutsche Adelsreekt nach A rt. 109 R V . vom 11. VUI. 1919. Eine Untersudiung uber Aujhebung und Bestand des
Adelsredits unter besonderer Berucksichtigung PreujSens (Bergisch Gladbach: Buchdruckerei Jo h . Heider, 1928
[Diss.. Cologne]), 49, 55 ff
43
K atastrophe von 1806/07 stellte die Kreise am den preuBischen K onig in eine
zwingende Herausforderung," as R einhart Koselleck explains:
eine O rd n u n g zu schaffen. die d er wacfasenden N o t standhielt und som it iifaerwinden

konnte. D ie R efbrm partei, die sich innerhalb der preuBischen V erw altung seit langem
sch o n in Iock erer W eise zusam m engetunden h a tte , w urde v o n d e r R u t des
Zusam m enbruchs nach oben gecragen. Die Katastrophe hatte sie w eniger ubertascht, als
ihre Entschlossenheit zu soforngem Handeln verstarkt.34
Jena afforded Saxe-W eimar-Eisenach a somewhat less pressing occasion to r change.
As Fritz H artung has observed, the duchy's internal political organization was hardly
affected by its inclusion in the Rheinbund —though Carl August did manage to turn to
his ow n political advantage the foil sovereignty guaranteed him in the Rheinbundsakte
o f 1806, as well as such reforms as his government did undertake in this period. (The
constitution o f 1816 w orked rather less in Carl August’s interest.)33 In the event, the
reforms that emerged from this m om ent o f kairos in W eim ar, as in Prussia, were to
w ork m ore in the interests o f the nobility and the sovereign's governm ent than to the
advantage o f the peasants and Burger they were ostensibly meant to help.30
Elsew here in G erm any after 1806, reform was to com e either w ith the
imposition o f French civil law (as in the Rhenish departments and certain states o f the
Rheinbund (Confederation o f the R hine) or with the defensive reforms undertaken by
o th e r states o f the Rheinbund (Bavaria, H essen-D annstadt, Nassau, W urzburg,
W aldeck, Lippe-Detmold) after debates on adopting the Code civil had ended in its
54 Koselleck Preuflen 153; c f Valjavec Stidmungen 383 £

' = Cf. H artu n g 211-224 on constitution o f 1809; 272-318 o n reforms o f 1816. Rheinbundsakte in
Dokumente zu r deutschen Verfassungsgeschichte 1228 f f C f also Tum m ler, Hans. "D ie Z eit Carl Augusts
v o n W e im a r 1775-1828." Cesdtichte Tkuringens. Hans Pacze Sc W a lte r Schlesinger, eds.
(C ologne/W ien: Bohiau, 1984), V. 652 f f o n reforms from 1808 on.
56 Podlech. Adalbert. "G oethe im U m bruch europalscher R echtsordnungen." Johann Wolfgang Goethe.
Versuch einer Annaherung. H artm ut B ohm e er aL, eds. (Darmstadt: Ringvoriesung der T H Darmstadt.
1984), 325; Koselleck PreufSen 85
44
rejection.57 Prussia never jo in e d th e Rheinbund, and the question o f its future
adherence to French civil law was never raised. W eim ar did jo in the Rheinbund; and
until the last m onths o f 1807, it was unclear w h eth er N apoleon's C ode w ould be
instituted there; even as late as 1812, th e possibility o f its im position remained.58 In
the end, the duchy retained its ow n laws.59 This outcom e, how ever, will n o t have
been self-evident in the days and weeks that followed the batde o f Jena. As late as
O ctober o f 1807, w e find Goethe accepting the C ode as the law o f the present and
future. Joh an n Caspar V oght, a H am burg m erchant acquainted w ith G oethe,
recorded a visit to W eim ar that month:
Am Sonntag habe ich den ganzen M orgen bei Goethe zugebracht. sah seinen Sohn. dessen
AuBres sehr gefiillig ist und den e r sehr lieb hat. E r soli n un in H eidelberg das R echt
studieren, c.a.d. [c'esc a dire] le C o d e N apoleon. Ich a n d G oethe iiber das ailcs ganz
resigniert. Das Alte sei vorbei. Es sei Pflichc, das N eue erbauen zu helfen. D er Mertsch sei
itzt m ehr w ie je Weitburger, die Staaten mtissen sich neu bilden, und dabei wiire itzt manch
bO
vorhin unubersteigliches Hindetnis beseitigt.
It w ould seem that in O ctober o f 1807, G oethe saw in the Code Napoleon w hat the
Prussian reformers concurrendy perceived in the domesdc political vacuum created by
the defeat at Jena: an opportunity, an occasion for needed change.
"R ezipiert w urde d er C ode [civil] von W estphalen, Berg, Frankfurt, Baden, u nd den Kleinstaaten
Arem berg and A nhalt-K oethen. Seine Einfuhrung w urde vorbereitec in Bavem , Hessen-Darmstadt,
Nassau. W urzburg, W aldeck und Lippe-Detm old." Fehrenbach 156 n. 20. T h e C N was applied to the
tour R henish departm ents (Donnersberg, Saar, R hein-M osel, and R o er), w hich had been under the
jurisdiction o f the revolutionary droit intermediate since 1798, in 1804. T h e question o f w here the C N
was to be introduced was mostly decided, o n e way o r the other, by 1811. Cf. Sheehan 256 SI.
S chubert. W ern er. Franzosisches Recht in Deutschland z u Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts. Zivilrecht,
Getichtsverfassungsredtt und Zivilprozefirecht (Cologne: Bohlau, 1977), 31.
38 C £ letter o f 3.8.1812 from C .G . Voigt to Friedrich von Muller, cit. Schubert, 1.
39 Wiederholte Spiegelungen. IVeimarer Klassik. Standige AussteUung des CoetheSaiionahnuseum s. G erhard
Schuster & C aroline Gille. eds. (n.p. [Munich}: Sdftung W eim arer Klassik/Hanser, 1999), 11.562;
Tum m ler Ceschichte Thuringens 649-651 (Aug-Dee 1807)
45
W hy did G oethe m arry w hen he did?
"V on seinen 'W ahlverwandtschaften' sagce [G oethe], dass darin kein Strich
enchaiten, der nicht erlebt, aber kein Strich so, wie er erlebt w orden."61 I shall devote
the following pages to showing, first, that G oethe perceived - indeed, experienced —
this Seue, Germany's likely legal future, fully one year before Voght's visit, in Jena’s
im m ediate aftermath; and, second, that this experience passed, transformed, into his
novel Elective Affinities.
W hy did G oethe decide to marry Christiane Vulpius —the w om an w ith w hom
he had lived unmarried for eighteen years and w ho had bom e him five children, one
surviving —on O ctober 19, 1806, a scant five days after Napoleon's victory at Jena?
G oethe’s motives for suddenly marrying then have been m uch discussed. After
the w edding, a legend rapidly gelled: that the poet had m arried Christiane o u t o f
gratitude for h er brave defense o f him and his estate from the French soldiery
plundering W eim ar on the night o f the fourteenth.62 It w ould seem this account o f
things originated w ith G oethe himself. In a letter o f O c to b er 17th to W ilhelm
C hristoph G unther (the court chaplain o f the Jakobskirche in W eimar) requesting
G unther to officiate at his w edding two days later, he explained: ’’D ieser Tage und
60 Goethes Gesprdche. Eine Sammlung zeitgendssischer Berichte aus seinem Umgang. Flodoard Freiherr von
B iederm ann and W olfgang H erw ig, eds- (Zurich: Artemis. 1965-1987), 11.258. CF. G oethe’s letter to
Carl August o f 4 August 1806 on V oght = W A IV 30. 87 51
G oethe to Eckerm ann 17 February t829: ”Es ist in den ’W ahlverwandtschaften' uberall keine Zeile.
die ich nicht selber erlebt hatte.”
62 Legend related as legend in Sengie, Friedrich. Das Genie und sein Furst. Die Geschichte der
Lebensgemeinschafi Goethes m it dem Herzog Carl .dugusf von Sachsen- Weimar-Eisenach. Ein Beitrag zum
Spatfeudalismus und zu einem vemachldssigten Thema der Goetheforschung (Stuttgart: M etzler, 1993), 239 &
M eyer, H einrich. Goethe. Das Leben im Werk (Stuttgart: Hans E. G tinther Verlag, nd. [1967]), 450;
legend bought, e.g., by H ankam er, Paul. Spiel der Machte. Ein Kapitel aus Goethes Leben und Goethes
W elt (T ubingen: W underlich, 1943), 45 (’’D ank”); Goethe, W eimar und Jena 1806. Nach Goethes
Privatacten. R ichard & R o b e rt Keil. eds- (Leipzig: Schloemp, 1882), 4951, 6851 R e cen t changes in the
reception: Sengie 236 51, D am m . Sigrid. Christiane und Goethe. Eine Recherche (Frankfurt am Main:
InseL 1999), 326 51; Blumenberg, Hans. Arbeit am M ythos (Frankfurt am M ain: Suhrkam p, 1979), 532
46
N achte ist ein alter Vorsatz bei m ir zur R eife gekom m en; ich will m eine kleine
Freundinn, die so viel an m ir gethan und auch diese Stunden der Priifung m it m ir
durchlebte vollig und burgerlich anerkennen, als die M eine."63 Friedrich W ilhelm
R iem er's m em oir o f the night o f O c to b er 14 and its afterm ath also emphasized
thankfulness as a motive. At the same tim e, R iem er acknowledged G oethe’s skill in
exploiting an opportune moment:
Indes bew ahrte G oethe von diesem Tage an eine treue Dankbarkeic gegen [...J die Frau,
d ie u b e rh a u p t in diesen Schreckenscagen sich m it groB er S tandhaftigkeit a n d
G ew andtheit. ohnerachtet sie nicht Franzosisch sprach. zu nehm en wuBte [...j. Dieses
D ankgetiihl, dieses A nerkennen, daB e r ih r in diesem Augenblick das Leben schuldig
gew orden, war das Hauptmotiv. eine H andlung zu beschleunigen. die er bereits linger im
S inne habend. nu r an den zur A usfuhrung schicklichen M om ent kniiptte, w o sie als
natiirlich, sich von selbst verstehend, w eniger befrem dend und o hne Autsehen zu erregen
sich vom ehm en lieB.64
G oethe’s gratitude may well have been real, and a factor in his decision co marry
Christiane. Y et one must doubt w hether one show o f metde following eighteen years
o f cohabitation could so suddenly and thoroughly have altered Goethe's opinion o f
Christiane as to lead him to infract those social rules o f the W eim ar court that had
kept h er so long his concubine. As R iem er knew , this legend o f gratitude was well
suited to serve the purpose o f allaying the indignation o f th e court w hose rules
G oethe's marriage flouted. The legend's striking similarity to a passage in o n e o f
G oethe's o w n recent w orks — the scene from Hermann und Dorothea in w hich
D orothea wins the respect o f her new c o m m u n it y by gamely defending hearth and
hom e from French incursion —may be further ground for suspecting G oethe o f myth
m aking. For here, as in 1806, "[zeigt sich] das schwache G eschlecht, so w ie es
21 Cf. G oethe’s com m ent to Zelter. 4.I2 .I8 2 7 : "W enn m an sich bei einer Geschichte nicht beruhigt
w ie bei einer Legende, so lost sich zuletzt afles in Zweitel a u f"
03 letter to W .C . G unther o f 17 O ct 1806 = W A IV 19. 197 13-17
“* R iem er, Friedrich W ilhelm . Mitteilungen uber Goethe. A rthur Pollmer, ed. (Leipzig: Insel, 1923),
173-4
47
gew dhnlich genannt w ird ,/ [...] tapfer und m achtig u n d gegenwartigen Geistes"63 -
and hence eminendy w orthy o f Hermann 's attention.
G oethe had refrained so long from legalizing his bond w ith Christiane because
she was not o f nobility, as he him self had been by Imperial patent since 1782. Both
the laws o f W eim ar and the censure o f Carl August and his court prevented the open
admission o f cheir menage. A marriage across class lines w ould have been an "Ehe zur
linken H and" - a mesalliance.66 G oethe's menage was tolerated in practice, as such
trespasses o f the nobility often w ere. N onetheless, his decision o f 1789 to have
Christiane move in with him (as well as the birth o f their first and only surviving child,
August, later that year, w hich publicly proved the existence o f the relationship), drew
sharp rep ro o f from his sovereign and the court. In N ovem ber o f 1789, shortly after
G oethe had made his intention know n to have his pregnant companion move in with
him in his rooms at the house on the Frauenplan (of w hich he was n o t yet the ow ner,
n o r the sole tenant), a scandalized Duchess Luise, backed (perhaps) by C harlotte von
Stein, and some others o f her ladies in waiting, had pushed the D uke to require the
couple to move from there to a domicile on the outskirts o f tow n, w here they stayed
for m ore than two years, until early in 1792. W hat had tipped the scales o f outrage
had been Goethe's infraction o f certain unspoken rules o f courtly behavior. Had
G oethe kept his relations w ith Christiane an open secret, had he set her up in a house
o f her ow n and entertained her as his mistress, even his illegitimate child m ight have
“ Hermann und Dorothea = W A I 50, 235 f f (lines 102 SI). Written. 1796, published 1798.
66 "E ine > E h e zur linken H an d < w ar im weim arischen Gesetz [ J nicht vorgesehen." W ilson Das
Coethe-Tabu 9. O n the "m organatische E he" — an interclass m arriage perm itted, b u t subject to
qualifications o n inheritance law —see W ehler 1.146 f f
48
been pardoned him . T h e decision to live openly together o u t o f w edlock was
perceived as a provocation, an open affront to the court.67
T h e batde o f Jena-Auerstedt created a temporary vacuum o f pow er at W eimar.
T h e duke was absent from th e city w h en Jena fell. H aving ju st led an army o f
Prussians against N apoleon, he was disinclined to return too quickly to a Residenz
u n d e r French occupation. For several days after Jena, it was unclear w hether
N apoleon w ould perm it Carl August to retain sovereignty. T h e question was not to
be fully resolved until 5 N ovem ber.68 Carl August’s continuance in pow er w ould
henceforth depend on N apoleon's grace; entry into the Rheinbund w ould be the
condition on w hich the Duke w ould be perm itted to retain sovereignty.69 In any case,
the duke made him self scarce until N ovem ber 2, and was not seen again in W eim ar
until late January o f 1807.'° For G oethe this meant that a decision to marry would for
once evade ducal or effective courtly censure.
Yet marriage was not the only change that G oethe made to his civil estate in
the days after Jena. His letter o f O cto b er 17th requesting G unther to officiate at his
w edding was only the first o f a series o f missives concerned w ith the "Befestigung
[seines] hauslichen Zustandes u nd seiner extem en rechtlichen Folgen" —as Christian
C f. D am m 130 flu; Sengie 82 SI; Boyle, Nicholas. Goethe: The Poet and the Age. V olum e t: The Poetry
o f Desire (1749-1790) (Oxford: C larendon Press. 1991), 579 SI. Sc Boyle. Nicholas. Goethe: The Poet
and the Age. See Boyle, Nicholas. Goethe: The Poet and the Age. Volume II: Revolution and Renunciation
i!7 90 -1 80 3 ) (O xford: C larendon Press, 1999), 110 SI on th e m ove back to the house on the
Frauenplan.
08 T u m m ler Geschichte Thiiringens 647-8; Politischer Briefwechsel des Herzogs und GraBherzogs Carl August
von Weimar. W illy Andreas and Hans T um m ler. eds.. (Stuttgart: D eutsche Veriags-Anstalt, 1958),
11.332 61 W eimar's uncertainty about its political future was already partly allayed on O ctober 18. at an
audience o f the W eim ar Ceheimen Consilium w ith N apoleon in w hich G oethe, daim ing illness, declined
to take part. Cf. G oethe's letter to V oigt o f 16 O ctober 1806: "In dem schrecklichen Augenblicke
ergreift m ich m ein aites U bel. Hntschuldigen Sie m ein AuBenbleiben. Ich weiB kaum , ob ich das
BiHett fortbringe." W A IV 19,197 11-14
69 H artung 212-213
70 T u m m ler, Carl August von Weimar 161 SI; Goethes Briefwechsel m it Christian Gottlob Voigt. Hans
T um m ler. ed. (W eim an Bohlau, 1955), III.433; G oethe Tagebuch 29.12.07 (W A III 3, 190 16); C ad
August's Politischer Brieufwedtsel 11.440.
49
G ottlob V oigt described G oethe's efforts during that w eek.71 A le tte r o f m id-
D ecem ber requested o f C arl August official legal tide to G oethe's house on the
Frauenplan, a gift o f 1794 from the duke for which G oethe still possessed no notarized
docum entadon in 1806. O n D ecem ber 25*, he asked that August be granted formal
legitimacy by ducal rescript.72 As G. W . Hegel observed to his fellow philosopher F.
W . J. Schelling in February o f 1807, G oethe appeared in this period "iiberhaupt sein
Haus bestellen und seine zeitiichen A ngeiegenheiten in R ich rig k eit bringen zu
w ollen."73 Hegel and Voigt m eant the words "Haus" and "hauslich" broadly. In the
days after Jena, G oethe was w orking to set his oikos, his estate, onto legally solid
ground. Voigt's correlation, as early as 19* O ctober, o f Goethe's "Befesrigung [seines]
hauslichen Zustandes" w ith "seiner extem en rechdichen Folgen" suggests that his
marriage to Christiane was the first step in this process, and the m ost essential o f all.
This is proven by a letter o f 22 January 1807 in w hich G oethe w rote to the duke to
request that both his will o f 1797 and a codicil to it o f 1800 be returned to him, and
considered revoked. "Es sind" (he explained)
indessen U m stande eingetreten. w elche diese V erordnung u n n othig m achen. [...] Scact
dieser leczcwilligen V ero rdnung erklare ich andurch, daB nachm einem dereinsbgen
Ablefaen m ein Nachiafl nach Vorschrift der Scatuten der hiesigen Residenz. die m ir w ohl
bekannc sind, vertheilc w erden soil.'*
W hat had made the earlier testament superfluous was Goethe's marriage to Christiane.
By the normal order o f intestate succession "der hiesigen Residenz," his estate w ould
automatically pass first to his legally married wife; in the event o f h er death, it w ould
71 V oigt to G oethe, 19.10.1806. Ccethes Briefwechsel m it Christian Gottlob Voigt III. 133.
72 25.12.1806 = W A IV 19. 251-2, d r. Sengie 241
73 Hegel to Schelling, 23.2.1807 = Goethes Gesprache 11.188; also in Sengie, p. 243
7* W A I V 5 3 . 211
50
pass to his legally recognized son. Accordingly, G oethe did n o t prepare another will
until January o f 1831, following his son August's death in R o m e in O ctober, 1830.75
W hatever drove G oethe to do all this, it cannot have been simply gratitude to
Christiane. Certain comments made to friends and in W eim ar society in the days and
weeks after Jena suggest self-conscious adaptation to the new political circumstances.
"Goethe hat sich Sonntag m it seiner alten geliebten Vulpius, der M u tter seines Sohnes,
trauen lassen," Johanna Schopenhauer reported to h e r son A rthur o n O ctober 24th.
"[E]r hat gesagt, in Friedenszeiten konne man die Gesetze w ohl vorbeigehen, in
Z eiten w ie die unsem miisse m an sie ehren."76 T o R iem er, G o eth e rem arked in
November, in m uch the same vein:
W enn Paulus sage, gehorchet der Obrigkeit, dettrt sie ist Coties Ordrturtg, so sprichc dies eine
ungeheuere Kuitur aus, die w ohl au f keinem fruheren W ege als dem chrisdichen erreicht
w erden konnte: eine Vorschrift, die, w enn sie alle U berw undenen je tz t beobachteten.
diese v o n allem eigenm achrigen u n d u n b illigen. zu ih re m eig en e n V erderben
ausschlagenden Verfahren abhalten w urde-''
In a letter o f 28 N ovem ber, G oethe remarked to the classical scholar Friedrich August
W olf: "Glucklich der, der, indem die W elt sich um dreht. sich auch um seine Angel
drehen kann."78 In the missive o f 25 D ecem ber to Carl August in w hich G oethe
followed up his request for tide to his house and requested August's legitimization, he
observed in connection w ith the latter request: "W enn alle Bande sich auflosen wird
man zu den hauslichen zuriickgewiesen, und uberhaupt mag man je tz t nur gem e nach
innen sehen."79 These remarks are all very clearly intended to present Goethe's actions
after Jena — to G oethe himself, to his circle, o r both — as legitim ate adaptation to
current political change.
75 W A IV 52, 162. Testamente in W A I 53 323-341.

76 Coethes Cespradte 11.148
77 Coethes Cespradte 11.151
51
Indeed, these actions betrayed an acute and detailed awareness o f w hat the end
o f th e G erm an ancieti regime could have im plied w ith regard to G oethe's ow n
"hauslichen Zustand und seiner extem en rechdichen Folgen." By extending east
Napoleon's earlier dissolution o f the H oly R om an Em pire (declared null and void on
6 August),80Jena sealed (or w ould for a tim e have seemed to seal) the end o f the social
and legal order that had kept G oethe from w edding Christiane. A lthough in the end
the duchy retained its ow n legal system, it was to remain unclear until the last months
o f 1807 w hat sort o f laws w ould henceforth obtain in occupied W eim ar. As late as
N ovem ber o f 1807, w e find Carl August's ambassador to N apoleon's court at Paris,
Friedrich von M uller, advocating the introduction there o f the Code Napoleon — and
being rebuffed by the Privy C ouncillor W ilhelm von W olzogen: "Ich WeiB sehr
wohl, man kann uns sieden und braten und befehlen, au f alien V ieren zu gehen [...]
aber dann w arte man doch, bis je n e r Befehl da ist, u n d krieche nicht eher a u f alien
Vieren, bis man auf Zw eien nicht m ehrstehen kann u n d darf."81 In short, G oethe had
every reason, in O cto b er o f 1806, to expect som e change in the legal o rder at
W eim ar; and that change could well have entailed the im position there o f the French
civil code.
Such a prospect w ould certainly have sufficed to m ove G oethe to take the
steps he did after Jena - assuming that G oethe understood, in 1806, w hat legal
consequences such change could have entailed. W hat m ight G oethe's knowledge have
been, at this point, o f the French C ivil Code? A ccording to th e legal historian
W ern er Schubert, the only extensive published account o f the C ode co appear in
78 G oethe to F.A. W olf, 28.11.1806 = W A IV 19, 235 £

79 25.12.1806 = W A IV 19, 251 22-24
90 Dokumente zu r deutschen Vafassungsgesdtidue 37-8
52
G erm any before 1807 was an anonym ous review essay in che Allgemeine Literatur-
Zeitung in Halle, printed in M arch o f 1805.82 T here is no evidence (though there is
every chance) that G oethe was familiar w ith this review . G oethe's first recorded
m en tion o f the Code civil per se dates to Voght's visit, in O cto b er o f 1807. T he
discussions that he records having had o n the subject w ith the Jena jurists Ludwig
A nton Seidenstecker and Andreas Joseph Schnaubert date to the 23rd o f N ovem ber,
1807.83 T here is therefore no evidence that G oethe had studied the Code Napoleon by
1806. Yet the general outline o f the reforms that the C ode undertook will have been
familiar enough to him , as to most Europeans, thro u g h th e fifteen years o f their
discussion in Paris, and through their im posidon in France and the occupied pordons
o f Europe since M arch o f 1804. Just as the Code's ideology was tundamentally that o f
the R evolution, the changes to come o f Jena w ere liable to be those the R evolution
had prom ised — a promise that G oethe thoroughly understood, to judge from his
actions after the battle.84
"Die R evolution," Elisabeth Fehrenbach has w ritten in summary,
h atte die Priviliegien u n d Standesunterschiede beseitigt: d e r C o d e zog daraus die

Konsequenzen fur den Bereich des burgerlichen Rechts. M it d er Freiheit d er Person und
des E igentum s erm oglichte e r die M obilisierung des G rundbesitzes u n d gab dem
Eigentum er das R ech t "de jo u ir et disposer des choses de la m aniere la plus absolue." D ie
R evolution hatte die droits feodaux aufgehoben; ins Zivilrecht iibertragen bedeutete dies
den Sturz des O bereigentum s des G rundherm u n d die A ufhebung aller Beschrankungen
des Besitzes d u rch Lasten u n d D ienstbarkeiten. D ie voile V ertragsfreiheit u n d
w irtschattliche Betatigungsfreiheit w urden garantiert, je d e bestandige G rundrente tur
ablosbar erklart und jede einer Person oder zum Vorteil ein er Person auferlegte Servitut
verboten. Alles Eigentum w ar teilbar. Das FideikommiB w urde abgeschafft. M it d er
SI W olzogen to V oigt, 10 N ovem ber 1807 = Politischer Briefwechsel des Herzogs und Croflherzogs Carl
August von Weimar. W illy Andreas and Hans T um m ler, eds., (Stuttgart: D eutsche Verlags-Anstalt,
1958), 11.602
82 "Code civil de la Republique Frartfaise" etc. Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung [Hallej 59: 465-472 [5 M arch
1805]; 60: 473-478 [6 M arch 1805]; 61: 481-488 [7 M arch 1805]; 62: 489-496 [8 M arch 1805]; 63:
497-503 [9 March 1805]: cited henceforward as "ALZ”; c f Schubert 32.
33 W A III 3. 299 5 £ . 12 £
** C £ C arbonnier 330 Be Fehrenbach t6 . References in the follow ing pages to the text o f the C ode, or
to th e ALZ’s summary o f it are thus m eant as concrete instances o f ideas o f revolutionary law generally.
53
T ren n u n g v o n Scaac u n d K irche uface auch. das religiose Bekenntnis keinen EinfluB m ehr
a u f die burgerlichen Rechce aus: die E he gait vortab als ein biirgerlicher Vertrag.8S
W hat, then, m ight the real consequences have been for Goethe's civil estate,
had N apoleon imposed the Code civil upon W eimar? U n d er the old order, even the
legitimate progeny o f a mixed-class couple w ere legally excluded not only from noble
privilege, but also from all rights o f inheritance.86 D ucal patronage alone had
guaranteed Goethe's right to bequeath his estate to August. In 1797, concerned to
prepare a will before travel to Italy, G oethe had named his illegitimate eight-year-old
son his universal heir litulo institutionis honorabili —that is, in accord w ith his ow n stated
will, any conflict w ith extant civil laws (i.e., w ith th e norm al order o f intestate
succession, w hich w ould have disadvantaged August) notw ithstanding. T h e will's
preparation, how ever, required both G oethe's m other's official renunciation o f any
right to his estate (under local law, a legitim ate ascendant w ould have taken
precedence over an illegitimate descendant)87 and the appointm ent o f a trustee, C.G .
Voigt, to oversee the usufruct o f and discretion over his estate that may have been all
G oethe was legally able to bequeath his "Freundin und vieljahrigen Hausgenossin"
C hristiane. G oethe's exem ption from the ordinary laws o f the duchy regarding
succession, w ithout w hich his son w ould have lacked all rights o f inheritance, thus
depended in some degree on Carl August's personal dispensation.38
88 Fehrenbach 16
86 T h ar is. such children could m ake no claims chat compeced w ith chose o f legitimate children: they
could, in principle, inherit by cescamencary disposition. "In d er Mifiheirac, der mesalliance zwischen
standesungleichen E hepartnem . entfiel jed er A nspruch a u f AdelsdceL Erbteil u n d Stiftsfahigkeit. Die
K inder tolgten der « a r g e r e n » Hand. d.h. dem Eltemceil niederen Scandes." W ehler 1.147
87 in the defaulc ord er o f inheritance. Intestat-Erbfolge taking precedence over personal disposidon
88 L etter to Carl August o f July 22. 1797: "Hochstdieselben geruhren zu verfugen: daB nach m einem
errolgenden A bleben keine O bsignadon statt habe. vielm ehr m eine Erben o h n e dieselbe u n d ohne
w eicere gerichtliche Invencur zu d em Besitz m eines Nachlasses gelangen...." (W A IV. 12.201-2);
Testam ent o f July 24, 1797 = W A I 53, 325-7; GSA 3 0 /5 4 = SGG IV, 355 SI?
54
T he duke's absence after Jena left G oethe w ithout any guarantee that his will
w ould continue adequately to govern the succession o f his estate. T o be sure, the laws
o f the French civil code regarding succession did n o t differ m uch from those o f the
ancien regime in restricting the inheritance rights o f natural sons or daughters."
N apoleon was expressing a logic com m on both to his code and to older inheritance
laws, b o th G erm an and French, w hen he concluded, in 1803: "La societe n'a pas
interet a ce que las batards soient reconnus."90 All this notwithstanding, both the Cade
Civil and the laws o f W eim ar admitted, w ith restrictions, the capacity o f illegitimate
children to inherit by testamentary provision. Yet the French laws differed from that
o f Saxe-W eim ar in two essential respects. T hey made inheritance by children bom
o u t o f w edlock contingent either upon a formal act o f parental recognition (acte
authentique) o r on the parents’ subsequent m arriage,9t and they did n o t perm it
Legitimization o f such children by sovereign rescript.92 "Les entans naturels ne sont
point heririers; la loi ne leur accorde de droits sur les biens de leur pere ou mere
decedes, que Iorsqu'ils ont ete legalement reconnus." (§756)93 In m id -O cto b er o f
1806, G oethe lacked any such acte authentique for his son. A w edding may therefore
have seemed the most expedient way o f solving the problem o f August's official
89 "Les entans nacurels." runs Article 325 o f the C N (= Art. 756 after 1807), "ne sont point heritiers: la
loi ne leur accorde de droits sur les biens de leur pere ou m ere decedes. que Iorsqu’ils ont ete legalement
reconnus. Elle ne leu r accorde aucun d ro it sur les biens des parens de leur pere ou m ere. Code
Sapoleon. avec des changemens qui y one ete faits par la loi de 3 Septembre 1807. [with German translation bv
Daniels.) (Cologne: Keilische Buchhandlung, 1807). Cf. Goy "C ode civil" 148; Furet 425: "L’enfant
nature! perd sa qualite d’heritier en ptein droit."
‘m N apoleon, quoted in Goy 148
n Art. 334. "La reconnaissance d’u n enfant nature! sera faite par un acte authentique. lorsqu’elle ne Paura
pas ete dans son acte de manage.”
92 ALZ: "Eine nachfolgende Ehe Iegitimirt die K inder nur, w en n sie von den A eltem entw eder vor
o d er bey SchlieBung derselben w irklich anerkannc w orden sind. (325.) D ie franzosischen Gesetze
wissen nichts v o n der Legitimatio per Rescript. Prindpio; dafiir ist die A nerkennung ernes natiirlichen
Kindes du tch seinen V ater oder seine M utter getreten. Fin solches anerkanntes K ind erbt, w enn es m it
leg itim en D escendenten co n cu rriret. 1 /3 eines K indestheils; w enn es m it A scendenten oder
Geschwistem des Verstorbenen concurriret, 1/2; w enn es m it andem Verwandten concurriret 3 /4 eines
Kindestheils. W en n aber keine successibele V erw andten vorhanden sind. so erb t es das Ganze.” (334)
[ALZ, Sp. 470)
reco g n itio n , and hence his rights o f succession u n d e r any ev en tu al F rench
jurisdiction.94 This is precisely the sense o f the passage in the letter o f Christmas 1806
in w hich G oethe tactfully begged pardon o f Carl August for having m arried Christiane
in his absence:
[I]ch konnte m ir Ew. DurchL EinwiLLigung aus der F em e versprechen als ich, in den
unsichersten Augenblicken. durch ein gesetzhches Band, ihm V ater und M u tter gab. w ie
e r es lange verdient hatte. W en n alle Bande sich auflosen w ird m an zu den hauslichen
95
zuriickgewiesen. und iiberhaupt mag man jetzt n u r gem e nach innen sehen.
In this context, it is clear that Goethe's adjective "hauslich" n o t only im plied his
domestic life and his civil estate in general, b u t also the physical house in w hich he
lived. These lines are a follow-up to his still unanswered request to the D uke o f less
than tw o weeks prior for judicial confirm ation o f its ow nership.96 G oethe was not
simply concerned for his manuscripts: he was thinking as well o f his real estate. His
house on W eim ar’s Frauenplan —a gift o f 1794 from the D uke —had never officially
b een legally deeded to him .9' O w n ersh ip had b e en g ran ted by a ducal
Schenkungsurkunde: a rescript o f eleven lines, w ritten and signed in Carl August's hand,
proclaim ing the gift.98 A m ore formal version o f the same d o cu m en t followed in
93 C f P oughon 48.
“ A lthough: ”5) In Ermangelung erbfahiger Verwandten konnen die naturiichen K inder; w enn deren
m cht vorhanden, 6) d er uberiebende Ehegatte, und 7) in dessen Erm angelung der Fiscus erben." (ALZ,
Sp. 475)
95 W A III 19, 251 17-24
96 C ad August’s response: 12.1.1807
97 Sengie 241
98 GSA 38/1. 4. 2: H ierdurch schenke u. verm ache ich das von m einer C am er zu W eim ar erkaufte
Helmershausische Haus am Frauen Plan, m einem G eheim en R ath , Johann W olfgang vo n G oethe, u.
zw ar in d er Maafle dafl dieses HauB ihm . seinen Erben u. ErblaBen e rb - u n d eigenthtim lich gehore,
dieser u. diese es verkaufen. verschenken. vererben u. verausem konnen w ie es ihm [two words illegible]
selbst getallig seyn m ochte. Z u r Beglaubigung dieser S chenkung habe diese Schrift eigenhandig
autgesezc, unterschdeben, u. sie m it m einem [word illegibleJ Siegel besiegelt.
W eim ar, den 17-Juny 1794.
C a d August
56
1801." Although both versions o f this docum ent affirmed Goethe's right to dispose o f
the property as he w ould —his right freely to bequeath o r donate it included — still
neither version had ever been notarized. N o r had either passed through the legal
m achinery o f the W eim ar m unicipal governm ent, o r becom e a m atter o f public
record. Such legal confirmation is w hat G oethe requests in his letter to Carl August o f
m id-D ecem ber. H e insists that h e w ould n o t be w riting to speak "von unsrer Lage
und von m ir selbst [...] w enn ich nicht neben m ir geliebte Figuren hatte" (meaning his
wife and son, as heirs), "an die ich zu dencken genothigt w erde w enn Freund Hayn
zunachst an m eine T hiire klopft":
Sag ich es also geradezu! U rn je n e W esen die m ir so angelegen sind im Augenblicke a u f

irgend ecwas anzuweisen hab ich nichts als das Haus das ich truher ihrer vorsorglichen
C ute verdancke und zu dessen Besitz m ir im besorglichen Falle nur noch ein Letztes fehlt.
[...] Dies ist also m eine Bitte daB Sie m ir das Gegebene geben. w ofur ich m ich doppelt
und dreytach danckbar zu erweisen hoflte. Es w ird ein Fest fur m ich u nd die M einigen
seyn w enn die Base des entschiedenen Eigenthums sich u n ter unsem FiiBen befestigt,
nachdem es so m anchen T ag iiber unserm H aupte geschwanckt un d einzustiirzen gedroht
hat.100
This lacking "Letztes" is supplied w ith documents procured in February and M arch,
1807.101 T he judicial confirmation o f Carl August's gift takes the form o f a notarized
contract. 02 It thereby observes precisely the stipulation insisted upon in Article 221 o f
the Code Civil (ALZ): "Alle Schenkungen sollen in d e r Form der C o n tracte vor
N o tarien aufgesetzt w erden, u n d bey den letztem die O riginale aufbew ahrt
bleiben."103
99 O f w hich one copy was in G oethe’s possession, one copy on deposit w ith V oigt (cf. letter to V oigt o f
2. D ecem ber 1806 = W A IV 19, 241 10-15). = G oethe- und Schiller-Archiv. W eim an GSA 38/1. 4, 2,
BL 4-9 (my pagination)
W A rV19, 247-8
‘01 GSA 38/1, 4, 2 = docum ents o f 14 & 23 February and 13 & 16 M arch. 1807. C f D am m 336-7,
Sengie 240.
102 GSA 38/1. 4, 2
103 ALZ ((221.)=Sp. 476)
57
In his petition o f m id-Decem ber, G oethe refers obliquely to the reason w hy
confirmation o f his ownership o f the house had never been granted: "Damals walteten
Bedencklichkeiten ob, m ir es eigenthumlich zuzuschreiben, sie sind schon durch die
Z eit ausgeloscht."10* In other words, he has since w ed Christiane. As I have noted,
their illicit menage had been the main obstacle to legalization o f Goethe's rights to his
house —until their wedding o n O ctober 19th. Carl August's special arrangements on
Goethe's behalf — his tacit w ink at the poet's domestic affairs before 1789 and after
1792, the unofficial Schenkungsurkunden o f 1794 and 1801, his assent to the terms o f
G oethe's will in 1797 — had observed the logic o f suffer-the-quiet-sinner, o f tacit
toleration w ithout open sanction, that Goethe's decision to m ove in w ith Christiane
had flouted in 1789, scandalizing th e ladies o f the court. Strictly speaking, these
arrangements were extralegal ducal decrees, exceptions per fiat to existing laws.105 N ot
only did the legal vacuum after Jena suddenly do away w ith the social necessity o f such
exceptions; their validity also threatened to evaporate in the strictness o f French
legality. In the insistence o f the Code Civil on equality o f all classes and all m en before
the law, and on their subjection equally to a com m on code o f law, N apoleon
possessed a powerful instrum ent o f propaganda. T h e punctilio o f his code helped to
establish N apoleon as a legitimate heir to the ideals o f the R evolution, enlisting to his
side the political support of the French (and, later, often, the German) bourgeoisie it
enfranchised.106 A legal and political climate m ore hostile to the feudal state o f
exception w ithin w hich G oethe had lived until then could hardly be imagined. His
W A IV 19, 247 25-27

105 H ence in 1795, w hen an aristocratic professor at Jena. Jo h an n Ludw ig von Eckardc, referred to
G oethe’s precedent in an appeal to the duke for permission to marry his housekeeper, ”ein ehrliches
gutes B urger-M ad ch en ," he was rebuffed w ith the excuse that G o eth e’s case had "ein ander
Bewandniss." W ilson Das Coethe-Tabu 9 ff
106 Fehrenbach 16 f f ; Furet La Revolutionfianqmse 421 f f French legal exactitude did n o t sic well w ith
all Germans, as th e Codifikationsstmt o f 1814 f f was to prove.
58
marriage normalized this state o f exception to such a degree that G oethe was able to
revoke his will and rely on the normal order o f inheritance —o n the laws o f the land,
w hatever they w ere to be - w ith o u t fear o f u n to w ard consequences. ”[I]n
Friedenszeiten konne man die Gesetze w ohl vorbeigehen, in Z eiten wie die unsem
musse man sie ehren": W hat Jena had literally brought hom e to G oethe was the lesson
that times had changed, and that he had better keep up w ith them .
and w hat does that have to do with Elective Affinities?
W hat, indeed, does all this have to do w ith Elective Affinities, a novel finished
almost exactly three years after Jena? I w ould suggest that Jena focused, and set into
unprecedented relation w ith one another, three o f the signal concepts o f G oethe’s later
years, all o f w hich figure significandy in Elective Affinities: Gelegenheit, Entsagnng, and
Damon. For to judge from the actions that I have described in the pages above, from
remarks made in company (notably Riemer's) after 1806, and from works o f the yean
intervening, the relation into w hich Jena set these concepts to r G oethe is precisely the
relation in w hich they appear in Goethe's novel o f 1809.
T he first term — Gelegenheit, opportunity o r occasion —is the earliest used o f
these three. It is famously thematized in the fourth R o m an elegy as the allegorical
Gottin Gelegenheit, a personification o f kairos o r "the right m om ent" endow ed (at least,
in an unpublished, early draft) w ith the attributes com m only given her in the classical
and emblematic tradition: dagger, sash, and the unbraided forelock o f hair (in both
59
drafts) char he m ust seize w ho w ould seize the right m o m en t for action.10' T he
narrator o f the published elegy vaunts his adroitness in doing so:
Kurze Locken nngelten sich urns zierliche Halschen,

Ungefiochtenes Haar krauste vom Scheitel sich auf.
U n d ich verfcannte sie niche, ergriff die Eilende. Iieblich
Gab sie U m arm ung und KuB bald m ir gelehng zuriick.
O w ie w ar ich begliickt! —Doch sdlle, die Z eit ist voriiber.
u nd um w unden bin ich, romische Flechten, von euch.108
This elegy, along w ith the rest o f its cycle, was composed soon after Goethe's return
from Italy in 1788. G oethe's first recorded m ention o f these "erotische SpaBe" —to
H erder — dates to August o f 1789, their first publication to Ju n e o f 1795.109 In the
same letter, he also m entions his desire "[sleine Freunde und ein gewisses kleines
Erotikon w ieder zu finden, dessen Exiscenz die Frau [i.e. C aroline Herder] dir wohl
w ird vertraut haben."110 T h e Erotikon is Christiane, G oethe's com panion since m id-
July o f che year 1788, now six m onths pregnant w ith his son August. Benedikt JeBing
has suggested that this passage is pardy responsible for the "biographischen
MiBverstandnis der E/egten-'Erlebnisse"' that has traditionally conflated Christiane with
107 "Edelknabe und W ahrsagenn" ["Encwurt zu einer Elegte, aus dem eimge Verse in die 4. Romische
Elegie iibergegangen sind."] = W A I 5.2. 373. T he o ther sketched lines o f elegy reproduced on the
same page o f the W A (#36) also include Fom ina’s "rollendes R ad." Kairos = "the right m om ent" or
"the right measure," Der kleine Pauly. Lexikon der Antike in funf Banden. K onrat Ziegler and W alther
Sontheim er, eds. (M unich: D eutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1979), 111.48. H orst R u diger suggests that
th e sash (Scharpe). w hich in th e traditional iconography is a bridle (Zaurn) to lead blind Fortuna. rests on
G oethe’s creative transform ation o f an error o f W inckelmann’s. R udiger, Horst, "G ottin Gelegenheit.
Geisteswandel einer AHegorie," arcadia. Zeicschrift fo r Vergleichende Literaturunssensdtaft 1 (1966): 153; c f
D oren. A. "Fortuna im M ittelalter u nd in der Renaissance." Vantage der Bibliothek Warburg 1922-1923.
Fritz Saxl. ed. (Leipzig: T eubner. 1924), 1.104. Fortuna had hair like this in the Renaissance tradition:
cf. D oren 133 (Aeneas Sylvius): PI. 11c. 12, 17. 20 (Rubens). T h e dagger o f th e early draft is an
attribute o f Kairos: "for Kairos is sharper than the keenest blade.” W ittkow er. R u d o lf "Patience and
C hance: th e Story o f a Political Em blem ." Allegory artd che Migration o f Symbols (N ew York: Thames
and H udson, 1977). 111. C f also W arburg, Aby M . Der Bilderadas Mnemosyne. M artin W am ke and
Claudia Brink, eds. (Berlin: Akademie-Vedag, 2000), plate 48. pp. 88-89.
108 W A I 1. 238 87-92
109 W ritten Fall 1788 - Spring 1790. rew orked for publication. N o t all o f the Elegies w ere published in
1795. R a a b e , P aul. D ie Horen. Einfohrung und Kommentar (D arm stadt: W issenschaftliche
BuchgeseQschaft, 1959), 48
‘I0 to H erder. 10 August 1789 = W A IV 9. 147 19-25
60
the Faustina o f the Elegies.111 I w ould h o ld th at w ith G o eth e in general the
biographical fallacy is a fallacy only in so far as it tries to make fiction a simple cipher
for Goethe's biography. It is clear enough, in a general way, that Goethe's experiences
in R om e, and the beginning o f his liaison w ith Christiane, entered into the Elegies.
M y o w n question here is not w hether Faustina was real, o r Faustina Christiane, but
rather w hat attributes o f Goethe's fictional o r fictionalized Faustina he may have
attached, in this period and afterward, to Christiane: for these attributes flow, via Jena
and the effects it had on G oethe, into Elective Affinities. I f w e may ju d g e from
Riem er's account, the legend o f Goethe's marriage to Christiane includes a m om ent o f
G oethean self-congratulation for having succeeded in seizing a crisis by the forelock:
"Dieses Dankgefuhl, dieses Anerkennen, dafi er ih r in diesem Augenblick das Leben
schuidig gew orden, war das H auptm otiv, eine H andlung zu beschleunigen, die er
bereits Ianger im Sinne habend, n u r an den zur Ausfuhrung schicklichen M om ent
kniipfte [...].'"II2 W hat he seized, o f course, in a literal sense, was Christiane. Yet
G oethe cast this act, w hatever its practical grounds, as symbolic: In dating their
w edding-rings to O ctober 14th rather than to the 19th, he attached his decision
symbolically to the m om ent that sparked it.113 Accordingly, the legend echoes an
earlier conflation o f Christiane w ith che goddess Gelegenheit. As H orst R u d ig er has
noted, Christiane's hair, in Goethe's famous early pencil portrait o f her, matches the
fourth R om an Elegy's description o f the goddess Gelegenheit: "Kurze Locken ringelten
sich urns zierliche Halschen,/ Ungefiochtenes H aar krauste vom Scheitel sich auf."lw
JeBing, B enedikt, "R om ische Eiegien (II, II, V )." Interpretattonen. Gedichte von Johann Wolfgang
Goethe. B em d W itte, ed. (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1998), 133
112 R iem er 173-4
113 G oethe to KnebeL, 21 O ctober 1808: "DaB ich m it m einer guten Kleinen seit vorgestem verehlicht
bin w ird euch treuen. Unsere Trauringe werden vom 14. O ctbr. datirt." W A IV 19, 209 26-28
114 T his sketch is reproduced in Coethes Leben in Bilddokumenten. J o m Gores, ed. (M unich: Beck, 1982),
138.
61
R u d ig er concludes: ”[S]eine G ottin G elegenheit ist nicht Personifikation Christianes
oder Faustines oder iiberhaupt einer irdischen Frau, sondem Sinnbild jenes hochsten
Augenblicks, welchen er den sterbenden Faust im Vorgefiihl befreiender T at a u f seine
W eise zum ersten Male rein genieBen IaBc." W h at is m ore, "G elegenheit —dies ist
gewiB — findet sich bei G oethe findet sich bei G oethe vorzugsweise in erodschem
Zusammenhang. ”113
Elective Affinities marks a cmcial gesture o f erotic self-liberation w ith attributes
both o f the goddess Gelegenheit and o f her iconographical sister Fortuna. At the climax
o f the inset novella "Die wunderlichen Nachbarskinder" (11.10), the boat in w hich the
story’s young lovers find themselves threatens to run aground, w ith the young man at
the helm.
In dem A ugenbiick erschien a u f dem V erdeck seine schdne F reundin m it einem

Blum enkranz in den Haaren. Sie nahm ihn ab u n d w arf ihn a u f den Sceuemden. N’im m
dieB zum Andenken! rie f sie aus. Store m ich nicht! rief e r ihr entgegen. indem er den
K ranz auSing. Ich store dich nicht w eiter, rie f sie: d u siehst m ich n ich t wieder! Sie
sprach’s und eilte nach dem Vordertheil des Schitls. von da sie ins Wasser sprang. Einige
Stim m en riefen: "retted retted Sie ertrinkt." E r w ar in d er entsetzlichsten Veriegenheit.
U b er dem Larm erwacht der alte SchifBmeister, will das R u d e r ergreifen. der jiingere es
ihm iibergeben; aber es ist keine Zeit. die Herrschaft zu wechseln: das SchifF strandet. und
in eb en dem Augenbiick. die Iastigsten Kleidungsstiicke w egw ertend, stiirzte er sich in’s
Wasser. und schwamm der schonen Fein din nach.116
T h e w ord Augenbiick is used tw ice in this scene: the firsc time to frame the young
w om an as she appears on the deck, again as the young man's m om ent o f decision,
coincident w ith che m om ent o f che ship's stranding. As a consequence, the scene reads
almost as if it w ere a sequence o f two baroque emblems linked by the com m on
attribute o f a ship.11' If the first image-m om enc alludes to occasio, kairos, Fortuna, in
Ua R udiger 156-7
n* 11.10 = W A I 20, 331 4-21
:i‘ O n Goeche’s literary use o f em blematic material generally see Heckscher, W illiam S.. "G oethe im
B anne d er Sinnbilder. E in Beitrag zur Emblematik." A rt and Literature - Studies in Relationship, ed- Egon
V erheyen (Baden-Baden: Valentin K oem er/D uke U niversity Press. 1985), 217-236; Froebe, Hans A.
62
che figure o f che young w om an, standing ac che ship’s prow , che second image,
cencered on che young man ac che rudder, invokes anocher traditional allegorical
figure, that o f che ship o f state.118 Thus the Blumertkranz works as a m etonym o f che
hair o f che goddess Gelegenheit, as em bodied in the w om an chat che young m an will in
feet have the presence o f m ind to ju m p after; he catches her w reath w ith che presence
o f m ind o f one who seizes che forelock o f opportunity. H ere che boat —w hich recurs,
w ith negative valence, in Ottilie's rudderless skiff near the end o f the novel —works as
Fomina's typical attribute, one firsc attached to this figure in the Renaissance, also che
period o f its conflation w ith occasio o r kairos.119 T h e scene's second im age-m om enc
shows a tailed transfer o f w hat is called Herrschaft, o f mastery over the ship. By coding
this transfer o f mastery as an intergenerational issue, che text strengthens further its
iconographical hint at political m e a n in g . T h e young man (who, w e are led to believe,
is the Captain, ac an earlier scage in his life: "Diese Begebenheic hatte sich m it dem
H auptm ann und einer N achbarin w irklich zugecragen")'20 "hatte sich an’s Steuer
"’U lm baum u n d R eb e.' Naturwissenschaft. Alchymie u nd Em blem atik in G oethes Aufsatz > U b e r die
S p ira lte n d e n z < (1 8 3 0 -1 8 3 1 )." Emblem und Em blem atikrezeption. Vergleichende Studien zu r
Wirkungsgeschichte vom 16. bis 20. Jakrhunden, Sibyile P enkert, ed. (Darmstadt: W issenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft. 1978), 386-417; very briefly on problem s w ith such approaches D aly, P eter M .
Literature in the Light o f the Emblem. Structural Parallels Between the Emblem and Literature in the Sixteenth
and Seventeenth Centuries. 2!* ed. (Toronto: University o f T oronto Press. 1998), xii & 106.
ns T h e dangerous narrows in w hich th e ship strands recall, for exam ple, an em blem by Z in cg ref
supertitled "G ubem ando non Ioquando," the moral o f w hich is poiicical ("D U rch Felsen/ K lippen/
truckne B anck/ DiB SchifF zu m h m / Brauchc Kunst und R anck/ M it schwetzen ist es nicht gethan/ Es
heischt ein guten Steuermann"). Emblemata. Handbuch zu r Sinrtbildkunst des Xt-7. und X V II. Jahrhundens.
A rthur H enkel an d Albrecht Schone, eds. (Stuttgart: M etzler, 1996), 1455: see also Roilenhagen, "D um
c la w m rectvm teneam" [SchifF dessen Steuer ein K onig halt = "gate R egierung"!, 1454; C orrozet "La
chose publique," 1453 (image originates in H or. cann. I 14; Q uint, inst. VTII 6, 44).
,I9 "N eb en Fortuna [...J erscheinc. m it ih r in ihren Sym bolen sich verschm elzend. ja hie u n d da sie
verdrangend. und sich selbst an ihre Stelle setzend. dem antiken KOipqJnachgebiidet, die ’occasio', die
fliichtig verrinnende Stunde." D oren 135; see 134 SI; cit. C u rd us. Ernst. D i e D arstellungen des
Kairos." Cesammelte Abkandlungen (Berlin: W ilhelm H ertz. 1894), 11.187 SI B ernhard B uschendorf
id e n titie s O ttilie ’s a ttrib u te s tn th is scene as th o s e o f th e ty p e o f A p h ro d ite o r
Venus eUTEAOia(Aphrodite as a sea-goddess), a reading 1 think may b e skew ed by his dedication to the
them e o f Goethe's N eoplatonism . B uschendorf Bernhard. Goethes mythische Denkform. Z u r Ikortographie
der » W a h lve rw a n d tsd u fte n « (Frankfurt am M aim Suhrkamp, 1986), 239 61
120 11.11 = W A I 2 0 . 336 6 £
63
gesetzt, den alcen Schifismeister abzulosen, der an seiner Seice eingeschlafen w ar."121 If
his decision to rescue the w om an causes the ship to ru n aground, it also leads to their
marriage on shore. As W alter Benjamin has suggested, this shows that the lovers are
able to free themselves psychologically "aus der B indung des Eltemhauses," whereas
Eduard, by contrast, remains entangled in it:
Gibe es andecs iiberhaupc d ir Liebende ein Zeichen, so dies. dafl fur einander niche allein
der A bgrund des Geschlechcs, sondem auch je n e r der Familie sich geschiossen hac. Damic
solche liebende Anschauung gildg sei, d a rf sie dem Anblick. gar dem W issen von Eleem
niche schwachmueig sich encziehen. wie es Eduard gegen Oeeilie cue.
Benjamin has in mind Eduard’s request that O ttilie rem ove from her neck the locket
containing her father's portrait. As I have noted, how ever, Eduard neglects his ow n
father’s orchards and gardens as well, along w ith th e continuities - o f hum an
generations and o f historical traditions — that they imply. His evasion, too, o f the
churchyard signals a will to gain absolute freedom in the present by shunning the
ghosts o f his forefathers. This makes for w hat Benjam in called the "falsch erfafite
Freiheit" o f the novel's provincial aristocracs: "Das chimarische Freiheitsstreben ist es,
das uber die gestalten des R om ans das Schicksal heraufbeschw ort."123 T h e political
consequences o f Eduard’s weakness o f character are thus implicidv drawn. T he French
R evolution was for G oethe the most chimerical o f all false tentatives at freedom. If
the young man, the youthful Captain o f th e novella proves a com petent successor to
the ship's tired old master,124 the novel shows by contrast that Eduard is anything but
an adequate heir to the artcien regime —a topic that I shall discuss at greater length in the
following chapter.
121 11.10 = W A I 20, 330 21-24

122 Benjamin 1.1.169-170
123 Benjamin 1.1.170
64
O n e o f the Captain's signal qualities — a quality that distinguishes him from
Eduard, in particular —is his presence o f mind, his ability to do the right things at the
right rime. Eduard, by contrast, tends to do the w ro n g things —o r n o t do the right
ones —as well as to time them badly. T he text correlates this ability o f the Captain’s,
and Eduard’s disability by contrast, w ith their respective capacity and incapacity for
Entsagung, renunciation. As I shall show in the follow ing chapter, this variance
betw een the tw o m en is throw n into starkest relief w ith the C aptain’s plunge to
recover a village boy w ho risks drow ning in th e lake as a result o f the landslide
occasioned by Eduard's negligence and impetuousness, a scene that repeats morivically
the young Captain’s jum p into water to save his beloved, in the novella. This jum p is
essential to the contrastive utopian function that Benjam in attributed to the novella.
Goethe's text glosses it thus: "Das Wasser ist ein freundliches Elem ent, for den, der
dam it bekannt ist und es zu behandeln weiB.”,2S T h e "elem ent" is friendly to the
Captain, w ho "dam it bekannt ist u nd es zu behandeln weiB" - b u t n o t to Eduard,
whose son it swallows.
In w ork on Faust II, W ilhelm Em rich has noted: "D ie D arstellung der im
W asser untergehenden u n d trium phal w ieder im SchoS d er W ellen 'an ew iger
Jugendbrust’ geborgenen und geretteten Jiinglinge entspricht ein em Lieblingsbild
Goethes.”1-6 C iting Pandora, the end o f the Wandetjahre, and "D ie w underlichen
Nachbarskinder," Emrich suggests that this m o tif is often connected, in Goethe's late
124 at least u n til he jum ps overboard; still th e ship is not harmed; h e th en marries, and returns w ith his
bride to the unharm ed ship to receive their parents' blessing, and reunite w ith the company.
125 11.10 = W A 1 20. 331 22-3; c£ Benjamin 1.1.168 £
126 Em rich. W ilhelm . Die Symbolik von Faust U. Sinn und Vorformen. 5* ed. (Konigstein/Ts.zAthenaum.
1981), 299
65
w ork, w ith the cheme o f renunciation, Entsagung.127 Indeed, Elective Affinities attaches
this them e to a third image o f the C aptain em erging from w ater — w hile linking
Eduard's incapacity to renounce his illicit passion w ith hints that water, for him, will
bring tragedy.
W hen the skiff the Captain is piloting runs aground in 1.12, he withstands —
entsagt — the tem ptation the lake's waters have offered him in delivering the "liebe
Biirde" C harlotte into his arms.'28 In a reperion o f the (temporally if not textuallv)
earlier incident w ith his beloved, he saves him self and C harlotte onto the moral
solidity symbolized (here as so frequently in the novel) by solid land. W here that
situation called for marriage, however, this one calls for restraint: restraint o f which the
Captain proves himself capable. In a parallel situation —w hen Eduard half hopes that
O ttilie will stumble into his arms on their walk in 1.7 —the reasons why Eduard knows
he w ould anyway no t press her to his heart have very litde to do w ith renunciation:
u[E]r fiirchtete sie zu beleidigen, sie zu beschadigen."129 In the end, the lake claims its
sacrifice from this Narcissus: "alles in's W asser."130 "D ie Liebenden." Benjamin writes,
"vertallen, wo sie den Segen des festen Grundes verschmahen, dem Unergriincflichen,
das im stehenden Gewasser [des Lustsees] vorweltlich erscheint."111 Eduard rejects this
Segen des festen Grundes, suffers, and dies. T h e C aptain accepts it, moves on, and
survives.
,22 "In d er ’Pandora’ (im Abscurz und in der W iedergeburt des Phileros), in der novelliscischen Einlage
zu den ’W ahlverw andtschaften’ (die ’w underlichen N achbarskinder'), am Schlufi der W andeijahre:
im m er w ieder w ar G oethe von diesem M odv ergriffen." Em rich 299
128 II. 12 = W A I 20, 139
129 1.7 = W A I 20, 82 10 fE For a comparable device see Hermann und Dorothea. W A I 50, 255 89-95:
"A ber sie, unkundig des Steigs u n d der roheren Stufen,/ Fehlte tretend, es knackte der FuB, sie drohte
zu fallen./ Eilig streckte gew andt der sinnige Jungling den Arm aus./ Hielc em por die Geliebte; sie sank
ihm leis a u f die S chulter./ Brusc w ar gesenkr an Brusc un d W ang am W ange. So stand e r./ vom em sten
W illen gebandigt,/ D riickte nicht tester sie an, er stemmte sich gegen die Schwere."
130 11.13 = W A I 20, 360 22-33
m Benjamin 1.1.133
66
Eduard's narcissism is a rooc cause as w ell o f his characcerisdc habit o f
misinterpreting kairotic moments as signs o f fate o r providence. Eduard, the narrator
warns us, "ver[nimmt] nichts [...], als was seiner Leidenschaft schm eichelt."132 H e
routinely projects his desires onto events and objects, construing them solipsistically as
om ens that favor his passion. H e takes m om ents in w hich he could act to take the
book's brew ing crisis objectively in hand simply as ratifications o f his desire. T he
discovery that the poplar trees on the lake w ere planted the day o f O ttilie’s birth, her
im itation o f Eduard's handwriting on a contract o f sale, the glass throw n and caught at
the Richtfesc in 1.9 - Eduard takes all these as signs that O ttilie will and must be his. In
the end, the book proves him wrong. T h e poplars serve as a backdrop to the landslide
o f 1.15 and to O tto's later drow ning in the lake; the contract seals an ill-advised sale;
the glass proves spurious, "kein wahrhafier Prophet."133 W hat is more, these symbols
have consequences. Misreading the signs, Eduard bungles the m om ent. His symbol-
fed insistence upon the fireworks show at the Richtfest leads to disaster; his sale o f land
is financially and politically ill-advised.
B oth the crisis that threatens his marriage to Charlotte and the couple's loss o f
possessory grip on their landed estate thus flow from the com m on single ro o t o f a
failure at self-control, at the Entsagung in w hich the French R evolution led G oethe to
see the only adequate ground for the conduct both o f public and private life. Indeed,
th e novel refers both spheres o f inadequacy equally to the com m on elem ental
sym bolic vocabulary by means o f w hich G o eth e so often explored questions o f
balance, constraint and self-constraint. T h e maxim "Das Wasser ist ein freundliches
,;c [.16 = W A I 20. 165 4-5

133 11.18 = W A I 20, 414 15 £
67
Elem ent, fur den, der damit bekannt ist und es zu behandeln weiB" (11.10) shows up
Eduard's failure to manage noc only his affect, bu t also his estate.134
Y et the novel's tragic outcom e is a result, not simply o f Eduard's weakness o f
character, but o f the inadequacy o f his character to the demands o f current historical
change. His foiling is a failure to respond to the historical m om ent o f crisis to which
G oethe himself did manage to respond, w ith success, in the days after Jena. In Eduard,
there is something o f the W erther w ith whose invention G oethe confessed to having
saved him self "aus einem stiirmischen Elem ente."133 B oth Elective Affinities and Die
Leiden des jungen Werthers are equally fit to bear the w arning G oethe appended to
Werther in its second printing —"Sei ein M ann, und folge m ir nicht nach"s3<> —as well
as the bespoke m otto: "There b u t for the grace o f my text go I." O nly the "element"
from w hich G oethe now saves him self — by marrying in 1806, and by w riting his
novel in 1809 —is stormier yet than the waters o f 1774. W hat is new is the problem
o f Damon, G oethe’s name, after early in 1808, for a kind o f force, com ing from outside
life as know n heretofore, that "den klaren gesetzlichen. zielstrebigen G ang des Lebens
[durchkreuzt} und [...] neue Bedingungen [schafit]," in Paul Hankamer's paraphrase.137
N ovel as well is a recognition o f th e problem o f history, o f the p o w er o f events to
affect one's life.
T here is a great deal o f evidence to suggest that Jena was the primal scene o f
Goethe's conception o f Damon, and N apoleon Bonaparte, the m aker o f Jena, Damon's
primal embodiment- "N apoleon," guesses Eckermann in 1831, "scheint damonischer
:34 11.10 = W A I 20. 331 22-3

!3S G oethe o n Werther. "...[I] ch. hatte m ich du tch diese Com position m ehr. als durch je d e andere, aus
einem stiirmischen Elemente gerettet [—1-" D W X III = W A I 28. 225 10-11; "Benina [von Araim] war
u n te r den ersten. die erkannten, daB der ’W erther' a n d die W ahlverwandtschafren’ zusam m engehoren."
M eyer Goethe 154-5
136 "Z u den Leiden des jungen W erthers." W A I 4, 162 8; c£ W A I 5.2,112.
68
A rt gewesen zu sein." "Er w ar es durchaus," G oethe replies.138 W e have seen how
Napoleon's occupation o fW e im ar in the "schreckliche[n] N acht” o f 14 O cto b er 1806
led G oethe to recognize the im m anence o f a change in the legal and social rules by
w hich he had lived up to then, and hence (in Hegel’s words) "sein Haus bestellen und
seine zeitlichen Angelegenheiten in R ichtigkeit bringen zu w ollen."139 T h ere is no
clearer illustration than this o f Damon, as Hankam er has defined it. Hankam er himself,
however, applies his definition n o t to N apoleon (whose relevance to the problem he
acknowledges only in passing), b u t to Goethe's sudden passion o f D ecem ber 1807 for
the eighteen-year old M inna Herzlieb in Carlsbad.140 As I shall show in C hapter IV, it
is Goethe's developing notion o f Damon that permits the erode econom y o f the novel
Elective Affinities to represent the socio-polirical econom y o f G erm any anno 1809.
N apoleon’s advent on G oethe's horizon is G oethe's Urerlebnis o f Damon, that o f
M inchen Herzlieb the principle's confirmation in the sphere o f erode love. Herzlieb
was Goethe’s reminder, ex negativo, w hat forces —erode, legal, social, polidcai forces —
he had sought to channel or bind in deciding to marry C hrisdane, in the days after
Jena. Fourteen months after having been moved (as Hans Blum enberg writes) by the
to tterin g o f his w orld "zum U nw ahrscheinlichsten [...], was ihm zu v o r hatte
angesonnen w erden k o nnen , d ie M u tte r seines Sohnes zu h eiraten . seinen
m enschlichen Verhaltnissen U nw iderruflichkeit zu geben,"141 G oethe's love for
,37 H ankam er, Paul. Spiel der Miichte. E in Kapitel aus Goethes Lebett und Goethes W elt (Tubingen:
W underlich. 1943). 53
138 to Eckermann, 2.3.1831; on the evidence see Blumenberg Arbeit am Mythos 504 ff.
139 Hegel to Schelling, 23.2.1807: Goethes Gesprdche 11.188; V oigt to G oethe, 19.10.1806 = Goethes
Bhefwedisel m il Christian Gottlob Voigt, 111.133
40 H ankam er 54. Hans M . W olff thinks G oethe’s love in Carlsbad, and his m odel for O ttilie, was Silvie
von Ziegesar. n o t M inchen Herzlieb [W o lff Hans M . Goethe in der Periode der Wahlverwandtschaften
(1802-1809) (Bern: Francke. 1952)]; G ero von W ilpert [Goethe-Lexikon (Stuttgart: K roner, 1998), 471]
is skeptical o f W olffs argum ent, as I suspect m ost scholars are o f W olffs w ork; w h o it was doesn't really
m atter, in any case.
I'*, Blum enberg Arbeit am Mythos 509
69
M inchen w ould have m ade d e a r to him w hat he stood to lose by indulging his
passion, by failing to answer Damon w ith Entsagung.
I w ould add that Eduard's failure to m eet the demands o f the age is not simply
a function o f his personal weakness. T he novel's disasters arise from the interaction o f
Eduard's character traits w ith those o f its o th e r protagonists. C harlotte indulges
Eduard's selective blindness by hiding from sight w hat he does not wish to see, ju st as
she bends her ow n musical talent to his incom petence in the duet o f 1.2. O ttilie
invites Eduard to forsake his ow n economic and political interests, not only by giving
him an occasion to indulge his passion, but also by encouraging him to act in a
m anner both practically and symbolically inappropriate to the sodal estate to w hich he
belongs. As I shall show in C hapter VI, she appropriates Charlotte's role in th e
household, and her part in the w ork o f landscape design, in the same measure as she
replaces C harlotte in Eduard's affections. T h e tragedy o f these people is thus a
collective one. Theirs is the failure o f a milieu, o f a social class, in a certain historical
place and tim e. T h eir wilful blindness to strictures o f social custom inherited from
past tradition blinds them to present necessities as well. As Benjamin observed apropos
Charlotte's rearrangement o f the churchyard:
Keine bundigere Losung vom H erkom m en ist denkbar. ais die von den G rabem der
A hnen voUzogene, die im Sinne niche n u r des M ythos sondem der Religion den Boden
u n ter d en FuBen d er Lebenden gcunden. W a h in ta h rt ihre Freiheit die Handelnden?
W eit enfem t, neue Einsichcen zu erschlieBen, m acht sie sie blind gegen dasjenige, was
Wirkliches dem G enirchteten innewohnc.*42
T h e self-deception o f these aristocrats prevents them , in short, from doing som ething
that G oethe seems to have prided himself on having done in O ctober o f 1806. T hey
70
fail to seize the m om ent, to respond to w hat eyes less clouded by egotism m ight
otherwise have seen coming on the historical horizon.143
u3 C£L R udiger, "G oran Gelegenheic" 150 51
71
Chapter II
Eduard's Egotism
Elective Affinities centers a num ber o f problems and tensions typical o f the years
after Jena on the figure o f Eduard, the "Baron im besten Mannesalter" w ith whose
name and social rank the novel begins. The text shows Eduard under financial stress,
and it describes in detail Eduard's choice to sell a parcel o f noble land to a bourgeois.1
It depicts this baron in conflict w ith a mendicant pauper and uncertain w hether his
peasant subjects will answer a call on their feudal duties.2 It portrays a village
population objecting to liberties taken, again, by Eduard, its feudal lord.3 Eduard, in
short, is a focal point for the tangle o f factors comprising w hat was known at the tim e
as the Adelsfrage, the question o f w hether the German nobility m ight still jusdv claim
its traditional position o f privilege.
The treatises on this quesdon that flowed from German pens in quandcy after
1792 (provoked, it would seem, by the Jacobins' seizure o f power in France, their
expropriation o f noble lands and the eastward flight o f the owners) raised a com m on set
o f questions concerning the aristocracy's survival as a class (more precisely: a Stand)
: 1.7 (decision to sell farmstead); 1.8, 1.13 (execution). In Prussia, such sales w ere illegal de ju re , but
o ften perm itted de facto (Schissler, Hanna. PreuJ3ische Agrargesellschaft im Wartdel. Wirtschaft-liche,
gesellschaftliche und politische Transjormationsprozesse von 1763 bis 1847 (G ottingen: V andenhoeck und
R u p rech t, 1978), 84; Koseileck, R einhart. Preufen zwischen Reform und Revolution. Allgemeines
Landrecht, Verwaltung und soziale Bewegung von 1791 bis 1848 (M unich/Stuttgart: D T V /K le tt-C o tta ,
1989), 83). T h e situation was m ore complicated in W eim ar, w here T huringian law allowed for a
kin d o f peasant ownership o f noble land (G othe, Rosalinde. "G oethe, C arl August und M erck. Z u r
Frage der Reform ansatze im Agrarbereich." Goethe Jahrbuch 100 (1983): 207 ft.), and w h ere
repartitions w ere sometimes untertaken by peasant ow ners themselves (G othe, Rosalinde. "W ieiand
u n d die G em ein d e OBtnannstedt (1797). Projekte in einer U m bruchzeit." Genealogisches Jahrbuch.
Zentralstelle fur Personen- und Familiengeschichte. ed. (N eustadt a.d. Aisch: D egener, 1990)
X X X :7 8 ).
2 Ju st before th e Beggar enters in 1.6, Eduard suggests: "W ottten die Leute m it H and anlegen. so
w iirde kein groBer ZuschuB nothig sein. urn hier eine M auer im Halbkreis aufzufuhren [—1-" 1.6 =
W A I 20, 71 24-26
3 A local noblem an also sends a lawyer to object to Charlotte's rearrangem ent o f the churchyard in
w h ich th eir relatives are buried (IL t).
72
apart. Its central issue was one o f political legitimacy. By the end o f the eighteenth
century, the Germ an nobility had long ceased to fulfill the duties and obligations (the
obligation, for instance, to protect subject populations by arms in tim e o f war, or to
feed them in times o f crisis) w ith which feudalist logic justified its traditional
Sonderstellung as a Stand. At the same time, new economic pressures in Europe led
both Germ an and French aristocrats to increase their demands on the peasantry, and to
convert feudal obligations —their ow n, and that o f their peasants —to paym ent in kind
o r in cash.4 As this cash nexus grew more significant and more onerous w ith growing
commercialization, the feudal nexus o f mutual social obligation atrophied further. The
evident injustice o f this state o f affairs was turned to political advantage by Germany's
rising non-noble elites. The nobility was seen in the public forum o f the non-noble
press to fell irresponsibly short o f the very norms by w hich it claimed special rights; and
this failure became both the core o f the moral case against it and a point o f departure
for writers intent on its preservation by reform.5
T he attack on noble privilege was phrased in these terms from roughly 1750 or
1770 on, in Germany as in France.*1 Y et for obvious reasons the political bottom line
o f the question changed after 1789, and once again after 1806. If the debate itself
em erged from a crystallization o f longue duree in w hich Jena and the Bastille were major
catalysts (namely, Europe's transition from feudalism to capitalism, which made the
* W ehler, Hans-Ulrich- Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte. E nter Band. Vom Feudalismus des A lten
Reiches bis zu r Defensiven Modemisierung der Reformara 1700-1815 (M unich: B eck. 1987), 37-43, 85
fE, 165 31; N ipperdey, Thom as. Deutsche Geschichte 1800-1866. Biirgerwelt und starker Stoat
(M unich: B eck. 1983), 160 31
5 Epstein, Klaus. The Genesis o f German Conservatism (Princeton, Mew Jersey: Princeton U niversity
Press, 1966). 183-201
“ C f. Epstein, foe. a'r, and Bruford, W . H . Germany in the Eighteenth Century: The Social Background
o f the Literary Revival (Cam bridge, England: C am bridge U niversity Press, 1965), 21, 61 51 D uring
th e earlier part o f th e eighteenth century, objections to noble privilege w ere m ore Iikeiy to by
phrased in th e m ore practical (less moral) terms o f econom ic rationality. C f C onze, W erner. "Adel."
Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon zur palitischSozialen Sprache in Deutschland. O tto
B runner. W ern er C onze, and R einhart Koseileck. eds. (Stuttgart: K lett-C otta, 1972 51), 1. 23 51
73
older order o f privilege economically obsolete),' the m om ent G oethe elects to portray
was the one in which Napoleon precipitated the crystal's formation in Europe east of
the R hine, the m om ent in which the crisis o f German nobility becam e politically
acute.8 His novel depicts this change as it takes objective —that is to say institutional -
shape in the German lands. The questions Goethe raises in its pages concerning
marriage, startdische identity, property rights, pauperism and feudal authority all point
to this com m on center. They are necessarily interlinked in the complex historical logic
o f one sweeping process o f material and institutional change, as well as in debates after
Jena concerning the material and institutional effects o f such change.
Let us turn to a typical text on the Adelsfrage. A booklet o f 1792 by the
Offenbach pastor Johann Ludwig Ewald (a friend o f Goethe's Frankfurt years)9 entitled
Was sollte der Adel jetzt thun? predicts m uch o f w hat w ould still be at stake, w ith more
urgency, for the German provincial nobility some two decades later. Ewald answers
his title question w ith a warning that the German nobility can reasonably expect to
m eet the fate o f the French if it does not soon surrender a m odicum o f its privilege.
"[S]o erfordert's doch die Klugheit," he writes,
dafl Sie [...] freywillig a u f m anche Privilegien Verzicht thun, die zw ar im m er vor d em
R.eichskammergericht zu Weczlar, und v o r jedem Gerichc. das nach posidven Geseczen
sprechen mufl, geken, aber wahriich niche im m er v o r dem Richterscuhie d er gesunden
V em u n tt u n d d er nadiriichen Billigkeic gelten w erden.‘°
H e recommends that the surrender be done gracefully, and soon:
r W eh ler 1.38-43, 71-90; C onze, "Adel'' 23 £

3 C onze, "Adel" 29
’ See G oeth e, Dicktung und Wahrheit EV.17 = W A L 29, 44 4 21 & passim
10 Ew ald, Johann Ludw ig. Was solke der Adel je tz t thun? D en privilegirten Deutschen Landstanden
gewidmet. (Leipzig: K um m er, 1793 [reprint K onigstein/Ts.: Scriptor, 1982]), 75-6
74
N'och isc es Zeic, daB Sie ecwas aufopfem u nd ecwas th un. N och w ird es Ihnen, von
d em Voike w enigstens, als BilKgkeitsgefuhl, als M enschenliebe, vieQeichc gar als
G roB m uth angerechnec, was vielleichc nach funfzig Jahren zehenfach und hundertfach als
ein R e c h t v o n Ihnen gefordett w ird Aber was Sie th u n w ollen. th u n Sie bald!"
Ewald's argum ent is a calculus o f political legitimacy. H aving recognized the force o f
the natural-right philosophy ("gesunde V em unft [...] naturliche BiUigkeit") and o f the
"moralization o f politics" (Koseileck)12 that support the non-noble challenge to noble
power, he advises their co-optation. Aristocratic social pre-em inence, assailed on the
grounds that it no longer has a foundation in the feudal obligations (Lehrtsdiensten) once
discharged by aristocrats, is now to be re-established on the moral ground o f "nobility,"
an essentialized quality o f character.
[D ]ein G eld in der Tasche behaiten. a u f [djeinen R echcen steif bestehen, niches
hergeben, niches aufopfem furs gem eine W b hi: das isc so gew ohnlich. so gem ein,
tolglich so unadeiig w ie moglich, und w ird auch allgem ein dafiir erkannc. A ber w enn
Sie th u n . was d er gew ohnliche. gem eine Ailcagsmensch niche thue; w enn Sie freiw illig
Vorziigen encsagen, die driickend fur Arme, und schadlich furs ofiencliche W ohl sind:
dann haben Sie sich w ieder zu dem wahren Adel erhoben, d er urspriinglich, und in alien
Sprachen darum Adel heiBc. weil e r edler, als gew ohnliche M enschen handelc. und niche
bloB a u f sich selbsc siehc.13
W e shall see that the negative points in this passage fit Goethe's Eduard like a
glove. H e w ould keep his money in his pocket, o r delegate payment o f a nominal sum
to have beggars removed from his ambit, thus reducing a feudal responsibility to a cash
nexus. H e insists on his rights and prerogatives as a nobleman and refuses to sacrifice
privilege for the sake o f the com mon good; and this at a m om ent in history when even
a readiness to do so might have seemed to come too late. "Ich mag m it Btirgem und
" Ewald 79-80

■2 Koseileck, R ein h art. K ritik und Krise. Eine Studie zu r Pathogenese der burgerlichen W elt (Frankfurt
am M ain: Suhrkam p, 1973), 122 fE
13 Ewald 84-5. Friedrich de la M otte-F ouque employs a similar strategy in a pam phlet entitled Etxvas
uber den deutschen A del, uber R itter-Sinn und M ilitair-Ehre (H am burg: Perthes and Besser, 1819), in
w hich h e w o u ld shift, th e m oral base o f aristocratic privilege by essentializing nobility in a quality o f
character th a t he calls Rittersinn.
75
Bauem niches zu tun haben, w enn ich ihnen nicht geradezu befehlen kann,"14 he insists.
"Dieses selbscverstandliche Festhalten an gutsherrlichen Privilegien und adligem
Majestatsrecht muB selbsc im Lichee der konservadven Adelskritik der Zeit als veraltet
erscheinen," comments Hans R u d o lf Vaget, "als h inter der Z eit geblieben."15
A lthough G oethe appears to have lost contact w ith Pastor Ewald after 1775, his
sentiments o n privilege, expressed in a maxim o f 1795,16 echo Ewald's:
Je d e r M ensch fuhlt sich privilegirc

D iesem G efuhl widersprichc
1. die N atum othw endigkeic
2. die Gesellschaft.
ad 1. D e r M ensch kann ih r nicht entgehen. nicht ausw eichen; nichts abgew innen. N u r kann
er durch D iat sich fiigen u nd ih r nicht vorgreifen.
ad 2. D e r M ensch kann ih r nicht entgehen. nicht ausw eichen, aber er kann ihr abgew innen,
daB sie ihn ihre V ortheile mitgenieBen IaBt, w e n n er seinem Privilegiengenihl
entsagt.17
Eduard’s characteristic obstinacy consists precisely in this: {ad 2) that he cannot
renounce his feeling o f personal privilege in the interests o f the social fabric. Eduard's
political renitence stems from weakness o f character, as w e learn early on in the book.
"Sich etwas zu versagen, war Eduard nicht gew ohnt.”18 This baron has no capacicy tor
diet {ad 1), for the Entsagung (renunciation) that G oethe came to conceive, in the wake
o f the French Revolution, as an essential part o f man's social condition.19 Goethe's
portrait o f him tracks the wellspring o f public responsibility to the realm o f personal
affect: Eduard incorporates the social risks o f a failure to renounce. His fate —the loss o f
1.6 = W A I 20, 7 2 6-8

15 Vaget "Em reich er Baron" 149
!<> T his date is suggested by evidence in W A I 42.1, p. 364 [MSS H tlT], and p. 385. Nicholas Boyle
suggests th at th e m axim arose in connection w ith the Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten (1795).
B oyle, N icholas. Goethe: The Poet and the A ge. Revolution and Renunciation (1790-1803) (O xford:
T h e C larendon Press, 2000), 324
17 W A 1 42.2, 233 8-18
18 1.2 = W A I 20, 14 17
19 M o re precisely: after the sum m er o f 1795. See Boyle 323 tf. o n che origins o f the concept o f
Entsagung.
76
his son, the decay o f his marriage, Ottilie’s death and his ow n —is an object lesson in
the social risk o f mismanaged affect.
"Ich mag [Eduard] selber nicht Ieiden,” adm itted Goethe to Eckermann in
t827, "aber ich muBte ihn so machen, um das Factum hervorzubringen" —the social-
psychological feet, as he puts it in this connection, that there exist "in den hohem
Standen Leute genug, bei denen ganz wie bei ihm der Eigensinn an die Stelle des
Charakters tritt.”20 "Eigensinn" is a difficult w ord to translate, m eaning obstinacy or
selfishness in positive and negative senses both. It is used in both senses in other texts
by Goethe. W here self-assertion is called for, it is estimable. M ore frequendy, it is
objectionable.21 In the present context, the Eigensinn o f which G oethe accuses Eduard
belongs mosdy to the latter class o f meaning. G oethe was not alone in finding Eduard’s
character (or lack thereof) irksome: not a few critics agreed w ith Solger, who found
him "zu wenig seiner selbst machtig."22 N o r was Goethe the only w riter o f his day
who found Germany’s privileged orders irresponsibly egotistic. In 1792 and after,
Johann Ewald and critics like him warned the German aristocracy o f the social perils o f
selfishness.23 After 1806, other authors traced the nobility's current weakness
retrospectively to the same source. In 1806, for example, Johann Gottlieb Fichte laid
blame for Jena and Auerstedt at the door o f a prevailing aristocratic "Selbstsucht" that
he supposed to have limited the efficiency o f the Prussian armies in the field.24 In
30 G oeth e to Eckerm ann. 21 January 1827

21 "Eigensinn." G oethe- Warterbuch. Akademie d e r Wissenschaften zu Berlin; A kadem ie der
W issenschaften in G ottingen & H eidelberger Akademie d e r Wissenschaften, eds. (Kohlhammer.
B erlin/S tuttgart, 1978 ff), 11.1410
“ Solger in H ard. 200. Hans Reiss reviews both early and recent critiques o f Eduard's egotism in
"M eh rd eu tig k eit in G oethes » W a h Iv e rw a n d ts c h a fte n « .” Formgestaltung und Politik. G oethe-
Studien (W urzburg: Kdnigshausen & N eum ann, 1993), 78 ft.
23 C f , e.g., H ennings, August. Vorunheilsfreie Gedanken uber Adelsgeist und Aristokratism (n.p.:
1792, [reprint K onigstein/Ts.: Scriptor, 1977]), 25.
2* Fichte, Jo h an n G ottlieb. "Episode fiber unser Zeitalter, aus einem republikanischen Schriftstefler."
"Politische Fragm ente aus den Jahren 1807 und 1813." Fichte's Sammtliche W erke. J . H . Fichte, ed.
77
polemics o f 1808 and 1810, Erast Brandes, a conservative publicist from Hannover,
harped on the "Fehler verdorbener charaktedoser W eltm enschen" and the polidcal sins
o f aristocratic "egoists” whose weakness o f character had prevented them from
damming the rising flood o f the "grobsinnlichen Egoismus" that he considered a
mainspring o f Prussia's defeat.25 In 1807-08, the publicist Friedrich von C olin filled
many a page in his gazette Neue Feuerbrande w ith similar critiques, while the reform er
Friedrich von Hardenberg insisted, in a Denkschriji to Friedrich W ilhelm III:
"U berhaupt zeige man Charakter. Dieser mufi dem Staat wieder aufhelfen, so wie der
Mangel daran ihn gestiirzt hat."2’
In his novel o f 1809, Goethe objectifies the social cost o f this problem o f affect
control initially in the aesthetic sphere, w ith regard to a social art: music. Eduard is a
musical dilettante, as he is in the art o f landscape design. His dilettantism is an
expression o f his egotism. The duets o f the book's early chapters reveal the egotism
inherent in his dilettantism in music.27 As accompanists, C harlotte (Eduard’s wife) and
O ttilie (his beloved-to-be) respond in different ways to his lack o f talent. C harlotte
(Berlin: Veic, 1846), V ll. 521 ff.; c f also R ch te’s first "R ed e an die deutsche N ation" o f 1807
(W erke V II.270 ff.).
25 Brandes, Ernst. Betrachtungen uber den Zeitgeist in Deutschland in den letzten Decennien des vorigen
Jahrhunderts (H annover: Hahn, 1808 [reprint K ronberg/T s.: Scriptor, 1977), §91, §136, §145. §174,
§200. e.g.. and passim. For G oethe o n Brandes, c f his diaries for 18-19 January 1811 (W A III 4, 180
2-5) and a letter to R einhard o f 22 January 1811 — W A IV 22. 23 16-22. It w ould seem that the
military failure o f 1806 set noble egotism in a particularly negative light. O n the specifically m ilitary
failure o f th e nobility see Schissler 115 f f ; also Brandes Betrachtungen §232.
34 C f v on C olin’s anonymous articles in Neue Feuerbrande zum brennen und leuchten [1807-08J,
e.g.:"U eber die je tz t aflgemeine H erabw urdigung des preufiischen M ilitars," Neue Feuerbrande 1.14—
20; "Was bestim m t die Unfiberwindlichkeic einer A rm eer" N F 11.16-35; "B em erkungen fiber den
preufiischen Soldarenruhm," NF 11.112-117; "Fehlerhaftes Betragen der preufiischen
Festungskom m andanten, w ahrend d er grofien Kriegsereignisse im Jahr 1806,” N F IV .24-36, etc.
H ardenberg d te d in W inter, G eorg. D ie Reorganisation des preufiischen Staates unter Stein und
Hardenberg (Leipzig: Hirzel. 1931), 1.1.307. F or direct evidence o f G oethe’s assessment o f th e causes
o f th e defeat a t Jena, see Bersier, Gabrielle. "D er Fall d er deutschen Bastille. G oethe u n d die
Epochenschw elle v on 1806." Recherches Cermaniques 20 (1990): 54-5, esp. n . 18
17 C f R eiss, H ans. "M ehrdeutigkeit in G oethes » W a h lv e r w a n d ts c h a f te n « , Formgestaltung und
Politik 82: "D e r Dilettantismus isc A usdruck seines Egoismus."
78
plays the piano well, "Eduard nicht eben so bequem die R ote: denn ob er sich gleich zu
Zeiten viel Miihe gegeben hatte, so w ar ihm doch nicht die Geduld, die Ausdauer
vedeihen, die zur Ausbildung eines solchen Talentes gehort."28 W hereas Charlotte,
perform ing "die doppelte Pflicht eines guten Kapellmeisters und einer klugen Hausffau,
die im Ganzen im m er das MaS zu erhalten wissen, wenn auch die einzelnen Passagen
nicht im m er in Tact bleiben sollten,"29 simply bears w ith him, O ttilie treats his
bungling as if it were legitimate interpretadon.
[SJo schien O ttilie, w elche die Sonate von je n e n einigem al spielen gehort, sie n u r in
dem Sinne eingelem t zu haben, w ie je n e r sie begleitete. Sie hatte seine M angel so zu
den ihrigen gem acht, daB daraus w ieder cine A rt von lebendigem G anzen entsprang,
das sich zw ar nicht tactgemaB bew egte, aber doch hochst angenehm und gefillig
lautete.30
O ttilie’s typical self-effacing complaisance reflects the face o f her Narcissus back at him
as if it were beautiful; the reader can only expect him to drown. Indeed, Eduard's
response to the third duet (Charlotte's w ith the Captain) indicates that such self-
indulgence, here expressed w ith regard to aesthedcs, is where his fatal social error will
lie. W hen the skill o f the others in playing reveals them as "emster, sicherer von sich
selbst, sich zu halten fahiger" than he,31 Eduard abjures the objective standard o f
musical competence in favor o f one o f feeling, insisting thereby — implicitly — on an
equal right o f subjective to objective aesthetic criteria. "Sie machen es besser, als wir,
Ottilie! [...] W ir wollen sie bew undem , aber tins doch zusammen treuen."32
This logic proves spurious — and dangerous — when applied to matters more
public than chamber music. Aesthetic impatience may have been a sign o f the times:
In his popular handbook Uber den Umgang mit Menschen, A dolf Freiherr von Knigge, an
28 1.2 = WA I 20, 27 10-14

29 1.2 = WA 1 20, 27 20-25
30 1.8 = WA I 20, 92 6-9
31 1.8 = WA I 20, 92 21-22
79
a d d critic o f noble behaviors, impugned a dilettantism like Eduard's in courtly circles
d rc a 1796.33 Like Eduard's dilettantism in gardening, his music-making is defined by a
wish to throw off restrictions o f aesthetic form. For Goethe, aesthetic impatience had
sodo-political resonance: In 1799, together w ith Schiller, he dassed "die
Gartenliebhaberey” as an example o f "die herrschende U nart der Z d t, im astherischen
unbedingt und gesetzlos seyn zu wollen," a failing some Germans linked at the tim e —
often in writings on landscape design — w ith the French R evolution.3* Indeed,
Eduard’s will to aesthetic boundlessness is matched by a wish to jettison the sodal
forms that obligate him to his wife, his son, and his feudal dependents. The subjectivist
logic with which Eduard grounds his musical botchery appears again in the sodal
sphere of his feudal function, producing effects that warn o f the risks o f refusal "sich
etwas zu versagen."35 H e is a dilettante both as a soldier and as a lord o f the manor.
G oethe charges him with earlier "militarische[nl Halbheiten" and w ith a typically self-
centered motivation for going off to fight at the end o f the novel's first half. N othing
here o f feudal duty: In despair on account o f O ttilie, he w ould have w ar dedde his fate
for him.36
M ore significantly - o r at least w ith weightier consequences — the acddent at
the fireworks show staged for O ttilie in 1.15 demonstrates how Eduard's self-
indulgence may cause sodal damage. W hen several villagers nearly drown in falling
32 1.8 = W A I 20. 94 5-7

33 Knigge names a “T o n , w elcher je tz t u nter unsem ganz ju n g e n Leuten ziem lich aflgemein an
H o ten und in d e r feinen W elt eingescfalichen isc [...J keine Kunst, keine Wissenschaft griindlich zu
lem en ." Knigge, Adolph Freiherr von. Uber den Umgang m il Mertschen. Ausgewdhlte Werke in zehn
Banden (H annover: Fackeltrager. 1991). V I.317
M "U b er den Dilectantismus" = W A I. 47. 310. C £ Vaget, Hans R udolf. D ilettantism us und
Meiscerscka/t. Zum Problem des Dilectantismus bei Goethe: Praxis, Theorie, Z e itk ritik (M unich:
W inkler, 1971), 158 ff. on dilettantism and the English garden style, 216 o n connection o f the
relevance to r G o eth e o f dilettantism to social questions; Gemdc, Siegmar. Idealisierte N’atur. D ie
literarische Kontroverse um den Landschaftsgarten des 18. und Jriiken 19. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland
(Stuttgart: M etzler. 1981), 106 f f o n political connocations o f landscape design.
35 1.2 = W A I 20. 14 17
80
from the dikes used as viewing platforms at the spectacle, it is Eduard's im patient
thoughdessness that is at fruit. Blinded by his passion, he elects to ignore misgivings
voiced beforehand by the Captain. The Captain is unsetded by Eduard's careless
arrangements for the event, and would like to speak w ith him "wegen des zu
erwartenden Dranges der Zuschauer."37 T h e dikes have recendy been weakened by the
beginnings o f w ork meant to realize Eduard's scheme to combine the three lakes on his
estate into one, a plan about which the Captain has expressed reservations in the
preceding chapter, but with which Eduard has gone ahead a n y w a y N o w , w ith a
haste that betrays the passion affecting his judgm ent, Eduard asks chat the Captain
leave this part o f the ceremony up to him alone.39 Soon, there arises a terrible cry:
"GroBe Schollen hatten sich vom Damme losgetrennt, man sah mehrere Menschen in's
Wasser stiirzen. Das Erdreich hatte nachgegeben unter dem Drangen und T reten der
im m er zunehmenden Menge. Jeder wollte den besten Platz haben, und nun konnte
niemand vorwarts noch zuruck."'10 The Captain dives into the lake and rescues
drow ning villagers. Eduard, for his part, compounds the egotism that has led to all o f
this by insisting that the show go on —if only to benefit himself and O ttilie. O ne can
almost hear him thinking: "Sie machen es besser, als wir, Ottilie! [...} W ir wollen sie
bew undem , aber uns doch zusammen freuen."41
The fireworks incident proves that Eduard's dilettantism is a source o f peril to
others. His bungling has nearly caused people to drown. M ore abstractly, it raises a
question o f social order and its maintenance. By the norms o f late feudalism, Eduard, a
baron, is responsible for the welfare o f the tenants o f his land. His callous refusal to
30 1.18 = WA I 20, 196 1£

37 U 5 = WA I 20, 157 14 £
38 1.14 = WA [ 20, 151 3 £ ; 1.15 = W A I 20, 157 20 £
39 L15 = WA I 20, 157 17-19
40 t.15 = WA I 20, 158 3-9
81
bother w ith the victims o f his fiasco amounts to m ore chan the c h ild ish n e ss o f a selfish
lover: It also amounts to reckless neglect o f the social obligations that legitimate his
authority as a nobleman. The novel has Eduard pay for this obstinacy w ith an
interrupted bloodline, a future w ith no issue. The near drow ning o f the village boy in
1.15 prefigures the actual drow ning o f Eduard's ow n son.42 T he first accident is a
warning; the second is a requital. In a more allegorical key, O tto's name — which
includes the Gothic root od (meaning property, luck, happiness)43 — and his fatal foil
(like the unsolid clumps o f earth o f 1.15) into water suggest w hat the collapse o f such a
household and family line w ould ultimately have endangered: the possessory interests
in land that anchored the leading role o f the provincial nobility in G erm an polidcai
life.44
This point emerges m ore clearly when set in broader historical context.
Goethe's fictional disaster bears a telling resemblance (unnoticed so for in the literature)
to an event described in Dichtung und Wahrheit — namely, the pedestrian crush that
killed several hundreds in Paris during the display o f fireworks held in the Place de
Louis XV to celebrate the marriage o f Marie Antoinette to the future Louis XVI on 30
May 1770.4S Goethe's relation there o f the latter event runs as follows:
Kaum erschoE aus der Hauptstadt die Nachricht von der glucklichen A nkunit der
K onigin. als eine Schreckenspost ih r tolgte, bei dem tesdichen F euerw erke sei, durch
*' 1.8 = W A 1 20. 94 5-7

42 in 11.13. Indeed, Eduard’s legal line o f descendants ends n o t w ith w ith O tto's deach. b u t w ith
O td lie’s. as Baioni has no ted (262).
*3 OeQers. N orbert. "W arum eigentlich Eduard? Zur N am en-W ahl in G oethes
■Wahlverwandtschaften’." Gemo huius lad. D ank an Leiva Petersen. D orothea K uhn and Bernhard
Zeller, eds. (W ien: Bohlaus N achf.. 1982), 220
“ See N ipperdev 162 fE; W ehler 1.151 fE; Rosenberg, Hans. Bureaucracy, Aristocracy, and Autocracy:
The Prussian Experience 1660-1815 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966). 218 fE; and R osenberg. Hans.
"T he Pseudo-D em ocridzation o f th e Ju n k er Class." The Sodal H istory o f Politics: Critical Perspectives
in W est German Historical W riting since 1945. G eorg Iggers, ed. (Leam ington S p a/D o v er,
N H /H eid elb erg : Berg, 1985). 86 fE o n the political implications o f loss o f Jun ker land to middle-class
purchasers.
*s Farge. A riette. La vie Jragile. Violence, pouvoirs et solidarites a Paris au X V U T siecle (Paris: H achette.
1986). 236
82
ein Polizeiversehen. in einer von Baum aterialien versperrten StraBe eine Unzahl
M enschen m it Pferden und W agen zu G runde gegangen, un d die Stadt bei diesen
Hocbzeic-feierlichkeicen in T rauer u n d Leid versetzt w orden. D ie GroBe des Ungjiicks
suchce m an dem ju n g en konigBchen Paare als d er W elt zu verbergen, indem m an d ie
um gekom m enen Personen heim lich begrub, so daB viele Fam ilien nur durch das vollige
A uBenbleiben der Ihrigen uberzeugc w orden, daB auch diese von dem schrecklichen
EreigniB m it hingerafft seien.44
Several elements o f this historical disaster appear in G oethe’s fictional one: the
fireworks themselves, o f course, and the mayhem they cause; but also their setting at
water's edge (the Place de Louis XV, which became the Place de la R evolution and is
now the Place de la Concorde, opens south to the Seine), the fetal presence o f building
debris, and —m ost importandy —the origins o f the tragedy in egregious administrative
incompetence, in irresponsible Hemchaft.
The Dauphin's wedding was primed to become a political liability for the
C row n even before it ended in debacle. In the weeks before the festivities, complaints
had been made in the underground press about their projected cost (20 million
francs).'*7 In particular, the simultaneous ignition o f "trente mille fusees d'un ecu la
piece"-18 must have seemed a conspicuous extravagance in a year o f failed crops and
financial hardship.*9 To make matters worse, the horses and carriages that trampled so
many to death belonged to the well-to-do; their victims were all commoners. The
blame that Paris laid at the door o f its police was therefore tinged w ith a measure of
social tension. "La m ort survenue au cour de la fete est ressenrie com m e une grave
tragedie," writes Adette Farge, a historian o f the event; "trop de negligences de la part
des organisateurs et des polices font de 1’evenement un signe certain de peu de cas feit a
la securite du m enu peuple.” "O n n'en finit," writes M ona O z o u f "de decrire
44 Dichtung und Wahrheit DC = W A I 27. 242 15-28

47 Soulavie, Jean-L ouis. Memoires historiques et politiques du regne de Louis X V I, depuis sa manage
jusqu’a sa mort (Paris & Strasbourg: T reuttei ec W urtz, 1801), 1.75; Farge 235
48 Soulavie 1.76
83
r « i n c e n d i e des echafauds desdnes aux feux d'artifice, l'imprevoyance des magistrats, la
cupidite des malfaiceurs, la marche meurtriere des v o itu re s » [...]." 50
The philosophe Louis-Sebasrien M erder, who was present in the crowd,
consciously stated the case in terms o f latent social and political tensions:
Les roues menaântes qui portent orgueilleusemenc le riche, n'en volenc pas moins
raptdem enc sur un pave teint du sang des malheureuses vicrimes qui expirent dans
d'efiroyables tortures, en attendant la reforme qui n'arrivera pas, parce que to us ceux qui
participent a I'administration roulent carosse, et dedaignent consequem m ent les plaintes
de I'infanterie.31
T h e same qualides o f the event that allowed M erd er to see objectified in it the
already am bient sodal disaccord that was soon to lead to revolution perm itted Goethe
to construe the disaster, w ith hindsight, as an om en for the future rd g n o f Louis X V I.52
T he evidence presented here o f administrative incompetence and o f finandal unrestraint
is w hat attracts the attention o f both Goethe and M erder; it is also a prinripal them e o f
most accounts o f the french Revolution, its origins and causes.
G oethe raised the subject o f irresponsible lack o f restraint in connection w ith
problems o f sovereignty many times throughout his life. As early as 1783, in the poem
"Ilmenau,” G oethe reminds his own sovereign, Carl August o f Saxe-W eimar, o f the
particular need o f the prince for self-control:
So m og, o Fiirsc. d er W inkel deines Landes

Ein V orbild deiner Tage sein!
D u kennest Iang die Pflichcen deines Scandes
U n d schrankest nach u nd nach die freie Seele ein.
19 Farge 234 51; C o bban, Alfred. .4 History o f M odem France. Volume I: O ld Regime and Revolution
1715-1799 (H arm ondsw orth: Penguin, 1963), 105 o n high grain prices in 1770; Furet, Francois. La
Revolution Jranfaise. D e Turgot a Napoleon (1770-1814) (Paris: H achette, 1992), 39 o n budget deficit
30 Farge 237; O zouf, M ona. La Jete revolutiotmcdre 1789-1799 (Paris: Gallimard, 1976), 11
3t M ercier, Louis-Sebastien- Tableau de Paris, Jean-C Iaude B onnet, ed. (Paris: M ercure de France,
1994), 108
32 Cfl C onrady, Karl O tto . Goethe. Leben und Werk (K onigstein/T s.: A thenaum , 1982), 1.108.
84
D er kann sich m anchen W unsch gew ahren.

D er kale sich selbsc u n d seinem W illen lebt;
M e in w e r andre w ohl zu leicen strebt,
MuB fahig sein. viel zu entbehren.53
Four decades later, in his Noten und Abhandlungen zum besseren Verstandnis des West-
ostlichen Divans (1819), he counts am ong inherent "Gebrechen der Despode" a
tendency to immoderadon: "ein uneingeschrankter Wille steigert sich selbst und muB,
von auBen nicht gewamt, nach dem vollig Granzeniosen streben."54 T he prince who
cannot restrain his own will, w ho neglects the dudes o f his stadon, is a weak prince;
and the weakness o f princes begets revolution. To Eckermann in 1827, G oethe opines
"daB das Volk wohl zu driicken, aber nicht zu unterdrucken ist und daB die
revolurionaren Aufstande der unteren Klassen eine Folge der Ungerechrigkeiten der
GroBen sind." H e proclaims himself
vollkom m en tiberzeugt. daB irgend eine groBe R evolution nie Schuld des Volkes isc.
sondem d er R egierung. R evolutionen sind ganz unm oglich. sobald die R e g ieru n g en
tortw ahrend gerechc und tortw ahrend wach sind. so daB sie ihnen durch zeicgemaBe
V erbesserungen entgegenkom m en und sich nicht so Iange strauben, bis das N’ocw endige
von un ten h e r erzw ungen w ird.3
This describes precisely the signal failings o f the last two Bourbons, who, w ith
fatal results, were neither 'Tortwahrend gerecht" nor 'Tortwahrend wach.” " » W a r u m
denn wie m it einem Besen/ W ird so ein K onig h e rau sg ek eh rt?« " asks one Zahme
Xenie, w ith obvious reference to Louis XVI. "Wareris Konige gew esen,/ Sie sriinden
noch afle unversehrt.''56
53 "Ilm enau," W A I 2. 147 176-183

34 G o eth e had in m in d the sixteenth-century Persian despoc Abbas I. W A I 7, 204 15-18
35 T o E ckerm ann 4.1.1824
56 W A t 5.1, 153 959-962
85
Eduard, o f course, is a country baron, not a sovereign prince. The lesson
G oethe elsewhere addresses to kings is aimed here at the provincial aristocracy. The
shape that Eduard's self-indulgence takes in social context may resemble that o f the
sovereigns in whose weakness G oethe saw the causes o f revolurion; yet its historical
context differs, as does Goethe's aim in depicting it. By 1809, the R evolution is
tw enty years old. W eim ar has been under French occupation since 1806, and the Holy
R om an Empire is a thing o f the past. Napoleon has begun to export the Revolution's
institutional legacy eastward, primarily in the form o f the Code civil. Throughout
Germany, such state governments as N apoleon had either created (e.g., Westphalia) or
enlarged and allowed to survive (Prussia, Bavaria, Saxe-W eimar, H esse-D arm stadt,
Nassau et al.) reacted to his hegem ony w ith administrative and legal reforms designed
to ensure their continued survival and to consolidate their functioning.3' N o record
exists o f Goethe's opinions concerning the Prussian reforms o f 1807-08 or those
undertaken in W eim ar between —let us say — the beginning o f 1807 and September
1809 (when Carl August prepared his first constitution)58 o r Decem ber o f 1810, when
the duke passed a Weimarische Stadt-Ordnung comparable in certain respects to the
Prussian Stadteordnung o f N ovem ber 1808. Nonetheless, certain decisions taken by
Goethe's fictional baron clearly reflect the complex o f circumstances from which such
reforms emerged.59
37 Sheehan, Jam es J. German History 1770-1866 (O xford: O xford Universicy Press/C larendon Press.
1989), 259 ff. O n Saxe-W eim ar see H artung, Fritz. Das Groflkerzogtum Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach
unter der Regierung Carl Augusts 1775-1828 (W eim ar: Bohlaus N ach£, 1923), 214 and Tum m ler,
Hans. "D ie Z e it Carl Augusts von W eim ar 1775-1828," Geschichte Thuringens. Funfter Band.
Politische Geschichte in der N eu zeit. Hans Parze & W alter Schlesinger. eds. (C o lo g n e/W ien :
B ohlau, 1984), 652 ff
58 Ic was follow ed by a second, in 1816.
59 H arrung 224; Eberhardt, Hans. W eimar zu r G oethezeit. Gesellschafis- und W inschaftsstruktur
(W eim an Staatsm useum W eim ar, 1988), 56
86
Boch Eduard's choice to divest himself a farmstead belonging to his estate to
cover rising building expenses60 and his acceptance o f the Captain's plan for poor relief
in the village under his jurisdiction61 belong to this com m on historical context. These
incidents show two fields o f effect o f a com mon set o f forces affecting Germany at the
time. G oethe may not have suspected w hat we now know —that the same economic
and political pressures that helped to transfer unprecedented numbers o f R.itterguter to
non-noble ownership after roughly 1 7 6 0 (and the reforms that made such transfers
legal, such as Karl Freiherr vom Stein's Oktoberedikt o f 1 8 0 7 ) were to contribute in the
long run to German rural poverty — the dynamics o f the incipient market economy
pauperized formers unable to purchase land o f their ow n ju st as the slender social safety
net o f the ancien regime underwent dissoludon by the same forces, a developm ent more
clearly visible after roughly 18 1 5 than before62 — but he was surely aware o f the
direction these changes were taking, and he believed the nobility responsible for trying
to take the new forces in hand.63 It therefore is not surprising that Eduard dodges this
obligation both in the case o f poor relief and in the case o f the sale o f his land.
T he choice to sell family real estate to m eet the cost o f projected improvements
(path, bridge, Lusthaus)°* marks Eduard as an im prudent egotist, as a m an prepared to
sacrifice his ow n long-term financial interest, and that o f his feudal subjects, to a self-
indulgent passion (the Lusthaus will honor Ottilie) and to a selfish dream o f aesthetic
pleasure.66 T he nature o f Eduard's inadequacy as a steward o f the land is revealed with
some precision in the manner o f sale by which he chooses to rid himself o f the
40 1.7
01 1.6
42 Sheehan 475 fE; W ehler 1.83-90, 150 f f ; N ipperdey 165 ff
03 W ilson, W . DanieL "D ram en zum T hem a der Franzosischen R evolution," Goethe-Handbuch,
B em d W itte, T h eo Buck, Hans-Dietrich. D ahnke, R egine O tto & P eter Schm idt, eds.
(Stuttgart/W eim ar: M etzler, 1996-1999), 11.280 ff
44 1.7 (decision); 1.8, 1.13 (execution)
45 C E Vaget "E in reicher Baron" 151
87
farmstead. G oethe casts this decision, as one betw een tw o alternatives. W hen Eduard
announces his intention to sell, the Captain comes up w ith a "Plan zur Zerschlagung
der Grundsriicke unter die Waldbauem" —a plan that Eduard rejects.
Eduard [...] wollte kiirzer und bequem er verfehren wissen. D e r gegenw artige Pachter.
d er schon Vorschlage gethan hatte. sollte es erhalcen, cerm inw eise zahlen und so
term inw eise wollte m an die planmafligen Anlagen von Strecke zu Strecke
vo m eh m en .66
T he Captain's rejected proposal reflects Goethe's ow n experience with problems
o f agrarian reform. During the 1780s, Carl August had asked his Privy Council to
review the economic and legal expedience o f repartitioning large noble estates among
peasant tenants (Guterzerschlagung), a mode o f reform inspired by Physiocratic
economic thought and recendy tested with some success in Hesse-Darm stadt (from
whence the news reached W eim ar via Goethe's friend Johann Heinrich Merck).07 The
practice o f Cuterzerschlagung arose from a sense that the feudal obligations w ith which
such estates were burdened (in particular, the so-called H ut- and Triftrechte, which
reserved to the noble landowner grazing rights on, and the right to drive his cattle
through, peasant land) substantially compromised the efficiency and the well-being of
the infeudated farmers who worked them. "Erst w enn m an dort auf Brache und Trift-
und H utrechte verzichtete," writes the historian Hans Eberhardt, "war die Moglichkeit
fur das B auem tum gegeben, allmahlich seine wirtschaftliche Lage zu verbessem."08
06 1.7 = W A I 20 85 28-86 7
07 C f. G o th e, "G oethe, C arl August und M erck;" G o th e. "W ieland u n d die G em ein d e
O B m annstedt." 78; B rauning-O ktavio, H erm ann. Goethe und J .H . Merck/ J .H . Merck und die
Franzosische Revolution (Darmstadt; Liebig, 1970), 196-7.
48 Eberhardt, Hans. Goethes Umwelt. Forschungen zu r gesellschaftlicken Struktur Thuringens (W eim ar;
Bohlaus N achf., 1951), 43. A n o te com posed in connection w ith G oethe's report o f 1795 "U ber die
verschiedenen Z w eig e der hiesigen T hatigkeit" suggests a detailed awareness o f th e parameters o f
th e problem : "Landesokonom ie Zerschlagung herrschaftiicher u nd R itte rg u te r Ausgleichung der
T riften . d er F rohnen E rhohung der Preise aller Viktualien zum V ortheil des Landmanns." W A I 53,
489 25-28. Feudal restrictions o n land ownership (the restrictions that the practice o f
Cuterzerschlagung and the reforms o f such m en as Stein strove to break) continued to ham per the
capitalization o f agriculture in G erm any w ell into the n in eteenth century; the dogged tenacity o f the
88
T he practice o f repartition involved the rescission o f onerous w ork obligations and
grazing rights, and increased individual peasant interest in the land. This prom oted
productivity, which served the interests both o f the peasantry and o f the aristocrats
w ho taxed their occupancy o f the land. The example o f H esse-D arm stadt had made
the procedure seem financially attractive. There the earnings o f owners o f repartitioned
estates had risen markediy and the Ioc o f the farmers themselves had improved, while
(excepting such rights as noted above) the legal conditions o f feudal possession
remained unchanged.69
This is the mode o f property transfer the Captain recommends; it is rejected by
Eduard as inconvenient. Eduard's "quicker and m ore comfortable" solution, by
contrast, resembles the m ethod used by Goethe in 1803 to divest him self o f a noble
estate (a Rittergut) acquired at OberroBIa, a village on the Ilm fifteen kilometers north
east o f W eim ar, in 1798. Goethe's arrangement w ith his non-noble Pachter (lease
holder), Immanuel Reim ann, was an outright sale, not a subinfeudation, as the type o f
repartition discussed in the Privy Council w ould have been. In this case, Goethe
renounced all rights attaching to the land (its feudal lord, Carl August, did not).
Eventually, however (in Septem ber o f 1806), the OberroBIa estate was resold by
R eim ann; it was repartirioned, and its feudal nexus nullified.70
guild system was to have m uch th e same effect in th e sphere o f trade w ork. H ah n , H ans-W erner.
D ie industrielle Revolution in Deutschland (M unich: R . O ldenbourg, 1998), 6.
5,9 F or a n um ber o f reasons (fbremosc am ong them a reluctance, especially after 1789. to challenge the
traditional tights o f aristocrats), Carl August's councillors, G oeche included, found the project
inapplicable to Saxe-W eim ar, at least u n d e r current conditions. Eberhardt Goethes Urnwelt 44; G o th e
205; Goethes amtliche Schrijien. Goethes Tatigkeit int Geheimen Consilium (3 vols.), VoL I ed- Willy
Flach, Vols. 2 & 3 ed. Helm a D ahl (W eimar: Bohlaus N a c h f, 1950-1972), 1.374 f f (docum ent #189)
70 D oebber. A dolph. ’’G oethe u n d sein G u t O ber-RoBIa." Jahrbuch der Goethe-Gesellschaft 6 (1919):
220 f f , 232 ff. See Tag- und Jahreshefte 1803 = W A I 35. 161 11 f f , 294 22 f f It is n o t entirely
clear (at least, noc to me) w h ether the Captain's plan w ould necessarily have im plied sale or
subinfeudation. Repartitions o f b o th kinds w ere possible (G othe 212). Eduard's plan, as stated in 1.7,
w ould n o t necessarily have im plied a com plete dissolution o f th e feudal nexus. In 1.13, how ever —
on ce his passion for O ttilie has noticeably begun co cloud his ju d g m e n t — Eduard decides to defray his
rising building costs by ceding (unspecified) feudal prerogatives: ”[—1 111311 w olle die planmafiigen
A rbeiten Iieber selbst beschleunigen, zu d em Ende G elder aufiiehm en, und zu d eren A btragung d ie
89
Since G oethe took pains to distinguish two possible modes o f sale o f land in his
novel, and have Eduard accede to one above the other, w e m ay assume that he m eant
something by the distinction. In the section o f Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre in which
Juliette explains to W ilhelm the utopian program according to which her "Oherm"
runs his estate, w e find the specific principle by which this difference is probably m eant
to be measured:
Jed e A rt von Besitz soil d er M ensch festhalten. e r soE sich zum M ittelpunkc m achen,
von dem das G em einguc ausgehen kann; e r muB Egoist sein tim nicht Egotist zu
w erden. zusam m en halten. dam it er spenden konne. Was soli es heiBen, Besitz und
G u t an die A rm en zu geben? Loblicher ist, sich fur sie als V erw alter betragen. Dies ist
der Sinn d e r W o rte Besitz u n d G em eingut; das Kapital soE m em and angreifen, die
Interessen w erden ohnehin im W eltlaufe schon jederm ann angehoren.71
That the com m on good be efficiently ad m in is t e r e d from above was one o f the
fundamental tenets o f enlightened absolutism, the political system w ithin which
Goethe lived and — mostly — happily worked.72 In the sm a lle r German states, this
principle took the form o f what has been called (in a sense different from today’s) the
"welfare state” ( Wohlfahrtsstaat), a state that drew its legitimacy from its efficacy in
providing for the welfare o f its subjects. This was an ideal w ith which Goethe agreed
from the beginning o f his tenure as a statesman, and from which he did not depart.3
T he im potent rulers depicted in his works all fail in this very respect: Led by weakness
o f character to injure their ow n subjects, they forfeit thereby the legitimacy o f their
claims to sovereignty. W ithout reservation, however, Goethe avowed the full right o f
Zahlungsterm ine anweisen, die vom V orw erksverkauf zuriickgebtieben w aren. Es lieB sich fast ohne
Veriust durch Cession der Gerechcsame th u n L I3 = W A 1 20, W A 1 20, 143 23-28
71 Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (B ook I, C hapter 6 ) = W A I 24, 100 14 -24
71 This is n o t to say that he did n ot recognize the need o f such a system to keep up w ith historical
change. C f. B orchm ever. D ieter. Hdjische CeseUschaft und jhm zosische Revolution bei Goethe. Adliges
und burgerliches Wertsystem im Urtetl der Weimarer Klassik (K onigstein/T s.: A thenaum , 1977), 268
ff.
71 "F ur d er H en sch er eines Kleinstaates, d er ein ’M ensch', kein T y ra n n ’ w ar. w ar das G luck d er
U ntertanen, die H eb u n g ihrer W ohlfahrt, die Sorge fur die U nterdruckten d er eiste u nd auch d er
90
absolute sovereignty to the competent ruler, a right he never saw fit to concede to the
governed.74
ha this vein, the hopes that G oethe invested in N apoleon as a potential
guarantor o f order and balance in Europe had certainly som ething to do w ith the
Em peror’s legal guarantees o f the property rights the revolution had threatened — a
cornerstone o f his legitimacy in France since his rise to pow er as Consul in 1800.
Goethe expressed as much in the symbolic language o f a panegyric w ritten in June of
1812 to honor Napoleon's recent marriage to princess M arie-Luise o f Austria (and the
birth o f their son), a union on which the poet pinned hopes o f political stability in
Europe ("So tritt durch weisen Schlufi, durch M achtgefechte/ Das feste Land in alle
seine R echte").'5 A later maxim generalized the case: "W ir erkennen den Fiirsten an,
weil w ir unter seiner Firma den Besitz gesichert sehen."'6
Given this context, the difference o f the Captain's plan to Eduard's becomes
easier to describe. Repartition —the Captain’s idea —w ould help a num ber o f peasant
tenants, serve Eduard's long-term financial interests and preserve both his b a r o nial
rights and his abilicy actively to care for his peasants. It w ould aim at the general good,
while preserving Eduard's role as its administrator. By the im patient choice o f outright
sale, on the other hand, Eduard elects to forfeit both his rights and his property, as well
as to abjure the social responsibility that Goethe considered the aristocracy's birthright
and vindication. The Captain's approach to the problem o f land sale conforms to the
Oheim's ideal o f responsible administration o f one's ow n estate to benefit both oneself
letzte Z w eck." M om m sen, W ilhelm. Die politischen Artsckauungen Goethes (Stuttgart: D eutsche
Verlags-Anscalc, 1948), 37. For Goethe's agreem ent see M om m sen 36 SI
'* M om m sen 24, 32
73 "G oethe im N am en der Biirgerschaft von Karlsbad. Ihro d er Kaiserin von Frank-reich M ajestat."
W A I 16, 328 25-32. Cf. Furet 402 o n Napoleon's legitim ation strategy in 1800 (during th e period
o f his consulship): "A peine sortie de I’epopee d e la. R evolution, les Ftanâis n ’eussent pas accepte an
c h e f qui aurait en m oins d'eclat national; tnais fburbus du repertoire revoludonnaire et replies sur ce
qu'ils avaient acquis, ils voulaient qu’o n renfbiâc les garandes ofiertes a la p ro p d ete et a I'ordre."
91
and the com m on good, as well as to the ideals o f the baron L o th a rio , the O heim 's
precursor in the LehrjahreJ7 Eduard’s decision in favor o f cash does not. O n the one
hand, it weakens the feudal nexus in the m anner described, for example, by the late
eighteenth-century essayist Christian Garve:
[Djas haufige kaufen und Verkaufen der Landguter. [hat] schon [1786/96] diese
schadliche Folge [...], dafi es den Handlungsgeisc und seine schlimmen Folgen u nter
dem Adel ausbreitec — (dem Scande, der von dem selben am m eisten betreyt bleiben
sollte.) — auch insofem der R u h e und dem W ohl eines Landes nachtheilig als es
diejenige dauerhafte V erbindung, zw ischen den Lm terthanen und ihrer nachsten
O b rig k eit hindert, ohne w elche diese w ed er das notige Ansehn hat. um je n e im
Z aum e zu halten, noch die M ittel in de H ande bekom m c. ihnen Gutes zu erweisen.78
O n the other hand, Eduard's decision resembles behaviors taken to task as egoist in Die
Aufgeregten, Goethe's "political drama" o f 1792.79 In this play (an obvious piece of
Adelskritik, composed w ith an eye to reform), G oethe casts peasant discontent as a
reaction to the abuse o f certain traditional rights and obligations by a provincial
countess.® Like Eduard, this countess has sold useful land to pay for aesthetic
improvem ents to her estate. At the same time, she refuses to better the lives o f her
peasants. "H at sie nicht den groBen Garten und die Wasserfalle anlegen Iassen,
w oruber ein Paar Miihlen haben miissen weggekauft werden?" asks Albert, a peasant.
* W A I 42.2, 179 4-5 (MSS to C otta 1829. W A I 42.2, 341-3)

' A som ew hat problem atic precursor, anticipating aspects o f both the O h eim and Eduard. "Lothario
glaubt durch den 'burgeriichen T ribut' [ein H ingeben und O p tern von Sachen an eine w irkliche
Zw angsgew alt] die Gefahr bannen zu konnen [...], dafi mic dem Ende d er feudalrechtlichen
Beschrankungen des Erwebsstrebens das G emeinschaftsgetuhl schw indet, der Egoismus zum Prinzip
d e r GeseQschaft w ird, w ie es Adam M uller als unausweichliche Konsequenz aus dem Verfidl des
Lehnsrechts hingesteUt hat." Borchm eyer 173
78 G arve. C hristian. "U b er den C harakter der B auem u n d ih r VerfaaltniB gegen den G utsherm und
gegen die R egieru n g ." Vermischie A ufsatze welche einzcln oder in Zeitschrijten erschienen sind. E nter
T keil (Breslau: n.p. [Korn], 1801), 136-7
79 N e w dating in W ilson, "D ram en zum T hem a d er Franzosischen R evolution," 267 51
80 W ilson, op. cit., 271
92
finding the point where egotism has weakened the case for nobility. "Das getrauc sie
sich alles [...] zu thun, aber das Rechte, das Billige, das getraut sie sich nicht."ai
Goethe’s posidve ideas on agricultural reform emerge m ore clearly in the
Wanderjahre than in Elective Affinities. T he earlier text, which b e g a n as a part o f the
later one, diagnoses where the Wanderjahre prescribes —or hopes. Yet if further study
w ere to show that Goethe's O heim ’s utopian farm owes a debt to Merck's thinking (as
I suspect it does: M erck composed an agricultural idyll in 1778 entided "Geschichte des
H erm Oheims," which Goethe enjoyed), then Goethe's possible sympathy for M erck-
recom m ended reforms such as repartition o f land m ight be proven in more detail, and
related with greater precision to the question o f Eduard's egotism, as to that o f w hat in
the way o f reform Goethe considered meet and good.82
The chapter in which Eduard and the Captain propose possible modes o f land
sale (1.7) is immediately preceded by one in which the two men work out a m ethod o f
municipal alms distribution (1.6). "Was soil es heiBen," asks the O heim ’s niece Juliette,
rhetorically, o f W ilhelm M eisten "Besitz und G ut an die Armen zu geben? Loblicher
ist, sich fur sie als Verwalter betragen.”83 W e encounter a similar stretto o f poor relief
and property in Elective Affinities. This plan o f reform —again, the Captain's idea — is
provoked by a beggar whose brazenness has caused Eduard to lose his temper.
Endem sie standen und sprachen, betceke sie ein M ensch an, der m ehr trech als bedurttig
aussah. Eduard, ungem unterbrocben und beunruhigt, schalc ihn. nachdem er ihn
einigem al vergebens gelassener abgew iesen hatte. Als aber der Keri sich m urrend, ja
gegenscheltend tnic Edeinen Schritten entfem te. a u f die R ech te des Becders crotzte.
81 Die Aujgeregten E.7 = W A I 18, 22 24-28; c£ W ilson 271 21; Vaget "Ein reicher Baron” 160. See
also N iederm eier, Michael. Das Ende der IdyUe. Sym bolik, Zeitbzug, 'Canertrevolution' in Goethes
Roman 'D ie Waklverwandtschaften' (Berlin: P eter Lang, 1992), 133.
82 I have n o t seen this connection made, though ic may have been. G oethe o n M erck's O heim
("D ein Oheim ist sehr gut.”): G oethe to M erck 18 M arch 1778 = W A IV 3, 214 22. C f. B rauning-
O ktavio 192 21, and Borchm eyer 164 21on ideas o f reform in th e Lehijahre.
83 W ilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (B ook L C hapter 6) = W A I 24, 100 18-20
93
d em man w o hi ein Alm osen versagen, ihn aber niche beleidigen durfe. w eil e r so g u t
w ie je d e r andere u n te r d em Schutze Gottes und d er O brigkeit stehe, kam Eduard ganz
d e r Fassung.84
The Captain's plan, o f which Eduard approves, involves a delegation of
administrative powers regarding p o o r relief to the citizens o f the local village. "An dem
einen Ende des Dorfes Iiegt das Wirtshaus," the Captain points out;
an dem andem w ohnen ein Paar alte, gute Leute; an beiden O rten m uBt du eine kleine
G eldsum m e niederlegen. N icht d er ins D o rf H ereingehende, sondem der
H inausgehende erhalt ecwas; und da die beiden Hauser zugleich an den W egen stehen.
die a u f das SchloB tuhren, so w ird auch alles, was sich hinautw enden w ollte, an d ie
beiden Scellen gew iesen.35
This program targets a form o f administrative autonom y that seems comparable — in
its general outline, if not in detail —to one that in Prussia had recently been drafted into
law w ith Stein's Stadteordnung o f 1808. As the Stadteordnung had done for the Prussian
cities, the Captain's plan w ould delegate to local authorities a town's responsibility for
its municipal poor. This plan might be considered a cousin to §179 o f Stein's
ordinance, which stipulated the foundation o f a municipal "Arm endirektion": "Das
ganze Armenwesen w ird [...] in den Handen der Biirgerschaft, ihrem Gemeinsinn und
der W ohlthatigkeit der Stadteinwohner anvertraut. D er M agistrat bleibt aber als
VoIIstrecker der Polizeiordnungen verpfiichtet, darauf zu wachen, daB die
StraBenbettelei abbestellt werde."86 But the Captain's scheme differs from Prussia's
§179 in one decisive respect: It makes no provision for integrating paupers into the
municipal social fabric. Instead, it reduces Eduard's feudal responsibility to a simple
cash nexus, and its ultimate goal is to eject mendicants from tow n.
34 1.6 = W A I 20, 73 i - i l
55 1.6 = W A I 20, 73 26 - 74 5
86 KoseDeck PreuJ3en 130; D ie prcujiische Stadteordnung von 1808. A ugust Kxebsbach, ed.
(Stuttgart/C ologne: K ohlham m er, 1957); description o f "A rm endirektion." 8 3-4
94
G oethe’s beggar is nothing if not a sign o f the times. A draconian "Instruction
fur sammd. U nterobrigkeiten des Herzogth. Eisenach vom 12. M arz 1809" m andating
nonadmission or summary ejection o f foreign beggars and beatings, fines or
imprisonment w ith hard labor for native ones surely reflects an increase in the poverty
that had afflicted a notably large proportion o f Carl August's subjects during the last
three decades o f the eighteenth century and continued to do so well into the
nineteenth, as well as a failure to do very much about it.87 In 1786, roughly four
percent o f the population lived from the public till. In 1809, a year in w hich the figure
approached 5.5 percent, one citizen sighed: "U nser Armenwesen liegt leider sehr im
Argen."88 This particular worsening was, in part, a result o f the wars and the
occupation.® However, it was also the issue o f long-term changes in the overall
economic structure o f Germany. The ranks o f those on the fringe o f the social and
economic order were swollen by the demographic jum p that pow ered the Industrial
Revolution in Europe: Explosive grow th in rates o f vagrancy, crime, prostitution,
illegitimacy and infanticide were notable signs o f traditional social controls overstrained
by the rising numbers.®
Goethe’s beggary incident correlates rising rural im poverishm ent with the
disintegration o f the corporate social order, thus suggesting a com m on historical
87 "Instruction fur sam m d. U nterobrigkeiten des H erzogth. Eisenach vom 12. M arz 1809, w eg en
genauer Aufricht fiber die offentliche Sicherheit u n d R einigung des Landes v o n B ettiem ,
V agabunden u n d sonst verdachtigen Personen." Sammlung GroJSherzoglicher Sachsen- Weimar-Eisenacher
Gesetze, Verordnungen und Circuiarbefekle in ckmnologischer O rdnung. F. v. G ockel. ed. I. T heil
(Eisenach 1828), 464-66
88 E berhardt Weimar zu r Coeihezeit 66
89 B eyond the inevitable long-term attrition o f resources in w ar (fur die preuBische Einquaruerung
vo m W in ter 1805/6 [...J, 81.487 Taler; fur den Feldzug von 1806. t . 74 0 .5 9 1 Taler; fur das Lazarett
in Jen a 50.000 T aler, cfl H artung 240), and the damages to local property incurred in the w ake o f
Jena (estim ated at 1.726,140 R eichs taler, 18 G roschen by one contem porary, Friedrich von Colin
[Neue Feuerbrande 9. H eft 1807, p . I12J). Saxe-W eim ar was also required by N apoleon to pay a w ar
contribution o f 2,200,000 Francs (550,000 Taler), w hich including interest am ounted to 570,133
T aler. G oethe's yearly salary in 1820 was 3,100 Taler, th at o f a law yer, assessor o r deacon 500-700
Taler. H artung 213. 240; Eberhardt, Goethes Umwelt, table facing p. 24
90 Sheehan 88-9
95
parentage.91 The episode is a case in point o f a conflict bom o f historical change
w ithout the help o f an able sovereign-midwife. It focuses Goethe's misgivings
regarding weak kingship and aristocracy onto the person o f Eduard. The question the
novel seems primarily to ask is w hether the type o f reform proposed by the Captain
and implemented by Eduard represents an adequate answer to the newly exigent claims
o f those on the social margin. The judgm ent o f fate that the Beggar foreshadows —
O tto's death, Ottilie's, finally Eduard's — answers this question in the negative. The
social stresses o r forces released in the dissolution o f the old order prove destructive not
because they have come to exist, but because they are mismanaged. By its dire
outcom e, this novel warns precisely against such mismanagement.
The context in which the scene is set shows w hat social stakes are involved.
T h e Beggar intrudes upon a political discussion between Eduard and the Captain.
H aving referred to corvee landscaping w ork he w ould have his subject townspeople
and peasants perform upon his estate, Eduard has ju st declared: "Ich mag m it Burgem
und Bauem nichts zu tun haben, wenn ich ihnen nicht geradezu befehlen kann."92 The
Captain resolves Eduard's typically self-absorbed phrasing into a maxim o f policy:
"Alles eigentlich gemeinsame Gute muB durch das unumschrankte Majestatsrecht
gefordert werden."91 Yet Eduard is a provincial baron ac a time when the political
fortunes of the German landed nobility are on the decline. H e and his Stand are
currendv in the process o f losing the very pow er to which he lays claim. This m uch is
already implicit in the subjunctive m ood in which he raises the question o f the desired
corvee: " Wollten die Leute m it Hand aniegen, so wiirde kein groBer ZuschuB nothig
91 W ellberv, D avid E. "D ie W ahlverwandtschaften." Goethes Erzahlwerk. [nterpretationen. Paul

M ichael Lutzeler an d James E. M cLeod, eds. (Stuttgart: R eclam , 1985), 299
n 1.6 = W A 1 20, 72 6-8
” 1.6 = W A I 20, 72 26-28
96
sein, um hier eine Mauer im Halbkreis aufeufuhren,” etc.9* His expression o f reluctance
to deal w ith townspeople and peasants if he is not in a position to give orders reflects a
grow ing necessity for members o f his social estate to do ju st that. "M it der
intellektuellen Unselbstandigkeit, die fur den Dilettanten typisch ist," observes Hans
R u d o lf Vaget, "halt Eduard somit an der strikt konservadven Ideologic seines Standes
fest, denn im Grunde denkt er noch ganz in den Kategorien einer vorrevolurionaren
Adelsideologje."95
Eduard refuses to move w ith the times, to acknowledge, as Goethe was ready
to do, that "das Alte [...] vorbei [sei]. Es sei Pflicht, das N eue erbauen zu helfen. D er
Mensch sei itzt m ehr wie je Weltbiirger, die Staaten miissen sich neu bilden, und dabei
ware itzt manch vorhin uniibersteigliches Hindemis beseirigt."96 Com paring Eduard
w ith the baron Lothario o f Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (in w hom D ieter Borchmeyer has
seen a kindred spirit to the Freiherr vom Stein)97 Vaget suggests the unrimeliness o f
such conservatism: "W ahrend der Baron Lothario, aus Einsicht in die okonomische und
polidsche Forderung des Tages, sich auf die liberate M axime verpflichtec » o h n e
Herrschen zu wollen [...] Vormund von vielen zu s e i n « , will Eduard nur herrschen,
ohne von der sozialen Verantwortung seiner Privilegiensteflung belasrigt zu werden."98
Lothario’s atdtude prefigures the more developed views o f the O heim , cited above:
[DJer Mensch [...] soil sich zum M ittelpunkt machen, von dem das G em eingut
ausgehen kann [...]. Was soli es heiflen, Besitz und G ut an die Armen zu geben?
Loblicher ist, sich fur sie als Verwalter betragen."99
M 1.6 = W A I 20. 71 24-26

9S Vaget "E in reicher Baron" 148
G o eth e to V oigt 11.10.1807. in Steiger, R o b ert. Goethes Leben von Tag zu Tag. Eine
dokumentarisdte Chronik (Zurich: Artemis, 1982-1996), V.126
97 B orchm eyer 169 51, 196
99 Vaget "E in reicher Baron" 148
99 W ilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (Book I, C hapter 6) = W A I 24, 100 14-20
97
Eduard's claims to a right to pow er are overweening. T he Beggar's cheeky
appeal to "G ott und die Obrigkeit," which is the proxim ate cause o f Eduard's loss of
temper, openly gives the lie to Eduard's political vanity. It bypasses his authority as a
baron, reminding him that he is not, in feet, the "Obrigkeit" he w ould like to be. N o
wonder he loses his temper: T he Beggar has touched a recendy-opened wound, the
political heart o f the crisis o f legitimation that threatens his Stand.100
By the end o f the eighteenth century the German non-noble elites had
managed to cum the nobilicy's failure to perform the functions on which its claims to
social preeminence were based into a moral challenge to aristocratic legitim acy.:ot In
the years o f reform after Jena, this challenge became overdy political. The new threat
is clearly visible in the drive o f the reformers to devolve traditional powers o f local
administration o f the German nobility onto the central state bureaucracies.102 This so-
called "revolution from above" was not simply a pre-emptive move to stifle che threat
o f a revolution from below. It was also a means forthe newly consolidated states o f
Napoleonic Central Europe to centralize power. The traditional prerogatives claimed
by the feudal provincial estates in Germany had included a right to act as an
intermediate instance o f pow er becween local vassals and their ow n leige lords
(equivalent, now, to the states in which these princes were sovereign). The French
R evolution (which proved this dilution o f centralized power a political liability) and
the Napoleonic conquest (which extended the lesson eastward) suddenly gave the
100 T h e w ord L e g itim ist entered G erm an usage in 1815 (used by G entz. taken o v er from
Talleyrand); it was conditions after 1806 that first gave the term relevance in G erm any.
W iirtenburger, Thom as. "Legidm itat, Legalirat." Geschichtliche Gmndbegriffe HI-708
101 KoseUeck Kritik und Krise 122 SI
102 KoseUeck PreuJSen 153 ft.; R o senberg "T h e Pseudo-D em ocridzadon o f the Ju n k er Class" 91
98
Germ an princes a freer hand co take measures long in the planning, but heretofore
always blocked by the inertia o f the traditional order.103
As Alexis de Tocqueville has suggested, the sapping o f noble moral legitimacy
could be used to augment the pow er o f princely governments —a potential the Prussian
reformers later exploited — so far as the princes could shift their ow n claims to
legitimacy onto grounds o f m erit.10* In France, whose last kings had been too weak to
manage the called-for transition to legitimation by competence and through concern
for the public welfare, this led to revolution. The Germ an princes o f Napoleon's
Europe, as well as the later Bourbons, were forced by events to realize its necessity. By
co-opting the new historical forces into the service o f their ow n states and powers,
princes like Friedrich W ilhelm III o f Prussia and Carl August o f Saxe-W eimar aimed to
consolidate state power into a bulwark both against present chaos and future
revolution, while reducing the already diminished role o f the rural nobility as political
middlemen.
Implicidv, then, Goethe's Beggar denies Eduard's right to traditional powers o f
local administration claimed de ju re by the German nobility until the post-Jena reforms
devolved them upon the central state bureaucracies.105 The Beggar thereby affirms the
demolition o f the Standeordnung as m uch as the Captain does w ith his plan for poor
relief106 And his implicit reproach is just. As a local administrator, Eduard displays the
very dysfunction with which reformist opinion was able to charge his Stand. H e fails at
103 O n France: conflict o f Louis X V w ith the Parlements (1771) and w h at Louis X V I inherited o f the
same tension (1774 fE), tatai dynam ic described in Foret, 22 £E; on G erm any: Sheehan 235 flf.;
N ipperdey 33 fE; KoseUeck Preufen 116 ST., 153 flf.; G rim m , D iecer. Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte
1776-1866. Vom Beginn des moiemert Verfassungsstaats bis zu r Aujldsung des deutschen Bundes
(Frankfurt am M ain: Suhrkam p, 1988), 61.
t0* T ocqueville. Alexis de. L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution, in Oeuxnres completes. J.P . M ayer, ed-
(Paris: Gallimard, 1952), 11.1.93-4
105 T h ey continued to claim the same rights de facto for som e tim e afterw ard. KoseUeck Preujden 153
ff.; R osenberg "T h e Pseudo-D em ocritization o f the Ju n k er Class" 91
106 C f. W ellbery 298-9.
99
the duty incum bent on the feudal lord "als Obrigkeit, als R ichter, als Stellvertreter des
Landesherm" — in the words o f Christian Garve — "auch fur das W ohlseyn der
Personen, die seiner Aufiicht ubergeben sind, zu sorgen, sie, so w eit es in seinem
Verm ogen steht, giiicklicher und wohlhabender zu m achen."107 At no point, then,
does Eduard act as the sort o f administrator the O heim o f the Wanderjahre m ight
respect. The Captain's plan is no Armendirektion on the Prussian model. These local
reformers —Eduard and the Captain —simply arrange to have m oney given to vagrants
to leave; they do not attem pt to solve the problem o f vagrancy itself Their plan does
not aim to integrate mendicants into the municipal social fabric. Unlike the Prussian
Stadteordnung o r the order o f custom in Weimar, it does not involve an Almosenkasse or
a poor tax on the citizenry. N or does it have the poor earn their keep in workhouses,
as reformers often suggested they should.tC8
Furtherm ore, Eduard quickly subverts his own new regulation by breaking
w ith it in practice. O n the Beggar's appearance again at the lakeside in 1.15, following
Eduard's private show o f fireworks, Eduard grants him alms, on grounds as socially
reckless as his initial refusal to give alms.
...[SJo giucklich w ie e r war, konnte er niche ungehaieen sein. konnce es thm niche
eintailen. dafi besonders tu r heuee das Beceeln hochlich verponc w orden. Er forschce
niche lange in der Tasche und gab ein Goldseiick hin. Er hacee je d e n gem giucklich
gemache. da sein G luck ohne Granzen schien.109
Eduard infringes on his ow n reguladons for purely selfish reasons. Eigensinn trum ps
Entsagung, to the detrim ent o f society: Eduard's self-indulgent passion leads him to
undercut his ow n rules o f social order, hence his own authority as a lord. In respect of
107 G arve, "U b er d en Charakeer d er Bauem,” 133

108 Preupische Stadteordnung, 83-4; Eberhardc Weimar zu r C oethezeit 66; Cf. Bereuch. Friedrich
Jus ein. W ie versorgt ein kleiner Stoat am besten seine Armen und steuert der Bettelei? (W eim ar:
Staatsm useum W eim ar, 1978) [reprint o f Leipzig/Dessau edition, o f 1782 (n.p.)]; Sheehan 89
109 1.15 = W A I 20 161 17-28
100
the Beggar (as w ith the sale o f his farm), he fails visibly at obligations incum bent on his
Stand. By shirking responsibility for the adequate regulation o f poor relief Eduard
disappoints once again at the very sort o f governance that m ight otherwise serve to
justify the claims o f the German provincial nobility to a tight to social and political
pre-eminence.
O ne question remains. W hy does Eduard accept the Captain's project for
municipal poor relief (an ill-advised idea, on the logic sketched above) but reject the
Captain's suggestion that he repartition his land (a plan that Goethe seems to have
found m ore congenial)? I have suggested that Eduard errs in both decisions; but what
o f the Captain? T he question is im portant, since the Captain's difference from Eduard
is vital to Eduard's characterization. Eduard's dilettantism is shown up as such by the
Captain's musical competence, and Eduard's negligence at the fireworks show appears
the more rash in the light o f his friend's circumspection and presence o f mind. Their
disagreement on land repartition repeats this pattern; their accord on plans for poor
relief seems to break it.
Elective Affinities is not a roman a clef. Still, Goethe's friends amused themselves
by guessing at the living models for his fictional figures, and these guesses, whatever
their accuracy, have a logic o f their ow n and therefore a certain heuristic value.
W ilhelm Grimm , for instance, at first perceived in Ottilie's niece Ludane Karl August's
mistress, the actress Caroline Jagemann. Although Grimm reports the public
concensus com ing to rest soon afterwards o n Christiane H enriette von R.eitzenstein, an
occasional visitor to Goethe's house during 1808 and 1809,uo still his first guess had a
cogent basis. Towards the end o f 1808, Goethe's relations w ith the duke had cooled on
101
account o f conflicts w ith Jagemann at the W eim ar theater, over which G oethe had
intendancy. G rim m may have seen in Luciane an instance o f revenge, a satirical swipe
at a difficult prima donna. However, he finds this Jagemann-Luciane "sehr reizend und
ganz nothw endig, indem durch sie der C harakter der O ttilie erst recht deutlich und
entgegengestellt w ird."111 His reaction registers tw o peculiar qualities o f Goethe's
characters: their m irroring function, just noted —and an ambivalence in their depiction.
A Luciane based on Jagemann, but "reizend," is a figure both negative and positive —as
the character o f Luciane is indeed. She is likeable, but offensive. M uch the same m ight
be said o f Eduard —w ho is by no means simply a negative figure, whatever his failings -
o r o f the Captain, whose brisk capability has som ething overbearing about it.
There exist two conjectures regarding models for the Captain. O ne is
contem porary, one recent. In his memoirs, the diplom at Karl August Vamhagen von
Ense reported the common wisdom o f 1810: "In der Charlotte wollte man die
H erzogin Luise erkennen, in dem H auptm ann den Freiherm von M uffling, jetzigen
G ouvem eur von Berlin [...j."112 In an essay o f 1980, Friedrich Kittler names as a
prototype for the Captain the late eighteenth-century pedagogue, Prussian ex-officer
and social reform er Friedrich Eberhard von R ochow (1735-1805).tu Both guesses are
plausible; neither is conclusive, exclusive o r exhaustive. Each casts its ow n kind o f light
on the character o f the Captain, and hence on Eduard as well.
As Kittler suggests, von Rochow 's reformist writings and praxis compare in
m any points o f detail w ith the Captain's occupations on Eduard's estate. In addition to
110 W ilhelm G rim m to Jacob G rim m . 22 N ovem ber 1809 (Hard. 80); W ilhelm G rim m to Achim von
A m im . January 1810 (H ard 110)
111 W ilhelm G rim m (H ard 804)
112 Karl A ugust V am hagen von Ense (H ard 171)
113 K itder, Friedrich A ., "O ttilie H auptm ann." Goethes Wahlvenuandtschaften. Kritische Modelle und
Diskursanalysen zum M ythos Literatur. N o rb ert W . Bolz, ed. (H ildesheim : G erstenberg, 1981), 270-
271. G o eth e seems to have been familiar w ith R ochow 's writings. Litde record remains o f w hat he
102
the works on education for which he was once mostly known, von R o ch o w published
a Versuch uber Armen-Anstalten und Abschaffung aller Betteley (1789) and wrote
extensively on questions o f land reform. Like Johann Heinrich Merck, like the O heim
o f the Wanderjahre, von R ochow belonged to a social type for which Goethe
increasingly saw a historical necessity: the "Typus von Gutsherm, der im m er darauf
bedacht war, Verbesserungen durchzusetzen zu seinem und seiner G utsuntertanen
N utzen."114 T o the degree that the Captain may have been modeled on R ochow , his
difference from Eduard is doubdess meant to drive hom e Goethe's point on responsible
land stewardship. As we have seen, Eduard fails at precisely the social role that
R ochow succeeded in playing.
Is the Captain then simply a positive countertype to Eduard's failure as a
Cutsherr, an example o f w hat Goethe thinks Eduard should be —but is not? T he m atter
is not so straightforward. It is true that the Captain often serves as a foil to show up
Eduard's egotism. This is evident in the case o f the fireworks disaster, where Eduard’s
impatience w ith the Captain's precaution is punished. It is implied as well in the
Captain's rejected repartition scheme, which the novel casts in a positive light. They
agree, however, on the Captain's alms distribution project. In reducing feudal
responsibility by fiat to a simple cash nexus, as we have seen, this scheme encourages
Eduard's natural inclination "[zu] herrschen, ohne von der sozialen V erantw ortung
seiner Privilegienstellung belastigt zu werden."115 It is therefore no w onder that
Eduard seconds the plan, which confounds the ideal o f the rural landowner represented
by R ochow , Goethe's O heim , or Merck. If the Captain, however, is modeled in any
th o u g h t o f them , except in the case o f the essay "Form " o f 1795, w hich he disliked. C f. W A I 40,
476 6, 24-27; IV 10, 257 14-15.
tu H einem ann, M anfred. Schule im Vorfeld der Veiwaltung. D ie Entwicklung der preufiischcn
Unterriditsverwaltung von 1771-1800 (G ottingen: V andenhoeck & R nprecht, 1974), 113
ns V aget "Ein reicher Baron" 148.
103
degree on R ochow , we must ask w hy the Captain propounds a project so unlike his.
Friedrich von R ochow ’s Versuch uber Armen-Anstalten is characterized by a program of
social inclusiveness from which the Captain's plan departs radically. As David E.
W ellbery has noted, the Captain's arrangements for distributing alms contribute to a
social marginalization o f the impoverished, a group that von R ochow sought to
integrate into the rural econom y.116 R ochow w ould not have recom m ended the
ejection o f beggars from tow n o r country by means o f cash payments. His Armen-
Anstalten were workhouses for the rural poor, and his ideas on education focused pardy
on solving the waxing problem o f poverty in the countryside.117 From this point of
view the Captain's plan more closely resembles Carl August's dismissive beggary law o f
12 March 1809, mentioned above, than it does von R ochow 's proposals on aid to
paupers.
Vamhagen von Erne’s hypothesis on Friedrich Carl Ferdinand Freiherr von
Muffling —like Grimm's on die Jagemann — registers an ambivalence about the Captain
that Kitrier's naming o f R ochow does not. The W eim ar courtier Carl W ilhelm
Heinrich Freiherr von Lvncker remem bered von Muffling, a Prussian field marshal, as
"wohl nachst Goethen unter [den] Vertrautesten und EirffluBreichsten des
hochstseligen H erm " during the period o f French occupation (an intimacy which,
taken alone, may have worried Goethe, whose relations w ith his prince were then
cooling rapidly).ua Muffling had befriended Cari August during the campaign o f 1806.
ttft W ellbery 299; see R o ch o w . Friedrich Eberhard von. Versuch uber Arm en-Anstalten und
Abschaffung aller B etteley (Berlin: Nicolai, 1789), esp. 10-12, and "U b e r die N o tw en d ig k eit e in er
zw eckm afiigem Einrichcung der niedem Scadc- a n d Landschulen in R iicksicht a u f d ie
Arm enanstaken" (1795). Friedrich Eberhard von Rochows sdmtliche padagogische Schriften. Fritz Jonas
an d Friedrich W ienecke, eds. (Berlin: R eim er, 1909), 111.60-67.
1,7 H einem ann 121 ff.
ns Lyncker. C ari W ilhelm H einrich Freiherr von. Ich diente am Weimarer Hof. Aujzeichnungen aus
der C oetkezeit. Ju rg en Lauchner. ed. (C ologne: Bohlau, 1997) 109. O n G oethe's cooling relations
w ith C ari A ugust and o n the Theaterstreit o f N ovem ber-D ecem ber 1808, cf. Sengle. Friedrich. Das
Cenie und sein Furst. D ie Ceschichte der Lebensgemeinschaft Goethes m it dem Herzog Carl August von
104
After Jena, the duke had taken him into his employ, charging him w ith duties that
included the supervision o f building projects and road construction.119 Lyncker
describes von Muffling, a trained surveyor, in terms that recall Goethe's Captain: "Sein
scharfer Blick, seine mathematischen und besonders algebraischen Kenntnisse, sein
redlicher und zugleich fester Sinn werden gewiB heut noch in PreuBen wohl erkannt,
und auch unser Land dankt ihm manches G ute."120 Such merits notw ithstanding, von
Miiffling
a n d in W eim ar, vielleichc m it aus MiCgunst u b er das in tim e VerhaltniB m it unserm

gnadigsten H erm , b edeutende G egner, nam endich in d er Person des damaligen
alleinigen geheim en R aths [Christian Gottlob) v. V oigt, u nd des ehem aligen Direktors
der vereinten W eim arischen landschaften des G othaischen G eheim en R aths [August
Friedrich Carl] v. Zigesar. D iese m ochten in den m annigfachen. m itu n ter w ohl zu
militarischen A ngaben. die bei dem hochstseligen H erm Eingang fanden. nicht im m er
die erprobtesten Rathschlage erkennen [...j.121
O ther sources define the m atter less delicately. Muffling was an ardent Prussian
patriot, a notorious N apoleon-hater, and a politically embarrassing link to the anti-
French agitation led by the Freiherr vom Stein in Berlin in the Fall o f 1808 — a
m ovem ent that toppled Stein from his post in N ovem ber. His "wohl zu militarischen
Angaben" were nothing less than attempts to establish W eim ar as a future center o f
armed resistance to the French.122 The fact that the duke had helped several high
Prussian officers, in tight straits after Jena, w ith offets o f loans and em ploym ent
(Bliicher, von Ende, von Rtihle, von Muffling) already irritated N apoleon, who is
Sachsen- Wrimar-Eisenach. E in Beitrag zum Spatfeudalismus und zu einem vemachldssigtem Tkema der
Coetheforschung. (Stuttgart: M etzler, 1993), 255 ff
119 A ppointed Ceheimrat in 1810, h e served on Carl August's Gekeimes C onsilium until the renew al
o f w ar w ith France in 1813. Cfl H artung 228 ff
:2D Lyncker 109
:I1 Lyncker 110
122 Muffling boasted o f as m uch in his m em oir .dus meirtem Leben (Berlin: M ittler. 1851), Vol. I. p.
21 ff. Cfl H artung 228 ff; Sengle 263; Tum m ler, Hans. Carl August von W eimar, Goethes Freund.
Eine vorwiegend politische Biographie (Stuttgart: FQett-Cotta. 1978), 200 ff.; Sheehan 303 o n Stein
105
know n to have called Carl August the most unruly prince in Europe.13 Johannes
Daniel Falk, a sometime friend o f Goethe's, reported that it seemed to som e in May of
1808
daB m an gleichsam alles absichtlich hervorsuche, um den Z o m des Kaisers, der doch
manches von W eim ar zu vergessen habe, aufs neue zu reizen und aufzufordem.
U nvorsichdg wenigstens seien die Schricte des Herzogs in einem hoh en G rade, w enn
m an ihnen niche geradewegs eine bose Absicht unteriegen w olle.124
Goethe appears to have agreed w ith his close friend Voigt and w ith Ziegesar
regarding the political toll the Duke's collusion w ith Muffling threatened to take.13 At
this point (and for some time thereafter), both Voigt and G oethe saw in Napoleon
"den Uberwinder der Revolution, den Schopfer einer groBen volkeriibergreifenden
O rdnung in Europa, ja sogar —in Erinnerung an friihere preuBische Bevorm undung —
den Beschiitzer des eigenen Landes vor 'des schwarzen Adlers Krallen' (so V oigt)."126
G oethe had never shared Carl August's enthusiasm for Prussia, and he was aware o f the
part the incompetence o f its armies had played at Jena in 1806.127 A letter to Zelter of
O ctober 1809 (enclosed w ith a freshly-printed copy o f Elective Affinities) wryly links
the defeat o f 1806 w ith the dangerous machinations o f 1808: "Ich wenigstens treibe
mein Wesen noch im m er in W eimar und Jena, ein paar O rtchen, die G o tt immer noch
erhalten hat, ob sie gleich die ecflen PreuBen auf m ehr als eine Weise vorlangst geme
zerstort hatten."*28 About Muffling's intriguerv Goethe doubdess concluded — as
‘a T u m m ler Carl August von Weimar 200

,2t Falk, 9 M ay 1808 = Goethes Gesprache. Eine Sammlung zeitgenossischer Berichte aus seinem
Umgang. Flodoard Freiherr von Biederm ann and W olfgang H erw ig, eds. (Zurich: Artemis. 1965-
1987). 11.313
113 T u m m ler Carl August von Weimar 200 21 O n che o th er hand, Falk, an unreliable witness, records
a vehem endy nadonalisdc defense by G oethe o f C arl August's motives in aw arding Prussian officers
w ith sinecures after Jena — as unlikely a response as could be expected o f G o eth e (except if one
thinks that his aim was to mislead Falk). Gesprache und Zeugm sse 493-5 (9 M ay 1808); see
M om m sen 126 n. 4 o n che implausibilicy o f Falk's reporting.
126 T u m m ler Carl August von Weimar 201
121 M om m sen 73 ffi
128 to Z elter 30 O c to b e r 1809 = W A IV 21, 123 5-9
106
Lyncker did —"daB groBe Projekte gebahrende Kopfe, vom Auslande herbeigezogen,
niche im m er dem W ohle kleiner Scaacen forderiich sind."129
Goethe's Captain, whatever his models, is clearly the type o f the educated
soldier, a class o f m en to which one o f O ttilie's maxims ascribes "[d]ie groBten
Vortheile im Leben iiberhaupt wie in der Gesellschaft."130 It is no coincidence that
Christian Garve classed Frederick the Great am ong such m en.131 As Kitder’s and von
Ense's attributions imply, he is recognizably a Prussian type. The Captain represents a
social group that is managing successfully to channel the new social forces to which
Eduard finds himself unable to adapt: that o f those enlightened, progressive aristocrats
who in the "revolution from above" o f the years after 18 0 6 raised the modem
bureaucracy from the ashes o f the anciert regime, in Prussia p artic u la rly .
O n a visit in O ctober o f 1 8 0 7 , Goethe's friend Caspar V oght found the poet's
son August preparing to study the Code Civil at Heidelberg, and Goethe resigned to
the changes Jena has brought, buc hardly enthused:
Das Alee sei vorfaei. Es sei Pflicht, das N eue erfaauen zu helfen. D e r Mensch sei iczt
m ehr w ie je W eltburger, die Scaacen mussen sich neu bilden. und dabei ware iczc manch
vorhin uniibersceigliches H indem is beseidgc.132
Goethe’s novel strikes the same chord o f resignation. In the Captain, it shows a m otor
o f progress, compared w ith w hom Eduard seems selfishly and imprudently
conservative. O n the other hand, the Captain's particular mode o f progress is not
portrayed as entirely attractive. In a letter o f 1 8 1 0 , the author confesses a certain lik in g
for Eduard, "der m ir wenigstens ganz unschatzbar scheint, weil er unbedingt liebt
129 Lvncker 110

130 W A I 20. 260 15-16
131 G arve, Christian. "U eber die M axim e R.ochefoucauIts: das burgerliche Air verliehrt sich
zuw eilen bey der A rm ee, niemahls am Hofe." Versuche uber uerschiedene Gegenstdnde aus der Moral,
der Litteratur und dem geseUschafilichen Leben. Erster Theil (Breslau: K om , 1792), 428
133 co Voghc 11.10.1807, in Goethes Gesprache 11.258
107
Eduard's capacity to love unconditionally is the opposite pole to the C aptain’s
spirit o f rational calculation. This last was the spirit o f life after Jena. After Jena,
rational calculation became the signal trait o f bureaucratic governm ent in Prussia, o f
legal reason under the Code Civil, and o f economic developm ent in Europe. G oethe
may avow in 1807 that w hat is past is past; his sympathy for Eduard implies regret for
the change. Eduard's egotism is the problem, but the Captain's professional selflessness
is not Goethe's favored solution. True, as the type o f a R ochow the Captain highlights
Eduard's failure to be the Oheim's "Mensch [...], von dem das Gem eingut ausgehen
kann." to remain (as the O heim puts it) an egoist so as not to becom e an egotist.13* As
the type o f a Muffling, however, the Captain warns w hat forces may take the future in
hand if aristocrats like Eduard will persist in their characteristic Eigensinn.
Thus Elective Affinities prefigures the tragedy o f capitalist developm ent th at
Marshall Berman has seen in Faust II, published two decades later.12 The
consequences arising from Eduard's egotism project one risk o f m ismanaged
development: the nobility’s loss o f power, and the attendant dissolution o f the
Standestaat. The Captain's approach to pauperism suggests another: the w ear on the
social fabric entailed in capitalist rationality. These moments co-exist in the book.
T he tragedy o f Faust U consists in the recognition that progress is inevitable, and that it
will have a price.136 Elective Affinities is Goethe's first ftdl-scale attem pt to grapple w ith
this truth.
33 letter to Karl Friedrich R einhard. 21 February 1810 = W A IV 21, 196 4 -6

134 W ilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (Book I, C hapter 6) = W A I 24, 100 1 4 -24
135 C f l B erm an. Marshall. A ll that is Solid M elts into A in The Experience o f M odernity (N ew York:
Penguin, 1988), 37-86. M ichele Cotneca regards the project o f m easuring and m apping the estate
(the Captain’s specialty, and von Muffiing’s) as "u n atto d i hybris. fatale ma necessario [I], perche
Snalizzate alia trastormazione della tenuca in astratte geom etrie, she sono. com e nel giardino
all'inglese, solo una blasfema parodia della natura." C o rn e a . M ichele. "La simbolica degfi spazi nelle
A ffinitd eleltive di G oethe." 1Z romanzo deU.'Infinite. Mitologie, metafore e simboli dell’eta di G oethe
(Palermo: Aestherica, 1989), 177.
136 Cf. B erm an 66 31
108
Chapter ELL
On the Supposed Amorality o f Elective A ffinities
Bonaparte sagce zu G oethe: < < Je n’aim e pas la fin de votre R om an

— W e rth e r.» — < < Je n e crovais p as> > , an tw ortete G oethe,
« q u e V otre Majeste aim at que les romans aient une f i n . »
"Das Brechen der W eltzustande,” observed che dramadst Friedrich Hebbel in
1844 concerning Goeche's Elective Affinities, "[kann] ja nur in der G ebrochenheit der
individuellen [Zustande] erscheinen."2 T h e historical conditions that destroy the lives
o f a handful o f G erm an provincial aristocrats in G oethe’s novel o f 1809 — che
conditions called by Hebbel "die G eburtsw ehen d er urn eine neue Form ringenden
Menschheic"3 - are plainly those involved in the rise o f industrial capitalism, just
appearing on the Germ an horizon in 1809. T o H ebbel, these were conditions chat
continued to che presenc day: ”[J]a, sie haben sich gesteigert und alle Schwankungen
und Spaltungen in unserem oSendichen wie in unserem Privadeben sind a u f sie
zuriickzufiihren."4 H ebbel saw in Elective Affinities a m odel for m odem tragic form
because G oethe's novel undertook (if it did n o t quite com plete) w hat H ebbel
considered the proper task o f dramatic art:
die dramarische Kunst soil den welchiscorischen ProzeB. d er [noch] in unseren Tagen vor
sich gehc u n d der die vorhandenen Insriturionen des m enschlichen Geschlechts. die
polidschen, celigiosen u n d sicclichen. niche um stuizen. sondem defer begriinden. sie also
v o r dem Umsturz sichem will, beendigen helfen.3
1 K. v. Bonstetten to Friederike B ran, 16. O k t. 1825 = Goethes Gesprache. Eine Sammlung zeitgendssischer
Beridue aus seinetn Umgang. Flodoard Freiherr v on Biederm ann and W olfgang H erwig, eds. (Zurich:
Artemis, 1965-1987), IIJ339.
2 H ebbel, Friedrich. "V o rw o tt zur 'M aria M agdalene'.” Hebbeis Werke und Briefe in vier Banden.
Friedrich Brandes, ed. (Leipzig: R edam . n.d), IV.311
3 H ebbel IV.310
* H ebbel IV.310
5 H ebbel IV.314
109
Goeche did no t quite complete the task his novel implied, Hebbel thought, because he
could not —and G oethe knew, with a modesty b o m o f historical self-conciousness, that
he could not:
G oethe hat dem nach. um seinen eigenen Ausdruck zu gebrauchen, die groBe Ecbschatt
der Z eit w ohl angetreten, aber niche verzehrt, er hat w ohl erkannc. daB das menschliche
BewuBtsein sich erw eitem . daB es w ieder einen R in g zersprengen will, aber er konnte
sich nicht in glaubigem V ertrauen an die Geschichte hingeben. an d da er die aus den
Ubergangszustanden. in die er in seiner Jugend selbst gewaltsam hineingezogen w urde,
en tsp rin g en d en D issonanzen n ic h t aufzulosen w uB te. so w andte e r sich m it
Encschiedenheit, m it W iderwillen a n d Ekel von ihnen ab.
A lthough I w ould not propose to reduce to "W iderw illen und Ekel" G oethe's
response to the crisis his novel depicted —attitudes that H ebbel adduces by restricting
his focus too stricdy to Ottilie's fate alone and then judging the novel's second half a
portrayal o f "bloBen Kranfe/teitsmomenten eines sparer durch einen willkiirlichen, nur
notdurfrig-psvchologisch verm ittelten A kt kurierten Individuums"7 - still H ebbel
offers a useful account o f the relation o f Elective Affinities to its time. H e identifies
plainly enough, if abstractly and through a Hegelian lens, the historical context o f
w hich the novel's dissonances —o f content and form —w ere a reflection. For not only
does he suggest that Goethe's novel explores a topical Brechen der Weltzustande; he also
diagnoses, as an aesthetic consequence o f historical fiacture, the work's ultimate lack o f
w h at 1 w ould call overt moral resolution — a characteristic n o ted w ith telling
discomfort by many early readers.
T he tacit or overt expectation that a w ork o f art teach a clear-cut moral lesson
implicitly inform ed many critiques o f Elective Affinities in its time. G oethe may have
seen fit to declare as early as M arch o f 1809, w ith Elective Affinities finished in a first
* Hebbel IV.310
; (i.e., Ottilie) H ebbel IV.310
110
draft, that "[d]ie poerische Gerechtigkeit [...] eine Absurditat [sei],"8 but a good part o f
his reading public apparendy did not agree w ith him . Even the novel's most subde
and sympathetic readers seem to have found its lack o f any clear narrative proxy for an
authorial moral standpoint disturbing, though they accepted that lack as a part o f the
novel's design. Its less subde readers objected indignandy.
T hus a w ant o f self-evident m oral Erbaulichkeit is doubdess w hat led "eine
Dame" to protest, in 1809 or 1810: "Ich kann dieses Buch durchaus nicht billigen,
H e rr von G oethe; es ist w irklich unm oralisch, u n d ich em pfehle es keinem
Frauenzimmer."4 T he classical scholar Barthold G eorg N iebuhr found it less o f a
problem that the w ork did not belong "zu der Klasse R om ane [...] die w ohltatig und
als M uster bildend eigentlich erbaulich sind," b u t he adm itted that po in t as a fact.10
W ilhelm von H um boldt was able to say quite explicidy what aesthetic expectations
the novel foiled. "Endlich ist eine Tendenz im Ganzen," H um boldt w rote to a triend
in D ecem ber o f 1809, "die zerreisst, ohne w ieder durch Versetzung in's U nendliche zu
beruhigen. Die Charaktere entfem en sich von der Bahn gew ohnlicher Pflichten, und
gehen doch nicht recht ins Idealische tiber. Es sollte mich nicht w undem , w enn
M anche die Wahlverwandtschafien unmoralisch fanden."11 M adame de Stael discerned
this irresolution as clearly as H um boldt did, though less as a matter o f aesthetics than as
a question o f Weltanschauung.
O n a e sauraic nier qu'il v a dans le Iivre de G oethe une protonde connaissance du coeur
hum ain. mats une connaissance decourageante, la vie y esc representee com m e une chose
assez in difference, de quelque m aniere qu’o n la passe; triste quand l’on I’approfondit; assez
agreable quand on I’esquive, susceptible de maladies morales qu’il taut guerir si Ton peuc. et
done il faut m ourir si I’on n’en peuc guerir. —Les passions existent, les venus existent; il v a
4 to R iem er, 11 M arch 1809 — R iem er, Friedrich W ilhelm . Mitteilungen uber Goethe. A rthur PoIImer.
ed. (Leipzig: InseL 1923), 302
9 R ep o rted by H einrich Laube. in: Die Wahh/erwandtschaften. Eine Dokumentation der Wirkung von Goethes
Roman 1808-1832. Heinz Hard. ed. (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1983) [henceforward: "Hard"], 203
10 H ard 89
” to F.G. W elcker, 23 D ec 1809, H ard 88
I ll
des gens qui assure nc qu'il feuc combatrre les unes par les autres; il y en a d'autres qui
p retendent que cela ne se peuc pas; voyez et jugez. semble dire I'ecrivain qui raconce, avec
impartialice. les arguments que le sort peuc dormer p our ec concre chaque m aniere de voir.
[...] [C]e qui m anque surtouc a ce roman, c'est un sentimenc religieux, fenne et positif
[-I -12
All four o f these responses —Humboldt's, N iebuhr's, de Stael's, and that o f the
unnam ed Dame —turn on the question o f the novel's ethical upshot. C om m on to all is
an im plicit recognition that the w ork departs from the norms o f poetic justice, and
from any practice o f edification. B ut does it? In his Nachlese zu Aristoteles' Poetik o f
1827, G oethe denied to the arts any influence on morality, adding; "und im m er ist es
falsch, w enn man solche Leistungen von ihnen verlangt. Philosophic und Religion
verm ogen dieB allein; Pietac u n d Pflicht miissen aufgeregt w erden, und solche
Erw eckungen w erden die Kiinste nur zufallig veranlassen.”13 In Dichtung und Wahrheit,
he took a clear position against any Wirkungsdsthetik, distinguishing m ore subdy than
elsewhere betw een deliberate moral aims (Zwecke) in art and the incidental moral
effects (Folgen) o f art: "ein gutes Kunstwerk w ird zwar moralische Folgen haben, aber
moralische Zw ecke vom Kiinsder fordem , heiBt ihm sein H andw erk zu verderben."14
This distinction suggests that some moral-didactic purpose m ight rem ain indeed to
Elective Affinities, despite G oethe’s abjuration o f moralism. T h e difference is that
betw een preaching and observation o f moral behavior, betw een measuring human
behavior by a "gewohnliche[n] moralischefn] MaBstab" and u n d e rs ta n d in g it from the
perspective o f a "groBeren Gesichtspunkt" —a distinction by w hich G oethe, in later
years, often explained his works.
12 D e Scael, Germ aine. D e VAUemagne (Paris: Gamier-FIammarion, 1968). H.47

:3 "Nachlese zu Axiscoteles’ Poetik" = W A 1 41.2. 250 22-28
'■* Dichtung und W ahrheit cic. Z ach. W olfgang. Poetic Justice. Theorie und Geschichte einer literariscken
Doktrin. Begrijf— Idee —Komddiertkonzeptian (Tubingen: Niemever, 1986), 405-6
112
In book seven o f Dichtung und Wahrheit, for example, he wroce o f che early
plays Die Laune des Verliebten and Die Mitschuldigem
Beide genannte Sriicke [...J sind, ohne daB ich m ir dessen bewuBt ware, in einem hoheren
G esichtspunkt geschrieben. Sie deuten a u f eine vorsichrige D uldung bei moralischer
Z u rech n u n g und sprechen in ecwas herben u nd derben Ziigen jenes hochst christliche
W o rt spielend ausr w er sich ohne Sunde fuhlt, der hebe den erscen Stein auf."3
It is significant w ith regard to Elective Affinities that G oethe cited thus as "hochst
christlich" che adm onition o f Jesus to che scribes and the Pharisees bent on stoning che
w om an caken in adultery o f John 8:1-11. T h e phrase imputes to these early plays a
m orality higher than chat o f the scribes and Pharisees o f the late 1760s. G oethe
discussed Elective Affinities in similar terms, and again w ith reference to Gospel. In a
letter o f 1821 to the critic Joseph Stanislaus Zauper, he adjoined an admission o f the
cencralicy to the text o f adultery as a Christian moral problem ("D er sehr eintache Text
dieses weidaufigen Biichleins sind die W orte Christi: W er ein W eib ansieht, ihrer zu
begehren[, der hat schon m it ihr die Ehe gebrochen in seinem H erzen]")16 to che
cechnical gloss:
Das Publicum Iem t niemals begreifen. daB d e r w ahre Poet eigenclich doch nur. als
verkappcer BuBprediger, das Verderbliche der T hat, das G efihrliche der Gesinnung an den
Folgen nachzuw eisen trachtet. D och dieses zu gew ahren. w ird eine hohere Culcur
ertordert, als sie gew ohnlich zu erwarten steht. W er nicht seinen eigenen Beichtvater
m acht. kann diese Art BuBpredigt nicht vem ehm en.1'
H ere G oethe suggests chat although his novel may lack che didactic "moraliche
Zw ecke" expected by many readers, still it is n o t only noc immoral, but it may also be
instructive —if only to those who are able to judge themselves through che critical lens
ts Dichtung und Wahrheit VII = W A 1 27 ,1 1 4 19-25

16 M atthew 5:23
17 to Z auper, 7 Sept 1821 = W A IV 3 5 ,73 14-21
113
o f a higher perspective, an ability b o m o f "higher culture."18 A similar constellation o f
ideas recurs in the letter to Z elter cited above, in w hich G oethe admits that he does
n o t expect the "innige, w ahre Katharsis" achieved in Elective Affinities to m ake the
sixth com m andm ent obsolete: "desshalb bild' ich m ir [...] n ich t ein, irgend ein
hiibscher M ann konne dadurch von dem Gelust, nach eines andem W eib zu blicken,
gereinigc w erden.”19
G iven Goethe's hint that his novel paraphrased lines from Gospel, one must
w onder w hy the censure o f early readers so frequendy took the form o f accusations o f
divergence from Christian moral norms, o r even o f paganism. ” Schiller w ar der Erste,"
w rote an early reviewer, Karl August B ottiger, displeased, "der das Fatum aus der
heidnischen in die christliche W elt, die hohere W u rd e des M enschen in dieser
verkennend oder nicht achtend, iibertrug, und ihm folgt hierin, zu unserm Erstaunen,
H err v. G oethe."20 In his diary, Karl August V am hagen von Ense recorded a protest
o f G oethe's, reported as gossip by the Prussian lieutenant R iihle von Lilienstem, to
w hat m ust have been an objection not unlike Bottiger's: "Ich heidnisch? N un, ich
habe doch Gretchen hinrichten und O ttilie verhungem Iassen, ist derm das den Leuten
nicht christlich genug? Was wollen sie noch Christlicheresr" It is hard to mistake the
irony in such an retort, or the irritation. V am hagen, certainly, noticed. Goethe's
answ er to R uhle recalled to his m ind the "em porte Ancwort, die er Knebel'n wegen
der sittlichen Bedenken desselben gegen die Wahlverwandtschaften gab: 'Ich hab's auch
nicht fur euch, ich hab's fur die jungen M adchen geschrieben!’ Vamhagen comments:
18 In che same letter co Zauper, G oethe compares his o w n experience w ith that o f a "sehr schone[n],
liebensw urdige[nj, junge[nj Frau” w ho confessed to him : "sie hafaen die Wahlvawandtschafien gelesen
u n d nicht verstanden; sie habe ihn nicht w ieder gelesen. u n d veistehe sie je tzt. M ehr sagte sie nicht;
aber wahrscheinlich hatte sie der innere Beichtvater. bey ahnlichen uberraschenden R egungen, a u f jene
Erfahrungen u n d Folgen hingewiesen un d heilsame W am ungen angedentec." W A IV 35, 74 6-14
114
"K ann m an einem alten, sonst Idugen, hier aber scockdum men Freunde deutlicher
sagen: ,D u bisc ein Rindvieh?"'21
Like che critical responses o f Humboldc, N iebuhr, de Scael and che indignanc
Dame, Goeche's recorcs co Knebel, R iihle and Boctiger converged on che problem o f
che novel's ulcimace moral import- His pique ac che charge o f paganism was aimed ac
che misunders can ding o f his cext's moral incention chac such an accusation implied.
Goeche clearly expecced "Bedenken" regarding che novel's apparenc lack o f moral
resolution, and incom prehension from che greacer parr o f his public, whose casce he
often denied having wriccen ic co suic.22 "D ie ’W ahlverwandcschaften’ schickce ich
eigendich als ein C ircular an m eine Freunde," he declared co C arl Friedrich von
R einhard in 1809. "damic sie m einer w ieder einmal an m anchen Orcen und Enden
gedachcen. W enn die M enge dieses W erkchen nebenher auch Iiesc, so kann es m ir
ganz rechc sein. Ich weiss, zu w em ich eigendich gesprochen habe, und wo ich niche
missverscanden werde."23 Subdecy in discerning che novel's incended moral gravity
appears co have been che ch ief acid cesc by w hich che author distinguished his circle
from che G erm an public ac large (co ju d g e from Riemeris inclusion o f one critic's
reproach —"dass man keinen K am pf des Sitdichen m it der N eigung sehe" —in che class
o f "Philiscer-Kritiken").2'* His ironic answers co Knebel and R iihle betray Goeche's
disappointm ent chat tw o intelligent friends should have misjudged the novel as they
19 Gaethe uber seine Dtdttungen. Versuth einer Sammlung oiler AuBemngen des Dithters uber seine poetischen
W erke. E nter Teil. D ie epischen Dichtungen. E nter Band. H ans G erhard Graf, ed. (D arm stadt:
Wissenschattliche BuchgeseDschaft. 1968) [henceforward: "Graf’], 485-6
31 Boctiger in H ard 194
11 reported by Vamhagen, H ard 171
~ G ra f 420-430; c£ letter to R einhardt in G raf 429; also 422. 425, 428, 433, 454; "Philister-Kritiken"
G raf 427
23 to R einhardt in G raf 429
R iem er in G raf 427
115
did.25 This w ould partly explain his pique, as well as the form it took. For Goethe's
irony relegates Knebel and R iihle, punitively i f playfully, to the hoi polloi o f his
readership —am ong or below den Leucen and jungen Madchen.
B ut w hat o f Bottiger? This critic’s objection addressed precisely the point that
G oethe considered its moral crux. H e acknowledged w hat G oethe called the novel's
"sehr einfache Text," but disapproved o f its gloss. "Eduard u n d O ttilie scheinen die
Gebote: D u sollst nicht ehebrechen! und: du sollst nicht begehren deiner Tante Mann,
deiner Frauen Nichtel nie gehort zu haben; sie fallen ihnen gar nicht bev."26 Bottiger’s
moral qualms consist above all in the suspicion that the irresistible (and hence extra
moral) character o f the novel's fatal dynamic has absolved Eduard and O ttilie o f any
ethical obligation to keep che sixth and ninth Com m andm ents: "U berdem stehen sie ja
unter ihrem Verhangnisse, gegen das niemand etwas vermag.”27 Like Riihie's Leute,
Bottiger saw something reprehensibly un-C hristian in such a seeming capitulation to
moral determinism. Goethe, for his part, w ould probably have answered Bottiger as
he did R iihle: "Was wollen [Sjie noch Christlicheres?"
B ottiger’s discomfort w ith G oethe's "translation" o f ancient fatalism into a
m odem setting suggests exactly where readers sensed irreligion: in the novel's peculiar
conclusion. It is therefore o f interest that G o eth e cited the deaths o f the two
infanticides O ttilie and G retchen to R u h le as an answ er to public misgivings.
A lthough G retchen's execution and O ttilie’s death by starvation close the texts in
w hich they figure by ostensibly punishing moral trespass, in neither case does the text
allow the reader conclusively to determ ine the exact moral w eight, o r the Christian
nature, o f the trespass o r o f its requital. A C hristian moral standard is c e rta in ly
35 though K nebel. at least, seems to have understood it w ell enough, as his letters to G oethe show:
G oethe was dearly hypersensitive regarding this question.
26 Bottiger, in H ard p. 194 (#420)
116
som ehow at issue in either w ork, b u t m ore as an object o f representation than as a
ruling n o rm o f conduct. M itdetis im prom ptu serm on on the fifth and th e sixth
commandments figures in Elective Affinities as a proxim ate cause o f O ttilie’s demise, and
Faust's G retchen is pardy a victim o f Christian social morality. Y et O ttilie’s death by
starvation at the end o f Elective Affinities issues in a dubious kind o f sanctification, and
at the close o f Faust I w e are left uncertain w hether G retchen is truly dam ned o r saved
—gerichtet o r gerettet. W hat is m ore, if G retchen is truly redeem ed, w e cannot be sure
by w hom . T h e "Stim m e von oben" prom ising red em p tio n sounds from an
indeterm inate, apparendy C hrisdan, yet technically nonsectarian "oben." Goethe's
ironic "ist denn das den Leuten nicht chrisdich genug?" m ight thus claim accuracy as
sociological description, while remaining elusive as moral prescription. T h e Christian
moral norms o f late eighteenth-century Germans do contribute in fact to the deaths o f
both G retchen and Ottilie. In neither work, however, does the textual frame confirm
the absolute rectitude o f such norms. U ltim ately, the am biguity o f G retchen's
dam nation o r salvation and o f the near-parodistic "mirabilia sanctae O diliae"28
confound naive im putation, to author o r text, o f any overdy C hristian moral
injunction. (T he fact that the half-line "ist gerettet!" was an addition o f 1808 to the
Fansr-text o f 1790 only deepens Gretchen's apparent affinity w ith O ttilie.)29
T o be sure, m uch o f the symbolism surrounding OtnUe's end is recognizably
Christian; yet it is neither exclusively Christian in origin, n o r straightforwardly C h ristian
in moral intent. As Luciano Zagari has show n, the outw ard attributes o f O ttilie's
death and exequies are borrowed from a recent R om antic "refiinctionalization" o f late
27 lac. at.
28 Luciano Zagari's term . CL Zagari, Luciano. "Sanaa, m irabilia O diliae. L'accesso 'parodisaco’ di
G oethe al m ondo rom andco del sacro." Riuista di Estetica. 31 (1989): 46-52
29 CL Friedrich, T h eo d o r, and Lothar J . Scheitbauer. Kommerttar zu Caethes Faust (Stuttgart: Reclam ,
1974), 211
117
medieval hagiography.30 Building o n Zagari’s findings, Irmgard E g g e r has suggested
that both the iconography and the m otivation o f Ottilie's death by ascesis draw on
Pagan and Christian strands o f tradition:
die d er teils direkcen. ceils fiber die italienische Renaissance verm ittelten R ezepdon der
anciken u n d spacantiken Philosophic u n d M edizin. die d e r pacrisdschen u n d der
m ictelalteriichen Heiligenaskese sow ie die d e r puritanisch-calvinisdsch beeinfluflten
Aufklarung und ihrer Medizin.31
If G oethe pressed traditional iconography into the service o f his art, how ever —as he
did here and elsewhere —he did so w ithout com m itting him self to traditional moral
substance. In Ottilie's final scenes, he manipulates symbols supplied by tradition —and
no t only by Christian tradition —w ith the ironic detachm ent conveyed, for example,
by a rem ark o f 1824 reported by Friedrich von M uller: "D ie Gegensatze der
heidnischen und christlichen R eligion boten allerdings eine reiche Fundgrube fur die
Poesie. A ber eigentlich taugten beide nichts."32
T he Stoic tradition, in particular, figures significantly am ong Goethe's sources
for the com plex o f m otivation that leads to O ttilie's death by ascesis. In such
portrayals as this o f the novel's "K am pf des Sittlichen m it der N eigung" - so he
explained to R iem er in Decem ber o f 1809 —
50 Z agan 46-7
31 E gger. Irm gard. "'[—1 ihre groBe M aBigkeit’: D ia te d k u n d Askese in G oethes R o m an 'D ie
W ahlverwandtschaften'." Gotthe Jahtbudi 114 (1997): 257. Curiously, Egger m entions Stoicism only in
passing, and calls it "dualisdsch" (257). Paul Bishop [TTre World o f Stoical Discourse in Coetke’s Novel Die
W ahlverw andtschaften (Lewiston. N ew Y ork: E dw in M ellon. 1999)] manages to avoid discussing
O ttilie’s death by starvation in any meaningful way at alL N o r does he credibly support his plausible if
overly sw eeping thesis that "Stoicism forms the discursive universe o f Die Wahlverwandtschaften and helps
us understand w hy the m oral choices made by the four main characters issue in disaster" [83].
32 to M filler 6. Ju n i 1824 = Goethes Gesprache ffi/1.697. Cfl G rete Schaeder: "Was [Goethe] dem Leser
verm ittelt, ist nicht Religion, sondem die Anschauung, w ie eine Legende entsteht." Schaeder. Grete.
C ott und W elt. Drei Kapitel Goethescher Weltanschauung (HameIn:Seifert, 1947), 318; also Schm idt.
Jo ch en . "D ie Tcatholische M ythologie, u nd ihre mystische Entm ythologisierung in der SchluB-Szene
des >Faust II< ." A ufsatze zu Goethes >Faust II< . W ern er Keller. ecL (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
BuchgeseHschaft, 1992), 388.
118
muss stecs das Sinnliche H err werden, aber bestrafi durcb das SchicksaL das heissu durch die
sittliche N atu r, die sich durch den T o d ihre Freiheit salvirt. So muss d er Werther sich
erschiessen, nachdem er die Sinnlichkeit H err fiber sich hat w erden Iassen: so muss Ottilie
karteriren u n d Eduard desgieichen, nachdem sie ih rer N eigung freien L auf geIassen. N u n
feiert erst das Sittliche seinen Trium ph.33
G oethe's verb karteriren is a legacy o f ancient Stoic philosophy. R iem er glossed the
term thus: "N ach dem griechischen karterein, sich enthalten (der Speise, des Schlafs
u.s.w.), von G oethe der Kiirze wegen gebraucht, w ie ofter solche fremdsprachige
W orte in dem Cotterie-Jargon, den w ir u n ter uns fuhrten."34 Indeed, the same verb
o ccurred independently to the classical scholar B arthold G eorg N ie b u h r as an
explanation for Ottilie's death. Defending Elective Affinities against the objections o f his
friend Dore Hensler in a letter o f 1809, N iebuhr reasoned:
D u m einst G oethe w erde in seinem Israel keinen G lauben fur die M ogiichkeit von
Ottiliens Todesart linden. N u n dieser glaubige Jude bin ich doch. zwar kein Arzt noch
Arztesgenosse, aber wo hi wissend daB d er Fall eines langsamen H inschw tndens durch
H unger, freiwilligen H ungertod. im A ltertum gar nichts Seltnes war. W ie viele Stoiker
endigten ihr Leben so! ja, frage Deine gelehrten Freunde: ob nicht die griechische Sprache
ein eigenes W ort fur den freiwilligen H ungertod hat?35
This "eigenes W ort" was OOTOKaptEpElV, apokarterein.36
D ore Hensler, o f course, had a point: "Goethe's Israel" was quite disturbingly
heterodox for its time. N iebuhr's acceptance o f this heterodoxy was the fruit o f
historical insight w ith w hich most readers will n o t have been equipped. Perhaps
b e tte r even th an G oethe, N ie b u h r u n d ersto o d the doctrinal analogies that
Christianity's historical debt to the Stoics had produced.37 "Es sind narrische
33 G oethe to R iem er. December 1809 = G raf 427

34 G oethe to R iem er, December 1809 = G raf 427
33 N iebuhr, Barthold Georg. Die Briefe Barthold Georg Niebuhrs. Dietrich G erhard and W illiam N orvin.
eds. (Berlin: W alter de Gruyter. 1926), 1.71.
36 N ieb u h r Briefe 1.71. n. 2. H ere G oethe appears to have made a mistake in his Greek: Liddell and
Scott [d Greek-English Lexicon. 9* ed. (London: O xford University Press, 1940) define fCCtpTEpetV as "to
be steadfast o r patient, endure;" ootOKCCpTEpElV means "to com m it suicide by starvation."
37 O n th e historical Stoic com ponent in C hristianity c£ Edelstein. Ludwig. The Meaning o f Stoicism
(Cam bridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1966). 72 fE.
119
Specifikationen (Begriffe)," R ie m er recalled G o eth e saying in January o f 1807:
"H eidenchum , Judenthum , C hristenthum I —Ju d en gibt es u nter den H eiden, die
W ucherer; Christen unter den H eiden, die Scoiker; H eiden unter den C hristen, die
Lebemenschen."38 In his Essais de theodicee o f 1710, G ottfried W ilhelm Leibniz
admitted the same analogy, to a degree:39
[C]e qu’o n appefle fatum stoicum n ’etait pas si noir qu’on le hit: il ne decoumaic pas les
hommes du soin de leurs affaires: mais il tendait a leur donner la cranquillice a I’egard des
evenem ents. par la consideration de la necessite qui rend nos soucis et nos chagrins
inuoles: en quoi ces philosophes ne s’eioignaient pas enderemenc de la doctrine de notre
Seigneur, qui dissuade ces soucis par rapport au lendemain, en les com parant avec Ies
peines inuoles que se donnerait un hom m e qui travaillerait a agrandir sa caille.
Leibniz restricted the comparison, how ever, w ith the significant distinction o f a bad
from a good necessity, coining tor the latter the term fatum christianum:40
11 est vrai que les ensetgnements des stotdens (et peut-ecre aussi de quelques philosophes
celebres de notre temps) se bornanc a cette necessite pretendue. ne peuvent donner qu'une
patience tbrcee; au lieu que notre Seigneur inspire des pensees plus sublimes, et nous
apprend m em e le m oyen d'avoir d u co ntentem ent, lorsqu'il nous assure que D ieu.
partaitement bon et sage, ayant soin de tout, jusqu'a ne point negiiger un cheveu de notre
tete. notre confiance en lui doic etre entiere; de sorte que nous verrions, si nous edons
capables de Ie comprendre. qu’il nV a pas m em e moyen de souhaiter rien de meiileur (cant
absolument que pour nous) que ce qu’il fait. C ’est com m e si Ton disait aux hommes: faites
votre devoir, et soyez contents d e ce qui en arrivera, non seulement parce que vous ne
sauriez resister a la providence divine ou a la nature des choses, (ce qui peut suffire pour
etre tranquille et non pas pour etre content) mais encore parce que vous avez affaire a un
bon maitre. Et c’est ce qu'on peut appeler/orum christianum.
T h e phrase "quelques philosophes celebres de nocre temps" in che passage
above is quite clearly a reference to Benedict de Spinoza. Leibniz's critique o f Spinoza
rested primarily upon the reproach that Spinoza indulged the neo-Stoic conception o f
38 co R iem er 1 August 1807 = R iem er. Friedrich W ilhelm . Mitteilungen iiber Goethe. A rthur Pollmer.
ed. (Leipzig: Ensel, 1923), 279
39 Leibniz, G ottfried W ilhelm. Essais de theodicee sur la bonte de Dieu, la liberte de I'homme et I'origine du
mal. ed. J. Brunschwig (Padn: Gamier-FIammarion, 1969), 30
40 Essais de theodicee 30-1. See R utherford, D onald. "Leibniz and che Stoics: T h e C onsoladons o f
Theodicy.” The Problem a f Evil in Early Modem Philosophy. F.Imar J. Kremer and M ichael J. Latzer. eds.
(Toronto: University o f T oronto Press, 2001), 138-164, o n Leibniz's relation co che ancient Stoics, and
o n his distinction o f three types o f Stoicism.
120
necessity w ith w hich Leibniz com pared the Christian fatalism that followed from his
ow n doctrine o f theodicy. "La Theodicee ” Georges F rie d m a n n has w ritten,41
revele a chaque pas la preoccupation de Spinoza et du Spinozisme. [...] Dans I'expose et

la discussion [o f the m ain them es o f the Essais de theodicee], Leibniz use d'un certain
nom bre d'exemples p o u r illustrer ses oppositions e t tnettre en relief les avantages de sa
doctrine: dans ce jeu d'evocations. Spinoza, personnage malfaisanc. apparait p our jo u e r le
role ingrat de la « n e c e s s ite b r u t e » . "
W e encounter a very similar jeu d'evocations in Bottiger's review o f Elective Affinities.
T he aesthetic norm by w hich his critique, and others like it. measured the novel’s
fatalism and found it morally wanting was the eighteenth century's literary inflection o f
the theological doctrine o f theodicy: the aesthetic doctrine o f poetic justice, w hich
Goethe had so recendv declared absurd.
A challenge to this aesthetic correlate o f theodicy was clearly w hat Bottiger
sensed in Elective Affinities. Friedrich Jacobi, the eighteenth century's most notorious
anti-Spinozist. likewise found the novel "im ganzen ein AergemiB"42 for reasons
related impiicidy to w hat seemed to Jacobi its materialist determinism:
Dieses Gdchische W erk isc durch u nd durch materialiscisch oder, w ie Schelling sich
ausdriickr, rein physiologisch. Was m ich vollends em port. isc die scheinbare V erwandlung
am Ende d er Fleischlichkeit in Geisclichkeic. m an durtte sagen: die H im m elsfahrt der
bosen Lust.43
Jacobi’s critique fulfilled W ilhelm von H um boldt's prediction: Jacobi found the novel
im m oral precisely because its materialism was n o t co rrected by idealism ("Die
Charaktere [...] gehen doch nicht recht ins Idealische fiber") —a reproach not seldom
*’ Friedmann, Georges. Leibniz et Spinoza. 2nd ed. (Paris: GaHimard. 1962). 181
Jacobi in H ard 86
33Jacobi in H ard 112-113
121
directed at Spinozism in general, n o t least by Jacobi himself.44 Like Madame de Stael,
Jacobi was disconcerted by Goethe's dispassionate analysis o f m oral sickness; unlike her
— and, I suspect, unlike the erstwhile Spinozist Schelling as w ell — he was morally
outraged at the dispassion.
U nlike Jacobi, how ever, M adame de Stael perceived that Goethe's morally
neutral perspective was not inspired
par la cendance macerialiste du dix-huidem e siecle; les opinions de G oethe o nt bien plus
de protdndeur. mais elles ne donnenc pas plus de consoladons a I’ame. O n aperôit dans
ses ecrics une philosophic dedaigneuse qui dit au bien com m e au mal: - cela doit etre.
puisque cela est;
W ith the paraphrase "cela doit etre, puisque cela est," de Stael registered a fatalism in
G oethe's novel akin to the fatum stoicum o f Leibniz. W ith h er distinction o f its
’’philosophic dedaigneuse" from "la tendance macerialiste du dix-huidem e siecle,"
how ever, she correctly identified the rejection o f pure natural and moral determinism
that G oethe later recalled as having been the reason w hy he and his friends in
Strasburg had kept their distance from the Baron d'Holbach's Systeme de la nature in
1771, despite initial curiosity.
Alles sollte nothw endig sein und deBwegen kein Goct. Konnce es denn aber niche auch
nochwendig einen Goct gebenr tragten w ir. Dabei gestanden w ir treilich. daB w ir uns den
Nochw endigkeiten der Tage und Nachte, d er Jahreszeicen, der klimadschen EinfltiBe. der
phvsischen u n d animalischen Zuscande nicht w ohl entziehn konnten; doch ttihicen w ir
ecwas in uns das als vollkommene W illkur erschien. u nd w ieder etwas das sich mic dieser
W tllkur in’s Gleichgewichc zu setzen suchte.46
Cf. B raun. H erm ann. "Materialismus — Idealismus." Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches Lexikon
zu r politisck-Sozialen Sprache in Deutschland. O tto Brunner. W em er C onze, and R einhart Koselleck. eds.
(Stuttgart: Klett-Cotca, 1972 21), 111.983.
15 De I'allemagne II. 47
** Dichtung und Wahrheit X I = W A I 28, 69 4-13. D e Stael’s conception o f materialism was probably
inform ed by h e r tather N eck ert manuscript "O n Materialism." w ritten before 1804, w hich she had sent
to th e French physician Cabanis in 1805; see de Luppe, R o b ert. Les Idees litteraires de Madame de Stael et
I’heritage des Lumieres (1795-1814) (Paris: Vein, 1969), 70-71.
122
T h e segment from Book X I o f Dichtung und Wahrkeit in w hich this passage
appears was put to paper towards the end o f 1812, o r at the beginning o f 1813. The
older G oethe's recollection o f his youthful disagreement w ith d'H olbach shows the
distance he w ould later be concerned to mark from the natural determ inism with
w hich such anti-Spinozists as Friedrich Jacobi charged both him and Spinoza. It is no
coincidence that Goethe's account here o f a concern to balance chance and necessity,
rather than simply surrender volition to pure necessity, finds an echo in his discussion
o f the problem o f moral Willkur —arbitrary wilfulness —in the essay "Shakespeare und
kein Ende," composed in March o f 1813, a text that treats o f the relevance o f tragic
form to the m odem world.47 T he w riting o f b o th o f these texts followed closely on
G oethe's second phase o f engaged involvem ent w ith Spinoza's Ethics, w hich occurred
in N ovem ber o f 1811. As we shall see in C hapter IV, the problem o f checking moral
Willkur w ith a sense o f objective moral necessity lay at the center both o f Goethe's
engagem ent w ith Spinoza, and o f his conception o f Eduard's character.48
It w ould thus seem that Bottiger's objection to G oethe's fatalism am ounted
essentially to disapproval o f the Stoic moral logic o f Ottilie's [apojkarterein. G oethe
applied to the novel the same moral scruples as Leibniz had done in his Essais de
theodicee to w hat he called fatum stoicum, a doctrine Leibniz feared w ould "have a man
to be quiet because he must have patience w hether he will o r not, since 'tis impossible
to resist the course o f things."49 T he ro o t o f the qualms o f bo th m en is the threat o f
m oral determ inism —a threat that the eighteenth century often associated w ith the
philosophy, o r more often simply the nam e, o f Benedict de Spinoza.
*7 W A I 28. 355
18 C f. Schings, Hans-Jiirgen. "W illkur und Nocwendigkeic —Goethes W ahlverw andtschaften' als Kricik
an d er R o m an d k .” Berliner Wissenschaftliche Cesellsdtaft e. V. Jahrbuch (1989): 165-181.
49 Essais de Theodicee Preface 30-1 (1710); Leibniz, G ottfried W ilhelm , Philosophical Papers and Letters,
ed. Lerov E- Loem ker (Dordrecht: Kluwer. 1989), 697.
123
Eighceenth-century chinkers were inclined on che whole to construe and reject
Spinoza's philosophy as determinist and materialist. M ontesquieu, for example, saw fit
to defend De I'esprit des lois against charges o f decerminism and materialism by refuting
critics’ imputations o f Spinozism.50 In 1735, che G erm an encyclopedist J.H . Zedler,
h aving adm itted that th e w o rd Fatum "so uncerschiedene und schw ankende
B edeutungen [hat], daB er fast von jedw eden, der davon gehandelt, in anderem
Verscande genom m en wird," and chen having reduced these various meanings to the
o n e co m m o n principle o f necessity — "D och b eru h et es iiberhaupt a u f einer
N ochw endigkeit derer D inge uncer einander”31 — rem arked o f che term's current
philosophical status:
[n denen neuem Zeicen stnd die Grillen von dem Faco gantzlich ais talsch verwortfen
w orden. doch findet m an dann un d w ann noch Liebhaber davon, w elche sich dieses zu
ihren Lehren bedienec. als Spinoza in Ethic. Part. I. Prop. 16. 17. und andere.3-
Like Bottiger, Zedler rejected the nocion o f fate as pagan. Like Leibniz and many
ochers, he identified ies m odem revival w ith the figure o f Spinoza. In Spinoza's
attribution o f an im m anent natural necessity to hum an behavior, eighteenth-century
thinkers —including most Germans up co Lessing, and not a few after —perceived che
unqualified moral determinism associated by Leibniz w ith the idea o f a fatum stoicum.
T hey saw in such moral determinism a denial o f che possibility o f free will, and hence
a forfeit o f man's responsibility in the choice to do evil o r good.
30 M ontesquieu. "Defense de I'esprit des lois" (1750). Oeuvres completes, ed. R o g e r CaiUois (Paris:
Gallimard. 1951), II. 1121 £ . esp. 1128 fE
51 "F atum ." Grosses vollstandiges Universal-Lexikon aller Wissenschaften und Kurtste. Zedler. Johann
Heinrich, ed. (Leipzig: Zedler, 1732 f£) IX[1735].304
32 Zedler "Fatum" DC305
124
"Z u den Scoikem," recalled G oethe the autobiographer o f his nineteen-year-
old self in Dichtung und Wahrheit, "[...] hatte ich schon friiher eine N eigung gefaBc, und
schaffte nun [in 1768] den Epiktet herbei, den ich m it vieler Theilnahm e studierte."53
N o t only was G oethe never inclined to consider Spinoza's philosophy purely
determ inist o r materialist, as we have seen;3* philosophical monism, the doctrine that
there is only one ultimate substance o r principle —n o t determinism — was always the
prim ary focus o f his interest in Spinoza, as o f his interest in Stoic and neo-Stoic
thought generally. T he young G oethe’s notes on Pierre Bavle's critique o f Giordano
B runo (preserved in the notebook o f 1770 entided Ephemerides) distinctly discover a
focus o f interest on Bruno's monism, "das erste Glied" —so W ilhelm D ilthev observed
—"in der K ette pantheistischer Denker, welche durch Spinoza und Shaftesbury, durch
R obinet, D iderot, Deschamps und Buffon, durch Hemsterhuvs, H erder, G oethe und
Schelling zur G egenw art gehc."33 Spinoza, the second link in Dilthev's chain, w ould
becom e its m ost im portant link for Goethe, and his main philosophical witness for a
monistic w orld-view to w hich G oethe clearly felt a natural predilection.36
G oethe hinted openly at a debt to Spinoza's monism in the self-advertisement
for Elective Affinities placed in Cotta's Morgenblatt fu r gebildete Stande in Septem ber o f
1809. "Es scheint" (he surmised o f him self anonymously).
53 Dichtung und Wahrheit [I = W A [ 26, 101 8 fE; Dichtung und Wahrheit VI = W A I 27, 12 18-21
** A t least n o t after having read him . H e seems to have believed Bayle’s critique o f Spinoza before that.
See Bollacher, M artin. D erjunge Goethe und Spinoza. Studien zu r Ceschichte des Spitiozismus in der Epoche
des Sturms und Drangs (Tubingen: Niemever, 1969), 22 fE; also Dichtung und Wahrheit XVI = W A I 29 8
18 ff.
55 D ilthev, W ilhelm . "Giordano Bruno." Gesammelte Schriften. H. Band. Weltanschauung und Analyse des
Menschen seit Renaissance und Reformation. 3rd ed. (Leipzig: T eubner, 1929), 297; Bollacher 17 fE. esp. 21
fE
36 CE G oethe’s letter to Z elter o f 29 January 1830 = W A IV 46, 223 11-22. Spinoza’s Ethics was the
prim ary conduit through w hich th e monism o f the Stoic tradition flowed into G oethe's thinking, but it
was certainly n o t th e only one: Shaftesbury, H erder, D iderot and Buffon. n o t to m ention Epictetus,
w ere significant channels as welL
125
dafi den Verfasser seine fortgesetzten phvsikalische A rbeiten zu diesem selcsamen Titel [Die
Wahlverwandtschafien\ veranlafiten. Hr tnochte bem erkt haben, dafi m an in der N aturlehre
sich sehr o ft ethischer Gleichnisse bedient, um etw as von dem Kreise m enschlichen
W issens w eit Entfem tes naher heranzubringen; u n d so hac er auch w ol in einem sictlichen
Falle, eine chem ische Gleichnifirede zu ihrem geisdgen U rsprunge zuriickfiihren mogen.
um so m ehr, als doch uberall a u r eine N atu r ist, u n d a u ch durch das R eich der heitem
V erounft-Freyheit die Spuren triiber leidenschaftlicher N othw endigkeit sich unauihaltsam
hindurchziehen. die n u r durch eine hohere H and, u n d vielleicht auch nicht in diesem
Leben. voQig auszuloschen sind. ‘
T h e phrase "nur eine Nacur" is a direct, if an unm arked, quotation from the preface to
the third part o f Spinoza's Ethics: "Nacure is always th e same, and its virtue and power
o f acting are everywhere one and the same, that is, the laws and the rules o f Nature,
according to w hich all things happen, and change from one form to another, are
always and everywhere the same."3® Goethe w ould seem to assert, w ith Spinoza and
the Stoic tradition, that nature is "always and everywhere the same" in order to suggest
that its laws encompass the actions o f m en as well as the actions o f things. T o set "die
Spuren triiber leidenschaftlicher Nothwendigkeit" o n the same plane o f observation as
the "R eich der heitem V em unft-Freyheit," as G o eth e the copyw riter supposed
G oethe the novelist to have done, is to agree with Spinoza's premise that
[t]he affects o f hate, anger, envy and the like, follow w ith the same necessity and force o f
N atu re as th e oth er singular things. And therefore they acknow ledge certain causes,
th ro u g h w h ich they are understood, and have certain properties, as w orthy o f our
know ledge as the properties o f any other thing.39
Appearances to the contrary, the Selbstanzeige does n o t actually argue in favor o f moral
determinism. H ow ever open its hinting, rhetorically this is a very slippery text. T he
conjecture "Es scheint dafi den Verfasser seine fbrtgesetzten phvsikalische Arbeiten zu
57 H ard 50
58 Spinoza. B enedict de. .4 Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and O ther Works. Edw in Curley, ed. and trans.
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). 153. "Est nam que natuta sem per eadem. & ubique una.
eadam que ejus virtus. & agendi potentia, hoc est, naturae leges, & regulae, secundum quas o m n ia hunt.
Be ex unis formis in alias m utantur, sunt ubique, & sem per eadem ." (= Ethics Part III, Preface) Cf.
Adler, Jerem y. < <Eine fa st magisdte A nzieh un gskra fi». Goethes < Wahlverwandtschaften > und die Chemie
seiner Zeit (M unich: Beck, 1987). 130.
126
diesem seltsamen T itel veranlafiten" is carefully hypothetical. T h e "wol" o f "so hat er
auch w ol in einem sictlichen Falle, eine chemische GleichniBrede zu ihrem geisrigen
U rsprunge zuriickfuhren mogen, um so m ehr, als doch iiberall n u r eine Nacur ist" is a
prevarication, even if the "doch" o f the sentence —its profession o f monism —is not.
G oethe does positively assert, w ith Spinoza, that nature is "always and everywhere the
same." H e also admits, w ith that "doch," that "durch das R eich der heitem V emunft-
Freyheit die Spuren triiber leidenschaftlicher N o th w en d ig k eit sich unaufhaltsam
h in d u rch zieh en .” H ow ever, the formulas and equivalences proposed w ith the
chemical m etaphor in che text do not tally at its end. T h e novel presents the chemische
Cleichnisrede as Eduard's idea, not the narrator's (as th e Selbstanzeige supposes it is). As
Jerem y A dler has noted, the Cleichnisrede o f 1.4 fails in fact to describe either what
Eduard imagines it will, or what does, against expectation, finally occur in che book:
"Eduard bungles his analogy, repeatedly referring to a form o f ’simple elective affinity 1
w ithout entertaining the possibility o f a ’double affinity’."60 Y et even in the corrected
version offered by Adler, che Gleichnisrede fails co describe w ith the m etaphoric
accuracy one m ight expect o f it the hum an relationships portrayed in che novel.
"Does this mean," Adler asks, "that the novel actually disavows the concept o f ’elective
affinity’? This w hole mode o f argument," he answers, "in fact does no more than take
issue w ith Eduard's view o f chemistry and its application to hum an life, since it is only
Eduard w ho proposes the formulaic approach. T o debate w h eth er o r not the novel
can be interpreted in terms o f che formula” —chat is, co ask w hether o r not the logic o f
39 Spinoza Ethics, C urley 153

00 Adler, Jerem y. "G oethe’s Use o f Chemical T heory in his Elective A ffin ities” Romanticism and the
Sciences. A ndrew Cunningham & Nicholas Jardine, eds. (Cambridge, England: Cam bridge University
Press. 1990), 272
127
w hat occurs in che book is determ ined by natural necessity — "ignores the position o f
the narrator, and ultimately, that o f G oethe himself."61
"W enn der Verfasser der >W ahlverw andtschaften< an das Schicksal glaubt,"
A ndre Franôis-Poncet has observed, "dann aber gewiB nicht in gleicher W eise wie
Eduard, denn er saumc nicht, den Irrtum seines H eiden zu brandm arken."62 T h e w ord
"Schicksal" appears eighteen times in che text, but is uttered b u t once by the narrator’s
voice —to describe, in free indirect speech, thoughts o f Eduard's. Eduard employs che
w ord Schicksal four rimes; Charlotte eighc times; O ttilie four rimes; the Captain, once;
che narracor, on his ow n behalf never.63 Indeed, the C aptain excepted, each o f the
novel's m ain characters has a characteristic idea o f face.04 Each o f chese individual
norions o f face, how ever, is marked by che cext as self-delusive: none o f them governs
che logic o f the judgm ent chat the novel actually executes o n its characters and cheir
actions.
Eduard's conception o f fate, for exam ple, is providential, optim istic and
egotistic to the poin t o f solipsism.05 As the n arrator explicitly warns, Eduard
"ver[nim m tj niches [...], als was seiner Leidenschaft schmeichelc."0*1 H e routinely
projects the outcom e he desires for his passion u p o n objects, events and facts
preselected as signs in ies favor. A m ong such signs (w hich include, as well, che poplar
trees planted che day o f Ottilie's birth, O ttilie’s im itation o f Eduard's handw riting on a
contract o f sale, and the chemische Gleichnisrede), che glass th ro w n and caught ac the
Richtfest, from w hich he later drinks "um [sjich caglich zu iiberzeugen: daB alle
Adler 274
02 Franfois-Poncet. A ndre. "D er sittliche G ehalt der >W ahhrcrw andt-schaften<- Das Schicksalhafte."
Goethes Roman >Die Wahlvenvandt-schafien<. Ew ald R o sc h . ed. (D arm stadt: W issenschaftliche
Buchgesellschatt. 1975), 71
03 G oethe, Jo h an n W olfgang. Die Wahlverwandtschaften. Leeds G erm an D epartm ent T ex t Database =
h t t p : / / 129.11.193.35/Iitarch/w vnq.htm
61 Franôis-Poncec 70-1
128
Verhaitnisse unzerstodich sind, die das Schicksal beschlossen hat,"67 is Eduard's key
symbolic guarantee to r the favorable intentions o f fate. Even after O ttilie has died,
Eduard still draws hope for a posthumous union w ith h er "aus dem Glase, das ihm
freilich kein wahrhafter Prophet gewesen."68 Up to the po in t at w hich he discovers
that the original glass is long gone, and that the one on w hich he still dotes is an ersatz,
Eduard remains an optim ist o f the stripe o f Voltaire's C andide, w hose actual fate
reveals that his philosophy has stacked the odds. By proving the fatal glass spurious,
the text impeaches Eduard's herm eneutic m ethod. W ith in the overall textual frame,
the glass, like Eduard's kleine W elf9 "unlangst zerbrochen," now comes to symbolize
the hum an and social damage caused by his abdication o f the moral duty o f choice to
signs presum ed w hole and determinative. Eduard's personal symbol o f fate's good
intentions thus becom es G oethe's symbol o f a misconception o f fate, and o f its
consequences. Eduard's fatalism is itself proven fetal —corrected by the text, n o t w ith
Voltaire's tragicom ic pessimism, b u t in a neo-Stoic o r Spinozistic spirit o f m oral
neutrality.
O ttilie (along w ith C harlotte; the Captain remains im m une to the end to
fatalistic habits o f thought) evinces no conception o f fete at all —until O tto drowns.
O tto ’s death opens Ottilie's eyes to her ow n moral feult in loving Eduard. The
fatalism by w hich she interprets the event resembles a logic o f Christian theodicy: she
infers h e r sin from what she imagines to have been its recompense. She believes that
O tto's death has occurred, not simply as a proximate effect o f distracted clumsiness, but
as retribution for a m ore grave moral feult. O tto has died because she, O ttilie, "aus
■° Cf. Franfois-Poncet 70
00 1.16 = W A 1 20, 165 4-5
07 L I8 = W A I 20. 191 28-192 2
08 n .1 8 = W A I 20. 414 15 E
129
[ihrer] Bairn geschricten [isc], [sie hac ihre] Gesecze gebrochen, [sie hat] sogar das
Gefiihl derselben verloren."70 "A uf eine schreckliche W eise hac Gocc m ir die Augen
geoffnec, in w elchem Verbrechen ich befangen bin. Ich will es biiBen [...]. "n She
seems co conceive the instance that has punished h e r as the Christian G od. H er
description o f che inscance that cempts her as "ein feindseliger D amon, der M acht uber
m ich gew onnen" suggests che D evil, though G oethe's use o f the pregnane w ord
Damon should perhaps give us pause.72 H er practical answer to what she considers sin
is monastic-ascetic in character. She forswears Eduard as penance; later, convinced by
finding him in her room at che inn that she "aus [ihrer] Bahn geschritten [ist] und [...]
soli nicht w ieder hinein," she cakes "ein strenges Ordensgeltibde" not co speak or to
eat.'3 "Was wollcen die Leuce," indeed, "noch Christiicheres?" Yet the m atter is not
so simple. T h e ostensibly Christian thrust o f O ttilie's m oral reasoning is belied by
Goethe's text as a whole. She overdoes her penance, and dies o f it. H er posthumous
sanctification is quasi-parodistic, given credence as such by a small minoricy in the
village, and by some readers, but certainly n o t by the author. '* O ttilie karterien; she is
gerichtet, buc not unequivocally gerettet.
Like Eduard’s self-delusional fatalism, the Christian moral vocabulary w ith
w hich O ttilie approaches che problem o f h er o w n guile is relativized by integration
inco the narrative syntax o f a neo-Stoic conception o f fate. This disjunction is made
manifest w ith O ttilie’s appeal in tw o disparate directions for help firom o n high w hen
09 "Sie h atten eine kieine W elt um gangen." 1.7 = WA. I 20. 84 24-25; o n this term see N em ec.
Friedrich. D ie Okonomie der >> W ahlvem/andtschajien« (M unich: Fink. 1973), 15 fE
70 11.14 = W A I 20. 370 14-16
' l 11.14 = W A L20, 370 27-371 16
72 H.14 — W A I 20, 394 14-16. MB: G oethe's term Damon was still in an early stage o f its conceptual
developm ent at this point, and its later meaning is n ot quite the one w ith w hich O ttilie here invests it.
73 11.17 = W A I 20, 394 7-8
"* "D ie B ew o h n er u n d A nw ohner [des Dorfesj w ollten sie n o ch sehen, u n d je d e r m ochte g e m aus
N anny’s M u n d e das Unglaubliche horen; m anche u m daruber zu spotten, die m eisten um daran zu
zweifeln u n d w enige u m sich glaubend dagegen zu verhalten." 11.18 = W A I 20, 413 19-23
130
O tto drow ns in the lake. H er initial tu rn for help "daher, w o ein zartes H erz die
groBte Fiille zu finden hofft, w enn es iiberall m angelt” suggests providence. It is
followed, how ever, by a turn to the stars ("Auch w endet sie sich nicht vergebens zu
den Stem en, die schon einzeln hervorzublicken anfengen"), in the form o f astrology a
traditional am bit o f Stoic fatalism.' 3 This transidon from w hat W alter Benjamin called
a "Christian-mysdcal" m om ent to a pagan-astrological one is o f crucial im portance to
the novel as a w hole. Goethe him self thought this scene the one from the book most
w orth illustrating, "wenn man uberhaupt solches Z eug zeichnen w ill."'6
Benjamin called a "Ciisur des W erkes" the sentence that links this transition —
via the image o f a turning in vain to the stars —w ith Eduard’s and O ttilie’s moral self-
delusion: "Die H offnung ftihr wie ein Stem , der vom H im m el fallt, iiber ihre H aupter
weg. Sie w ahnten, sie glaubten einander anzugehoren."77 T h e significance o f this
"caesura," and the nature o f the conception o f fate it entails, may perhaps best be
explained in relation to the tradition o f ancient Stoicism to w hich both the history o f
astrology in Europe and the early m odem conception o f fete w ere notably indebted,
and thanks to w hich astrology and fatalism continued to be linked in the imagination
o f eighteenth-century thinkers. As I have suggested above, the aspect o f Stoic thought
that appears to have drawn G oethe m ost, and from an early age. was precisely the
pantheistic m onism that Franz Boll and C arl Bezold have characterized as a logical
basis o f the traditional involvem ent o f Stoic philosophy w ith astrology. ”[D ]er
Gedanke der groBen Einheit des Alb," they observe.
75 II. 13 = W A I 23, 362 4-7; cf. Boll. Franz and Carl Bezold. Stemglaube und Stemdeucung. Die Ceschichte
und das Wesen der Astrologie. 3rd ed. (Leipzig: T eubner. 1926), 77 & 25
76 W A IV 21. 250
77 11.13 = W A I 23. 359 23-26; Benjam in, W alter. "Goeches W ahlverw andtschaften.'' Cesammelte
Schrifien. R o lf T ied em an n and H erm ann Schw eppenhauser. eds. (Frankfurt am M ain: Suhrkam p,
1991), 199
131
in die auch das M enschenleben eingeschlossen ist findec seinen reifsten u n d

konsequentesten A usdruck in dem pantheisdschen W elcbild der andken Stoa, die eben
deshalb die groBe B eschiitzerin d e r A strologie sein m uB te, w eil ih re ganze
78
[determinisdsche] Phvsik im G rande m ir ihr zusammenSeL
In m ore recent centuries than those to w hich Boll and Bezold refer, che
m onism o f the Stoic tradition had had a decided effect on another field o f knowledge:
anthropology. In the seventeenth cencury, the Stoa's characteristic rejection o f
external teleologies had provided such writers as Hobbes and Spinoza (following on
che w ork o f such neo-Stoics as Giordano Bruno, Jean Bodin, Hugo Grotius, o r Justus
Lipsius) w ith the ontological ground for a science o f man chac detached hum an life
t o m the medieval conceptual framework o f divinely directed purposiveness in order
to describe che nacure and character o f man as he is. "Das Verhaltnis der Z eit zu der
Stoa," writes W ilhelm Dilthev regarding che cum o f the seventeenth century.
beruht vom ehm iich darauf. daB hier ein Z usam m enhang gegeben war, in welchem aus
dem celeologischen C harakcer des W eltzusam m enhanges verm ittels d e r Lehre vom
M enschen ein InbegrifF allgemeingultiger u nd unveranderlicher R egeln abgeleiret w urde,
an w elche je d e O rd n u n g der Gesellschafc in R ech t. Scaat und religiosem G lauben
gebunden ist. Dies w ar es, was die Zeic bedurfte: Begriindung n e u er O rd nungen,
unabhangig von den bisberigen A utoritaten: A utonom ie des Geistes in der R egelung
seiner praktischen Becatigungen im burgerlichen Leben: unangreifbare Grundsatze tur die
79
R egelung der GeseQschatt nach ihren neuen Bedurthissen.
Dilthev's description o f che social and political needs o u t o f w hich the doctrine o f
natural right emerged from the spiric o f neo-Stoicism applies in equal o r greater
measure to the era that first administered chat doctrine wholesale to the social and
political order: the era o f revolutions in che midst o f which, and in response to which,
G oethe w rote Elective Affinities. Like che earlier neo-Stoics chat D ilthev describes.
78 Boll and Bezold, Stemglaube und Stemdeutung 77

79 D ilthev. W ilhelm . "Die Funktion d er Anthropologie in der K ultur des 16. u n d 17. Jahrhunderts."
Gesammelte Schriften. ZI. Band. Weltanschauung und Analyse des Menschen seit Renaissance und Reformation.
3rd ed. (Leipzig: T eubner, 1929), 441. CL Kondylis, Panajods. Die Aujkldrung im Rahmen des
neuzeitlichen Rationalismus (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1981), 366 SI
132
G oethe undertook in this novel to understand the nature and character, actions and
affects o f w om en and m en as they are — or, equipped as G oethe n o w was w ith a
consciousness o f historical change unknow n to the ancient and early m odem Stoics: to
understand the social and affective nature o f German w om en and m en as they were in
1809.
T he monism avertised in the Selbstartzeige is therefore primarily a m onism o f
poetic technique: o f the technique required by G oethe's aim to represent "soziale
Verhaltnisse und die Conflicte derselben symbolisch gefaBt."80 By relating Spinoza's
"n u r eine Natur" to the Gleichnisrede, rather than to the actions o f characters, the
Selbstanzeige encourages in the reader a critical detachm ent, both moral and historical,
co match that w ith which the novelist has studied his characters. In o th er words, it
invites che "vorsichtige D uldung bei moralischer Zurechnung" chat G oethe considered
che "hochst Christlich[e]" product o f a Spinozistic "higher perspective."*11
"Da sich gar manches in unseren Erfahrungen nich t ran d aussprechen und
direct mittheilen laBt," w rote Goethe to Carl Jacob Ludwig Iken in 1827, "so habe ich
seit langem das Mictei gewahlt, durch einander gegenuber gestellte und sich gleichsam
in einander abspiegelnde Gebilde den geheim eren Sinn dem A ufinerkenden zu
offenbaren.’’82 Goethe’s Spinozism was w hat made such Spiegelung possible, for it
provided a point o f view from w hich the heterogeneity o f the w orld described in
Elective Affinities could be resolved into a single, unified picture. This was a n o n -
norm ative, non-cranscendental perspective, a point akin co w hat Friedrich Schelling,
also in 1809 and inspired as well by Spinoza, was co call in another context "absolute
indifference” (absolute Indifferenz): a point from the perspective o f w hich the distinction
“ R iem er. Tagebuch, 28. August 1808 = H ard 33

31 Dichtung und Wahrheit 305 (Insel)
32 Letter to Iken 27. Sept. 1827 = W A IV 43. 83 5-10
133
o f good from evil becomes void o f meaning, and from w hich the behaviors com m only
called good o r evil appear simply as various aspects o f hum an nature.83
This perspective, as we have seen, is that o f the student o f nature trained in the
school o f Spinoza. Knebel hit this nail on the head w hen he asked his friend, half
rhetorically: "M it w eichem Auge hast D u die M enschen und die D inge gesehen?"84
Schelling, no t surprisingly, also phrased the m atter in terms o f perspective: "M ir schien
es, daB W enige o d er fast N iem an d von m ein er B ekanntschaft den rech ten
G esichtspunkt daftir habe, so klar er fur jed en , dem er n ich t uberhaupc fehlt,
bezeichnet ist [...]."8S Indeed, the perspective o f the author o f Elective Affinities is very
like that o f the Spinozistic moral neutrality that G oethe defended in a letter to
Friedrich Jacobi written in M ay o f 1786, as a response to Jacobi's Iacest contribution to
the so-called Spinozastreit o f 1785-6, the booklec Wider Mendelssohns Beschuldigungen
betreffend die Briefe iiber die Lehre des Spinoza. "W enn D u sagst," G oethe w rote to
Jacobi,
man konne an Goct nu r glauben [...] so sage ich Dir. ich hake viei aufs Schauen, und w enn
Spinoza von der Sciencia incmciva spricht. und sage H oc cognoscendi genus procedit ab
adaequata idea essenciae form alis q uorundam D ei actrib u to ru m ad adaequacam
cognitionem essentiae rerum ; so geben m ir diese w enigen W orte M uch, m ein ganzes
Leben der B etrachtung d er D inge zu w idm en die ich reichen und von deren essenna
tormali ich m ir eine adaquate Idee zu bilden hoffen kann, ohne m ich im mindscen zu
bekum m em , wie weic ich kom m en werde und was mir zugeschnicten isc.
In his aesthetics, as in his science o f moral and physical nature, G oethe adhered
throughout his life to this Spinozistic ideal o f a morally neutral Schauen, striving in all
43 Schelling, F .W J. Uber das Wesen der mensddkhert Fteihat (Stuttgart: Reclam . 1964), 127
41 Knebel to G oethe, 5 N ov 1809, Hard 67
85 Schelling in H ard. 137. Cfl Vorlander, Kari. Kant — Schiller — Coethe. 2nd ed. (Leipzig: M einer,
1923), 200 o n Schelling & Goethe's having shared a higher perspecdve "Sells. R e d e ... schw ebt in einer
hoheren R egion”), w hich Jacobi, as an ardent and-Spinozist, did not like.
86 5 M ay 1786 = W A IV 7, 214 9-21.; cf. Bell, David. Spinoza in Germany from 1670 to the Age o f
Goethe (London: University o f London Institute o f Germanic Scudies, 1984), 71 SI on Spinozastreit.
134
fields equally tow ard an "adequate knowledge o f the formal essence o f things."87 It is
thus not surprising to find that the Schauen/ Glauben distinction figures as frequendy as
it does in G oethe's poetic and autobiographical w ork. W e encounter it again — or,
rather, a consequence draw n from this type o f distinction — in a letter o f 1815 to the
Jen a philologist H einrich C arl A braham Eichstadt, in w hich G o eth e expressed
approval o f a review, sent him by Eichstadt, o f the first three volumes o f Dichtung und
Wahrheit:
Es ist w ohl der M iihe w erth ecwas Ianger zu leben. und die U nbilden d er Z eir m it G eduld
zu ertragen. w enn uns beschert ist. zu ertahren. dafi eine so seltsame Personlichkeit. als die
des Verfassers jenes biographischen Versuchs. die m it sich selbst n ic b t einig w erden
konnte, sich doch noch zuletzt, in Geist und G em tith der vorziigiichsten M anner d er
N ation, dergestalt rein abspiegelt. dafi nicht m ehr von Lob u n d Tadel, sondem n u r von
88
physiologischen und pathoiogischen Bemerkungen die R ede bleibt.
T h e "Lob und Tadel" that G oethe deplored — here, in 1815, as in the "Philister-
Kritiken" o f 1809 — w ere moralistic responses, a function o f norm ative belief; he
w elcom ed instead the "physiologischen und pathoiogischen B em erkungen" o f the
"vorziigiichsten M anner d er N ation" (am ong w hose n u m b er h e w ould include
Knebel, R iihle, and the other recipients o f his earlier "Circular") as the superior insight
o f m en w ho have managed to gain a higher —a Spinozistic —perspective.
If G oethe was, as H eine suggested, the "Spinoza der Poesie,"89 then Elective
Affinities m ight perhaps be described as Goethe's Ethics. W ith its technique o f
*' T h e passage q u o ted is from che second scholium to Proposition X L o f Part II o f che Ethics: "[T]hic
kind o f know ing proceeds from an adequate idea o f the formal essence o f certain attributes o f G od to
the adequate know ledge o f th e formal essence o f things." Curlev Spinoza Reader 141
48 Letter to Eichstadt. 29. Jan 1815 = W A [V 2 5,178-9
® "D e r Pancheismus von G oethe isc [...{ v o n dem heidnischen sehr unterschieden. U m m ich kurz
auszudriicken: G oethe w ar d er Spinoza d e r Poesie." H eine. H einrich. "Z u r Geschichce der Religion
u n d Philosophie in D eutschland." Werke. M artin G reiner, ed. (C ologne: K iepenheuer 8c W itsch,
1962), 11.481
135
reflective characterization (" Spiegelung") ,90 che novel applies a procedure akin to
Spinoza's geom etric m ethod in order to represent, in their interplay, che social, moral,
affective forces at w ork in the lives o f provincial Germ an aristocrats circa 1809.91 A late
interchange w ith Eckennann confirms this cechnical affinity w ith che m ethod o f the
Ethics. "Obgleich Solger zugescand," Eckennann recalled to the poet in 1827, "daB das
Factum in den ’W ahlverwandtschaften' aus der Nacur aller Charaktere hervorgehe, so
tadelte er doch den Charakcer von Eduard.''92 "Ich m ag Eduard selber nicht leiden,"
G oethe responded, "aber ich muBte ihn so machen, um das Factum hervorzubringen.
Er hac iibrigens viele W ahrheit, denn m an findec in den h o h em Scanden Leute genug,
bei denen ganz wie bei ihm der Eigensinn an die Stelle des Charakters tritt."93 Here
G oethe admits co having brought to bear in che realm o f fiction the Spinozistic Schauen
by w hich he elsewhere avowed having dealt w ith real persons all his life: "Ich nahm
alle Zuscande und Personen, meine Kollegen z.B. durchaus real, als gegebene. einmal
fixierte Nacurwesen, die nicht anders handeln konnen, als sie handeln. und ordnete
hiem ach meine Verhaltnisse zu ihnen."94 T he " Wahrheit" o f Eduard's character is not,
or is n o t alone, che "Factum" o f che novel. As Solger perceived, its "Factum" issues as
an idea from che totality o f che relations o f all o f its characters am ong themselves, as
90 O n Goethe's technique o f Spiegelung see Blessin, Stetan. Ersdhlstm ktur und Leserhandlung. Zur Theone
der literarischen Kommunikation am Beispiel von Coethes » Wahlverwandtschaften « (H eidelberg: Carl
W inter. 1974), 133 S.
Scaiger disagreed: "W enn w ir dann w eiterhin die ewige W erdelust seiner [GoethesJ Nacur bedenken
u n d m it d er starr-geom etrischen O rdnung v on Spinozas W elt vergleichen, so zeigt sich, daB vo n der
’E thik’ keine A uskunft fiber die W eltanschauung Goeches zu erw arten ist u n d je d e r V etsuch, auf
Parallelen h inzuw eisen, nu r irretuhrt." Staiger, E m il, Goethe (Atlantis: Z u rich . 1961), 1.524;
contradicted by Schings, Hans-Jfirgen. "N atalie un d die Lehre des t i T - Z u r R ezep d o n Spinozas in
'W ilhelm Meisters Lehqahren’." Jahrbuch des Wiener Gaethe-Vereins 8 9 /9 0 /9 1 (1985/86/87), e.g. 59 n.
70: Bollacher 7 fil
92 G oethe co Eckennann. 21 January 1827. Eckennann was recalling Solger's review o f 1810.
13 G oethe co E ckennann. 21 January 1827
94 G oeth e an L v. Mfiller, 31.3.1824; in M uller, Kanzler von. Unterhaltungen m it Goethe [Kleine
Ausgabe}. Ernst G rum ach, ed. (Weimar: Bohlaus Nach£. 1959), 101
136
perceived from a "higher perspective."95 It is poindess to rebuke any single character
o n account o f m oral offensiveness, for G oethe's characterizations, like Spinoza's
descriptions o f affect, are n ev er prim arily a question "v o n G esinnungen und
H andlungen, inw iefem sie Iobens- oder tadelswiirdig, so n d em w iefem sie sich
offenbaren u n d ereignen konnen."96 Goethe's advice to W ieland that th e b o o k be
read thrice ("Das B uch muss dreim al gelesen w erden")97 drew a herm eneutical
consequence o f this kind o f perspective, from which —as N iebuhr acutely expressed it
— "Das G anze [...] eh er da [ist) als die einzelnen T eile, w ie im Leben":98 che
requirem ent that the novel's entire "geometry" be kept in m ind simultaneously. Only
once a reader is able, w ith Spinoza, co consider human actions and appetites as if they
w ere "a question o f lines, planes and bodies," and abandon the camp o f "those who
prefer to curse o r laugh at the affects and actions o f m en" will she o r he be able
correcdy to see ”[d]as Gesetz in dem B uche" as true, and the novel as "nicht
unmoralisch."99 Indeed, in a letter o f 1785 to Friedrich Jacobi, G oethe made a point
o f calling Spinoza m ore Christian than most Christians: "Er bew eist nicht das Dasevn
95 "Es w ird beinahe je tz t unm oglich m it dem Einzelnen von einzelnen D ingen zu sprechen; tasst man
aber breitere Verhalcnisse tn's A uge. so mag man w o hi noch m anches darstellend aussprechen.” co
Zelcer, 30 O c to b e r 1809. Coethe uber seine Dicktungen. Venuch einer Sammlung alter AuBerungen des
Dichters uber seine poetischen Werke. Enter TeiL Die epischen Dichtungen. Enter Band. Hans G erhard Graf,
ed. (Darmstadt: Wissenschattliche Buchgesellschaft. 1968), 415
96 D W 10 = W A I 27, 348 3-6: cf. Ethics Part III Preface (Curley 153)
97 to W ieland. 21 N ov. 1809, G raf 422. W ieland read the book thrice and reported disliking it more
w ith each reading. Cf. W ieland's letter to Charlotte GeBner o f 10 Feb. 1810 = Hard 137.
98 "Das G anze isc eher da als die einzelnen Teile, w ie im Leben [...[. Ein einzelnes zu berarbetten und
darzusteQen v erm ogen sehr viele m e h r als es versuchen: w em soQce nicht, w enn e r von einem
Gegenstande erw arm t ist eine Darstellung aus einem Gusse gelingen? Das alles bleibt aber Mictelguc.
u n d ist am E n d e des R edens niche were. W er lebendig weiB daB n u r ein Ganzes ein wahres
iVleisterwerk ist u n d allein W ert hac, d er hat die W ahrheit gesehen, und w er dahin screbc ein retches
Ganzes welches durch einen einzigen unsichtbaren Lebensgeist besteht a u f dem einzigen W ege von der
erst em ptangenen Idee des ganzen in d e r schon alle Teile gegeben sind, zu ihrer A nschauung. und
d u rch die D arstellung d er T eile zur V erwirklichung des Ganzen zu bilden, der kann tfeilich in seiner
A usttihrung scheicem. aber er w andelt in d er W ahrheit." N iebuhr co H ensler 14 N ov. 1809 in Hard.
75
99 ideal o f amor intellectuals dei Echica V. Prop. 36. 37, e.g.: "M entis am or intellectualis erga D eum esc
ipse D ei am o r quo Deus se ipsum amat" etc. (= Curiev 260 BE: "T he mind's intellectual love o f G od is
th e very love o f G o d by w hich G od loves him self); also Leibniz amor dei intellectualis V I.4.p. 1750:7,16.
1751:14 (Akademie-Ausgabe)
137
Gottes, das Daseyn ist G ott. U nd w enn ihn andre deshalb A theum schelten, so mogte
ich ih n theissim um ia christianissimum n en n en u n d preisen."100 From such a
perspective, the novel Elective Affinities is n o t only "nicht unmoralisch": it is m ore
ethical than the moralists.
100 to Jacobi, 9 Ju n e 1785 = W A EV 7, 62 21-23, cic. Sellings "Natalie" 55
138
Chapter IV
Goethe's Spinozism, After Jena:

The Concept of Damon, and a New Prometheanism
G oethe’s Spinozism o f 1809 — che Spinozism o f Elective Affinities — was
continuous in most respects w ith the Spinozism o f 1783-87, the period o f Goethe's
first intensive scudy o f che Ethics.1 Y et by G oethe’s ow n retrospective admission, this
later Spinozism was a "gesceigerte” form o f che old — a Steigemng, o r amplification
th rough deepened experience, o f w hich th e poet him self was perhaps n o t entirely
conscious until 1811, or possibly Iacer. It is a Spinozism raised to a higher level by the
challenge o f new circumstances, and in a later phase o f G oethe’s life.2
If ic was an aim o f Elective Affinities to show w hat "forces" were emerging w ith
the end o f the German ancien regime, then G oethe’s m ethod o f articulating chese forces
w ould have had to address not only che psychology o f affect (like Spinoza's, at least in
che Ethics), buc also the problem o f change in history. M y aim in this chapter is co
suggest chat Jena forced G oethe to adapt his earlier Spinozism to precisely this
problem, and chat there is evidence o f this change in Elective Affinities.
T o this end, 1 w ould like co investigate the Steigerung o f Goethe's Spinozism
that is evident in certain them adc concerns in the text Elective Affinities. T h e first
them e (o f two) is chat o f Damon, an ancient G reek concept adapted by G oethe in the
years after Jena to describe the problem o f sudden, surprising and seemingly contingent
! Schings. Hans-Jurgen. "Nacalie und the Lehre des f t t '- Z u r R ezepdon Spinozas in 'W ilhelm Meiscers
Lehrjahren’.” Jahrbuck des Wiener Gaeshe-Vereins 8 9 /9 0 /9 1 (1985/86/87), 55; cf. Bollacher. Martin Der
junge Goethe und Spinoza. Studien zu r Gesckichte des Spinozism us in der Epocke des Sturms und Drangs
(Tubingen: Niem eyer. 1969), 14 f£
139
historical change so sharply b rought hom e to G oethe in th e "terrible night" o f 14
O ctober 1806. T h e second is w hat I w ould call a new Prom etheanism : an adaptation
o f themes and symbols from his early poem "Prometheus" —a locus classicus o f Goethe's
early Spinozism —to fit new historical circumstances.
I. D am on
A lthough G oethe clearly alluded to Spinoza in the self-advertisem ent placed
lo r Elective Affinities in Cotta's Morgenblatt fu r gebildete Stande in Septem ber o f 1809.3
this m ention was m ore the result o f mem ories o f the Ethics, refreshed perhaps by
recen t reading in Jo h an n G ottlieb G erhard Buhle's Lehrbuch der Geschichte der
Philosophie, than o f renewed direct engagement w ith the Jewish philosopher.4 Goethe
did not read Spinoza again after 1787, until impelled to do so, in N ovem ber o f 1811,
by distress at Friedrich Jacobi's anti-Spinozist polemic Von den gottlichen Dingen. N ow
he finds "in Spinozas Ethik au f mehrere W ochen meine tagliche U hterhaitung, und da
ich indeB meine Bildung gesteigert hatte, ward ich, im schon Bekannten, gar manches
das sich neu und anders hervorthat, auch ganz eigen frisch a u f m ich einw irkte, zu
m einer V erw underung, gewahr."5 T h e statem ent is vague. W e can only guess at
w hat will have seemed "neu und anders" bv then, and w hv. W hatever the noveltv
* • * *
was, it had already affected Goethe's w riting o f Elective Affinities. Even if G oethe was
n o t yet reflecting as explicidv on Spinoza in 1809 as in 1811 (or as in 1819 and 1825,
1 O n die concept o f Sceigenmg, see W ilkinson. Elizabeth M . "T asso — ein gesteigerter W erther' im
Licht von G oethes Prinzip d er Steigerung. Eine U ntersuchung zu r Frage d er kristischen M ethode.”
Goethe 13 (1951): 28-58
5 reproduced in HartL 50-51
* G oethe’s diarv records study o f Buhle’s "Geschichte der Philosophie, besonders Spinoza" o n 10 April
1809. W A i n 4, 21 28-22 I; 365.
3 Tag- und Jahreshefie 1811 = W A I 36, 72 12-18
140
w hen he recalled his chinking o f 1811),4 still the cext o f 1809 reflects the Steigemng
lacer ascribed to 1811; and the particular way in w hich its technique is "Spinozist"
suggests that this Steigemng was in some part a product o f Jena and the years following.
W hat Jena added to Goethe's Spinozism (and thus to the moral logic o f Elective
Affinities) was the conception o f indeterminacy comprised in the notion o f Damon —in
Paul Hankamer's concise description, Goethe's name for a kind o f force, com ing from
outside life as know n heretofore, chat ”den klaren gesetzlichen, zielstrebigen Gang des
Lebens [durchkreuzc] und [...] neue Bedingungen [schaffr]."' As Hans Blumenberg has
shown, there is evidence to suggest that Jena occasioned G oethe's recognition o f che
phenom enon he w ould later call Damon, and o f N apoleon Bonaparte, che m aker o f
Jena, as chat phenom enon’s primal em bodiment.8 "N apoleon," Eckerm ann guessed in
1831. "scheinc dam onischer Art gewesen zu sein." "E r w ar es durchaus," replied
G oethe.’ "Dieses W esen" - here, in the tw entieth and final b o o k o f Dichtung und
Wahrheit (wricten 1825-1831), G oethe m eant che phenom enon o f the "daemonic" in
general - "das zwischen alle iibrigen hineinzucreten, sie zu sondem . sie zu verbinden
schien, nannte ich damonisch, nach dem Beispiel der A lten und derer, die ecwas
Ahnliches gew ahrt hatten."10
"Was plocziich wie eine [S]chickung von oben an uns herancritt," H erm ann
U sener has w ritten, "was uns begliickt, was uns betriibc u n d beugt, erscheint der
gesteigerten [Ejm pfindung als ein gottliches W esen. So Iange w ir die G riechen
0 W A I 35. 279
H ankam er, Paul. Spiel der Mackte. Ein Kapitel aus Goethes Leben und Goethes W elt (Tubingen:
W underlich. 1943). 53
8 Blum enberg, Hans. Arbeit am Mythos (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. 1979), 504 fif.
8 to Eckermann, 2.3.1831
10 Dichtung und Wahrheit [DW ] X X = W A I 29, 174 15-18; dating to 1825-31 ibid. pp. 195-6
141
kennen, besitzen sie dafiir den [G]attungsbegri£F Sctipiov"11 As B lum enberg has
observed, N apoleon's entry into the poet's life felt to G oethe’s sensibility very m uch
like a quasi-divine and sudden "Schickung v o n oben." In N apoleon — thus
B lum enberg — "ist ihm der Faktor ein er G eschichte oh n e m ogliche T heodizee
begegnet."12 T o G oethe, N apoleon seemed a m aker o f events that apparendy lacked
"sufficient reason," in the Leibnizian sense o f the term . T h e words Damon, damonisch
and das Damonische w ould thus appear to have been G oethe's means o f conceiving the
non-determ inate nature o f certain events, o f describing a m ode o f causation midway
betw een utter chance and com plete determinism. "Dieses W esen," he w rote abstracdv
o f Damon in B ook X X o f Dichtung und Wahrheit, "glich dem Zufell, denn es bewies
keine Folge; es ahnelte der Vorsehung, denn es deutete au f Zusam m enhang.’13 This
"hint at connection" suggesting providence m ig h t equally w ell have let Damon
resemble fete —as N apoleon had claimed to do, w ith a famous bon mot while discussing
French tragic drama w ith Goethe at Erfurt on 2 O cto b er 1808: "Was will man jetzt
m it dem Schicksal? Die Politik ist das Schicksal!"1*
T here can be litde doubt that Bonaparte, at the height o f his pow er in Europe,
m eant "la politique" as a metonvm o f his ow n person; o r that G oethe, in some degree
and for a time, believed him. W e have seen how N apoleon's occupation o f W eim ar
in the "schreckliche[n] N acht” o f 14 O cto b er 1806 led G oethe to recognize the
im m anence o f a change in the legal and social rules by w hich he had lived up to then,
:l U sener, H erm ann. Gottemamen. Versuch einer Lchre von der religidsen Begriffsbildung, 3"1 ecL, w ith
introductions by M artin P. Nilsson and Eduard N orden (Frankfurt/M ain: G. Schulte-Bulm ke. 1948),
291-2
12 Blum enberg Arbeit am Mythos 511
13 Dichtung und Wahrheit X X = W A I 29, 174 6-14
Perhaps in particular o f the plays by Racine (e.g- Britannicus, Andromache, Mithradate) and others given
at W eim ar, Erfurt and Jena in th e last weeks o f Septem ber and the first days o f O ctober, m any o f them
attended by G oethe. C f Kanzler v o n M uller in Goethes Gesprache. Eine Sammlung zeitgenossischer Berichte
aus seinem Umgang. Flodoard Freiherr von Biedermann and W olfgang H erw ig, eds. (Zurich: Artemis,
142
and h e n ce (in H egel's words) "sein H aus bescellen u n d seine zeiclichen
Angelegenheiten in R ichtigkeit bringen zu w ollen."13 T here is no clearer illustration
than this o f Hankam er’s definidon o f Damon as a force that "den klaren gesetzlichen,
zielstrebigen Gang des Lebens [durchkreuzt] u n d [...] neue Bedingungen [schafit]."16
H ankam er, how ever, applies his definidon n o t to the advent o f N apoleon
(whose relevance in this context he notes only in passing), b u t to G oethe's sudden
passion o f D ecem ber 1807 for the eighteen-year old M inna Herzlieb in Carlsbad.'7
T racing the term damonisch to its first use in the sonnet o f early 1808 "M achtiges
Oberraschen," Hankamer writes o f this poem:
Das 'machcige Oberraschen' becrifift zunachst das Ereignis der Leidenschaft selbsc. einlach
ihr Dasein u nter den M dglichkeiten seiner Lebenswelc. Dali solche Liebe noch m oglich
u n d dann w irklich war, rein ih r Ereignis zu diesem Z eitpunkt u nd w eiter im R aum e
seines klar iiberschaucen Lebens, erschien ihm das U nerklarbare und nur als B ew irkung
ein er schicksalsbringenden M acht verscandiich. die er hier zum erstenmal mic dem W ort
bezeichnec, mic w elchem e r die kosmische W jderkraft von nun ab nam haft m acht:
dam onisch. Er kann den U rsprung dessen. was mic ihm gespieic wird, niche in seinem
personiichen Seelenkreis finden. D ie M acht. die in sein Leben brach, muB von auBen
u n d jenseics seines W ollens u n d W esens k o m m e n . irg e n d w o h e r aus d em
krafiedurchspielcen AD.18
[ w ould agree w ith Blumenberg that it was the battle o f Jena, m ore than any o th er
event, that had made w hat Blum enberg has called the "klar uberschautes Leben" o f
1965-1987), 11.335; also G oethe’s diaries for 17. 21. 24. 26. 28, 29, 30 September & 1. [2. 3. 6] O ctober
1808 = W A III 3. 387-391.
,s in C hapter I above. Hegel to Schelling, 23.2.1807: Goethes Gespradte LI. 188 cit. Sengle 243; V oigt to
G oeche. 19.10.1806 (Goethes Briejwechsel mic Christian Gottlob Voigt. Hans T um m ler. ed. (W eim ar:
Bohlau, 1955), m .133).
16 H ankam er Spiel der Mackte 53; "early” 1808 = before June. c£ Conrady, Karl O tto. Goethe. Leben und
Werk (K onigstein/T s.: Achenaum, 1982), EI.338. In general. Lorraine D aston has observed, "the
upheaval o f th e Revolutionary and Napoleonic era appears to have shaken the confidence o f probabilists
[i.e. o f chose w ho w ould advanced a "probabilist program for the moral sciences, as a mathem atical
description o f social experience and as a guide to rational conduct"]. T h e conduct o f reasonable m en
n o lon g er seem ed an obvious standard, n o r a com prehensive basis for a th eo ry o f societv.
D istinguishing prudenc from rash behavior in post-R evoIutionary France was no easy m atter, and ju st
w hat conscucured ’good sense' was no longer self-evidenc. W ith the demise o f the reasonable m an. the
probabilists had lost b o th their subject m atter and criterion o f validity." D aston. Lorraine. Classical
Probability in the Enlightenment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 106-7
17 C £ Wolff) Hans M . Goethe in der Periode der iVahlverwandtschaften (1802-1809) (Bern: Francke, 1952),
for the theory (which is noc generally accepted) that che w om an involved was Sylvie von Ziegesar.
143
G oethe's classical period seem less surveyable than ever before.19 N apoleon's advent
on Goethe's horizon was G oethe’s Urerlebnis o f Damon, that o f M inchen Herzlieb the
same principle's confirm ation in th e sphere o f erotic love. M inchen was Goethe's
rem inder, ex negativo, w hat forces — erotic, legal, social, political — he had sought to
channel o r tam e in deciding to marry Christiane, after Jena. As a second threat, after
N apoleon, to the order o f Goethe's life, M inchen rem inded him w hat he stood to lose
by indulging his passion: by failing to answer Damon w ith Entsagung.
G oethe seems to have understood Damon as a som ething prceptible through its
effect, rather than in its essence. "Dieses W esen, das zw ischen alle iibrigen
hineinzutreten, sie zu sondem , sie zu verbinden schien, nannte ich damonisch [...J.
Ich suchte m ich v o r diesem furchtbaren W esen zu retten, indem ich m ich nach
m einer G ew ohnheit hinter ein Bild fliichtete."20 If N apoleon and M inchen Herzlieb
w ere the tw o m ajor examples o f Damon to mark G oethe’s life in the years betw een
Jena and Elective Affinities, the image behind which G oethe fled the Damon incarnate in
both was O ttilie, one o f whose signal characteristics (as I shall argue in C hapter V) is
the effect that she has on others.
"AuBerordentliche M enschen, wie Napoleon" —so G oethe w ould insist in
Dichtung und Wahrheit — "treten aus der M oralitat heraus. Sie w irken zuletzt wie
physische Ursachen, wie Feuer und Wasser."21 T he same could be said o f O ttilie. For
G oethe, both O ttilie and N apoleon were tantam ount to natural phenom ena, at least in
respect o f the effect that they have on the lives o f others. B oth w ork destruction o f a
type that th e poet w ould frequendy represent, after 1789, w ith th e sym bol o f
18 H ankam er 54; cfl Atkins n. 41 p. 38 on alternate dating.

19 C £ Blum enberg Arbeit am M ythos 509 SI
20 Dichtung und Wahrheit X X = W A I 29. 174 15-20
11 to R iem er, 2 Feb. 1807, in R iem er. Friedrich W ilhelm. Mttteilungen uber Coethe. A rthur Pollmer.
ed. (Leipzig: Insel. 1923), 268
144
encroachmenc o f w ater on land: elemental symbolism that perm itted him to express, as
w ater successfully o r unsuccessfully contained, the threat posed by Damon to life. This
dynam ic is well represented in th e text in w hich G o eth e first used the w ord
"Damonisch:" the sonnet "Machtiges Uberraschen," w ritten 1807-08, in response (as
m ost critics have held) to the Herzlieb affair.
Machtiges Uberraschen
Ein Strom entrauscht um w olktem Felsensaale

Dem O zean sich eilig zu verfainden;
Was auch sich spiegeln mag von G rund zu G riinden.
Es wandeic unaufhaitsam fort zu Thale.
Damonisch aber stiirzt mic einem Male —

Ihr folgen Berg und W ald in Wirfaelwinden —
Sich Oreas. Behagen dort zu finden.
U nd hem m t den Lauf. begranzt die weite Schale.
Die W elle spriihc. und staunt zuriick und weichet.

U nd schwillc bergan. sich im m er selbst zu crinken:
Gehemmc ist nun zum Vater hin das Screben.
Sie schw ankt und ruht, zum See zuruckgedeichet;

Gesume. spiegelnd sich. beschaun das Blinken
Des Wellenschlags am Fels, ein neues Leben.-
N othing in this sonnet explicitly suggests relevance either to a Iibidinai or to a
political econom y. T he poem refers direcdy neither to N apoleon, n o r to the erotic
context w ithin w hich the other fourteen sonnets o f its cycle o f sonnets m ore obviously
m ove. W e are led to suspect that G oethe considered b o th the category o f the
"daemonic" and the Iand-water tropic dyad by means o f w hich he expressed it more
universally applicable chan to love o r politics alone. T he sonnet addresses che problem
o f Damon as m uch in the abstract as does, for example, the later poem Unvorte. orphisck
(1818). It articulates che phen o m en o n o f the "daem onic" m etaphorically while
referring w hat is in essence a theory o f Damon to the concreteness neither o f politics
- W A I 2, 3
145
n o r o f love. It w ould seem that for G oethe, w ho acknow ledged the entry o f Damon
into his life w ith a symbol o f the political in the personal — the backdated w edding
rings o f 19 O ctober 180623 —the erotic and the political spheres, far from excluding
each other, in fact mutually implied one another. B oth G oethe's decision to marry
C hristiane and his novel Elective Affinities treat th e institution o f marriage (a locus
w here eros and politics necessarily meet) n o t simply as a representative battleground
for th e generalized institutional instability o f th e Age o f R ev o lu tio n , b u t as a
paradigmatic playground for Damon as well. T h e political Damon o f 1806 and the
libidinal Damon o f 1807-08 were the same type o f force, incarnate in tw o distinct
beings — N apoleon and M inchen —yet operative in one com m on sphere o f social
order, that o f marriage. Elective Affinities resolves both moments into a single symbolic
threat to a marriage: O ttilie. For O ttilie is a picture o r image —a Bild —o f the sort
behind w hich G oethe professed an inclination to flee w hen confronted w ith Damon:
Dieses W esen. das zwischen alle iibrigen hm einzutreten. sie zu sondem . sie zu verbinden
schien. nannte ich damonisch. nach dem Beispiel der Alten und derer, die ecwas Ahnliches
gew ahrt hacten. Ich suchte mich vor diesem furchtbaren W esen zu retten. indem ich
mich nach m einer G ew ohnheit hinter ein Bild fluchtete.*
O ttilie is thus not, o r at least not simply, a fictional M inchen Herzlieb. She is also
N apoleon. O r rather: she is an emblem o f Damon and, in h er visual plasticity - her
Bildhaftigkeit —some kind o f talisman against it.
As a symbolic synthesis o f the moments o f danger (Napoleon, M inchen) from
w hich her existence for Goethe developed, O ttilie is a vehicle for visual topoi akin to
the ones that Aby W arburg has called "pathos formulas" (Pathotformeln). In Warburg's
usage, the term Pathosformel describes m om ents o f gestural language adapted by
23 G oethe to Knebel, 21 O ctober I808: "DaB ich m it m einer guten Kleinen seit vorgestem verehlichc
bin w ird euch freuen. U nsere Trauringe werden vom 14. O ctbr. datirt." W A IV 19. 209 26-28
146
Renaissance artists from ancient models in order to represent particularly violent states
o f em otion. Like Goethe, W arburg construed these artists’ flight to classical gestural
im agery as one from "daem onic" affective threat. T h e aim o f such flight was
banishm ent o f the inchoate threat o f daemonic affect by means o f the petrifying effect
o f visual citation.25 "D urch das ersetzende Bild w ird der eindriickende R eiz
objektiviert u n d als O bjekt der Abw ehr geschaffen".26 As Salvatore Settis has noted,
the Pathosformel lends fixity and duration to the m om entary quality o f Damon: "W enn
Pathos [..] m it M erkm alen w ie U n bestandigkeit, B ew egung, U n m ittelb ark eit
verbunden ist, dann beinhaltet Formel im Gegensatz dazu Erstarrung, W iederholung
von Stereotypen. [...] Pathos ist Augenblick, Formel bezeichnet D auer."27 O ttilie is in
this sense —w hich matches Goethe's —an attem pt to neutralize, w ith an image, the
Damon o f sudden historical change at loose in Elective Affinities. As I shall show in my
final chapter, however, this neutralizing function o f the Pathoffiormel is a function at
w hich she fails.
If, then, the novel's approach to the problem o f marriage constitutes a pars-pro-
toto response to the growing institutional instability o f the dawning industrial age; and
if O ttilie is an avatar and a symbol o f certain forces identifiable w ith that age, as I think
she is; then the novel's implicit theory o f Damon should also imply a theory o f the age
and o f its endemic, as yet only partly recognized instabilities.
T h e sonnet "Machtiges Uberraschen" figures a transition, via disorder, from
one m ode o f order o r stability to another: a Steigemng from stasis through chaos to
2* Dichtung und Wahrheit X X = W A t 29, 174 15-20

35 O n che Pathosformel. see che contributions by Saxi, Fritz. "D ie Ausdrucksgebarden d er bildenden
Kunst." 419-431 and Bing, G ertrud. "A. M . W arburg." 437-452, esp. 447 fE. in the volum e A by M.
Warburg. Ausgewdhlte Schriften und Wurdigungen. D ieter W uttke, ed. (Baden-Baden: Valentin K oem er.
1992); also Settis. Salvatore, "Pathos und Ethos, M orphologie u n d Funkhon." Vortrage aus dem Warburg-
Haus. Band L W olfgang Kemp er al.r eds. (Berlin: Akademie-Veriag, 1997), 31-73.
147
stasis. In che poem's first stanza, a river flows to an ocean.28 In its second, a sudden
landslide — personified as che m ountain nym ph Oreas — interrupts the river's flow.
T h e third stanza depicts the collision o f w ater and earth as a dynamic and unresolved
conflict o f force and counterforce; che fourth resolves this conflict into the static
equipoise o f a dammed lake. T h e poem thus proceeds by way a sudden, "daemonic"
evenc from an inirial status quo to a status post quem normalized, in its final line, as "ein
neues Leben." T he m om ent o f crisis induced by "daemonic" irruption is a fruitful
m om ent, a m om ent o f productive transfiguration.
This was precisely th e value th at G oethe w ould later explicidy set on
Napoleon's irruption into central Europe. In a panegyric o f 1812 w ritten to honor
Marie-Luise o f Austria (on w hose marriage to and son by N apoleon some temporarily
pinned hopes o f political stability in Europe), G oethe ascribed to che em peror the
genius to protect land from aquatic encroachment:
W oriiber criib Jahrhunderte gesonnen

Er ubersiehds in heilstem Geisteslicht.
Das Kleinliche isc ailes weggeronnen,
N u r M eer an d Erde haben hier Gewicht;
1st jen em erst das U fer abgewonnen.
DaB sich daran die stolze W oge brichc.
So tritt durch weisen SchluB. durch Machtgefechte
Das teste Land in alle seine R echte.29
36 Aby W arburg, cited in G om brich. Ernst, A by Warburg: A n Intellectual Biography, 2nd ed. (Chicago: The
University o f Chicago Press. 1986), 218
17 Settis 39-40
28 This imagery ciosely echoes th at o f "M ahom ets Gesang" (1772-3), w ritten in the same period as
"Prometheus."
s "Goeche tm N am en der Burgerschaft von Karlsbad. Ihro der Kaiserin von Frankreich Majestiit" =
W A I 16, 328 25-32. Com m entary o n historical context in poem w ritten 5.-9.6.1812. "V or ailem auf
dieses G edicht bezieht sich w ohl Goethes briefiiche AuBerung an Charlotte von Schillen » < . . . > die
Aufgabe < . . . > « . D ie Ehe N apoleons m it der T o chter des osterreichischen Kaisers (1810) u n d die
geb u rt des Sohnes (1811), dem N apoleon den T itel ernes Konigs v on R o m verliehen hatte (v. 42),
erschienen als Besiegelung der von N apoleon w iedererrichteten O rdnung. N apoleon w ird die Rolle
des Friedenstursten zugew iesen, m it B ild em . w elche die S ituation m it h o ch sten historisch-
mythologischen Exem peln verkniipfen. D ie SchlieBung des Janustempels (v. 48) m acht N apoleon zu
einem zw eiten Augustus, der diesen Brauch zum Z eichen des Friedens w iedererw eckt hatte [...]"
G oethe. Johann Wolfgang. Gedichte 1800-1832. Sdmtliche Werke, Brieje, Tagebiicher und Gespradte, Vol.
1.2. Karl Eibl. ed. (Frankfurt am M ain: D eutscher Klassiker Vedag. 1988). 1029-1030. Further: "[EsJ
erscheint G oethes G edicht w en iger als H uldigung d enn als beschw orender A ppell [—1" 1030.
148
In Elective Affinities, conversely, G oethe sets a distinctly negative socio-political value
on the fragility o f Eduard's dams. As I have shown in C hapter II, Eduard's carelessness
as a hydraulic engineer — the negligence that leads to the landslide o f 1.15, and to
Eduard's attem pts to ignore it — is a consequence and a symbol o f weakness o f
character, o f a personal incapacity to contain socially deleterious affect. As such, I
have argued, Eduard's failure provides an image o f the problem o f the weak prince:
chat is, o f the sovereign w ho neglects the duties o f his station because he cannot
restrain his ow n will. If the weakness o f princes begets revolution — a lesson that
G oethe was hardly alone in draw ing from the failure o f Louis XVI —chen the strong
prince must be skilled in the art o f controlling water. In 1812. N apoleon still seems
such a prince — at least to G oethe. For a time, the Em peror is able to master the
chaotic social forces released by the French R evolution, an event to w hich G oethe,
writing to Schiller in 1802, readily applies the natural aquaeous m etaphor o f a complex
o f Bachen und Stromen:
[m G anzen ist es d e r ungeheure A nblick von Bachen und Strom en, die sich. nach
N atum othw endigkeit. von vielen H ohen und aus vieien Thaiem , gegen einander stiirzen
u n d endlich das U bersteigen eines groSen Flusses u nd seine U berschw em m ung
veranlassen, in der zu G runde geht wer sie vorgesehen hat so guc als der sie niche ahndete. M an
sieht in dieser u n g eh eu em Em pirie nichts als N atu r und nichts von dem . was w ir
30
Philosophen so gem e Freiheit nennen mochten.
M ettem ich's hopes in this regard w ere higher in 1810, w hen he obliged N apoleon w ith M aria Louise's
hand, than in 1812. w hen the K ing o f R o m e was b o m . G oethe’s apparently rem ained unrealisacailv
high until N apoleon was defeated militarily early in 1814. C £ M om m sen. W ilhelm . Die politischen
Artschauungen Goethes (Stuttgart: Deutsche Veriags-Anstalc. 1948), 135 fE; Guiick. Edward Vose. Europe's
Classical Balance o f Power (N ew Y ork: N orton. 1967), 112. 165; Schroeder, Paul W . The Transformation
o f European Politics 1763-1848 (O xford: C larendon Press. 1994). 406, 496. 505. 507. See also the
"Vorspiei" o f 1807: "U n d Land u nd M eer bew egen sich im w ilden Bund" (describes state o f war.
implicitly O ctober 1806) = W A I 13.1, 27 56
30 G oethe to Schiller. 9.3.1802. T h e trope is borrow ed directly from the Memoires historiques et politiques
du regne de Louis X V I o f the Jacobin historian, zoologist and botanist Jean-Louis G iraud Soulavie. author
as w ell o f a m ulti-volum e Histoire naturelle de la France meridionale (1780-84): "Semblable a cette
m ultitude des sources et de ruisseaux qui descendenc des hautes montagnes, s’enflent des sources et des
ruisseaux voisins. et torm ent des rivieres, des torrens et des (leaves qu'aucune force n'est plus capable
d’arreter. Ia revolution, sous la regne de ce prince, grossic par 1'addition de plusietirs evenemens feconds
en nouveaux restiltats; ce qui nous a oblige d'etablir, dans Ie corps de cec ouvrage et a chaque
149
In 1802, how ever, che "natural necessity" chat G oethe accepts as a quality o f the
revolution still lacks its dam. N eith er N apoleon n o r th e concept o f Damon has yet
entered into the poet's thinking. T h e image from Soulavie cherefore remains at che
riverine status quo ante quem o f "Machtiges U berraschen." It w ill have been no
coincidence thac Goethe's idea o f developm ent remains there as well — as we may
judge from "D auer im W echsei," a poem o f 1803. H ere, as in Goethe's com m ent on
Soulavie, the mode o f change is still H eraditean —all river, no sign o f a lake:31
Gleich m it jedem Regengusse

Andert sich dein holdes Thai.
Ach. und in demselben Flusse
Schwim mst du niche zum zweitenmal.32
changem enc de scene, une classification naturelle des taits qui o nt ete Ies signes de nos revolutions, ou
les o n t preparees." Jean-Louis Soulavie, Memoires historiques et politiques du regne de Louis X V I, depuis sa
manage jusqu'a sa mon (T reu ttel et W iirtz, Paris & Strasbourg, 1801). xxiii. Soulavte’s soi-disante
"classification naturelle des taits qui ont ete Ies signes de nos revolutions, ou Ies ont preparees" doubdess
appealed especially to the naturalist in Goethe.
31 W A I I, 119 13^16
32 "D auer im W echsei” addresses the problem o f change in the sphere o f individual personal Bildung.
T h e poem "M etam orphose der T hiere" (begun in N ovem ber o f 1806 b u t n o t published until 1820
[WA I 3, 398]; cf. Goethe's diary tor 10 N ovem ber 1806 = W A III 3, 178 25) contains evidence o f the
pressure th e n o tio n o f Damon has begun to exert on G oethe’s conception o f biological (especially
phylogenetic) development:
'"...So zeiget sich fest d ie g e o rd n e te B ildung.

W elch e z u m W echsei sich neigc d u rc h aufieriich w trk e n d e W esen.
D o c h im In n e m b efin d et d ie K raft d e r e d le m G eschopfe
S ich im heiiig en K reise leb en d ig er B ild u n g beschlossen.
D iese G ranzen erw eicert kern G o tt, es e h rt d ie N a tu r sie:
D e n n n u r also b esc h ta n k t w a r j e das V oO kom m ene m oglich.
D o c h im In n e re n scheint e in G eist g ew ald g z u ringen.
W ie e r d u rc h b re c h e d e n Kreis. W d lk u r z u schafien d e n F o rm e n
W ie d e m W oQ en; d o c h was e r beginnc. b e g in n t e r vergebens.
D e n n zw ar d ra n g t e r sic h v o r zu d iesen G lie d e m . zu je n e n .
Starter m ic h n g sie aus. je d o c h sc h o n d a rb en . dagegen
A n d ere G lied e r. d ie Last des U b erg ew ich tes v e m ic h te t
A lle S c h o n e d e r F orm u n d alle re m e B e w e g u n g .
Siehst d u also d e m e in e n G e sc h o p f b e so n d e re n V orzug
Irg en d gegonnc. so fiage n u r gleich; w o leid e t es etw a
M an g el andersw o? u n d suche m it fo rsc h en d e m G enre;
F tn d en w irst d u sogleich zu aller B ild u n g d e n SchlusseL"
[W A I 3, 90 29-43] It is as i f G oethe had been responding here to the recently-published argum ent o f
Jean-Bapdste Lamarck ("Discours d’ouvetture" at th e M usee d'histoire naturelle in Paris, 11 May 1800)
that phylogenetic developm ent proceeds by externally-caused m utation (one could say: by the action o f
Damon) —th en had shrunk from accepting it, preferring, for this sphere at least, a Leibnizian notion o f
preestablished harm ony in nacure [cf. Lepenies, W ol£ Das Ende der Natuxgeschidtte. Wattdel kultureller
150
la Elective Affinities, by contrast, the landscape that Eduard proves unable to
control is a dystopian version o f th e status post quern o f "Machtiges Uberraschen."
T here is a strong stream (starker Bach) o n Eduard's estate, but no river. This stream is
m entioned only three times, and only in passing.33 T h e three lakes (later: the unified
single lake) to w hich it flows, on the o th e r hand, are a decided focus o f the novel’s
action and symbolism. W e encounter a true river only in the inset novella o f 11.10,
"Die w underlichen Nachbarskinder." If this novella serves the utopian function with
respect to the w ork as a whole that W alter Benjamin has suggested it does,34 then we
may read the river into w hich its lovers plunge (and from w hich they then safely
emerge) as a utopian toil to the modified lake that Eduard proves unable to handle.
Eduard's lake may formally resemble that o f "Machtiges Uberraschen," b u t it is far
from promising "ein neues Leben." It is badly embanked, nearly causing deaths in 1.9;
it is the baneful site o f an actual death in 11.13. U nlike N apoleon — and Goethe's
Nachbarskinder — Eduard shows Iitde skill in controlling water; the novel warns o f the
consequences.
"Das Wasser ist ein freundliches Elem ent, fur den, der damit bekannt ist und es
zu behandeln weiB."35 T he sentence marks the climax o f the novella, the m om ent
Selbswerstdndlichkeiten in den Wissensdtaften des 18. und 19. Jakrhunderts (M unich: Hanser, 1976), 64|.
T h e re is no evidence chat G oethe read Lamarck's biological w riting (he ow ned a pamphlet o f 1809 on
m eteorology: c f R u p p ert. Hans. Goethes Bibliothek [W eimar: A rion, 1958. #4-178]). Still, Lamarck’s
ideas on m utation w ere "in che air” —discussed and rejected, to r the m ost part, by Goethe's fien d s and
acquaintances am ong che R om antic Saturforscher (Steffens. R itte r. O ken) and Idealist Saturphiloscrphen
(Schelling, Hegel) in th e first decade o f th e new century. C f Engelhardt, Dietrich von. "Historical
Consciousness in th e G erm an R o m an tic Nattaforsdtung.'’ Romanticism and the Sdences. A ndrew
C unningham Sc Nicholas Jardine, eds. (Cambridge, England: Cam bridge University Press, 1990), 56 ff;
also Lepenies 27 f f , 44 ff
33 1.3: "D o rt in d er Schlucht, w o ein starker Bach d en T eichen zufiei. lag eine Miihle halb versteckt
[...]"; 1.6: "dazwischen fliefit der Bach": 1.7: "Schon Iegte m an in Gedanken unterhalb der M uhle. wo
der Bach in die T eiche flieBc, eine wegverkurzende u nd die Landschafi zierende Brucke an [...]."
34 B enjam in, W alter. "Goethes W ahlverwandcschaften." Gesammelte Schriften. R o lf Tiedem ann and
H erm ann Schweppenhauser, eds. (Frankfurt am M ain: Suhrkamp. 1991) 1.1.168 ff
33 W V 11.10 = W A I 20. 331 22-3
151
w hen its male protagonist dives into a river to save his suicidal "schone Feindin," his
antagonistic beloved. W e are given to understand that r,[d]iese Begebenheit [...] sich
m it dem H auptm ann und einer Nachbarin w irklich zugetragen [hatte]." T h e story
confirms w hat the landslide at the lake in 1.15 has already shown: "der, der [mit dem
Wasser] bekannt ist und es zu behandeln weifi" is the Captain —in contradistinction to
Eduard, w ho is com petent to handle neither the physical elements (water, earth) nor
the em otional and social responsibilities they symbolize. O n e need only replace the
w ord Wasser in the sentence w ith the w ord Affekt to discover in the youthful Captain
o f the novella a positive countertype to Eduard's disastrous egotism — and in the
novella entire, as W alter Benjamin saw, a utopian image o f successful affect control,
one antithetical to the dystopia o f Eduard's kleine[n] W elt*
T his m odel o f affect co n tro l owes an obvious debt to Spinoza. O ur
heuristicaily modified sentence —"affect is a friendly elem ent to anyone who is familiar
w ith it and knows how to deal w ith it" —expresses the practical core o f the Ethics: that
man escape "hum an bondage," defined as the "lack o f pow er to moderate and restrain
the affects," by becom ing familiar w ith them and learning to handle them. "For the
man w ho is subject to affects is under the control, n o t o f himself, but o f fortune, in
w hose pow er he so greadv is that often, though he sees the better for him self he is still
forced to follow the worse."17 It is Eduard's signal failing thac he routinely submits his
choices o f course o f action to ratification by chance. Should circumstance dem and a
moral decision, he looks to the ZttfalL, chance, o f a falling glass, o f the hazards o f war.
36 Benjamin L I .168 51
37 Ethics IV Preface. Spinoza. B enedict de. ,4 Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Works. Edw in
C urley, ed. and trans. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 197. = "Hum anam impotenriam
in moderandis et coercendis affectibus servitutem voco; hom o enim affecribus abnoxius sui juris n o n est
sed fo rtu n e in cujus potestate ita est u t ssp e coactus sit quanquam m eliora sibi videat, deteriora tam en
sequi."
152
for signs chat will ratify his passion.38 T h e choices that result, the novel proves, are
invariably for the worse.
G oethe's first Wilhelm Meister (1795) already cautions against such fatalism as
this. W h en towards the end o f B ook I o f the Lehrjahre W ilhelm reflects, in a
Panglossian m ode, that the sale o f his grandfather's art collection —a sale he regrets —
may anyway have been for the best ("dafi es gleichsam so sein muBte"), as his ow n
artistic developm ent has perhaps been better advanced by it than it m ight have been
otherw ise, concluding: "so bescheide ich m ich dann gem , und verehre das Schicksal,
das m ein Bestes und eines je d e n Bestes einzuleiten weiB," his in terlo cu to r, an
unnam ed emissary o f the Turmgesellschaft, protests: "Leider hore ich schon w ieder das
W o rt Schicksal von einem jungen M anne aussprechen, der sich eben in einem Alter
befindet, wo man gewohnlich seinen Iebhaften N eigungen den W illen hoherer W esen
unterzuschieben pflegt." W hereupon W ilhelm asks: "So glauben Sie kein Schicksal?
Keine M acht, die fiber uns waiter, und alles zu unserm Besten lenkt?" In reply, the
stranger explains fatalism as a morally noxious form o f superstition, produced by belief
steered by affect, but corrigible by use o f the understanding ( Verstand):
Es ist hier die R ede niche von m einem Glauben, noch der O rt. auszulegen. wie ich m ir
D inge, die uns alien unbegreiflich sind. einigermafien denkbar zu m achen suche; hier ist
n u r die Frage. w elche Vorstellungsart zu unserm Besten gereichc. Das G ew ebe dieser
W elt ist aus N othw endigkeit un d Zurall gebildet: die V em unft des M enschen stellt sich
zwischen beide und weiB sie zu beherrschen; sie behandeit das N otw endige als den G rund
ihres Daseins: das Zufallige weiB sie zu lenken, zu Ieiten und zu nutzen, un d nur. indem
sie test u n d unerschiitterlich steht. verdient d e r M ensch ein G o tt d er Erde genannt zu
w erden. W ehe dem . der sich von Jugend a u f gew ohnt, in dem N ocw endigen etwas
W tllkiirliches finden zu woDen, d er dem Zufalligen eine A rt von V em unft zuschreiben
m ochte. w elcher zu folgen sogar eine R eligion sei. Heiflt das etwas w eiter. als seinem
eignen Verstande entsagen. u nd seinen Neigungen unbedingten R aum geben? W ir bilden
uns ein. from m zu sein. indem w ir o h n e U b erlegung hin sch len d em , uns durch
angenehm e Zufafle d eterm iniren lassen. u n d endlich dem R esultate eines solchen
schw ankenden Lebens den N am en einer gottlichen Fuhrung geben. [...{ Ich kann m ich
38 As w e have been warned, he perceives nothing "als was seiner Leidenschaft [schm eicheltj." 1.16 =
W A I 20. 165 4-5
153
n u r iiber den M enschen freuen, d er weiB. was ih m u n d andem ntitze ist, u nd seine
W illkiir zu beschranken arbeitec.39
"W ehe dem" —woe, indeed, to Eduard, "der sich von Jugend a u f gew ohnt, in dem
N ocwendigen etwas Willkurliches finden zu w ollen, der dem Zufalligen eine Art von
V em unft zuschreiben mochce," and w ho, unlike W ilhelm, has reached the best years
o f his life w ithout having shaken che habic.
As Hans-Jiirgen Schings has shown, the stranger’s dem and (o f 1795) that man
position himself betw een chance and necessity and know from rational insight h o w to
m aster both is a reflex, noc so m uch o f the Ethics directly, as o f the Spinozism o f
H erder's text Gott. Einige Gesprache o f 1787. This text, Schings observes, is "ein
einziges groBes Plaidoyer fur die N otw endigkeit und gegen die W illkiir; fur die
N otw endigkeit, wie sie sich in G ott und der Gesetzlichkeit der Nacur zeigt [...]; gegen
die ’tolle, blinde W illkur"' o f w hich Eduard is so clearly guilcv.40 If the "web o f this
w orld” —a w orld newly lacking providence41 — is a mesh o f necessity and chance, as
che stranger suggests to W ilhelm; if che task that Spinoza set reason was to place itself
betw een both, to com prehend both, to handle "das N otw endige als den G rund ihres
Daseins" and usefully steer "das Zufallige”; then Eduard surely does not deserve to be
called "ein G ott der Erde."
19 Lehrjahre 1.17 (W A I 21. 107-9) cit. Schings, H ans-Jurgen. "Natalie und die Lehre des tT f - Z u r
R e z e p tio n Spinozas in ’W ilhelm M eisters L ehrjahren'." Jahrbuch der ieutsehen Schiller-Cesellsckaft
( 8 9 /9 0 /9 1 ) , 66 & S chings. H a n s-Ju rg e n . " W illk iir u n d N o cw en d ig k eic - G oeches
'W ahlverwandtschaften' als K ntik an der R om antik." Berliner Wtssenschaftliche Cesellschaft e. V. Jahrbuch
(1989), 168
40 Schings "W illkiir und Nocwendigkeic" 169 SI C £ H erder. Johann G ottfried. Spinoza-Gesprache, 1.
Fassung (1787). C on. Einige Gesprache, in Werke. W olfgang Pross, ed. (M unich: Hanser. 1987), 11.781,
e-g-
41 C fl Brandstetter, Gabriele. "P oetik der Koncingenz. Z u G oethes Wahlverwandtschafien." Jahrbuch der
deutschen SchiUetgesellschafi 39 (1995): 130-145
154
II. A N ew Prom etheanism
T h e socio-political subtext o f all this may be judged from a text composed to
celebrate C arl August's return to pow er after Jena: Goethe's Vorspiel zur Erdffnung des
Weimarischen Theaters am 19. September 1807 nach gliicklicher Wiederversammlung der
herzoglichen Familie.
So vermags ein jeder. N icht d er K bnig

H at das Vocrecht. alien ist’s veriiehen.
W er das R echte leann, d er soli es wollen;
W er das R echte will, der soll’c es konnen.
U nd ein jeder kann’s, der sich bescheidet.
Schopfer seines Glucks zu sein im Kleinen. ~
This passage makes two political assertions. G oethe suggests that kings share a certain
prerogative —a Vorrecht —on equal terms w ith their subjects; and that every man's path
to achievem ent should be equally free, dependent only on personal will and ability.
These lines harmonize an unquestioning sympathy for enlightened absolutism w ith an
echo o f G oethe's earlier Prom etheanism —a harm ony played distinctly in the key o f
1807. For the poem's political sense closely matches Karl August von H ardenberg’s
program o f 1807 to integrate (as H ardenberg put it) the principles o f democracy w ith a
bureaucratized form o f monarchical governm ent, in a "revolution from above" that
w ould co-opt the political force o f middle-class upw ard mobility in the service o f the
existing Prussian administration.43 N o t only th e king has a right, now , to rebuild
Prussia's house, or Weimar's: "alien istis veriiehen."
42 "Vorspiel” in W A I 13.1, 23-36; here lines 122-127. C arl August had returned from Prussia in
January. T um m ler Cart August 161 tE; on 29 January 1807 c£ Hans Tiim m ler’s com m entary m Goethes
Briejwechsel mic Christian Gottlob Voigt III.433; G oethe, diaries. 29.12.07 (W A III 3, 190 16). Lyncker
says 3. D ecem ber 1806 [Freiherr von Lyncker. Carl W ilhelm H einrich. Ich diente am Weimarer Hof.
Aufzeichnungen aus der Goethezeit. Jurgen Lauchner, ed. (C ologne: Bohlau. 1997), 108]; this doesn’t
agree w ith G oethe’s letter o f 25 D ecem ber w ishing C A "bald w ieder in unsrer M itte” (W A IV 19, 251
26-252 t).
43 "E ine R ev o lu tio n im guten Sinn, gerade hinfuhrend zu dem gro6en Z w ecke der V eredelung der
M enschheit, durch W eisheit d er R egierung u n d niche d u rch gewaltsame Im pulsion von innen oder
155
G oethe's Prometheanism o f 1807 — if it may still be called that44 — proceeds
from a change sparked by Jena in G oethe's th in k in g on the theodicy question.
G oethe's Prom etheanism had always been a negation o f the central doxon o f the
theodicy doctrine: that events in the w o d d are directed by divine intention, by the
"absurden Endursachen" that G oethe later thanked Spinoza and K ant for having
helped him reject.43 T he rebellious political m om ent in the Prom etheanism o f the
Sturm und Drang depended o n a break w ith theodicy that Spinoza helped along by
disputing the norion o f final causes.46 In the p oem "Prom etheus," m an replaces the
C reator to become, himself natura naturans. Divine intention ceases to m atter, hum an
creation is w hat counts forthw ith.47 T h e political force o f this shift is self-evident.
"Prometheus kann gelesen w erden als Angriff a u f die patriarchale Trias von G ott, Ftirst
und V ater1,4,1 — while the Prom ethean subject, non-noble m an in revolt, becomes a
vehicle both o f the "metaphysical violence" that Hans Blumenberg sees at the root o f
auBen, - das ist unser Ziel. unser Ieicendes Prinzip. Demokratische Grundsatze in einer m onarchischen
R egierung: dieses scheinc m ir die angemessene Form fur d en gegenwartigen Zeicgeist. D ie reine
D em okratie mtissen w ir noch dem Jahre 2440 uberiassen, w enn sie anders je fur d en M enschen
gemachc ist." H ardenberg 12. Septem ber 1807. in W inter. Georg. D ie Reorganisation des preuSisdten
Staates unter Stein und Hardenberg (Leipzig: HirzeL 1931), 1.306.
** T h ere is no question that the figure o f Prom etheus occupied Goethe's thoughts at this tim e, as the
titan's leading role in Pandora (written N ovem ber 1807 —June 1808, overlapping the first tw o m onths o f
w ork o n Die Wahlverwandtschafien) dearly indicates.
15 C f. M einecke. Friedrich. Die Entstehung des Historismus. Carl Hinrichs, ed. (M unich: O ldenbourg,
1959), 458: "absurden Endursachen" G to Z elter 29.1.1830 = W A IV 46, 222-3: date from W ild. Inge,
" » J u n g ii n g s g r i l I e n « oder » Z u n d k r a u t ein er E x p Io s io n « ? ." Interpretationen. Gedichte von Johann
Wolfgang Goethe. B em d Witte, ed. (Stuttgart: Reclam . 1998), 45
O n the political valence o f the Prometheus figure, see W ild, 47-9. C f Huvssen. Andreas. Drama des
Sturm und Drang. Kommentar zu einer Epoche (M unich: W inkler, 1980), 108 on G oethe's rejection o f
theodicy.
47 This transform ation is at the rooc o f the m odem topos o f imitation o f nature identified by Hans
B lum enberg as "eine Deckung gegenuber dem U nverstandenen der menschlichen Urspriinglichkeit, die
als metaphysische Gewalcsamkeit verm eint ist." Blum enberg, Hans. " » N a c h a h m u n g der N a t u r « .
Z u r V orgeschichte d er Idee des schopferischen M enschen," W irklidikeiten, in denen wir leben (Stuttgart:
R eclam . 1981), 61
48 W ild 49; cf. Leibniz, Gottfried W ilhelm . Mortadologie. H erm ann Glockner. trans. (Stuttgart: Reclam ,
1979), 33 (§84): "DaB die Geister fahig sind, in eine gewisse Gemeinschafi m it G ott zu treten. und daB
G o tt zu ihnen nicht bloB in dem Verhaltnis eines Erfinders zu seiner M aschine steht (wie das bei den
iiberigen Geschopfen der Fall ist), sondem auch im Verhaltnis eines Fiirsten zu seinen U ntertanen und
sogar eines Vaters zu seinen Kindem."
156
che m odem copos o f im itation o f nature, and o f che political violence, direct and
indirect, that flows from che new metaphysics.
T h e Vorspiel o f 1807 is not an attack o f this sort. It was, after all, composed to
extol a duke. Y et ic was also com posed to suggest to a duke w hat he do to adjust to
political life after Jena. Goethe's advice overall echoes H ardenberg’s to Friedrich
W ilhelm III: Seize che m om ent; cede pow er now to keep power; revolutionize from
above to prevent revolution from below.
Prom ethean man as natura naturans returns, w ith his hut, in a passage from the
Vorspiel preceding che one I have quoted. For G oethe, the theodicy problem was
frequendv bound symbolically w ith che building, foundation and solidity o f houses.49
This is as evident in the Mason's speech at the foundation o f the Lusthaus in 1.9 as it is
in one o f G oethe’s earliest texts, che Colloquium: Pater et Filius. In this dialogue o f
1757, a son admics co his father "Ich kans nicht bergen, den G rand und SchluB-Scein
[des Hauses] habe ich Lust einmal w ieder zu sehen." Taken into che cellar, the son
remembers having sec the cornerstone o f the house w ith his ow n hand, "unter vielen
Feverlichkeiten" —including a speech bv a journeym an mason.30 This may well be
considered the Urtext o f Goethe's Prometheanism, as Blum enberg has suggested: for it
depicts che boy G oethe successful in secting che cornerstone o f a stable house, one
symbolic o f a stable w orld order, but one w ithout G od.31
49 Dichtung und Wahrheit [ = W A I 26. +1 ff.

50 "Es fing der O bergeselle zwar nach G ewohnheic eine R ed e an konte sie aber nicht austiiren und
u n te r lies nicht sich die Haare auszurauffen da. er von so vielen Z uschauem inzw ischen ausgelacht
w urde." Colloquium: Pater et Filius Mens. Jan. M D C C L V II = W A I 38, 202-7, here 204 18-25
31 "[D{ie Bedachtheit des Achtjahrigen au f die Festigkeit d er Fundam ente des Hauses. a u f V erknupfung
ihres Bestandes m it dem der W elt selbst u n d im ganzen. [lalk] n och das Traum a verspiiren, m it dem
w eniger als zw ei Jahre zuvor die Schilderungen vom Erdbeben in Lissabon das K ind betroffen hatten.
G reift m an aber w eiter aus a u f dieses Leben u nd seine Textur, so w ird die kindliche A ttitude vor dem
G ru n d stein u n d dem B oden. a u f dem e r ru h t. z u r figuralen Pragung ein er S ubjekdvitat des
W eltverhaltens, die m an v o r dem V erbrauch des W ortes getrost > ex isten d ell< genannt hatte."
Blum enberg Arfiei'c am Mythos 473
157
T h e scene o f che Mason's speech in 1.9 secs a sorry concrasc co chis one, as
Eduard's failure on chis occasion co exercise his "Vorrechc des G rundherm , daB er sage:
hier soil m eine W ohnung scehen und nirgends anders"32 makes che Lusthaus a failed
Promechean hue; a failure co w hich che Vorspiel o f 1807 secs a concrasc as well wieh
new construction ouc o f che wancon destruction o f fbresc chac nacure has caken eons co
build:
Sieh! da drangt heran des edlen M enschen

Meiscerhand; sie darf es untem ehm en.
Dart" zerstoren causendjahrge Schopfung.
Schallec nun das Beil im ciefscen Walde,
Klingt das Eisen an dem schrofien Felsen.
U nd in SGunmen, Splittem. Massen, Triim m em
Liege zu unbegreitlich neuem Schaffen
Ein Zerscortes graBIich durcheinander.
Aber bald dem WinkelmaB. der Schnur nach
R eihen sich die Sceine, wachsen hoher;
N eue Form entsptingc an ihnen, herrlich
Bildec mic der O rdnung sich die Zierde,
U nd der alee Scamm. gekancec. tugc sich
R uhend bald u nd bald emporgerichcec.
Einer in den andem . H ohen Giebels
N euer Kunsewald hebc sich in die Liifte.
Sieh! des Meiscers Kranze w ehen droben.
Jubel schallc ihm , und den Welebaumeiseer
H drt man w ohl dem irdischen Vergleichen.33
These lines are spoken by an allegorical figure representing "die hiilfreiche ordnende
Erscheinung der Majestac," o r as Goeche explained in noces on che subjecc: "die
Majestac im Kronungsomat."3* This figure o f Majesty exhorts every one o f its subjects
to repair che damage o f war, co construct a new order, new form, a new house from
che "alten Scamm, gekancec." T he image resonaces w ith G oethe's early Promechean
challenge: "MuBc m ir m eine E rd e/ D och Iassen steh n ,/ U n d m eine Hiicte, die du
niche gebauc."33 C om paring the "'Welebaumeiseer [mit] d em irdischen," che older
2 W A 1.9 = W A I 20. 96 20 S.
53 "Vorspiel" lines 103-121
54 W A I 13.2, 152 c f also p. 213; W A I 13.1. 28
55 "Prometheus" W A I 2, 76 6-9
158
G oethe recalls the Prom ethean m om ent o f defiance o f divine will, coding it here as a
negative answ er to the hypothesis o f theodicy posed in theological desperation by a
refugee from the horrors o f war, ”eine[r] Fliichtende[n]," w ho kneeis and asks:
1st fiber dieser W olkendecke dustrer Macht

Kein Stem , der in der FuisterniB uns leuchtete?
Kein Auge. das heruntersah' a u f unsre Noth?
O du, dem ich von Jugend auf hinangefieht,
Du, dessen heil'gen Tempel ich mit Kinderschritt
IJnd Kindersinn erst, dann mit warmer, jugendlich
Bewegter Brust hinansdeg, im vertrauenden
Andachc'gen C hor der Alteren und Altesten;
M it heitrem, festtags-sonnenhaftem Freudeblick,
Ein Danklied, ein Triumphlied deiner Vaterkratt
U nd Vatergfite tausendstimmig dargebracht.
W arum verbirgst du hinter dustem Teppichen
Dein Antiitz, deiner Stem e strahlende Heiterkeit?
1st es dein ew’ger Wille? Sind es der N atur
U nband’ge taube Krafte. dir im W iderstreit,
Dein Werk zerstorend, uns zerknixschend [...J 56
T h e poem's answer to "Is this Y our will? Is someone watching?" is decidedly "no." It
must be "no" a priori, for the formula o f Goethe's Spinozist monism, Deus sett Natura,
precluded any conflict o f nature w ith a divinity considered its full equivalent. Goethe
knew that such an equivalence m ooted all suppositions regarding the final causes o f
anything, the horrors o f w ar included. W hat the poem does offer is a "hiilfreiche
ordnende Erscheinung der Majestat," a Majesty brought dow n to earth.
This grounding o r m aking w orld-im m anent o f m ajesty and the order it
guarantees follows logically from the lapse o f theodicy. As H einrich H eine remarked
apropos Voltaire's critique o f Leibnizian optimism:
V on dem A ugenblick an. wo eine R eligion bei d e r Philosophic Hiilfe begehrt, ist ihr
U ntergang unabwendlich- Sie sucht sich zu verteidigen und schw atzt sich im m er deter ins
V erderben hinein. D ie R eligion, wie je d e r Absoiudsmus, d a rf sich nicht jusdfizieren. [ . . . J
36 "Vorspiel" lines 62-77
159
Sobald die R eligion einen rasonierenden Katechismus drucken IaBc, sobald der politische
Absoludsmus eine offizielle Staatszeitung herausgibt, haben beide ein Ende.57
H eine was righc co perceive chat che cheodicy question was noc exclusively cheological
in imporc: in che cheocratic concext o f absolutism ic was also implicidy political. If che
conception o f providence recom m ended by Leibniz as a basis for che novel form
amounced co a cheological justification o f che absolutist scare (as Hans G erd Roczer has
suggesced ic did),58 chen che doctrines o f cheodicy and poetic justice mighc boch be
considered ideological bulwarks against the legitimation crisis o f monarchy in Europe
chac first found expression in che judgm ent and execution o f Charles I o f England, in
th e dram aturgical aesthetics o f che English R esto ra tio n , and in che political
philosophies o f Thomas Hobbes and Spinoza.59 For theodicy's trial o f God before che
cribune o f reason was partly theology's echo o f the trial o f Charles I. T he crux o f each
indictm ent was che question o f w hether the sovereign — o f a state, o r o f che w orld
order —was subject, himself, co che laws chac governed that stace o r order. Crom w ell’s
Puritan governm ent had tried Charles I in a court to w hich che King denied any
legitimate righc to judge him. "[N]o earthly pow er can justly call m e (who am your
King) in question as a delinquent [...]."°° By the principles o f divine righc, a king was
n o t subjecc co any earthly jurisdiction, including th a t o f his ow n legislation.01
A lthough it suppressed the king's objection, Crom w ell's court cook pains co address
H eine. H einrich. "Z u r Geschichte der R eligion u nd Philosophic in Deutschland." W ake. M artin
G reiner, ed. (Cologne & Berlin: Kiepenheuer Sc W itsch, 2nd ed.. n .d [1962]), II.446-7
38 R otzer. Hans G erd. Der Roman des Bamck 1600-1700. Kommencar zu einer Epoche (Munich: W inkler,
1972), 87-88
50 C f. Strauss. Leo. Spinoza’s Critique o f Religion (N ew York: Schocken, 1965), 229 ff.; Schm itt. Carl.
Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept o f Sovereignty. G eorge Schwab, trans. (Cambridge: M IT
Press. 1988). esp. 37-8, 48 & Blumenberg, Hans. Sdkularisierung und Selbstbehauptung (Frankfurt am
M ain: Suhrkam p. 1974), 105 ff. against Schmitt.
00 The Constitutional Documents o f the Puritan Revolution 1625-1660. Samuel R aw son G ardiner, ed.
(Oxford: C larendon Press, 1958), 374
160
chis p o in t in its sentence: "[...] che said Charles Stuart, being adm itted K ing o f
England, and therein trusted w ith a limited po w er to govern by, and according to the
law o f che land, and noc ocherwise [-..I-"62 T h e English king understood hill well that
absolutism m ust not be required to justify itself. His trial and execution irrevocably
introduced that very desideratum to E uropean political thought. W ich Hobbes's
Leviathan (1651), w hich m ore chan any ocher w ork o f political philosophy drew a
restorative theoretical balance-sheet for the crisis o f theocracy, the renascenc doctrine
o f natural law, to which Cromwell's judges had implicitly taken recourse in proving
chac kings and their subjects w ere subject alike co a com m on rule o f law, w ould
henceforth becom e an accepted measure for che legitimacy o f governments. By che
tim e Louis XVI was made to face his judges in Paris in 1792, there was less question o f
w hether the Revolution had a righc to judge him . Although there was still no basis in
French law on which a king could be tried for treason, still too many concessions in
this regard had already been made in political theory, and in practice by Louis himself
after 1789, to the principles o f natural right.03
Just as the champions and the opponents o f absolutist governm ent w orked in
che English R estoration and after to enlist che doctrine o f natural righc co their
respective causes, so also did Leibniz proceed, in his essays on theodicy, from the
premise chac God must be subject to che laws o f his o w n Creation, w hich Leibniz held
ultim ately to be rational.04 T h e political im plications o f chis acceptance o f the
1,1 Cf. W alzer. Michael. "Regicide and Revolution." Regicide and Revolution. Speeches at the Trial o f Louis
X V I. M ichael W alzer, ed.; M arian Rothstein, trans. (N ew Y ork: Colum bia Universitv Press. 1992), 35
If.
02 Constitutional Documents 377. Reflected in Ottilie's phrase "vermeintliche Richter*.
83 W alzer 35-46. esp. 46
"* C f Cassirer. Ernst. T h e M yth o f the State (N ew H aven: Yale University Press. 1966), 172. on the
Stoic idea o f th e autarky o f reason, as in H ugo G rodus: "Even th e will o f an om nipotent being, said
G ro d u s, can n o t change the principles o f m orality o r abrogate those fundam ental rights th at are
guaranteed b y natural laws. These laws w ould m aintain th e ir objecdve validity even if w e should
161
universal validity o f natural law w ere reflected in the m etaphorical language w ith
w hich Leibniz surmised God's reluctance to punish all o f hum anity w ith evil on
account o f Adam's original sin: "il est un maxtre bon et juste; son pouvoir est absolu,
mais sa sagesse ne perm et pas qu'il I’exerdse d'une maniere arbitraire et despotique, qui
serait tvrannique en effet."<° W h at the Lisbon earthquake (history's fulcrum for
Voltaire's attack on theodicy) did in 1755 —and w hat Jena was later to do again, in a
different way —was baffle w hatever trust in Creation's rational benevolence remained
to the age w ith a violent case o f historical contingency, "d'une maniere" (it appeared)
"arbitraire et d e s p o t i q u e . T h e theological underpinnings o f absolutism were
underm ined along w ith Leibnizian optimism. It is therefore m ore than coincidence
that th e battle o f Jena, w hich seem ed for a m om ent to have w iped absolutist
governm ent from the map o f Europe, was w hat ultimately convinced G oethe o f the
absurdity o f the idea o f poetic justice —and o f the absurdity o f theodicy as well.
In the Vorspiel o f 1807, G oethe's denial o f theodicy was thus once again
Prom ethean in character a question, again, o f man's building — o r rebuilding — his
ow n house, w ithout help from gods o r kings, in their absence. This is doubdess what
G oethe prided himself on having managed to do in the days and weeks after Jena, as
he sec about putting his ow n "house" in order.0' It is something that Eduard —who
moves in a novel notably lacking in sovereign instances —utterly fails to do. Eduard is
assume —per impossible —chat there is no G od o r that he does not care for hum an affairs.” [=Grotius De
jure belli ac pads. "Prolegomena," sec. 11.]
05 Leibniz. G ottfried W ilhelm . Essais de theodicee sur la bonce de Dieu, la liberte de I'homme et Vorigine du
mal. J. Brunschwig, ed. (Parin: Gamier-Flam m arion. 1969), 36. T o b e sure, the notion o f tyranny had
set a lim it on kingly excess, in principle at least, throughout the course o f the M iddle Ages. Still, before
the trials o f Charles I and Louis X V I, the w ord tyrant "signified moral opprobrium only; it had no
accepted political o r legal content." W alzer 38
06 Leibniz Theodicee 36
“7 C f. Hegel: "[E]r scheint iiberhaupt sein Haus bestellen und seine zeitlichen A ngeiegenheiten in
R ich tig k eit bringen zu wollen." H egel to ScheOing, 23.2.1807: Coeches Gesprache 11.188; c f V oigt to
G oethe, 19.10.1806 (Goethes Briefwechsel m it Christian Gottlob Voigt III.I33). Problem : Carl August is
present again at the VorspieL
162
a Prom etheus coo, one gesteigert and failed, kein Gott der Erde.6* Eduard builds a house,
but a useless and om inous one: the Lusthaus. In doing so, he fails dismally to rise to
the call o f 1807 to build "neue F orm ,” a new and useful edifice, from the shivered
"alte[n] Stamm" o f the ancien regime. His surrender co O ttilie o f his ow n proper
Vorrecht, the "V orrecht des G rundherm , daB er sage: hier soil m eine W o h n u n g stehen
und nirgends anders," is a source o f embarrassment.69 T h e tree-graft w ith w hich che
novel opens proves metaphorically fruitless. T h e plane trees salvaged by Eduard as
saplings from his father's garden becom e the site o f the fireworks mishap o f 1.15, and
provoke O ttilie co take her fatal shortcut across the lake.70 N o comparison here with
the Weltbaumeister, no Jubel eithen ju st "ein entseczliches Geschrei" as Eduard's badly-
shored dams give way to che e le m e n t.1
08 Eduard a gateigerter Tasso, Tasso a gesteigerter W erther.

** W A L9 = W A I 20. 96 20 ff.
70 W V [ 3 = W A I 20. 31 30-32; "D ie Ptatanen sieht sie gegen sich uber. n u r ein W asserraum trennt sie
von dem Pfade. d er sogieich zu dem Gebaude hinautfiihrt." W V 11.13 = W A I 20, 360 7-9)
n 1.15 = W A I 20. 158 3
163
Chapter V
Ottilie vs. Luciane:

Contradistinctions of Habitus;
Divergence from Habitus, and its Consequences
"Da sich gar manches in unseren Erfahrungen nicht rund aussprechen und
direct m ittheilen laBt," w rote G oethe to Carl Jacob Ludwig Iken in 1827, "so habe ich
seit Iangem das M ittel gewahit, durch einander gegeniiber gesteilte und sich gleichsam
in einander abspiegelnde Gebilde den geheim eren Sinn dem. A ufm erkenden zu
offenbaren."1
In this chapter, I will show how G oethe uses one such contrastive technique in
o rd er to apportion socially typological behaviors — aspects o f the systems o f social
practice called habitus by sociologists, systems that marked and perpetuated distinctions
o f social rank in late feudal Europe2 —differentially to the characters in his novel, and
then to show w hat risks his novel suggests may result from departure from native class
habitus.
O ne hint at the sense o f Goethe's use o f certain behaviors as markers o f habitus
m ay be taken from a w ork o f graphic art w ith w hich he was familiar. Daniel
C hodow iecki's print series "N aturiiche u n d affekderte H andlungen des Lebens,"
published in the Cottinger Taschen Kalender for 1779 and 1780 w ith com m entary by
G eorg C hristoph Lichtenberg, implicidy invests its contradistinguished behaviors with
a moralized sociological specificity.3 C hodow iecki employs pendant pairs o f prints to
: Letter to Iken 27. Sept. 1827 = W A IV 43, 83 5-10

1 O n habitus see B ourdieu. Pierre. The Logic o f Practice. R ichard N ice, crans. (Stanford; Stanford
U niversity Press. 1990), 52-65 and B ourdieu, Pierre. La distinction. Critique sociale de jugem ent (Paris:
Editions de M inuit, 1979), 189 ffl
3 I have reproduced these prints in Appendix I below , from Focke, R udolf. Chodowiecki et Lichtenberg
(Leipzig: W eicher, 1901). G oethe describes these very engravings in an essay o f 1800 (Die guten Weiber,
164
suggest the "natural" and the "affected” ways in w hich m odem Germans are apt to
engage in certain acdvides (teaching, conversing, walking, greeting others, praying,
riding, dancing, expressing taste o r em odon). As in H ogarth, these contrasts are
moralized. U nlike Hogarth, how ever, C hodow iecki and Lichtenberg aim ed their
ridicule at a clearly habitus-indexed, p h enom enon: the R o co co francophilia o f
Germany's princely courts and arriviste bourgeoisie.4 T h e prints mark affectation w ith
visual clues that suggest vain pretensions to aristocratic elegance in the French style:
foppish finery, enormous wigs, graceless gesticulation, and an occasional background
o f classical French garden scenery. In contrast, they intimate naturalness w ith a quiet
simplicity in dress and posture, a reticence in expression, and the backdrop o f gardens
in the English R om antic style. In short, the prints link "naturalness" w ith a habitus
called moral and biirgerlich by the ascendant n o n -n o b le elites o f the tim e, and
"affectedness" w ith the habitus o f the francophile G erm an nobility that these elites
w ere beginning to hope to supplant in power.
O f course, G oethe's intentions o f 1809 differ from C hodow iecki’s and
Lichtenberg’s o f three decades earlier. T he front o f battle betw een the Stande has
shifted since 1780, and in 1809 G oethe has one foot firmly planted on either side o f
it.3 Still, the prints' method o f contrast —their contraposition o f “entgegengesetzte[n]
C haraktere bey einerley Vorfallen [...], dam it sie einen Gegensatz oder K ontrast
ausm achen” (to quote the E nlightenm ent critic J. G. Suizer), w hich also strongly
als Cegenbilder der basen Weiber, a u f den K uvfem des diesjakrigen Damenalmanadis). G oethe's te x t was
provoked by a series o f satirical prints by Johann H einrich R am berg published in Cotta's Tasdtenbuch f i r
Damen, w ith w hich it compares (and to which it prefers) Chodow iecki’s prints [W A I, 18. 294 23 - 295
Jl-
* C f B rutbrd, W . H . Germany in the Eighteenth Century: The Social Background o f the Literary Revival
(Cambridge: Cam bridge UP, 1965), 21. 65. 318
' W ern er Busch has suggested that Lichtenberg's intention in respect o f class distinctions was already
different from Chodow iecki’s. See Busch, W erner. Das Sendmentalische Bild. D ie Krise der Kunst im 18.
Jahrhundert und die Ceburt der Modeme (Munich: Beck. 1993). 310.
165
inform ed the G erm an novel in the late eighteenth century6 — carried w ith it the
iconographic vocabulary o f an older debate o f w hich G oethe w o u ld transform the
syntax to suit the historical conditions described in his novel o f 1809.
In the following pages, I will show on the example o f the cousins O ttilie and
Luciane how Goethe apportions aspects o f habitus differentially to his characters. I will
then describe the part such difference plays in the action o f the novel.
As readers o f Elective Affinities have seen from the start. Luciane's principal
function in the book is as a foil to her cousin O ttilie. "Ich [...J finde nun die Luciane
[...] sehr reizend und ganz nothwendig, indem durch sie der C harakter der O ttilie erst
recht deutlich und entgegengestellt w ird,"7 w rote W ilhelm G rim m to his brother
Jacob in N ovem ber o f 1809. An early reviewer, Karl Philipp C onz, called her "das
pikanteste Gegenbild von O tilien [src/],"8 and in 1810 the critic B ernhard R u d o lf
A beken observed: "[D]as tolle T reib en Lucianens, ih r weltliches R asen, hebt die
himmlische R uhe Ottiliens [...]."’
As A beken understood, G oethe's portrait o f O ttilie is contrastive: she is
characterized to a large degree by contradistinction to Luciane. This operation relies
on O ttilie's occupying the first term in each o f a series o f im plicit binary schemata,
leaving Luciane to occupy the counterterm in each binary term -pair. Thus not only
s Langen. A ugust. Anschauungsformen in der deutschen Dtchtung des 18. Jahrhunderts (Rahmenschau und
Rttionalismus) (Jena; Diederichs, 1934), 81 (quote from Sulzer); "N eben dem Guckkastenschau ist der
K onttast das wichtigste padagogisch-veranschauiichende Lehrm ittel der Zeit" Langen 71: cf. Paulsen,
R onald. Hogarth. Volume II: High A rt and Law, 1732-1750 (N ew Brunswick: R utgers University Press.
1992) 304 ff. o n th e origin o f such contrastive imagery in the ancient topos o f th e "choice o f Hercules";
Griffiths, A ntony and Frances Carey. German Printmaking in the Age o f Goethe (London: T h e British
M useum Press, 1994), 57; A rburg, H ans-G eorg von. "Z w ischen 'diinner Schale’ u n d ekelhafter
A natomie’. Versuch einer Paradigmatik des Hogarth-Bildes in Deutschland." Germanic Review 7 5 /4 (Fall
2000): 291-2 on relation o f Hogarth's w ork to G erm an novel-writing.
' W ilhelm G rim m to Jacob Grimm, H ard 80
9 H ard 93
’ H ard 124
166
do O ttilie and L u c ia n e ex em p lify , re s p e c tiv e ly , A b e k e n 's sch em ata
"him m lisch/w eltlich" o r "ruhig/rasend," b u t also — fo r instance — th e polar pairs
in w a rd /o u tw a rd , m odest/pro d ig al, th o ro u g h /su p erficial, and natural/affected.
Excluding (perhaps) Abeken's term -pair "him m lisch/w eltlich," all o f these schemata
belong recognizably to the roster o f "asymmetric counterconcept" sets (Koselleck)
developed by Germany's non-noble elites after roughly 1770 to characterize, and
dem onize, the nobility they hoped to displace from po w er.10
Although the character traits that define Ottilie's difference from Luciane come
m ost strikingly into relief in the course o f Luciane's w hirlw ind visit to Eduard's estate
in Part II, the letters sent hom e to Charlotte by the Schoolm aster (Gehiilfe) and the
Principal ( Vorsteherin) o f the boarding-school that the tw o cousins attend are o u r first
introduction to the two w om en.” T hey already establish th e tw o girls as antipodes
early in the book, before either has had a chance to appear in person.
As a student, Luciane combines, in the words o f the Schoolmaster, "alle jen e
glanzenden Eigenschaften [...], w odurch man in d er W elt em porsteigt."12 O ttilie’s
virtues are less conspicuous. Luciane, an extrovert, distinguishes herself "durch
F reih eit des Betragens, A nm uth im T anze, schickliche B eq u em lich k eit des
Gesprachs."13 She acquires languages, skills and know ledge mainly for the sake o f their
social display, forgetting everything only to recall it again w h en needed.14 In other
10 Koselleck. R.einhart. "Z u r historisch-politischen Sem andk historischer Gegenbegrifie." Veigangene

Z u kun ft. Z ur Sem antik geschiditltcher Zeiten (Frankfurt am M ain: S uhrkam p, 1989), 211 ff. on
councerconcepcs. N o n e o f chese schem ata is described b y K oselleck. w hose exam ples are
"H ellen en /B arb aren ." C h risten /H eid en ." "M ensch/U nm ensch." a n d "U berm ensch/U nterm ensch."
T hese are all pairs o f nouns. I m yself am interested in pairs o f adjectival predicates, all o f w hich align to
describe th e opposition "B urger/A del." O n such binary oppositions see also K itder, Friedrich A.
"O ttilie H auptm ann." Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften. Kritische ModeUe und Diskursanalysen zum M ythos
Literatur. N o tb ert W . Bolz. ed. (Hildesheim: Getstenberg, 1981), 263
n 1.2—1.3
12 1.3 = W A 1 20. 37 25 - 38 2
13 1 2 = W A I 20, 17 12-15
u 1.2 = W A I 20, 17 10-12
167
w ords, she shines, as O ttilie does not, in acquiring th e social graces her hohere
Tochtenchule strives to cultivate. She is "fur die W elt geboren” —here the w orld o f
courdy o r aristocratic society is m eant —and is happily being raised by the school to
live in that w orld.ts O ttilie, o n the o th e r hand, is unw o rld ly in this sense.
Thoroughly unconcerned with outw ard display, she dresses modesdy, says litde, and
Ieams, it seems, for inward, not outward, reasons.
T he reports sent home by the two pedagogues give matching accounts o f their
students, yet they value differently w hat they describe. T h e Principal’s displeasure
w ith O ttilie rests precisely upon her failure to act, as Luciane does, w ith an eye to
display, whereas the interest o f the Schoolm aster is piqued by h er reserve. The
Principal takes issue w ith O tdlie's m odesty in dress; she w onders irritably w hy
som eone can look so stupid w ho isn't; she does noc wish to see even one o f her pupils
unadorned w ith a prize at year's end.16 Visible accom plishm ent is w hat her clients —
the "parents and superiors" o f her pupils —dem and. T h e Schoolmaster has a different
notion o f schooling from that o f the Principal. H e is critical o f the school’s accent on
show, as we sense in his letters and learn explicidy later on in the b o o k .18 His taste
and eye are therefore attuned to the qualities in O ttilie that promise a deeper, more
substantial response to his teaching than is usual there. H e notices, for example, that
her penmanship is m ore accurate, if less free, than that o f the o ther students; that her
mathematical skills are m ore refined, but slow er to operate, than those o f the others;
that the French he has taught h er is com petent, though she is easily outtalked and
,s 1.2 = W A 1 20. t7 5-6

Is 1.3; 1.5 = W A I 20, 37 2 21; 6 t 6-14; Charlotte 1.6 = W A I. 20, 67 20 gl
u T h e examiners on their task: "Fahigkeiten w erden vorausgesetzt, sie soDen zu Fertigkeiten werden.
DieB ist der Z w eck aller Erziehung, dieB ist die laute deadiche Absicht der Eltem u n d Vorgesetzten. die
stiQe, nu r halbbewuBte der Kinder selbsr." 13 = W A I 20, 60 19-23
18 11.7
168
outdone.19 In his view o f O tdlie's case, the opposite o f visible show is thorough
accomplishment tailored to need.
A t th e turn o f the n in eteen th century, these tw o modes o f behavior,
characterized in their difference from one another, were unmistakable markers o f class
habitus. A dolf Freiherr von Knigge, for example, an acid critic o f noble behaviors (and
o f their im itation by non-nobles), set precisely such desiderata o f thoroughness and
practicality o v er against the “ M angel an g ru n d lich en , w ahrhaft ntitzlichen
Kenntnissen” characteristic, in his view, o f the Hofschranze.2D Knigge regrets that “der
T o n , w elcher jetzt unter unsem ganz jungen Leuten ziemlich allgemein an H ofen und
in der feinen W elt eingeschlichen ist” involves a tendency “keine Kunst, keine
W issenschaft grundlich zu lem en, ungeachtet aller M iihe, w elche die n e u em
Padagogen anwenden, und ungeachtet des trefflichen Beyspiels, das sie der Jugend in
H oflichkeit, B escheidenheit u n d G riin d lich k eit g e b en .”2’* In this p e rio d ,
thoroughness, practicality and the acquisition o f Bildung w ere supposed to be typical
features o f the bourgeois, ignorance and dilettantism marks o f the aristocrat (at least by
such anti-aristocrat critics as Knigge).22
It is in keeping w ith this distinction o f noble dilettantism from non-noble
com petence that the grace and understanding w ith w hich O ttilie interprets the role o f
the Virgin (in the Prasepe o r nativity scene staged for her by the Architect in II.6)
shows up her cousin's amateurishness as an actress. T o be sure, Luciane interprets
effectively the roles she plays in her three tableaux vivants; b u t her singing, recitation
19 See the Schoolmaster’s letters, in 1.5 & 1-5.

x Knigge. A dolph Freiherr v o n . Ausgewahlte Werke in zehn Banden, V ol. VI: Uber den Umgang mil
Mensdten (Hannover: Fackeltrager. 1991), 311
21 Knigge 317
— Knigge resembled many writers o f his tim e in ascribing these particular qualities to these classes. C £
in general M aurer, M ichael. D ie Biographie des Burgers. Lebensformen und Dertkweisen in der formativen
Phase des deutschen Burgertums (1680-1815) (Gottingen: V andenhoeck & Ruprechc, 1996).
169
and pantom im ic acting are notably slipshod. She plays guitar well and has a pleasant
voice, "was aber die W orte betraf, so verstand man sie so wenig, als w enn sonst eine
deutsche Schone zur Gitarre singt."23
Ih r Gedachtnis war gut. aber w enn m an aufrichdg reden sollce, ihr Vortrag geistlos und
heftig, ohne Ieidenschaitlich zu sein. Sie recidrte Bailaden, Erzahlungen und was sonst in
D eclam atorien vorzukom m en pflegt. D abei hatte sie die ungluckliche G ew o h n h eit
angenom m en. das was sie vo rtru g m it G esten zu begleiten. w o d u rcb m an das was
eigentlich episch u n d lyrisch ist. a u f eine unangenehm e W eise m it dem D ram adschen
m ehr verwirrt als verbindet.-4
Luciane's failures at interpretation in this earlier part o f the entertainm ent derive partly
from a shallowness o f feeling and understanding, pardy from faulty technique. She sins
outright against nearly all o f the "R egeln fur Schauspieler” G oethe enjoined on the
W eim arer Hoftheater in 1803.25 H er three tableaux vivants enjoy m ore success; b u t
here, too, the text marks a difference. Luciane's stagings are calculated above all to
flaunt h er ow n beauty and virtue: they are done w ith an eye to show . O ttilie’s
perform ance distinguishes itself th ro u g h an em o tio n al d epth, and a d ep th o f
understanding, that Luciane does n o t have. T h e contrast helps to prove the
Schoolmaster's pedagogical point: "nichts a u f den Schein und nach aufien gethan,
sondem alles nach innen [...I"26 —and w ith the harm ony o f feeling and m ovem ent that
Schiller considered a sine qua non o f physical grace.27
T h e language o f clothing used to contrast O ttilie w ith h er cousin works
equally well as an index o f habitus. T h e Principal o f the boarding school finds fault
3 II.4 = W A I. 20. 250 6-8

24II.5 = W A I. 20, 251 15-24
3 "R egeln fur Schauspieler." W A I. 40, 139-168. This is probably w hat led W ilhelm G rim m to seek
her original m odel in Caroline Jagemann, an actress G oethe deephr disliked. C £ H ard 80. 110.
3 H.7 = W A I. 20. 282 20-24
3 "A nm ut [—1 konnen n u r solche Bew egungen zeigen, die zugleich einer Em pfindung entsprechen."
Schiller, Friedrich- "U ber A nm ut und W urde." Sdmtliche W ake (M unich; Hanser, 1967), V.447. T h e
follow ing related distinction o t Schiller's m ight also b e used to distinguish Luciane h o rn O ttilie: "D ie
170
w ith O tdlie’s modesty o f dress: “Sie halt freilich ihre Sachen sehr reirdich und gut und
scheint n u r in diesem Sinn die KLeider zu wechseln.”28 O n e may ju d g e here, as I have
done above in regard to general questions o f pedagogy, that the Principal's discomfort
has to do w ith O tdlie’s passive refusal to act w ith a view to display — in other words,
to dress as she thinks a young aristocrat should. R esponding to this cavil, one o f the
first things C harlotte takes care o f in 1.6 is O ttihe's w ardrobe: “ Das Nachste was die
Frauen beschaftigte w ar der Anzug. C harlotte verlangte von O ttilien , sie solle in
Kleidem reicher und m ehr ausgesucht erscheinen.”29 Characteristically, O ttilie goes
about obliging her aunt in a stubbornly unaristocratic fashion. i.e. by m aking her own
wardrobe w ith econom y and in simple good taste. “Sogleich schnitt das gute tatige
Kind die ih r friiher geschenkten Stoffe selbst zu und wuBte sie sich, m it geringer
Beihiilfe anderer, schnell und hochst ziedich anzupassen. Die neuen. m odischen
Gewander erhohten ihre Gestalt [...].'"M
T he effective simplicity, econom y and good taste o f O ttilie ’s dress stand in
polar contrast to Luciane’s manic and not always tasteful passion for clothes:
N'ichc umsonsc hatte sie so vieles Gepacke m itgebracht. ja es w ar ih r n och manches

gefolgt. Sie hatte sich au f eine unendUche Abwechslung in K leidem vorgesehen. W enn
es ih r V ergniigen m achte. sich des Tags d re i-, vierm al u m zu z ieh e n u n d m it
gew ohnlichen. in d er Geseilschatt ublichen K leidem von M orgen bis in die N acht zu
w echseln. so erschien sie dazwischen w ohl auch einmal im w irkiichen M askenkleid. als
Biiuerin und Fischenn, als Fee a n d Blumenmadchen.31
W hereas O ttilie is m oderate in h er tastes and needs, Luciane is prodigal. N o t only
does she pack enough clothing for several changes per day plus Maskenkleid, she also
does no t hesitate to have this extensive w ardrobe cu t up to m ake costumes for the
architektonische Schonheit m acht dem U rheber der N atur. A nm ut u n d Grazie m achen ihrem Besitzer
Ehre. Jene ist ein Talent, diese ein petsdnliches Verdienst." [446]
251.3 = W A I 20. 37 2-4
39 1.6 = W A I 20, 67 20-22
30 1.6 = W A I 20. 67 22-27
171
tableaux vivants o f II.5.32 Luciane has servants carry h er things, and servants make the
new costumes; O ttilie refuses to impose on others, preferring to produce her ow n
wardrobe “m it geringer Beihiilfe anderer."33 She agrees to dress fashionably, if simply,
but she is n o t to Luciane’s m anner bom . T he simplicity o f h er taste, her m oderation,
industriousness and self-sufficiency — set over against Luciane’s reckless prodigality,
extravagance, and odose hauteur —typify her sartorial mores as those o f a Stand that
was com ing to define itself in contradisdncdon to a nobility it considered prodigal,
extravagant, odose and haughty. “Sey [...} einfach in D einer Kleidung und in D einen
M anieren, eh rlich er Biederm ann! Sey em sthaft, bescheiden, hoflich, ruing,
wahrhaffig!”34 T hus does Knigge describe the sartorial virtue o f the n o n -n o b le
Biedermann, in pointed contradisdncdon to the “ Ziererev” and “ Flitterpracht,” the
“M ode-G esicht” and “abgeschmackter H ochm uth” o f “H ofleuten und [...) solchen
Personen iiberhaupt, die in der sogenannten groBen W elt Ieben und den T o n
derselben angenom m en haben [...].'1,35 Knigge’s inclusion alongside “ H ofleuten” o f
“solchen Personen iiberhaupt, die usw .” targets a com m on object o f bourgeois
critique in the eighteenth century’s last three decades: the parvenu Stutzer. “Leider!
w ird dieser T on, den Fiirsten und V om ehm e [...] angeben und ausbreiten, von alien
Standen. die einigen Anspmch auf feine Lebensart machen, nachgeaffi.”36
W hat is the effect o f all this on others? G oethe depicts Luciane’s flamboyance
as pleasing, first, to the Principal, who expects and desires in her students the manners
o f the nobility, and, second, to the aristocratic company assembled in Part II, w hich
31 II.4 = W A I 20. 231 7-t5

32 II.5 = W A I, 20. 253 13-17
33 1.6 = W A I. 20, 67 24-25
H Knigge 314
35 Knigge 311-314
172
expects the same. T he Schoolmaster, on the o th er hand, is him self o f n o n -noble
origin, w ith a vested interest in the type o f education to w hich O ttilie seems naturally
to incline. W hile adm itting Luciane's apmess for courdy life in the letters hom e to
C harlotte, he seems to reserve his implicit approval for the m ode o f organic process
that characterizes O ttilie’s manner o f Bildung. T h e pedagogical principles he expounds
at length to Charlotte in II.7 prove that his sympathies really lie w ith this latter type o f
Bildung. Indeed, he identifies the type as non-aristocratic by identifying his ow n class
interesc w ith it, in explicit contradistinction to C harlotte’s. "[I]n den gebildeten
Standen,” he says,
ist die Autgabe sehr verw ickek. W ir haben a u f hohere, zartere. feinere, besonders a u f
gesellschattliche Verhalcnisse R iicksicht zu nehm en. W ir andem sollen daher unsre
Zdgiinge nach auBen bilden; es ist nochwendig, es ist unedaBlich u nd m ochte recht gut
sein. w enn man dabei nicht das MaB tiberschritte: d enn indem m an die Kinder fur einen
w eiteren Kreis zu bilden gedenkt, treibt m an sie leicht in’s Granzeniose, ohne im Auge zu
behalten was denn eigentlich die innere N atur fbrdert. H ier liegt die Aufgabe. welche
m ehr oder weniger von den Erziehem gelos’t oder verfehlt w ird.3'
T h e Schoolmaster's is a class-conscious “w ir andem ” : he openly distinguishes
the class to w hich he belongs —the so-called “ gebildete Stande” —from C harlotte’s.
T h e term “gebildete Stande," in general currency since the 1790s,38 alludes to an
im portant aspect o f late eighteenth-century bourgeois self-definition. Originally, the
phrase was used to gather both aristocratic and non-noble members o f a rising writing
and reading public under a single collective designation. Its im plicit collective
inclusion o f members o f various Stande in an ideal republic o f letters, however, had an
ideological effect in the German lands sim ila r co that w hich it did in France —though
it never quite led to the same degree o f political unrest there. D uring the troubled
36 Knigge 311
17 11.7 = W A I. 20. 283 26 - 284 9
173
decades after 1789, the social cachet o f noble b irth was increasingly challenged in
Germany by a rise in the social value o f education, the traditional principle o f nobility
by birth (Ceburtsade1) by a m odem one o f nobility o f spirit (GdstesadeI). In the new
ethos o f self-improvement through learning, the German non-noble elites discovered
grounds for a sense o f social self-worth o f a kind that had recently led, in France, to a
revolution. T he Schoolmaster's apparent intention to change the focus o f his school’s
efforts from the genteel education o f aristocrats' daughters to that o f housewives and
mothers —the roles preferred for w om en by the bourgeois pedagogues o f the tim e39 —
reflects precisely this m om ent and this aspect o f social crisis.
"D er Gehulfe," w rote the critic K.W .F. Solger in his review o f 1809 o r 1810,
"gehort zu den einsichtsvollen, verstandigen Personen, die G oethe so sehr liebt, und
streift an das Erhabene einer solchen A rt von Bildung, wie es im 'W ilhelm Meister*
einigem al hervortritt."40 T h e sym pathy th a t this figure displays for O ttilie's
idiosyncrasies does appear in fact to reflect G oethe's ow n ideal o f norm al, healthy
developm ent, while his response to Luciane seems to paraphrase Goethe's misgivings
on current educational methods, as he expressed them elsewhere. Ottilie's need for
coherence in learning reflects the historical-genetic conception o f developm ent that
characterized Goethe's conception o f Bildung.*1 'W e n n es bei einem Kinde nothig ist,
vom Anfange anzufangen," writes the Schoolmaster,
M V ierhaus. R udolf. "B ildung.” Gesckichtliche Grundbegrijje. Historisdtes Lexikon zu r politisch-Sozialen

Sprache in Deutschland. Octo Brunner. W erner C onze. and R einhart Koselleck. eds. (Stuttgart: K lett-
C otta, 1972 ff.), 1.525
w M aurer D ie Biopraphie des Burners 451 ff
40 H ard 202
41 Szondi, Peter. ”A ndke und M odem e in der Asthedk der Goethezeit." Poetik und Gesdiichtsphilosophie
I (Frankfurt am M aim Suhrkamp. 1974), 40 ff. & passim: Lenoir. T im othy. "M orphotypes and che
historical-genetic m ethod in R om antic Biology." Romanticism, and the Sciences. A ndrew Cunningham &
N icholas Jard in e, eds. (Cambridge: C am bridge U niversity Press. 1990). 119 ff; M eyer. H einrich.
Goethe. Das Leben im Werk (Stuttgart, G unther, m d. [1967]), 419 ff
174
so isc es gewiB bei ihr. Was niche aus dem V orhergehenden folgt, begreift sie niche. Sie
seehe unfahig, ja stockisch v o r e in e r Ieiche faBlichen Sache. die fur sie mic niches
zusammenhangt. Kann m an aber die Mietelglieder finden u nd ihr deuelich machen. so isc
ihr das Schwerste begreiflich.42
T h e Schoolmaster describes Ottilie's in n er grow th using a m etaphor borrow ed from
botany: "Es gjbt verschlossene Friichte, die erst die rechten kem haften sind, und die
sich friiher oder sparer zu einem schonen Leben entwickeln." 43 In a letter to Knebel o f
1799 concerning his ow n son August, G oethe used a similar image:
M ein Augusc wachsc und hat zu gewissen D ingen viel Geschick. zum Schreiben, zu
Sprachen. zu allem was angeschauc w erden muB, so w ie er auch ein sehr guces GedachtniB
hat. Maine einzige Sorge isc bios das zu cultiviren was wirklich in ihm liege und alles was
er lemc griindlich erlernen zu lassen. Unsere gewohniiche Erziehung jagt die Kinder ohne
Noch nach so viel Seiten hin un d ist Schuld an so viel falschen R ichtungen die w ir an
Erwachsnen bem erkcn.44
"[B]los das zu cultiviren was w irklich in ihm Iiegt": this is an image o f botanical
entelechy, the Crundfigur o f G oethe's conception o f Bildung. T h e approach to
education that O ttilie, the Schoolm aster and G o eth e him self all find congenial
resembles natural process, as G oethe described it in one o f his essays on experimental
m ethod: "In der lebendigen N atur geschieht nichts, was nicht in einer Verbindung mit
dem Ganzen stehe."45 Thom as M ann once suggested that O ttilie, "das siiBeste Kind
der N atur, das je von eines Kiinsders H and gebildet w urde," accordingly loves "nach
dem Naturgesetz gegen das Sittengebot."46 She learns, it seems, in m uch the same
way. Like N ature according to G oethe, her learning curve, like her passion, obeys an
inner enteiechv; it does not respond to the objective requirements o f social life.
* 1.3 = W A I. 20, 38 16-23

43 1.3 = W A I, 20, 38 11-13
** Letter to Knebel o f 17 Septem ber 1799 = W A IV, 14, 186 25 - 187 5
45 "D er Versuch als V erm itder von O bjekt und Subjekt." W A II 11, 31 25-6
40 M a n n , T h o m a s. "Z u G o e th e 's > W a h Iv e rw a n d tsc h a fte n < ." G oethes Rom an >Die
Wahluenuandtschajten<. Ewald R osch, ed- (Darmstadt: Wtssenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1975), 159.
C £ Solgen "[Ottilie] ist ja das wahre Kind der N a tu r und ih r O pfer zugleich." HSrtl 202
175
T h e Schoolmaster's, then, is a project different from that to w hich this school
for aristocrats' daughters has thus tar devoted itself. Its specifically non-noble character
is allegorized in a question o f marriage. T h e Schoolm aster w o u ld like to enlist
O ttilie’s help w ith the school’s reorganization. In other words, he w ould like to claim
h er no t only for his non-aristocratic profession, teaching, b u t also, perhaps, as his
w ife /' Y et O ttilie is o f noble birth, albeit orphaned and poor. T h e text specifies a
"MiBverhaltniB des Standes" betw een the girl and her form er teacher, a discrepancy
irksome enough to his plans that the man makes some effort to argue it awav.48 The
Schoolm aster w ould sidestep the obstacle to marriage o f inequality o f birth by
appealing to potential equalities o f feeling, financial co n d itio n and vocation.
Encouraged by the Baroness, he imagines his social equalization w ith O ttilie as a
function o f their com m on profession, teaching — a habit o f thinking typical o f the
middle classes bu t atypical o f aristocrats, whose sense o f self traditionally (and indeed
legally) depended in part on th e ir lack o f gainful em ploym ent.49 In the late-
eighteenth-century tradition o f Empjindsamkeit, he wishfully calls upo n sentim ent to
act as a social leveller: “Sein Gefiihl setzte ihn auf der R eise O ttilien vollig gleich.”50
Finally, Ottilie's lack o f money, the pre-em inent bourgeois criterion o f status, w ould
47 II.7 = W A I. 20, 287-8

48 II.7 = W A E. 20, 288 I
49 Cf. W ehler, H ans-U Inch. Deutsche Cesellschaftsgeschichte. Enter Band. Vom Feudalisntus des Alien
Reiches bis zu r Defettsiven Modemisierung der Rejormara 1700-1815 (M unich: B eck, 1987), 1+4: "Im
aflgememen verlor ein Edelmann die Scandesrechte und sein Adelspradikat, w enn er 'ein H andw erk und
erne K unst als sein ordentiiches G ew erbe, w ovon er le b t\ betrieb. w en n e r d ie 'Kaufinannschaft'
ausiibce. ein e 'u nanstandige B ed ien u n g fiber sich nahm ' o d e r bei e in em B firgerlichen ein
Dienstverhaltnis einging."
30 II.7 = W A I. 20, 288 18-19; on implicit political force o f moral pathos, see M aurer 267 61, Koselleck,
R ein h art. K ritik und Krise. Eine Studie zu r Pathogenese der burgerlichen W elt (Frankfurt am M ain:
Suhrkamp, 1973), e.g. 67 61.
176
seem to prom ise some social tungibility: “A uch hatte die Baronesse ihm w ohl fiihlen
lassen, daR O ttilie im m er ein armes M adchen bleibe.”51
T he Schoolmaster's hopes, and the Baroness's designs, are a sign o f the times:
“ [W ]enn zw ischen ihnen einiges MiBverhaltniB des Standes war, so glich sich dieses
gar Ieicht durch die D enkart der Z eit aus.”32 This "glich" is subjunctive: the sentence
is indirect speech, reporting the Schoolmaster's thoughts on the Denkart der Zeit. Such
thoughts the Baroness does her best to encourage. T h e factum conveyed by this
passage is that in G erm any by 1809 such typically bourgeois criteria as feeling,
vocation and w ealth seem ed m ore adequate grounds than ever for pretensions to
socio-political equality — in noble and non -n o b le circles alike. Such change to
traditional attitudes toward class differences may certainly have reflected the ideological
gains o f the French R evolution, as well as the current French occupation o f Germany.
Perhaps m o re to the p o in t, how ever, th e n ew Denkart is th e index o f a
bourgeoisification o f aristocratic behavior already some to u r decades underway. It is
the current index o f a change in habitus flowing both from the early-capitalist pressures
o f a changing econom y (w hich drove some landow ning aristocrats to econom ic
activity m ore entrepreneurial than feudal, and ochers into the kind o f poverty that
could make marriage to non-nobles suddenly seem acceptable), and from the rise o f a
"public sphere," a "republic o f letters," in w hich nobles and Burger alike were coming
51 IE.7 = W A I. 20. 288 3-4. Just as the inherent fungibilicy o f m oney as a m edium tends to introduce a
correlate fluidity into social relations —"das Geldgeschaft." writes G eorg Simmel, "[w irktj demokransch
nivellierend" — so also did th e developing middle-class ideologies o f feeling, vocation and Bildung
prom ise a paricv based o n fungible products o f th e spirit. "[EJnsbesondere w e n n d er sozial
H oherstehende d er G eldnehm er. der Tieferstehende d e r Em ptanger d e r sachlichen Leistung ist, m acht
es die Parteien Ieicht m iteinander » g e m e i n « . Deshalb empfindec d e r Aristokrat das Geldgeschaft als
deklassierend, w ah ren d d er Bauer, w enn e r start seiner N aturalleistungen d em H e rm in G eld zinst,
dadurch ein A ufsteigen erfahrt-’’ Simmel. Georg, Philosophic des Celdes, 5th ed. (M unich: D uncker &
H um blot, 1930), 455
52 II.7 = W A I, 20, 287 28 - 288 2
177
increasingly to share a habitus built o n sentim ent and th e ideal o f education, o f
Bildung*
Elective Affinities depicts the crisis o f legitim acy th a t G erm an provincial
aristocrats like Eduard faced in the years after Jena, on account o f their failure to act as
aristocrats should. Eduard's fatal predicament consists in his incapacity either to satisfy
the traditional requirem ents o f his station, o r productively to adapt his sense o f his
station and its requirem ents to the changing conditions o f the m odem age. This
incapacity grows w ith Eduard's passion for Ottilie: O ttilie, o r the purchase she gains in
Eduard's heart, is a catalyst for his failure. Conversely, she accuses their passion o f
pulling her fatally out o f her ow n native "path": "Ich bin aus m einer Bahn geschritten,
ich habe meine Gesetze gebrochen, ich habe sogar das Gefiihl derselben verloren."54
W hile both the Architect and the Schoolmaster rem ain in character (although each is
enam ored o f her), Ottilie's and Eduard's mutual passion distorts the habitus o f each o f
them . T he behaviors skewed are typical aspects o f class habitus. It is because o f Ottilie
that Eduard fails to act as a noble landow ner should; it is o n Eduard's account that
O ttilie strays from a "path" coded by the text w ith all the attributes that Germany's
non-noble elites attached to themselves.
T he "path" from which Ottilie has strayed, and to w hich she w ould return, is
that o f a set o f qualities, virtues o r dispositions that the G erm an Burger o f the novel's
tim e was inclined to claim as his ow n — as the Schoolm aster at Ottilie's boarding-
school does indeed, first by approving behavior at school disapproved o f by others,
then by thinking to ask for her hand in marriage and request h er cooperation in his
33 Vierhaus, "Bildung," Cesckicktliche Crundbegriffe 1325 £E; Koselleck Kricik und Krise on freemasonry as
equivalent locus o f this dialectic
54 11.14 = W A I 20. 370 14-16
178
project o f establishing a new type o f school. T h e occasion o f Ottilie's deviation is
Eduard, a provincial nobleman . Ottilie, o f course, leads Eduard to err from his "path"
as well: H ow ever impetuous o r irresponsible Eduard may be by nature, it is his passion
for h er that makes him disregard his social responsibilities as a provincial aristocrat, to
the detrim ent o f his estate, his bloodline and his menage. Indeed, O tto's death by
drow ning m ight as well be considered the fatal consequence o f Eduard's divergence
from character — o f his insouciance regarding his noble bloodline — as w ell as o f
O ttilie’s failure to respect the marriage bond. ”[S]o muss Ottilie karteriren und Eduard
desgleichen, nachdem sie ihrer N eigung freien Lauf gelassen. N u n feiert erst das
Sitdiche seinen Trium ph."” T h e lovers die by the com m on moral-dramatic logic o f a
fatal divergence from character, yet on disparate characterological grounds. Eduard
pulls O ttilie out o f the "path" o f a middle-class habitus; O ttilie (who adheres to a non
noble habitus w hile being herself o f noble origin) draws Eduard away from a fitting
aristocratic habitus (in a m anner that I will describe in detail in the following chapter).
T h e consequences are fatal for both. T o a degree, C harlotte and the C aptain (the
C aptain m ore than Charlotte, as w e shall see in the following chapter) manage by
virtue o f a capacity for Entsagung to preserve th e integrity o f their respective habitus.
T hey rem ain characterologically constant and self-consistent throughout the course o f
the book (excepting one move tow ard temptation, from w hich they save themselves).
This m ay be w hy they survive the trium ph o f Sittlichkeit that G oethe supposed the
novel to have enacted —at least bodily, if n o t w ith o u t psychic damage. T he Architect
and the Schoolmaster (by way, so to speak, o f experimental control), rem ain true to
their native habitus w ithout ever feeling the tem ptation to leave it, and are accordingly
55 G oethe to R iem er, D ecem ber 1809, in: Gca£ Hans G erhard. Coethe uber seine Dichtungen. Wersudi
einer Sammlung oiler AujSemngen des Dichters uber seine paetischen Weeks. Enter Teil. D ie epischen Didttungen.
Erster Band (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1968), 427
179
left unscathed by the hand o f fate (though the Schoolmaster figures significantly as a
witness to its destructiveness).
180
Chapter VI
The Ottilie-EfFect:
Ottilie's Anecdote o f Charles I and her Relocation o f the Lusthaus
D ie m oralische Gesetzlichkeit ist das policisch unsichtfaare Gerust, an

dem sich die Gesellschaft gleichsam emporgerankc hatte. O h n e seiber
ein en politisch e EintluB aktualisieren zu k o n n e n , w ird diese
GesetzmaBigkeit d er M oral dem absolutistischen Staat als seine w ahre
L egitim ation un tetsch o b en . D ie M ac h t des Fiirsten w ird ihres
reprasentativen u n d souveranen Charakters entkleidet. aber zugleich
wird die M acht als Funktion nicht tangiert, denn sie soE eine Funkdon
d e r Gesellschaft w erden. D irek t unpolitisch, w ill die Gesellschaft
mdirekt. durch eine Mocalisierung der PoEdk dennoch herrschen.1
I have suggested that Elective Affinities depicts the crisis o f legitim acy that
G erm an provincial aristocrats such as Eduard and C harlotte faced in the period after
Jena.2 It does so demonstratively, by showing the dire results o f their failure to act as
aristocrats should. It does so symbolically as well, in the details o f anecdote, converse
and aesthetic description that C hristoph M artin W ieland scornfully called the book’s
Nebensachen, or side-issues.3 Both levels o f representation —the demonstrative and the
symbolic — are linked in the figure o f O ttilie. For it is by altering the m eaning o f
certain symbols —o f symbols related im pliddy to definitions o f habitus - that O ttilie
affects the behavior o f others, thus bringing on disaster. O ttilie is the novel’s agent par
excellence o f divergence from native class habitus. She has a peculiar, consistent and
1 KoseUeck, R einhart. Kritik und Krise. Eine Studie zur Patkogenese der burgerlichen W elt (Frankfurt am
M ain: 1973), 122-3
2 As I have already noted, the w ord Legttim itat entered German usage in 1815 (used by G entz, taken
ov er from Talleyrand); it was conditions after 1806 that first gave the term relevance in Germany.
W urtenburger, Thom as, "Legitimicat, Legalitat." Ceschichtliche Grundbegnffe. Historisches Lexikon zur
politisch-Sozialen Sprache in Deutschland. O tto Brunner. W erner C onze. and R e in h a rt Koselleck, eds.
(Stuttgart: K lett-C otta, 1972 ftl), UI.708
3 W ieland to Elisabeth Grafin von Solms-Laubacb. 15 Ju n i 1810. in D ie Wahlveru/andtschajten. Eine
Dokumentation der Wirkung von Goethes Roman 1808-1832. ed. H einz H ard (Berlin: Akademie-Veriag,
1983) [henceforward: "H ard”], #377 pp. 158-9. H egel expressed a similar opinion in his lectures on
aesthetics: "Ein ahnliches Anfugen von einzelnen Zugen. die aus dem Inhalte nicht hervorgehen, fin den
w ir selbst n o c h in den Wahlvenuandtschafien w ied en die Parkanlagen, die Iebenden B ilder und
181
meaningful way o f affecting the behavior o f o ther characters.4 T h e aim o f this chapter
is to show in detail how this happens —and to suggest that the crisis o f habitus she helps
to cause may contain seeds o f its ow n resolution.
I shall show w hat I mean by focusing on tw o episodes from the novel’s first
part. O n e is O ttilie's recom m endation that the n ew sum m er house the couple is
planning be built high up on a ridge instead o f across from the m anor house, as
originally intended —advice that a love-struck Eduard summarily accepts. T he other is
Ottilie's use o f an anecdote from the trial o f the English king Charles I in order to
justify to Charlotte a habit o f restoring to m en objects they have dropped.
T hese episodes have several features in com m on. In b o th cases, O ttilie
demonstrates a quiet but forceful way o f bringing others to accept —or, at least, not
reject —her dissenting point o f view. She argues, w hile modestly seeming not to; and
her arguments have implications, both practical and symbolic, that extend for beyond
the point in question.
Practically, each argum ent expands O ttilie's influence on the dom estic
econom y o f the estate, while effecting a com m ensurate decrease in the authority o f
her hosts, C harlotte and Eduard. A lthough for exam ple we n ev er learn w hether
Charlotte is really convinced by Ottilie’s tale o f Charles I (which I shall relate in detail
in a m om ent), still she does not object after this to the Dienstfertigkeit, the obliging
Pendelschw ingungen. das Metallfuhlen. die Kopfichmerzen. das ganze aus d er C hem ie endehnce Bild
der chemischen Verwandtschaften sind von. dieser A rc" C ited in H ard. 262
4 Susan W in n ett has observed that O ttilie "incorporates a dynam ic that makes particular things happen —
and happen repeatedly — in the course o f the narrative. As an actor, a particular presence in the novel,
she n o t only cancels o u t certain relations buc also brings others into being." She suggests further that
O ttilie's effect o n E duard is that she "leads E duard back to him self as O tto ," i.e. into narcissistic
regression; W in n ett does n o t describe any comparable specific effect on C harlotte [W innett. Susan.
Terrible Sociability: The T ext o f Manners in Lados, Goethe & James (Stanford, California: Stanford
U niversity Press, 1993), 160 ffl]. [ believe W innett is right to link this regression-effect w ith the
breakdow n o f m anners this novel depicts; b ut L w ould like to describe that effect w ith m ore socio-
historicai specificity than she does. C £ also C hapter H. above, o n the connection o f Eduard's socio-
182
efficiency, that the anecdote is m eant to justify. W h at is m ore, after telling it, O ttilie
goes o n to becom e "vollig die Herrin des Haushaltes" in Charlotte's stead (indeed, every
tim e the w ord Herrin appears in the text —nine times by com puter count, o f w hich
this is the first —it applies to O ttilie).5 A similar change in p o w er relations flows from
the relocation o f the site for the sum m er house, to w hich I should first like to turn.
In 1.7, the book's four protagonists m eet to discuss the landscaping plans
developed over the course o f that day, w ith the help o f a map prepared by the
Captain.
U m sich alles m ehr im einzelnen zu vergegenw artigen nahm m an abends zu Hause

sogleich die neue Karte vor. M an iibersah. den zuruckgeiegten W eg u nd wie er vielleicht
an etnigen Scelien noch vortheilhafter zu tuhren w are. Alle fruheren Vorsatze w urden
nochmais durchgesprochen und mic den neuesten G edanken verbunden, der Platz des
neuen Hauses, gegen dem SchloB uber. nochmais gebilligt und der Kreislauf der W ege bis
dahin abgeschlossen.
O ttilie h atte zu dem alien geschw iegen. als E duard zuletzt den Plan, der bisher vor
C harlotten gelegen. vor sie hinw andte und sie zugleich einlud. ihre M einung zu sagen.
und als sie einen Augenblick anhielc. sie liebevoll erm unterte. doch ja nicht zu schweigen:
ailes sei ja noch gletchgultig, alles noch im W erden.
Ich w iirde. sagte O ttilie. indem sie den Finger a u f die hochste FVdche der A nhohe setzte,
das H aus h ieh er bauen. M an sahe zw ar das SchloB nicht: d enn es w ird von dem
W aldchen bedeck:; aber man befande sich auch dafur w ie in einer andem u n d neuen
W elt, indem zugleich das D o rf u nd alle W ohnungen verborgen waren. Die Aussicht auf
die T eich e. nach der M iihle. a u f die H ohen, in die G ebirge, nach dem Lande zu. ist
auBerordentiich schon; ich habe es im Vorbeigehen bemerkt.
Sie hat recht! rie f Eduard: w ie ko n n te uns das n ich t einfallen! N ich t wahr. so ist es
gem eint. Ottilie? — Er nahm einen Bleisrift u nd strich ein Iangliches Viereck recht stark
und derb au f die A nhohe.6
T h a t Eduard accepts O ttilie's change to a map o f the grounds "der bisher vor
C harlotten gelegen" suggests that it is n o t just control o f the household, o r o f Eduard's
heart, that O ttilie is gaining at Charlotte's expense. N o t only does the new building
political failure w ith his narcissism, and B row n. Jane K-. "Die Wahlvenuandtschaften and the English
N ovel o f Manners," Comparative Literature 38 (Spring, 1976): 97-108.
3 G o e th e . D ie IVahlveru/andtschafteru Leeds G e rm a n D e p a rtm e n t T e x t D atabase =
http://!2 9 .1 1 .1 9 3 .3 5 /litarch /w v n q .htm
6 1.7 = W A I 20, 86 14-87 15
183
com e during the course o f che novel to symbolize Charlotte's loss o f Eduard's love; the
speech-giving M ason o f tw o chapters after (1.9) gauges O ttilie’s choice o f its site a
forfeit as w ell o f Eduard's "V orrecht des G rundherm , daB er sage: hier soli m eine
W o h n u n g stehen und nirgends anders."7 N o r does Eduard simply relinquish this
traditional ow ner’s prerogative on his ow n account; he also deprives his wife o f a say
in the m atter. T h e blueprints for the project have been snatched from Charlotte's
hands, and pressed into Ottilie's. After this, Charlotte's active role in the w ork o f
landscape design diminishes, roughly in the same measure as her grip on the household
is loosened in Ottilie's favor.
W hat is more, the construction o f the new building sets Eduard and Charlotte
under financial strain. T he project becomes a drain on the couple's finances, and even
Eduard’s plan to sell off a farmstead to its current lessee does n o t prevent them from
falling into mortgage debt.8
As I have shown in Chapter II, the manner o f sale by w hich Eduard chooses to
rid him self o f the farmstead reveals his inadequacy as a steward o f the land, and hence
the weakening legitimacy o f his social position as a feudal lord. H e decides to sell to
his current lessee for cash, instead o f accepting the Captain's socially more progressive
suggestion that he subinfeudate the land to tenant farmers by the process o f land
repartition (Giiterzerschlagung). Eduard's assent to Ottilie's counsel that the site o f the
sum m er house be m oved symbolically underscores the delegjrimating effect o f such a
defection from habitus.
' 1.9 = W A I 20. 96 21-23

8 " [—1 m an w olle die planmaBigen Arfaeiten lieber selbst beschleunigen, zu d em E nde G elder
aufnehm en, a n d zu deren Abcragung die Z ahlungstennine anw eisen. die vom V orw erksverkauf
zuriickgeblieben w aren. Es IieB sich fast ohne Verlust durcb Cession der G erechtsame chun [...{." 1.13
= W A I 20. W A I 20, 143 23-28
184
T h e direct line o f sight to the manor, a feature typical o f the French classical
garden aesthetic to which we are led to believe Eduard's father adhered,9 is abandoned
here for the rustic meander o f a Rom antic English garden.10 A direct line o f sight to
the village is given up too. In hiding the m anor, w hich th e lines o f sight o f the
French aesthetic made a symbol o f centralized p o w er — o n e need only think o f
Versailles11 — and by concealing, w ith the village, the other defining extrem e o f the
feudal nexus, Eduard embraces a symbol o f the wish to avoid obligations that he escapes
in fact by selling his farmland for cash.
In short, O ttilie leads Eduard to forsake his ow n class interests by encouraging
him to act in a m anner symbolically inappropriate to the social estate to w hich he
belongs; thus confuting the legitimacy o f presumptuous claims to authority such as that
9 1.3 = W A I 20. 31 30-32; 11.8 = W A 1 20, 294 17-22

10 T o th e best o f m y know ledge, the principal cheorists o f the English garden - W illiam Kent.
H um prey R ep to n . and Germany’s Christian Hirschfeld w ere th e ones w ith whose w ork G oethe appears
to have been m ost familiar —made no explicit rules directly concerning this kind o f decision. Certainly,
it was in the general character o f the style to abhor a straight line (as Kent supposed nature did: "Nature
abhors a straight line"), d t. N eum eyer. Eva Maria. "The Landscape G arden as a Symbol in Roussea.
G oeth e and Flaubert." Journal o f the History o f Ideas 8 (1947): 193; see also N eum eyer 198.
C oncealm ent, to o , was a part o f the English garden aesthetic: see for exam ple R ep to n . Hum phrey.
Designs fo r the Pavitlion at Brighton (London. J.C . Stadler, 1808), and R ep to n , Observations on the Theory
and Practice o f Landscape Gardening (London: J. Taylor, 1803). B oth books show R epton inclined to hide
buildings w ith trees, and b o th are in the A nna-A m alia-Bibliothek. at W eim ar; w hich suggests that
G oethe may have had them to hand.
11 W hile confirm ing th e political symbolism o f lines o f sight centered on the m anor house in the
fre n c h garden, the historian Chandra M ukerji nonetheless reads the French garden (on the example o f
Versailles) as less centered (and fren ch absolutism as less centralized) than is usually thought. "Just as the
city-state in late sixteenth-century Italy was a m uch m ore centered political configuration than France
in th e late seventeenth century, the M annerist garden in Italy developed a highly centralized design
focusing on th e house (the source o f pow er). These configurations yielded w hat w ere called,
appropriately enough, pow er houses (the equivalent o f p ow er centers). In contrast. French formal
gardens so extended th e boundaries o f the land w hich they w ere m eant to integrate that their centers
migrated away from th e chateau. In the garden at Versailles, the m ain axis might have reached from the
house thro u g h th e garden to the canal and beyond, b u t it did n o t m ake the house the center o f the
design. T h e different parts o f the garden were jo in e d at the canal, w here the powers o f nature were
united an d identified w ith the land itselfl It was French land that held the system together, n o t the
house, an d land was know n m ore by its boundaries than its center.” M ukeiji, Chandra. Territorial
ambitions and the Gardens o f Versailles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 320-1. Cfi also
Elias, N o rb e rt. Die hdjtsche Gesellschaft. Untersuchungen zu r Soziologie des Konigtums und der hojische
Aristokratie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1983), 338-9.
185
he has m ade in the chapter before (1.6): "Ich mag m it Burgem und B auem nichts zu
tu n haben" —so he declares —"w enn ich ihnen nicht geradezu befehlen kann."12
T h e landscape views to result from the site’s relocation symbolically correspond
to Eduard's inclination to shirk the objective strictures o f social life; which is doubdess
one reason he finds her suggestion so pleasing. As w e have seen in C hapter II, m uch
o f Eduard's behavior is characterized by a desire to throw o ff both social and aesthetic
restrictions. His Ganenliebhaberei is certainly o f the type subsumed by G oethe and
Schiller (in 1799) to the dom inant ''U n art der Zeit, im asthetischen unbedingt und
gesetzlos seyn zu wollen [..-]."13 It was th e English garden, particularly, that they had
in m ind as an object lesson.14 O f course, G oethe’s and Schiller's notes on dilettantism
w ere a response to a more general tendency o f the tim e to throw o ff restrictions in
social and political matters. After 1789, "das W ollen ins Unendliche" was for G oethe
a red, w hite and blue flag, a root cause o f the kind o f social unrest that had led, in
France, to revolution and terror. Eduard's aesthetic wilfulness is thus m ore than a
personal character trait. His failure to lim it him self is the kind taken to task by G oethe
in his version o f Reineke Fuchs, w ith obvious reference to the French Revolution:
D och das Schlimmste find ich den D unkel des irrigen W ahnes.
D er die Menschen ergreift: es fconne jed er im Taumel
Seines hethgen WoIIens die W elt beherrschen a n d richten.15
I f Eduard’s new park is clearly English, his father's garden, w ith its straight
avenues o f linden trees and its formal ground plan, displays, by contrast, affinities w ith
12 1.6 = W A I 20. 72 6-8

13 Uber den Dilettantismus = W A I. +7, 310
14 W A I 47. 310 3 1 -4 1 ; G em dt. Siegmar. Idealisierte Natur. D ie literarische Kontroverse urn den
Landsdtaflsgarten des 18. undfiiihen 19. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1981), 140
15 Reineke Fuchs 8. Gesang, V. 152-154 = W A I 50, 108. These lines "gehorfen] dem ganz W enigen an.
was G oethe den uberbrachten Geschichten und W o rten [des urspriinglichen Epos] hinzugefugt hat."
Jager, H ans-W oI£ "R eineke Fuchs." Goethes Erzahlwerk. Interpretationen. Paul M ichael Lutzeler and
186
the French Classical style. A generational break is thus implicit in Eduard's landscaping
tastes. His aesthetic will is "in's Freie und W eite gerichtet" —unlike that o f his father.
This difference is marked symbolically in 1.3 w ith the plane trees salvaged by Eduard as
saplings w h en his father, ”bei d er A nlage zu einem n eu en T h eil des groBen
SchloBgartens, sie mitten im Som m er ausroden lieB."16 These trees com e to symbolize
n o t only his unconditional passion, but also its terrible consequences: the sight o f them
tempts O ttilie to take her fatal shortcut across the lake.17 T hey are also the site o f
another disastrous result o f Eduard's reluctance to rein in his passion: the fireworks
mishap o f 1.15. Eduard's aesthetic drive "in's Freie und W eite" is m arked w ith the
negative valence o f these disasters.
Eduard's break w ith his father's aesthetic signals his rejection o f a sense o f social
and econom ic order considered self-evident in his father's g en eratio n .18 The
gardener's enum eration, in 1.1, o f the places visible from the moss hut ("unten das
D orf, ein w enig rechter H and die K irche, fiber deren T urm spitze m an fast
hinwegsieht. gegeniiber das SchloB und die G arten")19 shows that "the m oss-hut is
conceived in some kind o f relationship to the mansion, the village, and the church,
w hich represent respectively man's relationship to the family, the com m unity, and the
James E. M cLeod, eds. (Stuttgart: Reclam . 1985), 105; cf. Goethe und die Franzosische Revolution. Insel-
Almanach a u f das Jahr 1989. Conradv. Kari O tto, ed. (Frankfurt am Main: Insei. 1989), 92-4.
16 1.3 = W A I 20. 31 30-32. O n the novel's connection o f aesthetic problems w ith th e problem o f
generational difference (specifically, the Rom antics’ difference from G oethe, understood by G oethe as a
generational difference), see Baioni, Giuliano. Goethe. Classicismo e rivoluzione (Turin: Einaudi. 1998),
245 ff. "La fratrura delle generazioni e [...] anche frattura politica e sopratutto e frattura delle culture, il
proliferare degii stili e delle tendenze. il dissolversi di ogni nusura oggedva defl’arte e della societa." 247
"D ie Platanen siehc sie gegen sich uber, nur ein W asserraum tren n t sie von dem Pfade. der sogleich
zu dem G ebaude hinaufiuhrt." II. 13 = W A I 20, 360 7-9
18 T h e same difference applies to their com petence as landowners: W hereas Eduard’s iacher is said to
have kept goo d accounts. E duard leaves the bookkeeping to C harlotte, w ho w orries th a t he is too
spendthrift. "Sobald e r nach Hause kam , schlug er in alten Tagebuchem nach. die sein V ater, besonders
a u f dem Lande. sehr ordentlich gefuhrt hatte." 1.14 = W A I 20. 153 26 -154 1
19 LI = W A I 20. 3 17-20
187
divine laws [...] o r commandments."20 It follows chat the decision to hide them
(assuming the relocation does conceal from view the church and the old m anor
gardens, along w ith the m anor and village)21 is the sign o f Eduard's wish to escape
lim itation by the concrete exigencies o f his station —an escape that amounts to reckless
neglect o f the obligations chat legitimate his authority as a nobleman.
Like the relocation o f the Lusthaus, Ottilie's construction o f the hum bled king
Charles I as a paradigmatic object o f sympathy symbolically validates actions that
depart from aristocratic behavioral norms.
H ere 1 w ould like to quote O ttilie's anecdote in context and in detail.
Charlotte has just objected:
’Es gehort [...] unter die lobenswurdigen Aufinerksamkeiten. daB w ir uns schnell biicken.
w enn jem an d etwas a us d e r H and fallen laBt, u n d es eilig autzuheben suchen. W ir
bekennen uns dadurch ihm gleichsam dienstptlichtig; n u r ist in der groBem W elt dabei zu
bedenken. w enn man eine solche Ergebenheic bezeigt. G egen Frauen will ich dir dariiber
keine Gesetze vorschreiben. D u bisc ju ng. Gegen H ohere und Altere ist es Schuldigkeic,
gegen deinesgleichen A rtigkeit, gegen Jungere un d N iedere zeigt m an sich dadurch
menschlich und gut; nu r will es einem Frauenzimmer nicht wohl geziemen. sich M annem
a u f diese W eise ergeben und dienstbar zu bezeigen'.—
T o w hich Ottilie replies:
’Ich will es m ir abzugewohnen suchen’, versetzte O ttilie. 'Indessen w erden Sie rrur diese
U nschicklichkeit vergeben. w enn ich Ihnen sage, w ie ich dazu gekom m en bin. M an hat
uns die Geschichte gelehrc ich habe nicht soviel daraus behalten. ais ich w ohl gesoQt
hatte; denn ich wuflte nicht. w ozu ichs brauchen w urde. N u r einzelne Begebenheiten
sind m ir sehr eindrucklich gewesen. so tblgende; als Karl der Erste von England v o r seinen
sogenannten R ichtem stand, fiel d er goldne K nopf des Stockchens. das e r trug, herunter.
G ew ohnt. daB bei solchen B egebenheiten n c h alles fur ihn bem iihte. schien er sich
um zusehen und zu erw arten. daB ihn jem and auch diesmal den kleinen Dienst erzeigen
sollte. Es regte sich niem and; er biickte sich selbst. um den K nopf autzuheben. M ir kam
das so schmerzlich vor. ich weiB nicht, ob tnit R ech t, daB ich von jenem Augenbiick an
niem anden kann etwas aus den H anden tallen sehn. o hne rnich damach zu biicken. D a es
20 Barnes. H .G . "Bildhafte DarsceBung in den 'W ahlverwandtschatten’." Deutsche Vieneljahrsschnft 30

(1956): 72
21 I beEeve w e can assume th e church and m anorial gardens are hidden as w ell by th e new plan,
although they are n o t mentioned.
— 1.6 = W A I 20. 69 18-70 2
188
aber freilich nich t im m er schicklich sein m ag a n d ich'» fuhr sie lachelnd fort, 'nicht
jederzeit m eine Geschichte erzahlen kann, so will ich mich kiinftig m ehr zuruckhalten'.23
C harlotte opposes Ottilie's habit o f picking up after m en because "es einem
Frauenzim m er nicht geziem en [will], sich M annem a u f diese W eise ergeben und
dienstbar zu bezeigen."24 A glance at Torquato Tasso recalls w hat the verb sich ziemen,
geziemen m eant to G oethe: "Erlaubt ist, was sich ziemt."25 "Willst du genau erfahren
was sich ziemt," Leonore drEste advises Tasso: "So frage n u r bey edlen Frauen an."26
C harlotte, a form er lady-in-w aiting at court, and like Leonore d'Este doubdess an
avatar o f Goethe's original social tu to r Charlotte von Stein, knows in her blood "was
sich ziemt." It will not do to invert the noble behavioral code o f gallantry, w hich
w ould have m en pick up after w om en — handkerchiefs and the like —and not vice
versa.
This is a question o f objective social propriety, o f a typically courdv adherence
to the unspoken rules o f a genteel habitusP Like G oethe’s Tasso, O ttilie w ould
subm it the question to an alternative judicature. "O w enn aus guten, edlen M enschen
n u r/ Ein allgemein G ericht bestellt entschiede,/ Was sich denn ziemt!" - thus Tasso in
1789, trying w ithout m uch success to stand on the non-noble norms o f hum anity and
23 1.6 = W A 1 20. 70 3-24

24 1.6 = W A I 20. 69 28-70 1
25 Torquato Tasso II.l = W A I 10. 145 1006
26 Torquato Tasso II.l = W A I 10. 145 1013-14
27 Cf. Elias, N'orbert. Uber den ProzeB der Zvilisation (Frankfort/M : Suhrkamp, 1997), 11.420 SI. on the
stiffening o f habitus distinctions with, th e later aristocracy; W ehler confirms this w ith regard to interdass
marriage restrictions [W ehler. H ans-UIrich. Deutsche Geselbchaftsgesckichte. Erster Band. Vom Feudalismus
des A lten Reiches bis zur Defensiven Modemisierung der Reformara I7 0 0 ~ 1 8 t5 (M unich: Beck, 1987), 146
SI; cf. M aurer, M ichael. Die Biographic des Burgen. Lebensformen und Denksueisen in der formativen Phase
des deutschen Biirgertums (1680-1815) (G ottingen: Vandenhoeck & R uprechr, 1996), 598 on alternative
m iddle-class standards. Stuart Atkins has no ted that "O ttilie herself [...[ is chiefly responsible for
C harlotte's failure to attach proper im portance to w hat is symptomatically strange behavior," b ut he
interprets this strangeness as no m ore than a "symptom o f dangerous neurosis." Atkins. Stuart. "Die
Wahluerwandtschajten: N ovel o f G erm an Classicism." The German Quarterly 53 (1980): 16
189
com m on sense.28 T w enty years later, O ttilie answers Charlotte's rep ro o f in a similar
vein, w ith an account o f her o w n motivation. "Ich will es m ir abzugew ohnen suchen
[...]. Indessen w erden Sie m ir diese Unschicklichkeit vergeben, w enn ich Ihnen sage,
wie ich dazu gekom m en bin."29
N o t only does Ottilie's anecdote refer her behavior to the subjective criterion
o f m otivation (as in fact such jurists as T h eo d o r G ottlieb von H ippel, to cite one
example, w ere ju st beginning to do in the legal sphere by 1790-91; o r as Friedrich
Schiller had done, in 1785, w ith the story "Ein V erbrecher aus verlorener Ehre");30
w hat is m ore, she derives her m otive from Mitleid o r fellow feeling: from sympathy,
pity, hum anity. O ttilie finds painful, schmerzlich, this snub to a m an who expects, but
is o f a sudden denied, the obeisance due him as king. It is Ottilie's pain at his pain -
her Mitleid —that turns her anecdoce into a parable o f restorative sociable action.
Despice her promise co lose the habit o f picking things up for men, O ttilie does
not back dow n from its rationale. She admits the objective correctness o f Charlotte's
censure as a m atter o f social fact, w hile continuing im plicitly co th in k h er ow n
behavior legitimate, justifiable: '"Da es aber freilich nicht im m er schicklich sein mag
und ich’, fuhr sie lachelnd tort, 'niche jederzeic m eine Geschichte erzahlen kann, so
will ich mich kiinftig m ehr zuruckhalten'."31
28 Torquato Tasso, A ct II. Scene I = W A I 10, 145 1007-9

29 1.6 = W A I 20. 70 3 -6
30 H ippel. T h e o d o r von. "N achricht, die vo n Ka—sche U ntersuchung betreSend." Sdmmtliche W ake
(Berlin: R eim er. 1828), X I.307 51; cfl Beck, Ham ilton. " O f T w o M inds about the D eath Penalty-.
HippePs A ccount o f a Case o f Infanticide." Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture 1988 18: 123-140.
Isabel V. H ull notes a connection o f questions o f m otivation w ith the crim e o f infanticide in particular
[Sexuality, State, and C ivil Society in Germany, 1700-1815 (Ithaca, NY: C o rn ett U P . 1996), 111 51},
w hich suggests som e relevance to Goethe's G retchen. O n related developm ents in Schiller's aesthetic
th eo ry and H egel’s philosophy o f law , cfl K im pel, D ieter. "E thos un d N om os als poetologische
Kategorien bei Platon-Aristoteles und das Problem der substandellen Sittlichkeit in G oethes Iphigenie a u f
TaurisT. Cermanisch-Romanische Monatssdtrifi, N eue Folge 3 3 /4 (1983): 378 51 and 382 f f
31 1.6 = W A I 20. 70 2 1 -2 4
190
Indeed, this is already O ttilie's second use o f such a strategy since her
appearance o n the scene. In the very m om ent o f her arrival at the estate, she throws
herself at Charlotte's feet, and embraces her knees. H ere, too, C harlotte interprets
Ottilie's gesture as self-abasement:
W ozu die Demiichigung! sagte Charlotte, die einigetmafien vedegen w ar und sie autheben
woilte. Es ist so dem iithig nicht gem eint, versetzte O tdlie, die in ihrer vorigen Stellung
blieb. Ich m ag m ich n u r so gem jen er Z eit erinnem . da ich n och nicht hoher reichte als
bis an Ihre Kniee u n d Ihrer Liebe schon so gewiB war.32
This gesture, too, offends Charlotte's sense o f social propriety. O ttilie, Charlotte's
orphaned neice. is in principle Charlotte's social equal, though circumstances have laid
her open to a possibility o f social descent (implied, for example, in the efforts the
Baroness makes to have her marry the Schoolmaster). T o Charlotte, who perceives an
obeisance, the gesture seems out o f place. Ottilie adroidy removes the embarrassment
by explaining that it is m eant to express a fond m em ory o f daughterly love, not
relative social position.33 Again, she has quiedy switched the standard by w hich her
action is judged: from the objective code o f hierarchal class relations to the internal
one, the raison de coeur, o f filial devotion.
T h e m anner by w hich O ttilie thus affects C harlotte and her position w ithin
her ow n household bears a certain formal resemblance to the way in which Europe's
rising non-noble elites had become able, by the end o f the eighteenth century, to pose
an indirect threat to state pow er by applying m oral criteria to political matters.34
32 1.6 = W A I 20. 65 6-12

j3 N o te its recurrence as a m o tif in II. 14 = W A I 20, 369 20 fE
34 Koselleck K rilik und Krise 61 ff. In the table o f contents o f La pensee europeene au XVU Ie siede de
Montesquieu a Lessing (n.p [Paris), Favard, 1963), Paul Hazard p ut the general sense o f this dynamic in a
nutshell: "Le Bourgeois: A venem ent d’une dasse nouvelle: le Bourgeois tend a remplacer Ie noble dont
la valeur sodale est contestee ec qui se defend mat." Hazard 461
191
R einhart Koselleck has construed this reversal o f the strict disengagement o f political
action from ethical constraint characteristic o f enlightened absolutism as the discursive
precondition o f a late eighteeth-century "Encfaltung indirekter Gewalt" by Europe’s
non-noble elites against the state.35 H e has suggested, further, that the effectiveness' o f
this force derived substantially from the concealm ent o f its ultimately political nature.
W e witness a similar type o f concealm ent, and a com parable effect, w ith Ottilie's
rejoinder to Charlotte. Charlotte does n o t seem to sense that her authority is being
underm ined by Ottilie's self-justifications, n o r does O ttilie say anything to suggest that
this is her intent. In fret, she does not seem to be aware o f having such an intent. She
resembles in this respect, too, the non-noble representatives o f the Enlightenm ent, as
described by Koselleck: "Das politische Geheim nis d er Aufklarung sollte nicht nur
nach auBen verhiillt w erden, sondem verbarg sich — infolge ihres scheinbar
unpolitischen Ansatzes —den meisten Aufklarem selbst."36
G iven the political resonance o f questions o f regicide in Europe sixteen years
after the execution o f Louis XVI in 1793, I find it surprising that not a single critic has
noted the political sense o f this anecdote.37 For it is clear that Ottilie's account o f
35 "D ie moralische Gesetzlichkeic isc das poticisch unsichtfaare Geriist. an dera sich die Gesellschatt
gleichsam em porgerankt haete. O hne selber einen politische EinfluB akcualisieren zu konnen. w ird
diese GesetzmaBigkeit der M oral dem absolutistischen Staac als seine w ahre Legitimation unterschoben.
D ie M acht des Fursten wird ihres reprasentativen und souveranen Charakters entkleidet. aber zugleich
w ird die M acht als Funktion nicht tangiert, denn sie soli eine Funktion der Gesellschatt w erden. D irekt
unpolitisch. will die Gesellschatt indirekt, durch eine M oralisierung d er Politik dennoch herrschen."
Koselleck Kritik und Krise 122-3
36 Koselleck Kritik und Krise 68
3/ In tw o centuries’ w orth o f criticism I have found b u t six short discussions o f this passage. T hree
writers read th e foil o f the king’s golden knob as a symbol o f castration [W innett, Susan. Terrible
Sociability: The Text o f Manners in Laclos, Goethe & James (Stanford. California: Stanford U niversity Press,
1993), 164; Miller. J. Hillis.. "Interlude as Anastomosis in D ie W ahlverwandtschatten," Goethe Yearbook
VI (1992): 115-122; following Miller, M uller-Sievers, H elm ut, Self-Generation: Biology, Philosophy, and
Literature Around 1800 (Stanford. California: Stanford U niversity Press. 1997), 139;]. A fourth
conceives th e story as an allusion to th e m edieval C hristian construction o f man as a fallen king
[Stocklein. Paul. Wege zum spaten Goethe (Ham burg: M arion v on Schroeder Verlag, 1960), 24], and
suggests th at th e episode is m eant primarily to characterize h e r as helpful and hum ble. T his latter
192
Europe's first regicide is meanc as a cipher o f its second; and that her anecdote can be
read as a fable addressing the crisis o f social order that Germany faced after Jena.
R e in h a rt Koselleck has show n in w hat m easure late eig h teen th -cen tu ry
notions and strategies o f political order w ere predicated on o n e instance o f m id-
seventeenth-century disorder the English Civil W ar.38 T h e execution o f Charles I by
Crom w ell's R u m p Parliament set a precedent that the crow ned heads o f E urope did
n o t w ant repeated. W hen France did erupt in revolution, Europe's first case o f
regicide had long lain ready to hand as an object lesson. As early as 1771, M adame du
Barry had flourished Van Dyck’s portrait o f Charles I to rem ind Louis XV o f the
dangers o f letting the feudal parlements go unchecked in their w axing challenge to
royal pow er.39 In 1776, T u rg o t used a similar tactic to w arn Louis X V I against
irresolution in dealing w ith the renew ed refractoriness o f the parlements, citing the
Stuart king's weakness in handling the English Parliament as cause for his having ended
on the chopping-block.40 As later events w ere to prove, Louis XVI did not take his
m inister’s lesson in statecraft fully to heart, though the com parison was n o t lost on
suggestion is repeated w ith o u t developm ent by a fifth and m ore recent scholar. Elisabeth H errm ann
[Die Todesproblematik in Goethes Roman Die Wahlverwandtschaften (Berlin: Erich Schm idt Verlag, 1998),
165 SI] A sixth (Barnes. "Bildhafte DarsteQung,” 49 SI] establishes a moQvic link betw een the fallen
English king an d th e hum bled Byzantine general Belisarius. w ho appears in II.5 as a tableau vtvant.
A lthough each o f these readings has som ething going to r it. all neglect the anecdote's overt pohtical
significance, and n one relates the passage coherently to Goethe's novel as a whole.
38 KoseUeck Kritik und Krise 11 SI
39 O n M m e D ub an y , see Soulavie. Jean-Louis. Memories historiques et politiques du regne de Louis X V I,
depuis sa manage jusqu'a sa mort (Paris & Strasbourg: T reuttel e t W iirtz, 1801), 1.79: "Elle m it sous les
veux du pusiflanime Louis XV, un tableau du roi Charles I. decapite par ordre du pariem ent, et lux dit
sans cesse. que si ce m onarque avait porte sa tete sur u n echafaud. I'histoire en m ontrait la cause dans sa
complaisance sans cesse accroissante p o u r son pariem ent et dans les entreprises successives de ce corps
sur les prerogatives des monarques anglais.” C f 11.21: "Louis X V n’eut jamais u n m om ent de volonte
personneUe: dans son conseil ii ne developpa presque jamais d’autre caractere que ceiui d'opm ant ou de
simple observateur. II faEuc I'eftrayer et Iui m ontrer les images de la m ort. Ie portrait de Charles I. pour
o b ten ir en 1771 Ie chatim ent si connu d e la magistrature.” See also Jobez, Alphonse. La France sous
Louis X V (1715-1774) (Paris: Didier. 1873), VI: 525. O n 20 January 1771. see Furet, Francois. La
Revolution franfaise. De Turgot a Napoleon (1770-1814) (Paris: H achette. 1992). 37; C obban, Alfred. .4
History o f M odem France. Volume 1: O ld Regime ami Revolution 1715-1799 (H arm ondsw orth: Penguin.
1963). 95£
193
him . "Lecteur assidu de H um e, plein de souvenir de Charles 1“ , qui peric p o u r avoir
fait la guerre civile, il voulait 1'eviter plus que tout chose," w rote M ichelet.41 M me
Cam pan, M arie Antoinette's femme de chambre, rem em bered Louis reading anxiously,
after Varennes, in what must have been Hume's History o f England: "[I]l Iisait sans cesse
I’histoire de cet infbrtune m onarque pour se conduire m ieux qu'il ne l'avait faic dans
une crise semblable."42 T h e orators o f the C o n v en tio n also cited Europe's first
regicide in their debates on the o n e im pending —som e for the sake o f comparison,
others w ith an eye to contrast.43 In a w ord (Michelet's): "U n roi cue n'etait pas chose
nouvelle.''44
Such was the historical background that allow ed Ottilie's tale o f the trial o f
King Charles I to refer to the fate o f Louis XVI. G oethe uses the earlier English
incident to h int metaphorically at m ore recent conditions. It is th e pre-existing
association, in the European m ind, o f one regicide w ith the o th er chat makes such a
m etaphor possible. T h at the connection was present to G oethe’s m ind, in particular,
in proven by the following passage from the Campagne in Frankreich 1792:
W er hatte seic seiner Jugend sich nicht v o r der Geschichte des Jahrs 164-9 entsetzc, w er
n ich t v o r der H inrichtting Karl I. geschaudert, a n d zu einigem T ro ste gehofft. dafi
dergleichen Scenen der Parteiw uth sich nicht abermais ereignen k o n n ten . N un aber
w iederholte sich das alles, greulicher a n d grimmiger, bei dera gebildeten N achbarvolke,
40 Koselleck, K ritik und Krise 118 cit. T u rg o t V.445 51; Say, Leon. Turgot. Trans. Gustave Masson
(London: R outiedge. 1888). 175
41 M ichelet. Jules, Histoire de la Revolution frartfaise (Paris: G allhnard/PIeiade, 1952), 11.10. CL Ozoufi
M ona. "Proces du roi.” Dictionnaire Critique de la Revolution frartfaise. Evenements (Paris: Fiammarion,
1992), 243; Furet, La Revolution frartfaise, p. 205.
42 Cam pan, M m e. Memoires de Mme Campan sur la vie privee de Marie-Antoinette. Introduction by Frantz
Funck-Brentano (Paris: A la C ite des Livres. 1928), I: 124-5. A.F. d e Bertrand-M oleville, secretary o f
state to Louis, confirms th e story: "Sa lecture ordinaire etait I'histoire de Charles Ier, et sa prindpale
attention etait d’eviter dans tous les actes d e sa conduite. tout ce q u i Iui paraissait servir de pretexte a une
accusation judiciare [..-1-" Bertrand-M oleville, A.F. de, Memoires partiatliers, pour servir a I’histoire de la fin
du regne de Louis X V I (Paris: M ichaud, 1816), H.42
43 O zouf. "Proces du ro i,” p. 243. See speeches by M aihle, M orisson, Saint-Just. R obespierre,
V ergniaud, and Paine, d ie d in Regicide and Revolution. Speeches at the Trial o f Louis X V I, ed. M ichael
W alzer, trans. M arian R othstein (N ew Y ork: Colum bia University Press. 1992), 101, 105C 118, 124f.,
133, 205, 212.
44 M ichelet 11:149
194
w ie v o r unsem A ugen; T ag fu r Tag, Schritt v o r Schritt. M an denke sich, w elchen

D ecem ber und Januar diejenigen veriebten, die den K onig zu retten ausgezogen waren,
u n d n u n in seinen ProceB n ich t eingreifen, die V oIIstreckung des Todesurtheils nicht
hin d em konnten.45
W e also k n o w G oethe to have read Jean-Louis Soulavie’s Memoires historiques et
politiques du regne de Louis X V I, depuis sa manage jusqu'a sa mort (1801), w hich twice
describes M adame du Barry's stratagem w ith Van Dyck's portrait o f Charles I.46
If G oethe intended Ottilie's account o f Charles I as a cipher o f Louis XVI, why
does his novel not m ention the French king? Four reasons suggest themselves. First,
this anecdote occurred in historical fact. W e read in the record o f Charles Stuart's trial
that as the charge against him was read, "the silver head o f His Staff happened to fall
off; at w hich H e w ondred [sic/], and seeing none to take it up. H e stooped for it
himself."47 T he incident was seen by some at the tim e as an om en.48 "In the light o f
w hat happened a few days later," writes the art historian Julius S. Held, "the incident
o f the felling knob o f a cane took its place am ong those symbolical portents, those
signs in the sky and wierd phenom ena on earth, w hich to form er ages had announced
the doom o f great kings."49 This was, so to speak, a ready-m ade symbol, one prim ed
in advance w ith a particular range o f meanings.50 T h e re is noth in g comparably
om inous in the French historical record. Second, the novel was published during the
45 G oethe. Campagne in Frankreich 1792 — W A I. 33, 269 21 - 270 4.

46 Goeche to Schiller. 9 M arch 1802; Soulavie [.79.11.21
4/ B A U A IK A [—Eikon Basitikej, The Works o f Charles I the Matryr: W ith a Collection o f Declarations,
Treaties, and other Papers concerning the Differences betwixt H is said M ajesty and his Two Houses o f Parliament.
W ith the History o f his Life; as also o f His Tryal and Martyrdome. 2nd Ed- (London: ChisweQ. 1687), 192.
Cf. also: King Charts his Tryal: or .4 perfect Narrative o f the whale Proceedings o f the High Court o f Justice in the
Tryal o f the King in Westminster Hah, etc. (London: C ole, T y to n & Playtord. 1649) [Facsimile in: The
Trial and Execution o f King Charles L (Leeds: Scolar Press. 1966). 8]: "T hat as the Charge was reading
against th e King, the head o f his staff fell o ff which he w ondered at. and seeing n o n e to take it up, he
stoops to r it him self”
48 H eld. Julius S. "'Le roi a la riasse'." The A n Bulletin XL (1958): 149
49 H eld 149
50 Indeed, H eld has dated "a strong revival o f interest in th e problems o f the English revolution and the
figure o f Charles I" to the eady part o f th e 19th century. See H eld 142.
195
French occupation o f W eim ar and was subject to censorship.31 An open expression o f
sympathy for Louis X V I w ould certainly have seemed im politic to G oethe, whose
political tact is well know n. T hird, Goethe's failure to m ention the French king may
have followed from his principled preference for Urbilder. Charles I was the first
E uropean m onarch to be tried and condem ned by his people; Louis XV I was the
second. In short, as the Urbild o f judicial regicide Charles w ould have seemed a m ore
usable symbol than Louis, his Nachbild. Fourth, by the logic o f the political theology
o f kingship, Cromwell's parliam ent succeeded in "executing solely the king's body
natural w ithout affecting seriously o r doing irreparable harm to the King’s body politic
—in contradistinction w ith the events in France, in 1793," as Ernst Kantorowicz has
noted.32 This alone w ould have m ade a history o f Charles I seem a m ore fitting
choice for a parable o f restoration than the history o f Louis XVI.
G oethe himself, incidentally, may have been the only w riter o f his tim e to
have m entioned Louis XVI and Die Wahlverwandtschaften together in one sentence. In
a letter o f 1809 sent to a friend, Karl Friedrich von R einhard, along w ith a copy o f the
new novel, he wrote:
W enn ungeachtet ailes Tadelns a n d Geschreys das was das B uchlein enthalt. als ein
unveranderliches Factum vor d e r Einbildungskrait stehc. w enn m an sieht. dafl m an mic
allem W illen und W iderw illen daran doch nichts andert; so laBt m an sich in d er Fabel
zuleczt auch so cm apprehensives W underkind gefallen, w ie man sich in der Geschichte
nach einigen Jahren die H inrichcung eines alten Kb nigs u nd die K ronung ernes neuen
Kaisers gefallen laBc. Das Gedichcete behaupcec sein Rechc. w ie das Geschehene.3-5
31 See Vamhagen in H ard, 111 on the book's having had to pass French censorship.
32 K antorow icz, Ernst H ., The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1957), 23
33 W A IV 114.153 11-21
196
T hat "old king" was Louis XVI; the "new emperor" Napoleon; the "few years" were
those betw een 1793 and Napoleon's sacre o f 1804.54
W hy did G oethe compare his new novel with these two events, the execution
o f Louis and the sacre o f Napoleon? A nd w hat manner o f right did G oethe expect his
novel w ould claim? T he comparison seems too carefully made, and too unexpected,
to have been chosen simply in order to make a point about public forgetfulness.
G oethe presum ed that his w ork, o r its content (objectionable as his reading public
m ight find it) w ould, with the passage o f time, "assert its right” —in the sign (it w ould
seem from his simile) o f restoration.
Kingship and right have a good deal to do with each o th er (judicial regicide
being a public's denial o f the divine right o f kings to rule). After all, the R evolution’s
indictm ent o f divine right in the person o f Louis XVT was seen by the regicides o f the
C onvention as a necessary condition o f th eir ow n legitim ation as a R epublican
governm ent.55 T h e legitimacy o f the R epublic, in turn, was quickly und o n e by
Napoleon's proclamation o f Empire. W hen G oethe w rote "Reckt," he may o f course
simply have m eant the work's ability to hold its ow n, to w eather the current disfavor
o f his contem poraries. Yet another passage in the letter to R ein h ard reveals that
G oethe's disdain for his current readership rides metaphorically on contem pt o f its
pretensions to political significance:
Das Publicum , besonders das deutsche, ist eine narrische Karricatur des 58(10$ es bildet
sich w irklich ein. eine A rt von [nstanz. von Senat auszumachen. und im Leben un d Lesen
34 Susan W innect has w ritten th a t "'D ie H inrichtung eines aiten Konigs* in th e letter to R einhard
certainly refers to th e beheading o f Charles I o f England.” This seems unlikely. G oethe’s letter to
R ein h ard chides his reading public o n the weakness o f its critical ju d g m en t and th e shortness o f its
historical m em ory. H e offers che beheading o f a monarch, then the crow ning o f another by th e same
population, as an exam ple o f both . T he tw elve years separating the execution o f Louis X IV (1793)
from N apoleon’s sacre (1804) correspond far m ore plausibly to this intention (and to G oethe's "nach
einigen Jahren”) than do the one hundred fifty-six betw een Charles' day at W hitehall and Bonaparte's at
N otre-D am e. C f W innett Terrible Sociability 168
33 W alzer Regicide and Revolution 6
197
dieses od er jenes w egvooren zu konnen was ihm. nicht gefallt. D age gen ist kein M ittel als
ein sdlles Ausharren. W ie ich mich denn au f die W irkung freue. w elche dieser R om an in
ein paarjah ren au f m anchen bevm Wiederlesen m achen w ird.56
G oethe clearly identified m ore w ith the new em peror than w ith the old king,
or w ith their PublikaA7 T he irritated yet hopeful endurance w ith w hich he answered
debate in the G erm an pseudo-republic o f letters, and his faith that aesthetic order
w ould come into its ow n, both mimicked his stand on the course o f events from the
killing o f Louis XVI to the restoration o f public order in Europe under N apoleon. He
expected his ow n w ork to endure, and to have an effect o n certain readers in several
years’ time. H ere, again, the context suggests that the sign in w hich G oethe hoped to
conquer w ould be that o f restoration.58
But w hat does Ottilie mean to restorer T he fallen knob is an image o f social
order com e undone. T he habit o f retrieval provoked in O ttilie is the symbol o f a
program o f restoration - but n o t o f the king to his throne, n o t to a status quo ante
revolutionem. W hat she restores is not the king's head o r lost social position, but a
practice o f sociability o f the sort G oethe feared revolution w ould threaten.59 Ottilie
takes the king's fall as a warning o f w hat ill effects the dissolution o f hierarchy will
have upon sociability. It is in this spirit that she turns h er history o f Charles I's
hum iliation into an exemplum o f sociable action. By replacing the noble-objective
logic o f comme il faut w ith a bourgeois-subjective logic o f comme on le sent, by giving
56 letter to R einhard. 31.Dec. 1809 = W A IV, 114. 153 3 - tl

3/ See Blum enberg, Hans. Arbeit am M ythos (Frankfurt am Main: Sohrkamp, 1979), 504 it. on Goethe's
identification w ith Napoleon.
38 "O ttilie. die ’Heilige* d er R estauradon—" Faber. R ichard. "P arkleben. Z u r sozjaien Idyllik
G oethes." Caetkes Wahlverwandtsdiafien. Kritische Modette und Diskunanalysen sum M ythos Literatur. Ed.
N orbert W . Bolz. Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1981: 97
39 Cf. D ie Belagemng von M ainz, ." .ic h will Iieber eine U ngerechdgkeit begehen als U no rd n u n g
ertragen" = W A I 33. 315 26-28; Schwartz, Peter J., "An unpublished Essay by Goethe? 'Staatssachen.
198
Charles Smart his due as a man deserving humanity, n o t as a king deserving obesiance,
she fills a vacuum o f courtesy w ith an encouragement to civility.M
Does this am ount to description, prescription, a w arning, an etiology, a
prognosis? T he answer may lie in the walking-stick. T h e fall o f its golden knob has
been read by some as an image o f castration.61 I w ould like to shift that focus to
questions o f socio-political pow er proper. As historians have observed, the cane o f
Charles 1 was a sartorialized royal scepter.62 Charles appears to have been especially
fond o f such sticks, perhaps —as Julius S. H eld has suggested —"because they combined
conveniently princely dignity w ith comfort."63 H e is know n to have carried one at his
trial —"a slim plain rod w ith a knob, made, according to m ost reports, o f silver;"64 to
have handled it there in a way that suggests he considered it a symbolic instrum ent o f
his authority; and to have thought the knob's falling o ff in the course o f the trial's first
day (the result, some present suspected, o f m alevolent tam pering) an evil om en
implying the end o f his reign and his life through decapitation.05
U b e r m iindliche deutsche Rechtspflege in Deutschland’.1' The Germanic Review. Vol. 73, N r. 2 (Spring
1998): 125.
00 T h e poinc ot* Ottilie's parable is not to turn back the d o c k . G oethe never suggested returning to the
status quo ante 1789. See fro exam ple his com m ent to E ckerm ann: "W eil ich n un aber die
R e v o lu tio n e n hafite, so nannte man m ich einen F reund des B estehenden. Das ist aber ein sehr
zw eideutiger T itei, den ich m ir verbitten m ochte. W enn das Bestehende alles vortrefflich. gut und
gerecht w are, so hatte ich gar nichts daw ider. D a aber neben vielem G ute zugleich viel Schlechtes.
U ngerechtes und UnvoIIkommenes besteht, so heiBt ein Freund des Bestehenden oft nicht viel w eniger
als ein Freund des V eralteten u n d Schlechten" [to E ckerm ann, 4 . Jan . 1824J. Albeit a steadfast
m onarchist in principle [Cf. R o th e, W olfgang, Der politische Goethe (G ottingen: V andenhoeck &
R u p rech t. 1998). 102 fE], G oethe was no adm irer o f th e last tw o absolute m onarchs o f the French
anden regime [cfl Eckerm ann. 4. Jan. 1824, 27. April 1825]. H e did not, how ever, accept the French
R evolution as legitimate, n o r did he approve o f its execution o f Louis X V I. T h e position O ttilie takes
w ith regard to Charles I reflects G oethe’s ow n in this m atter. A lthough she explicitly declines to side
w ith Charles’ "sogenanncen R ic h tem ,” she still accepts w hat has happened to him as a fa it accompli o f
political history. T h e lesson she draws therefrom concerns the present and future, not the past.
61 C £ W innett, Miller. Muller-Sieveis.
62 H eld 147
63 H eld 148
64 H eld 148
65 H eld 148-9; B A X IA IK A , 191
199
This forfeit o f royal authority was not merely im m inent: the reaction o f those
present proves the knob's fall a sign that the King’s kingship was already as good as
dead. O ttilie's description makes sem i-explicit w hat Charles' contem poraries m ust
have know n was at stake:
G ew o h n t. dafi bei solchen B egebenheiten sich alles fur ihn bem uhce. schien er sich
um zusehen und zu erw arten. daB ih n jem and auch diesmal den kleinen Dienst erzeigen
solke. £s regte sich niemand; er buckte sich selbst, urn den K nopf aufeuheben.66
T h e particular poignancy o f the event resides in its mise-en-scene o f a King by the grace
o f G od reduced suddenly to a man am ong men, and scorned. T hroughout the course
o f his trial, the King insisted his judges in Cromwell's R um p Parliament had no right
o r authority to try him .67 G oethe's O ttilie im plicidy agrees, dubbing his judges
"sogenannt." T h e fall o f the knob from a cane sym bolizing Charles' claim to
exem ption from Parliament's jurisdiction will have been seen as a fateful dementi o f that
claim. This was, no doubt, the propagandistic intention behind the tam pering some
thought had caused the knob to fall.68 T h e failure o f those present to retrieve it for
him confirms his loss o f authority: this is the first time Charles is refused the obeisance
due an absolute monarch.
O n this point o f motivation, G oethe is m ore explicit than the official record.
C ontem porary accounts restricted themselves to noting the event, and to implying the
strangeness o f both its parts: the fill o f the knob, and the King's being forced to
retrieve it himself. "[AJs the Charge was reading against the King, the head o f his staff
fell off, w hich he w ondered at, and seeing none to take it up, he stoops for it
66 1.6 (W A I 20. 70 13-18)

n7 The Constitutional Documents o f the Puritan Revolution 1625-1660» ed. Sam uel R aw son G ardiner
(O xford: C larendon Press. 1958). 374-6 ("T he King’s reasons for declining the jurisdiction o f the H igh
C o u rt ofjusnce").
200
himself."69 O ttilie's version o f th e story turns "seeing n o n e to take it up" into
"G ew ohnt, daS bei solchen Begebenheiten sich alles fur ihn bem iihte, schien er sich
um zusehen und zu erw arten, daB ih n jem an d auch diesmal den kleinen D ienst
erzeigen sollte." She reads into the historical event the surprise o f a m onarch at the
sudden suspension o f the courtesy norm ally ow ed him as such. "Es regte sich
niem and; er buckte sich selbst, um den K n o p f aufzuheben." T h e hierarchical
protocols o f the monarchy have been abolished, and Charles's stoop is the em blem o f
their repeal.
O ne further modification that G oethe made to the historical record suggests
that Ottilie's response to the stoop o f King Charles amounts to no less than an effort to
ground a new metaphysics o f morals (Sitten). For the historical knob o f Charles’s cane,
unlike that o f Ottilie's Charles, was o f silver, not gold. If G oethe changed silver to
gold, voluntarily or not. he will have had som ething in mind; and this som ething, I
think, was the aurea catena Homeri, the golden chain w ith which H o m er linked heaven
and earth in the eighth book o f the Iliad. Aurea catena Homeri was also the ride o f an
anonymous text o f 1723 (by the M oravian R osicrudan A nton Joseph Kirchweger) for
w hich G oethe later recalled a youthful enthusiasm: "M ir w ollte besonders [dieses
Buch] gefallen, wodurch die N atur, w enn auch vielleicht a u f phantastische Weise, in
einer schonen Verkniipfung dargestellt wird."70 This book had m ade Homer's golden
chain a symbol o f what others in the eighteenth century w ere calling the Great Chain
08 "A fourth wicness tells 'th at the K ing him self thought the accident a bad om en, and that it was
suspected that H ugh Peters had tampered w ith th e cane.’" Held 148-9
69 King Charts his Tryal 8; also, w ith precisely the same w ording, .4 Perfect Sanative o f the whole
Proceedings o f the High Court o f Justice in the Tryal o f the King in Westminster H all on the 22. o f the instant
January. W ith the several Speeches o f the King, Lord President and Solicitor General. Published by Authority to
prevent fa b e and impertinent Relations (London: Playfbrd, 1648), noc paginated. T h e closeness o f O ttilie’s
anecdote to this "official" w ording suggests that G oethe may have had it from a textual source, w hich I
have noc been able to establish.
/0 W A I 27, 204 27-205 2; Kopp, Herm ann. Aurea Catena Homeri (Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1880)
201
o f Being, an ancient doctrine o f natural hierarchy, plenitude and continuity that was
sometimes used to justify social hierarchy; as it was for example explicidy by Alexander
Pope (in his Essay on Man) and by Rousseau (in Emile); and implicitly (I suspect) by
Justus Moser, to whose idea o f the Standeordnung —the late feudal system o f social caste
in Germany —Goethe ow ed an acknowledged debt.71
G oethe insisted, w ith M oser, that Germany's traditional system o f social
hierarchy, the Standestaat, guaranteed each rank in society "einen Grad der Ehre, der
ih r eigen bleibt; und die siebente [Stufe] hat sowohl ein R ec h t zu ihrer Erhaltung als
die zweice."72 O r as G oethe him self once put it: "Das V em iinfngste ist im m er, daB
je d e r sein M etier treibe, wozu er geboren ist und was er gelem t hat, und daB er den
andem nich hindere, das Seinige zu tun. D er Schuster bleibe bei seinem Leisten, der
Bauer hinter dem Pflug, und der Fiirst wisse zu regieren."73 O ttilie’s resolve to spare
any m an w ho lets som ething fall the shame o f having to stoop to retrieve it is a
corrective to the general crisis o f hierarchy (and its attendant social practices) triggered
by the fall o f an absolute m onarch, its symbolic guarantor o r linchpin.
Ottilie's reconstitution o f these two traditional symbolic guarantors o f vertical
social order — Homer's golden chain, and the G reat C hain o f B eing — am ounts, in
effect, to a Spinozist m aking-im m anent, to a disconnecdon from theological anchors
and a reconnecdon, intact, w ith natural ones.74
71 Lovejov. A rth u r O ., The Great Chain o f Being: .4 Study o f the History o f an Idea (Cam bridge, MA:
H arvard U P. 1936), 204-7. Rousseau: "O homme! Resserre ton existence au dedans de toi. e t tu ne
seras plus miserable. Reste a la place que la nature dassigne dans la chaine des ecres. rien ne fe n pourra
taire sortir" = Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Emile ou de L'Education. Oeuvres Completes. Vol. IV (Paris:
G allimard, 1969), 308. See G ode-von Aesch, Alexander, Natural Science in German Romanticism (N ew
Y ork: Colum bia University Press. 1941), 140 51, to r an application o f Lovejoy’s w o rk to the German
context, and especially to Goethe.
72 M oser cited from from R o th e Der politische Goethe 134. See also Lovejoy 205 51, esp. 207.
73 to Eckermann, 25 Feb. 1824
74 T h e project, indeed, is noc unlike Kant's in its Spinozism, its historical tim ing and general purview.
202
T h ere is a real golden chain in Elective Affinities: the one chat O ttilie wears on
her neck, to carry the portrait o f her father that Eduard requests she rem ove in part
one, chapter seven. T he chain itself she deposits into the cornerstone o f the summer
house, tw o chapters later. Curiously, this chain returns in the book's final chapter, as
O ttilie locks a Iitde chest she has packed w ith memorabilia o f Eduard —including her
father's portrait —w ith a key that she then hangs "around her neck again on a golden
chain."75
Is the chain’s reappearance an error, o r is it a symbol? If it is a symbol, then it
is one, again, o f restoration. Like the head o f the English king o r the knob o f his stick,
the father’s portrait is a symbolic Iinch-pin o f order. Ottilie's acquiescence in Eduard's
request to rem ove it marks the beginning o f their passion, and thus the start o f the
m ovem ent ou t o f her path —atts ihrer Bahn heraus, as she puts it —co w hich she traces
her guilt: o f a divergence, not from her native class habitus, b u t from her nature.76 T he
chain itself like Homer's chain (indeed, like Ottilie generally) is a symbol o f nature in
a "beautiful state o f connection." T h e chain's burial beneath the fateful Lusthaus
heralds the threat o f unravelm ent implied in the loss o f such linch-pins. W hen the
chain reappears, it is to underline a restorative act o f renunciation, o f the Entsagung
that G oethe came to consider a necessary condition o f social life after 1789. Ottilie
locks her passion away in a secret com partm ent, w ith faded flowers, in order to seal
her resolve to return to her path.
,s 11.18 = W A I 20, 401 9-10. B uschendorf notices the return o f the chain, b u t thinks that it hints at a
"v irtu ellen A u fh eb u n g [von d em j, w o fu r das Lusthaus steht, also die irdische Liebe o d er das
R om an g eb au d e ist d u rch die aurea catena autzuheben." B u sch en d o rf B ernard. Goethes mythische
Denkform. Z u r [konographie der >> iVahlverwandtschaften< < (Frankfurt/M : Suhrkam p, 1986), 200-1. T he
p o in t is vague, an d I th in k a b it skew ed by B uschendorfs over-investm ent in traditional W arburg-
school themes.
/6 ”Ich b in aus m einer B ahn geschritten. ich habe m eine Gesetze gebrochen [...]." 11.14 = W A I 20,
370 14-15
203
Y et this does not w ork. O ttilie dies, and her curious sanctification, at the end
o f the book, is unconvincing. This shows, I believe, a disjunction betw een two
distinct aspects o f the text’s intention: that o f description, and that o f hope.
T he novel's major purpose is the analysis o f a crisis. N o t until Wilhelm Meister
Wanderfahre, published in 1821, did G oethe suggest solutions to the crisis described.
T he description in Elective Affinities amounts to diagnosis and a w arning, but n o t a
prescription. Its crisis is tragic in nature, and thus not amenable to solution, as G oethe
was later to remark: "Alles Tragische beruht a u f einem unausgleichbaren Gegensatz.
Sowie A usgleichung eintritt oder moglich w ird, schw indet das Tragische.”77 As
Friedrich H ebbel observed in 1844, such a docum ent as this o f a "B rechen der
W eltzustande" still unresolved in Hebbei’s time — the end o f the feudal era and the
dawning o f capitalism —could not honesdy be made to end optimistically.78
Yet Goethe's hopes seem somehow pinned on O ttilie. As R einhart Koselleck
has noted, in ancient Greek usage the w ord Krisis signified "Scheidung und Screit, aber
auch die E ntscheidung, im Sinne eines endgiiltigen Ausschlags o d e r eines
Urteilsspruches oder einer Beurteilung iiberhaupt" —that is to say, it denoted b o th a
problem and the potential for resolution inherent in the problem .79 By w eakening
noble habitus, Ottilie's hypostasis o f sympathy o r pity as a natural virtue —and hence,
w ith Rousseau, as an adequate basis for social behavior80 —articulates a m om ent in the
■' G. to M uller, 6. Ju n i 1824, in M uller, Kanzler von, Unterhaltungen m it Goethe [Kleine Ausgabej.
Ernst Grumach, ed. (W eimar. Bohiaus Nachil, 1959), 107
8 H ebbel, Friedrich. "V orw ort zur ’Maria Magdalene’." Hebbels IVerke und Briefe in vier Bdnden.
Friedrich Brandes. ed. (Leipzig: R eclam . n.d), IV.310 f f Giuiiano Baioni has noted this disjunction in
term s o f th e difference betw een Elective Affinities and the Wandetjahre: "Le affinita elective sono Tunica
opera veram ente tragica del poeta. il quale, rinunziando a resolveme la tem adca in un contesto narrativo
che ne avrebbe necessariamente limitato Ie risonanze, puo com porre la tragedia di una societa che
tram onta, rappresentare la fine di un m ondo che era suo m ondo, per riporre poi Ie sue speranze
nell’utopia della nuova societa dei W andejjahre." Baioni 250
79 Koselleck Kritik und Krise 197 (n. 155)
80 Rousseau. Jean-Jacques. Discours sur Vorigine et les fondements de I'inegalite parmi les hommes/Discours sur
les sciences et les arts (Paris: Gamier-FIammarion, 1971), 196 ff
204
crisis o f the ancien regime. It also suggests a com prom ise by means o f w hich rhis
particular crisis m ight be resolved, a com prom ise corresponding to G oethe's ow n
am bivalent social posidon as an aristocrat o f middle-class origin. For it enlists the
symbolic econom y o f the rising middle classes in the service o f sociability - by means
o f a pathos o f N ature for which Ottilie and h er chain are alike the cipher.
205
Chapter VII
The Failure o f Sacrifice:

Ottilie's "W endung nach oben" and the "Belisar nach van Dyk"1
Jedes O p fer ist eine R estauration, die von der geschichtlichen

Realitat Liigen gestraft wird, in der man sie untem im m t.2
In an essay o f 1913 on G oethe's Elective Affinities, the novelist Jakob
W asserm ann identified the figure o f O ttilie as a focus for w hat has been called the
Bildlichkeit, the visual or pictorial bent, o f G oethe's poetry: "So plastisch auch jede
Situation hervortritt, so haben doch diejenigen, in denen O ttilie handelnd oder
Ieidend steht, die hochste Vollendung."3 T h e artists o f G oethe's tinie w ho made
illustrations for the new novel — in almanacs, editions and broadsheet engravings —
agreed w ith W assermann. Nearly every print from Elective Affinities m ade in the
course o f the nineteenth century centers on Ottilie, "handelnd oder Ieidend.
T w o o f the scenes most often pictured w ere approved, in a backhanded way,
by G oethe himself. In a letter o f 1810 to his art-historian friend Johann H einrich
M eyer, G oethe complained o f the choice o f subject made in drawings by a young
artist o f M eyer’s acquaintance, one Fraulein Sophie von Reinhard:
1 [ w ould like co thank A. Kiarina Kordela to r asking a question char led m e to rethink this chapter
completely.
2 H o rk h e im e r, M ax, and T h e o d o r W . A dorno. D ialektik der Aujkldrung. Philosophische Fragmertte
(Frankfurt am M ain: Fischer. 1988), 58
3 W asserm an d te s th e following scenes as examples: "D ie Szene im W ald, wie Eduard von O ttilie das
M edaillon fordert, die im Kahn mic dem ertrunkenen K ind, diejenige, wo sie v o r C harlotte a u f den
Knien Iiegt u n d scheinbar schlafend un d betaubt Zeugin ihres Gespraches m it dem H auptm ann ist, jen e
andere schlieBIich. w o sie im W irtshaus von Eduard uberrascht w ird un d seine Bitten, seine Vorw urte,
seine B eteuerungen. seine Klagen schw eigend ub er sich ergehen laBt, n u r m it der etnzigen G ebarde
antw ortend, d em innigen Zusammenfalten der H ande u n d V orbeugen des Korpers, aus w elchem Sinn
u n d H erzen k o n n te n diese Bilder jemals gedlgt werden?" W asserm ann. Jakob. "V orrede zu Goethes
W ahlverw andtschaften." Goethes Roman >Die Wahlverwandtschaften<. Ewald R osch. ed. (Darmstadt:
W issenschaftliche BuchgeseOschaft, 1975). 95. O n pictonalism in G oethe’s w ork see. for example:
Keller. W ern er. Goethes dichterische Bildlichkeit. Eine Grundlegung (M unich: Fink. 1972); for a recent
collective treatm ent o f the problem o f visuaiity in G oethe see Augenmensck: Z ur Bedeutung des Sehens im
206
Das todte, wirklich codec Kind gen H im m el zu hebcn, das w ar der Augenblick. der gefafit
w erden muEce, w enn man iiberbaupc solches Z eug zeichnen will. So w ie im an dem Falle
in der Capelle fur maleriscbe Darsteilung niches gelcen kann, als das Herancrecen des
Architekten.3
These tw o situations —one, che gesture w ith w hich Ottilie "sich nach oben [wendec],"
then, kneeling, raises the lifeless infant Octo "m it beiden A rm en iiber ihre unschuldige
Brust” and, lifting her eyes to the heavens, "raft Hulfe von daher, wo ein zartes Herz
die groBce Ftille zu finden hofft, w enn es uberall mangelt" (in 11.13); the other, the
scene in the book's final chapter in w hich che young Architect, standing beside
O ttilie's corpse, reproduces the mournfully witnessing pose o f the soldier from the
tableau vivant o f II.5 "Belisar nach van Dyk" —w ere in fact the scenes most frequently
chosen for illustration during Goethe's lifetime.0 W hy did both G oethe and his
illuscracors find these tw o episodes so congenial to graphic representation? G oethe's
quibble w ith Fraulein Reinhard's w ork suggests an answer thac has to do w ith the
novel's inherent iconographic logic. "Das guce Kind kann w ohl was,” he observed to
M eyer,
und konnce noch m ehr Iemen. aber das schlimmsre ist. sie denkr talsch wie die sammdiche
T heecom panie ihrer Zeicgenossinnen: denn in unsrer Sprache zu reden, so hole d er
Teufel das ju n g e kunsclerische M adchen. das tn ir die heilige O ttilie schw anger aufs
Paradebett lege. Jene konnen nicht vom G em einen und Niedertrachtigen von der Am m e,
von d er M adonna loskom m en u nd dahin zerren sie alles, w enn man sie auch gelinde
davon zu encfemen wiinschc.7
Werk Goethes. D orothea v o n M iicke and D avid E . W eilbery, eds.. a special issue o f Deutsche
VieneljahTssdmftju r Litemtur und Ceistesgesdtichte (1/2001).
* I have reproduced these prints from Hard, in Appendix II below.
5 W A IV 21, 250 9-15
6 "O ttilie h eb t das ertrunkene K ind gen H im m el" thrice (G runer 1810; D ahling 1811; Voltz 1811);
"N an n y u n d d e r A rchitekt am Sarge O tdlies” tw ice (D ahling 1811; Carolsfeid 1817) — o u t o f 17
pictures in total reproduced by H ard (1809-1832). AH seventeen include Ottilie; aH b u t one cen ter on
h e r themadcaHy and composidonally.
7 W A IV 21. 249 24-250 9
207
It is noc entirely evident from this description w hat Sophie von R einhard had drawn;
certainly not a pregnant O ttilie, for w hich the text provides no support.8 In any case,
Reinhard's work, w hich is lost, consisted o f m ore than one illustration, suggesting that
G oethe's dismissive tu rn o f phrase was general and figurative, noc accurately
descriptive; even chough its oddness does suggest specificity. O n e thing, how ever, is
clean G oethe never meant O ttilie to be caken seriously for a Christian saint.9
T o be sure, at least one o f the published prints o f the tim e that depict Ottilie's
"W endung nach oben" borrow ed visibly from the gestural language o f C hristian
pictures o f saints (Heiligenbilder) .I0 For this che artist, H einrich A nton Dahling, can
hardly be blamed: In 1809, Goethe's novel's description o f w hence O ttilie asks for help
(''daher, wo ein zartes Herz die groBce Fulle zu finden hofft, w enn es uberall mangelt")
can only have sounded like Heaven, to m ost ears ac lease. Sophie von R einhard and
"die samm diche Theecom panie ihrer Zeicgenossinnen" m ight perhaps therefore be
forgiven for having seen the M adonna in a figure w ho plays the m other o f G od in che
Prasepe o r nacivicy scene o f II.6.
For G oethe, how ever, the Prasepe - chough a Christian image — is a symbol
am ong symbols; a m irror o f meanings, noc the point o f his story. T he same is crue o f
O ttilie’s ostensible sanctification through Nanni's ecstatic testim ony to h er corpse's
healing pow er, a process described in the novel w ith ironic, nearly sociological
detachment. Even Goethe's confession, in Dichtung und Wahrheit, chat a Christian saint
* O r perhaps, indeed, a pregnane O ttilie. It does make some psychological sense to im agine Ottilie's
self-starvation as that o f a body in phvsico-m orai revolt against a real o r symbolic (if unm entioned)
pregnancy by Eduard —even if G oethe him self w ere to reject such a reading. O n e could even suppose
that Sophie v on R ein h ard m ight n o t have been the only w o m an reader o f h er day to p u t rhit
construction o n the novel.
* O skar W alzel has suggested th at G oethe's irritation may have been sparked by von R einhard’s
dependence o n the "V ermischung des H eiiigen u n d des Sinnlichen" typical o f R om antic-N azarene art.
W alzel, O skar. "G oethes >W ahlverw andtschaften< im R a h m e n ih rer Z eit. Goeihes Roman >Die
Wahlverwandtschafien<." Ewald R osch, ed. (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1975), 48
10 D ahling 1811
208
— O dilie o f Alsace, patroness o f che blind — was O ttilie’s namesake, and a source o f
some o f her attributes, ' 1 does not hide the feet that irony was very m uch che m ode in
w hich he preferred to approach Ottilie's connection to Christianity. G oethe may well
have been ready to use biblical figures as symbols,12 b u t he never used them to make
Christian moral points — w hatever his com m ents co Z auper regarding che "W orte
Chrisri: W er ein W eib ansieht, ihrer zu begehren[, der hat schon m it ih r die Ehe
gebrochen in seinem Herzen]."13
T he "Belisar nach van Dyk"
T he Architect's final approach co O ttilie's coffin integrates tw o scrains o f
Christian iconographic tradicion. O n the one hand, the scene identifies O ttilie's
corpse with chat o f the Virgin Mary. O n the other hand, it allows che Architect's final
approach to Ottilie’s coffin explicidy to echo che fine o f the tableaux vivants o f II.5, the
so-called "Belisar nach van Dvk."
1 w ould like to cum first to che Architect's echo o f the "Belisar nach van Dyk."
T h e posture into which the Architect fells on seeing O ttilie's corpse —"so stand er [...],
in jugendlicher Kraft und Anmuc, au f sich selbst zuruckgewiesen, starr, in sich gekehrt,
m it niedergesenkten Armen, gefeltecen, m ideidig gerungenen H anden, H aupt und
Blick nach der Entseelten hingeneigt" —expressly recalls che pose he has caken before
in che tableau o f II.5, as che "vor [Belisar] ceilnehmend craurig stehende[r] Kriegen"
"Schon einmal hatte er so vor Belisar gestanden. U nw illkurlich geriet er je tz t in die
" Dichtung und Wahrheit X I = W A I 28, 79 12-25

12 C £ G oethe to Eckermann, 16 & 21 M arch 1830
13 M atthew 5:23. G oethe to Zauper, 7 Sept 1821 (Hard 270).
209
gleiche Stdlung; und w ie nariirlich w ar sie auch diesmall"u T h e novel describes the
original tableau as follows:
M an suchce nun Kupferstiche nach beriihm ten Gemahiden; m an w ahlte zuerst den Belisar
nach van D yk. Ein groBer u nd w ohlgebaucer M ann von gewissen Jahren soilte den
siczenden blinden General, der A rchitekt d en v o r ihm theilnehm end craurig stehenden
K rieger nachbilden, dem er w irklich etwas ahnlich sah. Luciane h atte sich. halb
bescheiden, das ju n g e W eibchen im H intergrunde gew'ahit, das reichliche Almosen aus
einem B eutel in die Qache H an d zahlt, indeB eine Alee sie abzum ahnen u n d ihr
vorzustellen scheinc. daB sie zu viel chue. Eine andre ihm w irklich Almosen reichende
Frauensperson w ar niche vergessen.'
T here is a certain ambiguity to Goethe's treatm ent o f this them e, one that I
will illustrate w ith a discussion o f its provenance. T h e story o f the blind beggar
Belisarius, a Byzantine general fallen from grace w ith the em peror Justinian, was
history o f the sixth century turned into legend in the tw elfth and fourteenth and
becom e popular once again w ith painters and poets in the eighteenth century.16 T he
general's true biographer was Procopius, w ho recorded in his Secret History that
Belisarius fell tem porarily into disgrace w ith Justinian (after having conquered the
Vandals, the Goths and the Persians for him) because o f accusations o f disloyalty and
under pressure from the empress Theodora. T he historical Belisarius spent this time as
a free citizen in Constantinople. T h e m odem painters' and writers' image o f the
general as a blind beggar was a later invention, first appearing in a tw elfth-century
guidebook to Constantinople and in the Chileades o f the historian Johannes Tzetzes
and then recurring in the fourteenth-century "R om ance o f Belisarius''.1' Like Homer,
'* 11.18; Wassermann 94

:s W V 11.5 = W A I. 20. 252 20 - 253 4
See Scbnapper, Ancoine. David: Temoin de son temps (Paris; Bibliotheque des Arts, 1980), 61 ff. on the
late eighteenth-century renewal o f interest in the Belisarius them e. For an international list o f works on
that theme, see Pigler, A. Barockthemen. Eine Ausurahl von Verzeichnissen der Ikonographie des 17. und 18.
Jahrhunderts (Budapest: Verlag der Ungarischen A kadem ie der W issenschaften, 1956), 425-6; for its
general history see Sauerhering, F. "Belisar in Sage u n d Kunsc." Repenorium Jur Kunstwissenschafi.
H ubert Janitschek, ed. (Berlin: Spemann. 1893), XVI: 289-295.
17 "V ielleicht h aben die Frem denfuhrer, anknupfend an lokale U berlieferungen, die Schicksale eines
Feldherren des 9. Jahrhunderts namens Symbatios, den Kaiser M ichael III. im Jahre 866 blenden und
210
like O vid, like Virgil, che moral pathos inherent in this tale o f a fall from worldly
greatness was harm onized, in the lace Byzantine period, w ith C hristian doctrine,
becom ing a variant o f the copos o f the king "als Representanc der Allmenschlichkeic
und als der, der, am hochsten Thronend, auch den tiefrten Scurz cun kann."18 (Blaise
Pascal, citing ancient models, reflected in this m ode on the "miseres de grand seigneur,
miseres d'un roi depossede.")19 T he legendary image o f Belisarius thus linked theology
and politics, and continued to do so into m odem times.20
A century after Pascal, in 1767, the philosophe Jean Francois M arm ontel was
censured by che theological faculty o f che Sorbonne (at the tim e still staunchly
Scholastic in spirit) for che alleged im piety o f a novel en titled Belisaire. "[L]a
Sorbonne," M arm ontel recorded in his memoirs, "travailliait de touces ses forces a
rendre Belisaire hererique, deiste, im pie, ennemi du trone et de I'aucel [...].1,21 After
Voltaire cook Marmontel's side againsc che Sorbonne, the affaire de Belisaire becam e a
pretext for a showdow n betw een che philosophes and the C hurch on the subject o f
religious intolerance, a cause celebre nearly on the order o f the Calas affair (1762-65),
zum Betcler m achen lieB. dem beriihm ten Belisar angedichcer und bei den Frem den an den M ann
gebracht." Beck, H ans-G eorg. Ceschichte der byzantinischen Literatur (M unich: Beck. 1971), 151: ctl
Knos, Boije. "La legende de Belisaire dans les pays grecs." Eranos [Uppsalaj LVIII (1960): 269 ft. for a
m ore detailed cheory o f this development.
18 D oren. A. "F om ina im M ittelalter un d in der Renaissance." Vonrage der Bibliotkek Warburg. Fritz
SaxL ed. (Leipzig: Teubner, 1924), 101
19 "Toutes ces miseres-la prouvent sa grandeur. C e sont miseres de grand seigneur, miseres d’u n roi
depossede." Pascal. Blaise. Pertsees, precedees des prindpaux opuscules. G enevieve Lewis, ed. ("d'apres
[’edition Braunschvicg") (Paris: Editions de la B onne Compagnie, 1947), Pensee # 3 9 8 . p. 310. See also
# 4 0 9 (p. 312 SI): "La grandeur de I’hom m e": "C ar qui se trouve malheureux de n ’etre pas roi, sinon un
ro i depossede?" etc. Pascal refers to M ontaigne (1.19), w ho. draw ing o n C icero and Plutarch,
com m ents o n th e fetes o f th e R om an em peror Paulus Aemilius and a certain captive king o f
M acedonia. M ontaigne, M ichel de. "Q u ’il n e feut ju g er de nostre heur, qu’apres la m ort." Essais.
A lbert Thibaudet, ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1950), 101-103. C £ Stocklein, Paul. Wege zum spaten Goethe
(Hamburg: M arion von Schroeder Veriag, 1960), 24.
31 O n th e historical Belisarius see M artm dale. J .R . The Prosopography o f the Later Roman Empire
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), HIa.181-224; on the Byzantine rom ance see Knos.
21 "(L]a Sorbonne [...] travailliait de toutes ses forces a rendre Belisaire hererique, deiste, im pie, ennemi du
trone et de I’autel (car c’etaient la ses deux grands chevaux de bataifle), les Iettres des souverains de
I'Europe et celies des hommes les plus edaires et les plus sages m 'arrivaient de to us les cotes, p [eines
d’eloges p o u r m o n Iivre, qu'ils disaient ecte de bteviare des tois." M armonteL Memoires d’un pete pour
servir &' I’irtstruaion de ses enfants. Oeuvres completes (Paris: Verdiere. 1818), H.32-3
211
Voltaire's original test case for religious tolerance.22 T h ere was a political edge to
M armontel's w ork, as well. As Albert Boime has observed, the advice offered by the
blind and reduced Belisarius to Justinian and his son Tiberius in this intensely pedantic
novel
actually applied to Louis X V and th e D auphin (the future Louis X V I), and was
deliberately propagandistic in intent. T he novel opens o n th e w aning years o f Justinian's
reign, w hen the state revealed 'every symptom o f decline’, w hen adm inistration was weak
in all departm ents, th e masses unfairly carried the burden o f taxation, and the public
monies served the interests o f private enterprise.23
By 1781, w hen the painter Jacques-Louis David caused a sensation at the Paris Salon
w ith the fourth full-scale canvas to be inspired by Marmontel's Belisaire,2*Justinian’s ill-
treated general had becom e a ready and oddly versatile political symbol —"a favourite
antique m odel for the social and religious stands o f liberals, m oderate conservatives and
conservatives masquerading as moderates."25
T h e reception history o f David's Belisaire reveals an interesting ambiguity in its
theme's political message —one that resurfaces, as I shall show, in G oethe's treatm ent o f
it. H ugh H o n o u r has rem arked that the painting "has long b een described as a
denunciation o f kings in general and o f Louis XVI in particular."26 In fact, this idea o f
the picture m ore correctly reflects David's career after 1789 than the way it w ould
have been seen in 1781. As Anita B rookner has observed, to interpret this painting as
an attack on the French king
22 See Voltaire. "Anecdotes sur Belisaire." Melanges. Jacques van den H euvel, ed. (Paris: GaOimard,
1961). 939-947. and th e "C orrespondance avec Voltaire" reprinted in M arm onteL Oeuvres completes
(Paris: Verdiere, 1818), VII.447 flf.
23 B oim e, A lbert. "M arm ontel's Belisaire and the Pre-R evolutionary Progressivism o f D avid." .4rr
History 3 /1 (M arch. 1960): 83 & £
24 M usee des Beaux-Arts, Lille. T h e three o th er paintings w ere by Jollain 1767; D uram eau 1775;
P eyton 1779. See Boim e 85-6.
25 Boim e 84
26 H onour. H ugh. Seo-Classicism (Harmondsworth; Penguin. 1991), 71
212
is totally to m isunderstand the climate o f eighteenth-century th o u g h t w hich was critical,

satirical, a n d deeply peoccupied w ith th e redefinition o f man's m oral duties [„.J. T h e
teaching o f m oral lessons was [...} an accepted, even a desired, phenom enon in French
society an d to m ake revolutionary claims for D avid in che m oral sphere is almost
nonsensical.27
B rookner's po in t is borne o u t by the feet that a copy o f Belisaire was commissioned
from David by the D irecteur & O rdinateur-G eneral des Badm ens du R o i, the C om te
d'Angivillets;28 w h at is m ore, after the Salon o f 1783, Louis X V I offered the painter
lodgings in the Louvre.29 Indeed, although David voted w ith the C onvention in 1793
for the execution o f Louis XVI, his Belisaire was cited in the same year "as evidence o f
his complaisant support o f the ancien regime."30
David's Belisaire never served G oethe directly as a m odel for his ow n treatment
o f the Belisarius them e (though a rendering o f the same them e by David's pupil
Francois G erard certainly did, as I shall show presently). I have m entioned this
painting only in order to suggest a political ambiguity inherent in the late eighteenth-
century reception o f the Belisarius theme, and to show that the painters and writers o f
the period reshuffled an already hybrid iconographic tradition, laying ground for the
som etim es am biguous application o f multiple strains o f religious pathos to certain
matters covertly political.
In all these respects, Goethe's Belisarius resembles the character w ho replaces
him as an object o f the Architect's compassionate contem plation: Ottilie. Goethe's use
o f the tableaux vivants as leitmotifs in Die Wahlverwandtschaften is a commonplace o f the
scholarship. August Langen (to cite one scholar for several) has noted that the explicit
Ieitm otivic recall o f the image o f Belisarius in the deathbed scene o f 11.18 serves to
27 Brookner. Anita. Jacques-Louis David (New York: H arper & R o w , 1980), 64-5
28 Boim e 93
29 B rookner 66
30 B rookner 109; H o n o u r 71
213
bind the narrative into an organic w hole.31 As early as 1810, K .W .F. Solger — citing
the Prasepe o r nativity scene o f II.6 as an example o f the author’s integration o f current
fashions in taste and behavior "in die H andlung selbst als bedeutend" —noted such a
link by way o f example: "w enn zum Beispiel d e r A rchitekt am Ende beim Sarge
O tdliens dieseibe Stellung annim m t, die er einst als H irte in dem Gemalde halten
muBte [...].”32 Indeed, the novel itself interprets the Architect's pose at O ttilie's
deathbed:
Schon einm ai hatte er vor Belisar so gestanden. Unwillkiirlich g enet er jetzt in die gleiche
Stellung; u n d w ie natiirlich w ar sie auch dieBmall A uch h ier war etwas unschatzhar
W iirdiges von seiner H ohe herabgesturzt; und w enn dort Tapferkeit, Klugheit. M acht.
R an g u n d Verm ogen in einem M anne als unwiederfaringlich verloren bedauert w urden;
w en n Eigenschaften. die d er N a tio n , dem. Fiirsten, in entscheidenden M o m en ten
u n entbehrlich sind. nich t geschatzt. vielm ehr verw orfen un d auflgestoBen w orden, so
w aren hier so viel andere sdlle T ugenden. von der N atur erst kurz aus ihren gehaltreichen
T ieten hervorgerufen. durch ihre gleichgiiitige H and schneD w ieder ausgetilgt: seltene,
schone, liebenswiirdige Tugenden, deren friedliche E inw irkung die bediirftige W elt zu
jed er Z eit m it wonnevollem Geniigen um fingt und m it sehnsuchtiger Trauer vermiBt,33
Som ething in this comparison seems to have led Solger to make a revealing mistake.
Recalling the Architect's final pose, in error, as that o f a shepherd, he confuses Ottilie's
N ativity scene w ith Luciane's tableau o f Belisarius. In feet, the Architect stands at
Ottilie's coffin n o t in the biblical pose o f adoration assumed by the shepherd he plays
in the Nativity o f II.6,31 but "auf sich selbst zuriickgewiesen, start, in sich gekehrt, mit
niedergesenkten Armen, gefelteten, m ideidig gerungnen H anden, H aupt und Blick
nach d er Entseelten hingeneigt"jS — as the "v o r [Belisarius] teilnehm end traurig
stehende[r] Krieger1'36 recalled by the text itself: "Schon eimal hatte er so vor Belisar
31 Langen, August. "A ttitude und Tableau in der G oethezeit.” Cesammelte Studien zu r neueren deucschen
Spraehe und Literatur. Karl R ich ter a aL, eds. (Berlin: E rich Schmidt Veriag. 1978), 292-353, here 337.
Langen cites Solger o n p. 327.
- H a r d 201
33 W V 11.18 = W A I. 20. +12 1-17
34 W V 11.6 = W A I, 20, 273
35 W V 11.18 = W A I, 20. 411 25-28
36 W V LI.5 = W A t, 20, 252 24-26
214
gestanden."37 Solger's error reveals a hidden cerm in th e logic o f Ottilie's lying-in-
state. T he "Belisar nach van Dyk" is one o f the three tableaux vivants acted o u t by
Ottilie's cousin Luciane in II.5; O ttilie does n o t apppear in it. H .G . Barnes has noted,
how ever, "daB alle drei Bilder, in denen Luciane eine so w ichtige R olle spielt, einen
d ire k te n B ezug a u f O ttilie haben u n d a u f spatere Phasen d e r H an d lu n g
vorausdeuten."38 Goethe's direct comparison o f O ttilie w ith Belisarius confirms this.
It also implies some relation betw een Luciane's Belisarius and the one tableau vivant in
w hich O ttilie does appear: the Prasepe. H er final scene echoes — o r varies, as a
contrastive Spiegelung39 —the Architect's vision o f O ttilie as a virgin m other w ith child.
Cruelly belied in the image o f Ottilie's fiuidess attem pt to revive, w ith the w arm th o f
her breast, the drow ned child O tto ,40 this vision resonates still, ambiguously, in her
curious sanctification. It w ould thus appear that Sophie von R einhard and Solger
made a similar error — and one that was n o t entirely inaccurate. G oethe clearly
intended the patent instance o f rural hagiolatry co w hich Nanny's ecstatic recovery in
11.18 leads to be taken with several grains o f salt.41 Y et the incident does cloche Ocdlie
in the symbolic trappings o f a saint, w hether o r n o t w e are really m eant co take her for
one. This palimpsesc o f the Prasepe is w hat caused Solger to slip: he perceived -
correcdy — che image o f che A rchitect as an adoring shepherd shining thro u g h the
deathbed repetition o f the sorrowing soldier.
37 W V 11.18 = W A I, 20, 412 1

38 B arnes, H . G . "A m biguitat in d en > W ah lv erw a n d tsch afte n < . ” Goethes Roman >Die
Wahlvejwandtsdtajten<. 319
39 C f. Blessin, Stefan. Erzdhlstruktur und Leserhandlung. Z ttr Theorie der literarischen Kommunikatian am
Beispiel von Goethes >>Wahlvenvandtschaften< < (Heidelberg: Carl W inter, 1974), 133 ffl
40 W V 11.13 = W A I, 20,361-2
41 A chim von A m im took the W under seriously (H ard 71); C onz called the "scheinbar" (H ard 93);
Jacobi "die H im m elfahrt der bosen Lust" (H ard 113); D elbruck "als eine verklarte Heilige” (H ard 120);
A beken (H ard 124); ."..der Verfasser des W erther [...J zweifHt so w enig an Ottiliens H eiligkeit, daB er
sie nach threm T o d e W under verrichten laBc." A non. (H ard 149)
215
In all three scenes (Belisarius, Prasepe, th e dead Ottdlie), the A rchitect works as
a dramatic foil. His gestures signal the afiect the text demands from its reader. In che
tableau o f Belisarius, and again at Ottilie's bier, his abject response conveys to us the
depth o f the tragedy w e have before u s /2 Som ething similar happens in the Prasepe.
H ere the A rchitect is described as the only onlooker com petent to appreciate the full
effect o f the tableau. His relative com petence is framed pardy as a m atter o f aesthetic
sensibility, partly as one o f perspective. "D er gefiihlvolle K enner, der diese
Erscheinung gesehen hatte,"43 is show n to be absent by the subjunctive m ood o f the
auxiliary verb; "D er Architekt allein, der als Ianger schlanker H irt von der Seite iiber
die K nieenden hereinsah, hatte, obgleich nicht in dem genauesten Standpunct, noch
den groBten GenuB."44 T h e A rchitect’s position as a participant deprives him o f che
front-and-center vantage point required o f the ideal spectator. Y et che narrative asks
us, its readers, to share che Architect's im perfect perspective, and w ith it che pleasure
he cakes in che sacred role played by Ottilie.
In the book's final scene, G oethe uses the Archicect to im plem ent a technique
o f conveying intense pathos derived from argumencs o f Lessing’s regarding che
Laokoon group, a debt expressed clearly enough in G oethe's essay o f 1798 "U ber
Laokoon."43 Here, ascribing the function o f observer to the elder o f Laokoon's sons in
che sculpture’s com position, he makes such a "cheilnehm ende N eb en fig u r” a
desideratum in its depiction o f m om ents o f violent affect:
D er alteste Sohn ist am ieichcesten verstrickt; er tuhlt w eder Beklem m ung noch Schmerz,
e r erschrickt fiber die augenblickliche V erw undung a n d B ew egung seines Vaters, e r
schreit auf. in dem er das Schiangenende von dem einen Fu£ abzustreifen sucht. H ier ist
*2 Cfl Fried, M ichael. Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age o f Diderot (Berkeley:
U niversity a t California Press, 1980), 145 fE
11.18 = W A I, 20, 272 23-24
“ [1.18 = W A I, 20, 273 1-4
45 "U b er Laokoon." W A I, 47, 114 25-26
216
also noch ein Beobachter, Z euge a n d T heiln eh m er bei d e r T at, u n d das W erk ist
abgeschlossen.46
G oethe's decision to use the "Belisar nach van Dyk" in Elective Affinities may have
ow ed as m uch to this technical desideratum as to the meanings the Belisarius story may
itself have carried. True, the novel compares Ottilie's fate w ith that o f the Byzantine
general. But the pose the Architect takes —the vehicle chosen to convey the pathos o f
the scene —is the real focus o f the comparison. It is likewise the compositional focus
o f the "Belisar nach van Dyk." In a letter o f 1762 to Sophie Volland concerning
S cotin’s engraving after this picture, D enis D id e ro t defended precisely this
com positional choice against critics displeased w ith th e p ain tin g ’s unusual
subordination o f its hero (Belisarius) to a "theilnehm ende[n] N ebenfigur": "II est
certain que c'est la figure de ce soldat qui attache, et qu'elle semble faire oublier tous
les autres. Suart et la comtesse disoient que c'etoit un defaut. M oi, je pretendois que
c'etoit la precisement ce qui rendoit la peinture morale, et que ce soldat faisoit m on
role."4' T he soldier "plays our role” as observers: a moral souffleur for us, the painting's
viewers, he suggests to us what we should feel about Belisarius and his fate.48
T h e history o f Goethe's engagement w ith the Belisarius them e confirms the
centrality to that engagement o f the aesthetic problems raised by D iderot in 1762 and
by Lessing in 1766. G oeth e o w n ed a copy o f the p rin t described in Die
Wahlvenvandtschefften, an eighteenth-century engraving o f a p a in tin g now attributed not
to van D yck but to the Genoese painter Luciano B orzone (1590-1645).49 H e appears
44 "U ber Laokoon." W A I. 47. 112 12-19

4' D iderot to Sophie Volland 18 July 1762. cit. Fried 147: also in Busch, W em er. Das sentimentalische
Bild. Die Krise der Kunst int 18. Jahrhundert und die Ceburt der Modeme (M unich: Beck. 1993), 149. O n
D iderot’s contribution to the Laocoon problem see Seznec. Jean. "U n Laocoon franâis." Essais sur
Diderot et I'antupiite (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), 58-78. here 66 fE; Fried 171 £
48 Cf. Busch 144 £
49 Schuchardt, C hr. Goethes Kunstsammhmgen (Jena: From m ann, 1848), 1.154, # 8 3 ; T ru n z. Erich.
"D ie Kupterstiche zu den ’Lebenden Bildem* in d en Wahlverurandtschaftert." Weimarer Goethe-Studien
217
to have draw n che cableau o f II .5 direcdy from chis princ, wichouc reference eicher co
Procopius o r co che lacer Byzantine cext cradidon o f Belisarius' fall from grace.50
Indeed, wich one m inor exception, Goeche's few recorded references co che Belisarius
cheme involve piccures, noc cexcs. O n O ctober 8, 1799, for example, he wrices in his
journal: "Micrag bey Schiller. Das franzosische Bild vom B linden. Von tragischen
M om encen. V on W irkung des sinnlichen Schmerzes."3' T h e w ord "franzosisch”
suggescs chac che "Belisar nach van Dyk" o f Elective Affinities is noc che one meanc.
H ere Goeche seems inscead co have had in m ind che "Hulflose Blinde, Gemahlde von
Gerard, einem Schuler von David" lisced am ong pocencial chemes in a cable o f concents
chac he had sketched in 1798 for the Propylaen, the jo u rn al in w hich he and Schiller
first made public the aescheric program o f W eim ar classicism.32 A lthough Gerard's
painting o f 1795 (which depicts che blind Belisarius striding full-figure before a sunset,
holding a staff in one hand and his guide, a sw ooning cen-year-old boy — around
w hose left calf a snake winds itself—in che other) was never discussed in che Propylaen,
its m ention in chis context (che journal’s firsc issue begins w ith che essay "U ber
Laokoon")53 and Goeche's laconic notes in his jo u rn a l o n tragical m om ents and
(W eim ar: Bohlaus N achf.. 1980), 205. T h e painting is n o w in che C hacsw orth collection in
D evonshire. England. Tw o engravings w ere made o f in one by A braham Bosse, in che 17ch cencury
(Busch 149 & pi. 50), and one by G oupy and Scocin. in che I8ch cencury (T runz 205 & pi. 59). The
tw o are inverted w ith regard co one an ocher. G oeche o w n ed che princ by G oupy and Scocin (cf
Schuchardc 1.154).
30 Cf. articles "Belisarios” and "Belisarios. R om ance o f " The Oxford Dictionary o f Byzantium (N ew
York: O xford University Press, 1991), 1:278. Grum ach twice records m ention by Goeche o f Procopius,
buc never rem otely apropos Justinian's disgraced general. R eferences co Bellum Goth, relating to
Goeche's essay "M yrons Kuh" (1818, G rum ach 515, 862); Bell. Pers. relating co T ribonian (1772.
G rum ach 862, 892). N o m ention w hatever o f che Byzantine tradition (Tzetzes et aL).
51 W A III. 2. 264 15-17. T here is a review o f 1772 o f M annontel's novel attributed to G oethe, buc che
attribution is n o t certain (W A I. 38, 341 N r. 7). "D er unveranderliche Eifer des Belisairs fur einen
Kayser. der einem die Augen aussticht, w enn man ihm lange genug gedienc hat. ist vielleichc dasjenige,
was die Franzosen fur dieses Sctick einnimmc"
52 Gerard Francois Pascal Baron de Gerard (1770-1837). W A I. 47, 290 12-13. G oethe does n o t seem
co have ow ned a copy o f Desnoyers's engraving, chough he did o w n Scotin's princ o f che "Belisar nach
van Dyk" (Schuchardt 1.154). In 1826, he wroce a review o f Gerard’s historical paintings, in w hich the
Belisarius is n o t m entioned (W A I. 49.1, 389-407).
33 "Propylaen. Ersten Bandes erstes Stuck. S. 1-19." W A I. 47, 411
218
physical pain connect it w ith the aesthetic problem s discussed in Lessing’s Laokoon.
This conn ectio n becomes even m ore evident w h en o n e attem pts to reconstruct
G oethe's and Schiller’s encounter w ith the painting. N e ith er m an can have seen
Gerard's Belisarius in 1799, as the picture was then probably either in Paris o r Holland,
and it was n o t reproduced as an engraving u n til 1806, by Auguste B oucher-
Desnovers.54 Unless they had access to a copy (three are know n, neither o f w hich is
likely to have passed through W eimar: tw o by Ingres, one by Leonor M erimee), their
source was most likely literary.5* If it was (as could be supposed) a review o f che Paris
salon o f 1795, it may well have been chat (or like chat) o f a leading journal o f French
opinion. La Decade pkilosophique, which opined:
Q u el sujec interessanc ec simple! il a etc rendu avec expression er sentim ent. O n y lit la
noblesse de son ame. sa resignation dans le tnalheur, ec ce pauvre je u n e enfanc. com m e il
souttre! mais sans grim ace, sans de grandes concorsions, ainsi que souflrenc les fils de
Laocoon.56
Ac least one contem porary response co Gerard's picture confirms chac both o f ics figures
could be felt to function as che sort o f "theilnehmende[n] Nebenfigur[en|" chat Goethe
saw in che Laokoon group: "Si je n'etais pas nee sensible, disait une dame a Bruun
N eergard, Belisaire aurait em porte une victoire sur m on ame; coutes les fois que
j'approche de ce tableau, j'eprouve une certaine melancolie; je souffre avec Ie jeune
** T h e painting was bought in 1795 by a triend o f Gerard’s, che painter Jean-Bapdsce tsabey, who sold it
som e tim e later to th e D utch ambassador to France, M . M ayer. Ic then became the property o f Eugene
Beauharnais. from w hose collection it passed into chat o f th e D uke o f Leuchcenberg (M unich), chen to
Prince R om anow ski (Sc. Petersburg). Ic was transported by a Swedish furniture com pany to Buenos
Aires in 1919, w here it was sold (in 1924) to Odilo Estevez Yanez. founder o f che Museo Municipal de
A rte D ecorativo "Ftrm a y O dilo Estevez” in Rosario, Argentina, w here it is currendy on display. My
thanks co th e curator o f the M useo Estevez. Pedro Alberto Sinopoii. for this inform ation [letter o f 22
D ecem ber 2000], m uch o f w hich is summarized in Sinopoii. P etit) A lberto, and Sara Susana Avedano.
"Francois G erard v su 'Belisario'." Noras [Buenos Aires] (D ecem ber 1969), 6-7. C f C row , Thom as.
Emulation: M aking A nists Jot Revolutionary France (N ew Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 206 ft & n.
58. p. 332 (C row erroneously presumes the w ork lost after 1919).
” T h e Ingres copies are anyway ju st o f che figures’ heads. C f C ro w 206 ff & n. 58. p. 332; La
Revolution Franfaise a I'ecole de la Vertu antique 1775-1796 (M ontauban: M usee Ingres, 1989). 91.
219
hom m e et je sens avec le viellard."37 This is exactly th e function o f the standing
soldier in the "Belisar nach van Dyk," as D iderot construed it in his letter o f 1762 to
Sophie Volland:
A utre querelle avec Suart et Mad* d'H oudetot sur un estam pe de Vandick que represente
Belisaire aveugle, assis contre u n arfare, au b ord d’u n grand chem in, son casque a ses pieds,
dans lequei quelques femmes charitables je tte n t un Iiard, et debout devant Iui. de l’autre
cote, u n grand soldat appuve sur son epee ec qui Ie regarde. O n voit que ce soldat a servi
sous lui, et qu'il d ie "Eh bien. Ie voila done cet hom m e qui nous com m andoit. o sort! O
mortels! etc."
II est certain que e'est la figure de ce soldat qui attache, et qu’efle semble faire oublier totes
les autres. Suart et la comtesse disaient que c'etoit u n defeut. M oi, je pretendois que
c’etoit la precisement ce qui rendoit la peinture morale, e t que ce soldat faisoic m on role.58
As I have noted, che art historian Michael Fried has taken this to mean "that the figure
o f che soldier functioned in che composition as a kind o f surrogate beholder w ho in
effect m ediated betw een the actual beholder and the figure o f Belisarius —and, by a
natural synecdoche, betw een the actual beholder and che painting as a w hole, the
tableau itself."59 Taking Fried's interpretation further, W em e r Busch has aligned what
he calls Diderot's introduction o f the concept o f che Reflexionsfigur (Busch's term) with
a m ore general European development in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century art and
liceracure, che "crisis" (Busch) o r "demolition" (P. Benichou) o f the hero.00 As I shall
show, Busch's association connects Goethe's "Belisar nach van Dvk" w ith the problems
o f class conflict and social differentiation that have been the central them e o f my own
w ork. I have already mentioned the possible relevance co m y subject o f the them e o f
a class-based tension betw een ariscocrats and populace underlying che Byzantine
Romance o f Belisarius. N ow I w ould like co suggest that this question o f interclass
36 C .-A . A m aury-D uval. w riting as "Polyscope." La Decade philosophique 10 Frimaire an IV [30 Nov.
1795], cic. C ro w 332 Sc 206 £
" C ited in R en o u v ier. Jules. Histotre de Van pendant la revolution 1789-1804 (Paris: n.p., 1863 [reprint
Geneva: Slatkine, 1996]), 90
58 to Sophie Volland, 18 July 1762, in Fried. 147
3 Fried 150
220
tension persists even more in the formal composition o f Goethe's tableau than in its content
—w here it persists as well.
If Gisela B rude-Fim au is right to construe the first tableau vivant o f Goethe's
novel as a reference to th e recen t fete o f d u k e Karl W ilhelm F erdinand o f
B raunschw eig (who "in der Schlacht von Jena u n d A uerstedt am 14. O k t. 1806
besiegt, blindgeschossen u nd anschlieBend durch die T ru p p en des franzosischen
Imperators aus seinem H erzogtum vertrieben w orden [war]”), and to understand the
duke o f B raunschw eig as "fur G o eth e und seine Z e it der R ep resen tan t einer
zuendegehenden Epoche,” i.e. the m odel o f an enlightened absolutist prince,61 then
w e may admit not only her conclusion that Goethe's "Darstellung des blinden Belisar
nicht n u r eine allegorische Gestaltung des Herzogs von Braunschweig [ist]" (w hich
w ould be uninteresting: as I have noted, Elective Affinities is not a roman a clef, but also
that "sie zugleich svmbolischer Verweis [ist] a u f das Ende des A ncien regim e, das
m acht- und wiirdelos am historischen H orizont versank."62
This sense o f the allusion opens an intriguing perspective upon the rest o f the
book; w hich is n o t to say that it leads to a simple interpretation. B rude-Fim au
concludes: "in dem jungen Krieger w ird dem Sinnbild des Vergangenen das M ahnmal
eines handlvmgsbestimmten Ethos gegeniibergestellt," and identifies this as the "letzte,
a u f Goethes unmittelbare Gegenwart bezogene Bedeutung” o f the image.63 I w ould
seek m eaning beyond this, how ever — if only because the Belisarius image refers
symbolically n o t only to the other tw o images in its series, as Brude-Fim au explains in
cogent detail (Poussin’s Ahasverus and Esther and the so-called Paternal Admonition o f
40 Busch 148 fE; Benichou. PauL Morales iu grand siede (Paris: Gailimard. 1948), 128-148
41 B rude-F im au. G[iseia]. "Lebende B ilder in den Wahluenvandtschafien. G oethes Journal intime vom
Ofctober 1806." Euphorion 74 (1980): 406
4i B rude-Fim au 407
43 Brude-Fim au 407
221
Terborch),64 buc also co Ocube's deachbed scene, co h er role and che Archicecc’s in che
Prasepe, and finally co her anecdoce o f Charles I.
O ttQ ie's a m b ig u ity
I have adverced above co a cercain ambivalence in Goeche's handling o f Occilie,
and have suggesced chac che hopes chac Goeche connecced wich Occilie may have been
ac some variance wich his description o f h e r disastrous "effect." I am hardly che firsc co
have noticed chis ambivalence, alchough —as Jane K. B row n has observed — mosc o f
chose critics w ho have noticed ic have cended co gloss over it.6s B row n has suggesced
chac in Elective Affinities "we are dealing noc wich a basically sympachetic creacmenc [of
Occilie] tem pered by an undercurrenc o f skepticism buc racher wich cwo violendy
conflicting views" o f che problem chac Brow n sees as che central concern o f this "novel
o f manners" —that "no kind o f manners can hold society together in the face o f che
destructive forces ac w ork in che novel."06 I w ould agree w ith B row n chac these cwo
perspectives consist o f "the narrator's positive em otional response co che rom antic
O ttilie [...], on che one hand, and a severe criticism o f che manners and che scace o f che
society on the other"67 - but then 1 w ould go a step further.
I have suggesced in passing chac che historical d e v elo p m en t o f such
Rejlexionsfiguren as the soldier-witness in Diderot's "Belisar nach van D yk" can be
linked co the processes o f social differentiation and class conflict chat I view as a central
“* B rude-F im au’s argum ents regarding th e tableaux vivants are persuasive in detail, b u t I am n ot
conv in ced by h e r conclusion: th at "die lebenden B ilder w ie Fenster die Perspektive u b e r den
historischen H orizont hinaus[weitenj a u f eine nahezu grenzenlose Perspektive m enschlicher Potenz;”
fo r this arg u m en t requires th at O ttilie's sanctification b e taken seriously, an d its sense m ore
optimistically, than the book's ending merits. Brude-Fim au 408 fE, 416
“ B row n lists O . W alzel, H . Hatfield. H .G . Bames, L. Kahn and E. Staiger. B row n, Jan e K. "Die
Wahlverwandtsdtajien and the English N ovel o f M anners." Comparative Literature 38 (Spring. 1976): 105.
n. 9
06 Brow n 105
concern o f Elective Affinities. As W ern er Busch has argued, the rise o f such figures in
late eighteenth-century European art w ere a function and sym ptom o f the "crisis" or
"dem olition" o f the aristocratic heroic ethos in the literature and art o f the period.
This "crisis o f the hero" in art corresponded to an increasingly critical perception o f
aristocratic habitus on the part o f writers and artists, one corresponding in essence to
the social ascent o f the bourgeoisie that increasingly formed their market. T he details
o f this fairly complex developm ent need not concern us here.68 It is enough to cull
from Busch the idea that the crisis o f the heroic ethos led to the insight that the
classical conventions o f b o th literary and visual art could n o t plausibly be applied to
the rising bourgeois protagonist; a realization that led in the latter part o f the century
to a dom inance in art, and in thinking o n art, o f the problem o f form, "zu einer
Selbstbesinning der K unst a u f die ih r eigenen M ittel."69 D iderot's ideas on
Rffiexionffiguren belonged to this later phase o f the crisis. It was in this late phase as
well that the social tensions informing the "crisis o f the hero" began to find expression
in the form o f a new kind o f pathos: that o f the paradoxical type o f the hero unable to
act, o f the "handlungsunfahigen, passiven H elden, a u f den divergierende, ihn
lahmende Krafte einw irken."70 G iven this discursive context, the "Belisar nach van
Dyk" begins to appear as a symbol o f sorts for a crucial transition in European social
history: a symbol, namely, o f the m om ent in w hich the new , unheroic non-noble
hero (the soldier, w ho observes and emotes w ithout acting, then presumably goes on
his way) bears pathetic witness to the demise o f the old, aristocratic heroic virtues (as
47 Brow n 105
48 For a detailed discussion o f the "crisis o f the hero" in art see Busch, 24 £F.
49 Busch 25
70 Busch 137 SI
223
em bodied in Belisarius).71 This equation mighc explain che print's fascination for
eig h teenth-century viewers, w hich was (as Busch notes) disproportionate to its
quality.72 It may also explain its place in Elective Affinities.
T h e text present O ttilie twice directly as an object o f reflection by such a
Reflexionfigur. in che deathbed scene, and in che Prasepe. It casts her as such indirecdy
in che B elisarius tableau — co m m u tativ ely , as it w ere, by m eans o f che
A rchitect/Soldier's recurrence. Foreshadow ing her deathbed scene, this tableau
establishes an equivalence becween her and che Byzantine general. In all three o f these
scenes, the Architect is her witness. In a fourth — her anecdote o f Charles I — she
herself is the Reflexionsfigur, while the toppled king becomes che object o f pathos. At a
second rem ove o f association, how ever, she is present in che figure o f che English
king, whose fall from pow er echoes that o f Belisarius. Whac we have here is a series
o f wiederholten Spiegelungen, pictures that chrough th eir affinity call for contrastive
comparison.73 T hree points are self-evidendy com m on to all o f these scenes b u t the
Prasepe: a fall, a witness suggesting the pathos o f chac fell, and an ambiguous promise o f
restoration. T he Prasepe seems ac first glance co lack a fell, though both a wicness and a
promise o f restoration (i.e., Christian salvation) are certainly present. H ow ever, the
Prasepe's future echo in Ottilie's Wendung nach oben w ith the dead O tto in her arms (an
image chat brings out che pieta hidden in every adoration) does include chat final
elem ent, plus ambiguity in spades. O tto's death proves che futilicy o f the novel's first
cwo promises o f restoration: chac o f civility after regicide (Charles I) and that o f token
1 C f. Schlaffer. H einz. Der Burger als Held. Sozialgeschichtliche Auflosungen literarisdter Widerspruche
(Frankfort am M ain: Suhrkamp. 1973), 133 fi. "Ihn [Goecfael ekeke vor dem Burger, der als H eros sich
aufspielt." A d o m o . T h e o d o r W . "Z u m Klassizismus von G oethes Iphigenie." Soten zu r Literatur
(Frankfort am M ain: Suhikam p, 1991), 504
72 Busch 150
73 C £ Blessin Erzaklstruktur und Leserhandlung 133 21
224
fortune after disgrace (Belisarius).74 O ttilie’s death gives the lie n o t only to its third
prom ise (that o f Christian salvation), b u t also —and m ore definitively even than O tto's
—once again to the first (Charles I) and the second (Belisarius). As Giuliano Baioni has
noted, it is w ith Ottilie's death, not O tto's, that Eduard's line oflegal descendants really
ends.'3 T hus does the novel express a new stage o r degree o f the Entsagung w ith
w hich G oethe answered the R evolution: a renunciation o f faith in the efficacy o f
renunciation76 —but not, as we shall see, a renunciation o f hope.
T h e sequence in w hich these four scenes occur in the book reflects Ottilie's
developm ent as a character. H er tale o f Charles I, a prescriptive model o f restorative
sociable action, is a product o f her natural self told before she has had a chance to fell
in love w ith Eduard. T he Prasepe, how ever, is staged after she has begun to move
from her "path." The contrast that its restorative promise makes w ith her lost original
disposition seems a source o f her discomfiture w ith the scene: "[W ]ie w enig bist du,
u n ter dieser heiligen Gestalt vor [dem Gehulfen] zu erscheinen, und wie seltsam muB
es ihm vorkom m en, dich, die er n u r natiirlich gesehen, als Maske zu erblicken?"77
O tto's fell, and the scene that results —h er turn to the heavens, a fifth image o f failed
restoration, according to G oethe the text's most im portant —confirm her divergence
from her natural path, to w hich she n o w resolves to return. Y et a sixth scene o f
related type (Eduard's appearance in her room at the inn, w here he w ould retrieve his
w atch and seal, and is forced to witness the beginning o f her final self-abnegation)
convinces h er o f the impossibility o f restoration by renunciation; w hereupon h er death
ends the book by convincing us, its readers, o f that impossibility. (The Belisarius
'* Eduard's m istim ed gift to che Beggar in 1.15 reinforces this them e o f a sacrifice that is too little, and
m ade too late. 1.15 = W A I 20 161 17-28
75 Baioni. Giuliano. Goethe. Classidsmo e rivoluzione (Turin: Einaudi, 1998), 262
* C f Baioni 244-5
■' 11.6 = W A 1 2 0 .2 7 4 22-26
225
image echoes che story o f Charles I, and foreshadows O ttilie’s death, b u t ic has yet
another meaning —o f w hich m ore presendy.)
T he failure o f sacrifice
T h e com m on them e o f chis sequence o f Spiegelungen is the them e o f sacrifice.78
O r, m ore precisely: that o f a failure o f sacrifice. T h e them e comes to a head w ith
O ttilie's Wendung nach oben, every extant engraving o f which renders che gesture w ith
w hich she holds che dead O tto aloft on the m odel o f that paragon o f sacrifices, a pietd.
This pietd on che lake, however, is as parodic as che novel's ultimate "mirabilia sanctae
O diliae."79 Neicher O tto's death, n o r Ottilie's — neither che one sacrifice, n or the
o th er —solves che crisis o f social relations at the book’s cencer, o r renders cathartic the
tragedy this conflict has produced. W hat is more, boch sacrifices differ in this regard
from a third, one outside che text, w ith w hich Ottilie's Wendung nach oben fairly begs
co be compared: Agamemnon's sacrifice o f Iphigenia to Artemis, in G oethe's Iphigenie
a u f Tauris as in chat o f Euripides. A gam em non w ould sec sail for T ro y co avenge
Helen's abduction w ith a thousand ships o f Hellas, b u t terrible winds hold his fleec in
the harbor. He is advised to sacrifice his daughter to appease the goddess, w ho then
lets the winds abate. G oethe’s version o f che scene runs as follows:
[Pylades:] Nach Aulis lockt* e r [Agamemnon) sie und brachte dorr.

Als eine Goctheit sich der Giiechen tahrt
M ir ungestumen W inden widerseczce.
D ie altste Tochter. [phigenien.
V or den Altar Dianens. und sie fiel.
Ein blutig O pfer, fur der Grieehen heiL30
78 Cf. Benjamin, W alter. "Goethes W ahlverwandtschaften." Gesammdte Schriften. R.oIf Tiedem ann and
H erm ann Schweppenhauser. eds. (Frankfurt am M ain: Suhrkamp, 1991), 1.1.136
79 Zagari, Luciano. "Sancta mirabilia Odiliae. L'accesso 'parodisdco' di G oethe al m ondo rom antico del
sacro." Rivista di Estetica 31 (1989): 46-52
226
Ottilie's scene on the lake inverts this image o f the Greeks' sailing for w ar on Troy: her
pieta on the still water summons a gentle w ind that drives h er boat towards the plane
trees, to shore.81 If this scene from Elective Affinities is a Spiegelung o f the opening scene
o f Euripides's Iphigenia in Tauris, then it will w ork as well as an echo o f Goethe's ow n
Iphigenie. Like its ancient model, Goethe's play o f 1779-1787 spans an arc from one
failed hum an sacrifice —Iphigenie's ow n, to Diana, foiled how ever by Diana's mercy —
to a second: the one planned for Orestes and Pylades by Thoas to please Diana, and
averted by Iphigenie. T he key to this intertextuai Spiegelung is to be found, I believe,
in the protest against such sacrifice p u t by G oethe into the m outh o f Iphigenie,
priestess o f Diana: "D er miBversteht die Himmlischen, der sie/ Blutgierig wahnt; er
dichtet ihnen n u r/ Die eignen grausamen Begierden an."82 T he phrase seems as if
coined in advance to describe the T error. Indeed, it contains the core insight o f
G oethe's "Verwertung theologischer Politik" (Hans Reiss), o f his life-long distaste for
the subordination o f hum an life and freedoms to overt o r covert eschatologies.33 In
repudiating the idea o f hum an sacrifice to political ends, and thus asserting the
inadequacy o f hum an sacrifice as a foundation for social order, the play invalidates in
advance, so to speak, the state that the R evolution w ould essay to build on the severed
trunk o f Louis XVI.
T h e sacral overtones o f the execution o f Louis X V I have been a focus o f
scholarship on the R evolution since D aniel Arasse's essay o f 1987 La Guillotine et
Vimaginaire de la Terreur. "The death o f the king," Arasse has w ritten, "was som ething
m ore than the abolition o f the monarchy; it was a sort o f founding sacrifice whose
90 G oethe, iphigenie a u f Tauris, 11.2.908-913 = W A I 10. 40

81 11.13 = W A I 20, 362 8-9
82 iphigenie a u f Tauris, IJ5.523-525 = W A I 10, 23
227
religious significance is confirm ed by che consensus o f revolutionaries and royalists as
to the significance to be accorded co the event."84 This ambiguous significance flowed
from th e R evolution's deliberate construction o f th e king's death as its ow n
foundadonal act. As R ichard D . E. Burton has observed,
th e 'spontaneous' fo undational killings o f July 1789 w ere to be corroborated and

authenticated [ex post facto, PJS[ by a fully legal, rational, and deliberate sacrificial act. a
sacrifice thac w ould b o th inaugurate a new cosmos in and through violence and abolish
the need for violence in the future; in short, a sacrifice to end all sacrifices, the republican
equivalent o f the full and final sacrifice o f Christ35
—chat foundadonal hum an sacrifice par excellence. In consequence, che Christologicai
com parison was made almost im m ediately "by w riter after w riter in the C atholic-
rovalist camp [...]. Buc the Christologicai, even the eucharisric, dim ension o f the
king's deach was present also in republican discourse, if only in disguised o r inverted
terms."86
Louis XVI was n o t che first European king to have earned, how ever ignobly,
the Christologicai epithec "martyr." In this his free had been prefigured, again, by the
case o f Charles I.87 W e have witnessed above G oethe’s horror at both events:
W er hatte seit seiner Jugend sich nicht vor d er G eschichte des Jahrs 1649 entseczt, wer
nicht vor d er H in n ch tu n g Karl 1. geschaudert. un d zu einigem T roste gehofft. daB
dergleichen Scenen d er Parteiw uth sich niche abermals ereignen konnten. N u n aber
33 Reiss, Hans. "G oethe u n d die Franzosische R evolution." Formgestaltung und Politik. Coethe-Studien
(W urzburg; Konigshausen & N eum ann. 1993), 276; Reiss. Hans. "T heologische' Politik in Iphigenie
a u f Tauris." op. dr., 188-203
34 Arasse, Daniel. The Guillotine and the Terror. Christopher M iller, trans. (London: Allen Lane/Penguin.
1989), 53; see 48 fE for entire argument.
45 Burton. R ichard D . E. Blood in the C ity: Violence and Revelation in Paris, 1789-194J (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press. 2001), 43
90 Catholic-rovalist, e.g.: de Maistre, BaQanche. Chateaubriand; republican, e.g.: M ichelet, Lamartine.
Cfi B utton Blood in the City 46; B urton. R ichard D . E. "Le Sacrifice d u Bourreau: Capital Punishment
and the N ineteenth-C entury French Im agination (1815-1848)." in: Repression and Expression: Literary
and Social Coding in Nineteenth-Century France. CarroL F. Coates, ed. (N ew Y ork: Peter Lang, 1996), 7
ST.; D unn, Susan. The Deaths o f Louis X V I: Regicide and the French Political Imagination (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1994), 95 fE
37 See. for exam ple. Lacey, A ndrew . "Elegies and C om m em orative Verse in H o n o u r o f Charles che
M artyr, 1649-60.” in: The Regicides and the Execution o f Charles L Jason Peacey, ed. (Houndsmills:
Palgrave. 2001), 225-246, esp. 239 SL
228
w iederholte sich das alles, greulicher und grim m iger. bei d em gebildecen N achbarvolke,
w ie v o r u n sem Augen; T ag fur Tag, Schrict v o r Schritt. M an d e n k e sich, w elchen
D ecem ber u n d Januar diejenigen veriebcen, die den K onig zu retren ausgezogen waxen,
un d n u n in seinen Procefi n ich t eingreifen. die VoDstreckung des Todesurtheils nicht
88
hindem konnten.
G iven this context, one m ight surmise as w ell that in 1809 G o eth e — unlike such
recent writers as, for example, Novalis, the Schlegels, Friedrich Jacobi, Ludwig Tieck,
Joseph G orres, Franz Baader o r Adam M uller — w ould have th o u g h t political
Rom anticism nearly as sorry a cure as the T error for Europe's political ills.89
Ac least one o f Goethe's Cacholicizing ex-friends. Friedrich Jacobi, sensed some
perversity in O ttilie's parodic repetitions o f Christologicai attitudes: "W ir konnen das
Goctliche und das Himmlische an Ottilia nicht finden und sprechen es ihr geradezu
ab."90 A m uch later reviewer for the Berlin Evangelische Kirchen-Zettung, one Ernst de
Valenti, agreed, calling Ottilie's cum to che heavens "[ejine Paraphrase des Gebetes, die
in der T h at nicht jam m erlicher seyn kann."91 In a sonnet o f 1810 addressed co
G oethe, che R om antic playw right (and soon-co-be C atholic convert) Zacharias
W em er, "dem im Augenblick seiner Bekehrung am w enigsten d er Spiirsinn fur die
duscem R itualcendenzen dieses Ablaufs fehlen konnte" (Benjam in),92 registered che
“ G oethe, Campagne in Frankreich 1792 = W A I. 33, 269 21 - 270 4.

Friedrich Schlegel w ould have been highest on Goethe's hit list in 1809. Cf. G oethe to Falk, 17 April
1808: "Ja, w ovon sprachen w ir gleich? Ha. von Imperatoren! Gut! Novalis w a r noch keiner: aber m it
d er Z eit hatte er auch einer w erden konnen. Schade nur, daB e r so ju n g gestorben ist, zumal. da er
noch auflerdem seiner Z eit den GefiHen getan und katholisch gew orden ist. [...] T ieck w ar auch eine
Zeitlang Im perator; aber es w ahrte nicht Iange. so verfor e r Szepter und K rone. [...J N u n kam en die
Schlegel ans R egim ent; da ging’s besser! August Schlegel, seines N am ens d e r Erste. u nd Friedrich
Schlegel der Z w eite — die beiden regierten m it dem gehorigen N achdrucke. Es verging kein Tag, wo
m cht irgend jem and ins Exil geschickt. oder ein paar Executionen gehalten w urden.” Goethes Gesprache
II.301-2. C f also G oethe's essay "N eu-deutsche religios-poiitische Kunst" (1817) for a later expression
o f his hope that the political Catholicism o f the Rom antics w ould die dow n n o w that it had served the
im m ediate function o f galvanizing Germans against N apoleon (W A I 49.1, 57-8). 1 find it astounding
that Gabrielle Bersier has w ritten an entire book interpreting Elective Affinities as a "R atselparodie der
R o m an tik ” — th at is, as an attack on Friedrich Schlegel’s aesthetics — w ith o u t touching once on the
question o f political Romancicism. Bersier, Gabriele. Goethes Ratselparodie der Rom antik. Eine neue Lesart
der » W a h lverw a n d tsd ttffien « (Tubingen: Niemever. 1997)
90 H ard 113
91 in 1831. D e Valenti in HartL, 357
92 Benjamin 1.1.142
229
insight w ith m ore hum or, b u t in no less earnest: "Da kom m t ein heilig freches K ind
gegangen,/D es Heiles Engel tragt's, den Sohn der Siinden,/ D er See schlingt alles!
W eh uns! — Es w ar Scherz!"93 T h e "Es" to w hich this verse refers — that w hich
W ern er seems pained to find "Scherz" — was the sacrifice o f Christ ("Jerusalem"),
defeated in Goethe's novel by the lust o f mythical, pre-C hristian forces for a sacrifice
o f their own:
Erbauc a u f Triebsand will gethurm t erschetnen

Jerusalem: ailein die graBIich zarten
M eemixen, die sechstausend Jahr schon harrten.
Lechzen im See, durch O pfer sich zu reinen.**
In oth er words, G oethe had failed to provide his boo k w ith the kind o f kitschy
resolution o f tragedy into unambiguous Christian redem ption w ith which W erner was
w ont to end his ow n plays.95
For W alter Benjamin, these reactions proved "daB der mythische G ehalt des
W erkes den Zeitgenossen Goethes n ich t d er Einsicht, aber dem Gefiihl nach
gegenwartig war."96 Benjamin's ow n theory o f the logic o f sacrifice in Goethe's novel
is deep, but abstract. In the rest o f this chapter, I w ould like to apply it, along w ith a
second theory o f sacrifice that I think converges w ith it —Aby W arburg’s —concretely
to the socio-political m atter that has been my concern all along. M y ow n theory o f
” Zacharias W erner (Hard 166); on Werner's conversion o f 1811 and G oethe's caustic reaction to it see
Goethe und die Romantik. Briefe mit Erlduterungen. Carl Schuddekopf and O skar Walzel. eds. (W eimar:
Verlag der Goethe-Gesellschaft. 1899 [reprint W eim ar 1984)), LI.xxxi fE
** W em er in H ard 166
** See. for exam ple, th e endings o f Der vierundzwartzigste Februar (published 1815, perform ed for
M adam e de Stael at Copper, 13.10.1809. and at W eim ar, 24.2.1810 [Schottelius 512)): "D er H im m el
schleufit sich auf! H ell stehst Du vor m ir d a y Germania's Gloria!/ Hohenstauffens, Habsfaurgs, ZoIIems
u n d Hessens Stam m ,/ Heiliger H elden Oriflamm’!/ Sie schwingen das B anner des Kreuzes. Es zittert
Asia! usw.”; o r Die M utter der Makkabaer (1816): "Ein reines O pfer w ird sich G o tt bereiten./ D urch das
w ird er, im reinen Liebesklange./ D en H eiden seinen grofien N am en kunden!/ Es wird, vom Aufgang
bis zum N iedergange/ Vereinend alle Opfer. Volker. Z e ite n ,/ An reiner M utterliebe sich entzunden,/
R e in e n die W elt von Sunden!" [Zacharias Wemer.r ausgewahlte Schrijten (Grimma: Verlags-Com ptoir,
1840), DC207 and X .172. respecdvelyl
230
the novel's "mythical content" is that w ith the figure o f OtriHe G oethe articulates, in a
series o f Spiegelungen, the social promise, and the failure, o f three different modes o f
sacrifice. I have named two: the revolutionary sacrifice o f kings, and the Christian or
C atholic sacrifice o f Jesus. T h e third, to w hich I now turn, was the sacrifice o f afiect
that G oethe called Entsagung.
"Die Geschichte der Zivilisation," A dom o and H orkheim er have w ritten, "ist
die Geschichte der Introversion des Opfers. M it anderen W orten: die Geschichte der
Entsagung."97 Y et conversely: "Jedes O p fer ist eine Rescauration, die von der
geschichtlichen R ealitat Lugen gestraft w ird, in der man sie untem im m t."98 T he
history o f civilization is on this logic a history o f failed sacrifices —o f th e failure o f
Entsagung, civilization's precondition. This dialectic informs Elective Affinities, prevents
its closure, produces its tragedy. Giuliano Baioni has construed the novel’s irresolution
roughly in this sense - that is, as a renunciation o f the classical ideals o f the decade
w ith Schiller:
Le arBnita elective sono I'unica opera veramence tragica del poeca. il quale, rinunziando a
resolvem e la cemanca in un contesco narracivo che ne avrefabe necessariamente limicato Ie
risonanze, pud com porre la cragedia di una socieca che cramonca, rappresencare la fine di
u n m ondo che era suo m ondo, per riporre poi le sue speranze nell'ucopia della nuova
socieca dei W anderjahre. [...] Se infacci nell'idillio borghese defla rescaurazione di W eim ar
il m acrim onio di H erm ann e D orochea rappresencava la ricom posizione dell'ordine
nacurale della socieca, nel nuovo rom anzo la crisi del macrimonio di Eduard e Chariocre
segna la dissoluzione di queQa socieca ariscocracico che [...{ aveva reso possibile la forma
compiuca deU’idillio neo-classico.99
Indeed, Goethe's attempts to reconcile neo-Classical w ith R om antic aesthetics — to
mesh the sensibility and forms o f the ancien regime w ith those o f advancing m odernity -
may be said to have started w ith Elective Affinities (or, perhaps, w ith G oethe's sketched
94 Benjam in 1.1.143. Benjamin mentions all o f these sources, buc cites & uses them differently. H e also
cites de Valenci’s essay as the w ork o f his editor, E- W . Hengstenberg.
97 H orkheim er & A dom o Dialeknk der Aufklanmg 62
98 H orkheim er & A dom o 58
231
critique o f Kleist's Amphitryon o f July, 1807),100 and to have continued through (for
example) the essay Shakespeare und kein Ende (1813), the Nachlese zu Aristoteles' Poetik
(1827), and the harm onization o f the Classical and R om antic worlds in the H elena-
scene o f Faust II (1831). This project o f aesthetic conciliation was also one o f social
utopia, an aesthetic answer to th e "tragedy o f developm ent" (Berman) that I have
suggested the novel addresses.101 As Baioni has acknowledged, neither aesthetic nor
social conciliation succeeds —even as a utopia —in Elective Affinities. Y et the text does
invest one figure, O ttilie, w ith hopes that are nearly utopian, if dashed. T o return to
Jane Brown: If G oethe’s ambivalent love for his figure O ttilie suggests an insight that
"no kind o f manners can hold society together in the face o f the destructive forces at
w ork in the novel,"102 it also reflects a hope that som ething will; and in enum erating
w hat kinds o f manners will n o t w ork as social glue, O ttilie’s scenes o f sacrifice
nonetheless make her a prototype o f the utopian symbolic guarantor o f o rd er —
aesthetic and social —that Goethe's Helena w ould become.
In a sense, then. Elective Affinities can be read — as D orothea von M iicke has
suggested o f Rousseau's Souvelle Heloise (1761) —"as a novel about the possibility or
impossibility o f utopias."103 In b o th novels, the utopian m om ent (which may n o t be
one) turns on the death o f a boy-child in a lake, and the subsequent death and
Christologicai apotheosis o f the w om an responsible for the boy’s drow ning.10* In
other words, there is no question that G oethe's O ttilie consciously echoes Rousseau's
Baioni 250. 255

100 C f. B u sch en d o rf. B e rn h a rd . G oethes m ythische D onkform . Z u r Ikonographie der
>> iVahlverwandtschaften« (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986), 267
101 C f B erm an. Marshall. A ll chat is Solid M elts into A ir: The Experience o f M odernity (N ew Y ork:
Penguin, 1988). 37-86.
tic Brow n 105
103 von M ucke, D orothea. Virtue and the Veil o f Illusion: Generic Innovation and the Pedagogical Project in
Eighteenth-Century Literature (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 292 (n. 21)
I0* Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Julie ou la NouveUe Heloise (Paris: Garnier-FIammarion, 1967), VLix (534-5)
232
Julie.105 She echoes Julie, roo, in che function von M iicke ascribes to Rousseau's
heroine: " If G od has veiled His rice, it will be up to [Julie] to compensate for the deus
absconditiis, co becom e a tableau that will consolidate the new order at Clarens."106
Y et the G od in question in 1809 has gained another historical incam arion since
1761, one w hose sacrifice soured Rousseau for many: Louis X V I, w ho —like Julie -
had been heard co proclaim ac his death: ’J e boirai le calice jusqu'a la lie."107 T he
phrase alludes to the symbolization, in che Gospels, o f Christ's raking on the sins o f
m ankind with the cup in Gechsemane, an image borrow ed from the prophet Isaiah.108
Its utterance claims a foundational role for the speaker in a new order to follow his or
her death. As we have seen, the social order to follow Louis was conceived by
republicans as che R evolution, and by Cacholic royalists as R estoration. Indeed, che
historian M ichelet, a republican, found che analogy co C hrist politically regrettable
because it had produced che phenom enon o f Catholic royalism:
U n resultat tres foneste s'accomplit sur I’echafeud par la m o rt de ce feux martyr: le mariage
de deux mensonges. La vielle Eglise dechue et la R o y au te abandonee des longtem ps de
Pesprit de D ieu. finirent la leur longue Iutre. s'accorderent. se recondlierent dans la Passion
d’un R o i.'m
Julie's imitatio Christi, o f course, promises som ething o th e r than C atholic
royalism —as does O ttilie’s. Each o f the two w om en projects a replacem ent o f the
symbolic o rd er o f m onarchic society — an o rd er o f hierarchy and o f objective
‘os Carl H am m er. Jr. [Goethe and Rousseau: Resonances o f the M ind (Louisville: T h e University Press o f
Kentucky, 1973), 107-121} concludes that "Die Wahlverwandtscfufien and La SouveUe Heloise show many
analogous characteristics.” H ow ever, the fetal glass is n o t am ong those he names; h e rails to note any
allusion to Jesus; a n d he does n o t reach any significant interpretative results w ith the comparison. Anke
Engelhardt [Zu Goethes Rezeption von Rousseaus « N o u v e lIe H e lo is e » (R heinfelden: Schauble. 1997)],
whose focus is on th e Lehrjahre. does n ot m ention D ie Wdhlverwandtschafien at all.
106 von M iicke 152
107 Julie: "O n m ’a feit boire jusqu'a la lie la coupe arnere et douce d e la sensibilite.” 558. C £ von
M iicke 153 21 for discussion o fju lie ’s imitatio Christi.
108 Isaiah 51:22; M atthew 26:39 & 42; M ark 14:36; Luke 22:42
109 M ichelet, Judes. Histoire ie la Revolution fiartfaise (Paris: GaDimard/PIeiade, 1952). 11.190
233
constraints on behavior —w ith the system o f internalized affective constraints typical o f
bourgeois life.110 Rousseau's articulation o f such an econom y o f affect in relation to a
new type o f m other-im ago111 may help to explain w hy the tw o w om en imitate Mary
as well as Jesus. Each is a mother-figure to a child-sacrifice, but then becomes herself a
foundadonal sacrifice. W ith this covert m etonym ic slippage from M ary to Jesus,
however, Rousseau broke w ith his model: there is no biblical promise o f redem ption
in Mary. This is w here G oethe seems to sense an aporia in Rousseau's social program.
If — w ith help, as I'd guess, from this shift - Julie’s death symbolically establishes
maternal love as a constitutive part o f the new social order proposed by Rousseau, as
its "principle o f legitimation, stability, and reproduction" (von M iicke),'12 w hat then
does Ottilie's do? T h e answer is: It doesn't. O ttilie is not O tto's m other; the breast
w ith which she w ould w arm the dead child to life is cold as marble, the opposite o f
maternal;113 and any M ariological reading o f h e r final scene m ust founder on its
elements o f parody. Goethe's imagery may follow Rousseau’s, but his text marks a
problem w ith the sacrifice o f Julie by breaking the glass - the "verschmahte[s] O pfer1'
(Benjamin)114 rescued from the foundation o f the baneful Lusthans —that Eduard, still
hoping, w ould finally drink to the bitter dregs. "[S]ein Schicksal ist ausgesprochen
durch die That," the text comm ents; "W ie soil ihn das GleichniB nihren?"113 This
must be the Gleichnis o f the Christologicai analogy given the lie by the spuriousness o f
the glass; no o th er is indicated- Eduard has understood, and admits w ith capitulation
' !0 See for exam ple Elias, N orbert. Uber den ProzcjS der Zivilisation. Soziogenetische und psydtogenetische
Untersuchungen (Frankfurt am M ain: Sohrkam p. 1997), esp. L89-131; Pikulik, Locfaar. Leistungsethik
contra C efuhbkult. Uber das Verhaltnis von Bitrgerlichkeit und Empjindsamkeit in Deutschland (G ottingen:
V andenhoeck Sc R uprecht, 1984), 194 21 M ax W eber's D ie procestantische E thik und der » G e i s t « des
Kapitalismus (1904-05) is o f course the original source o f this line o f discussion.
111 von M ucke 115 21
112 von M iicke 154
113 n.13 = W A 1 20, 361 12-17
:u Benjamin 1.1.136
115 11.18 = W A I 20, 415 3-4
234
co death: che redemptive cup o f Isaiah, che Gospels and Rousseau —Eduard's ultimate
m etonym o f O ttilie — "[ist] ihm ” (in analogy w ith Isaiah) "kein w ahrhafter Prophet
gewesen."116 W ith this, Ottilie's parodic apotheosis becomes an object lesson in failed
redem ption. H er deach symbolizes a failure o f the Rousseauist project o f refounding
society on grounds o f affect, ju st as O tto's death does the failure o f che aristocratic
ethos.11'
Ottilie's am biguity, again
Elective Affinities thus appears co be m ore a novel about the impossibility o f
ucopias —at least, certain utopias —than one about th eir possibility, as che Wanderjahre
w ould be.’18 Buc what o f the hope —o r che love —wich w hich che text seems to invest
Ottilie?119
Despite its dom inant tone o f despair, Ottilie's final scene may have a certain
utopian function, o r direction. T he cause o f her death holds a metaphorical clue to
chis function's nature: by starving herself co death, she has em ptied herself o f all
positive content. T he image o f her corpse binds a utopian m om ent co the empcy
space, the blank cipher she becomes. Although she functions throughout the text as a
screen onto w hich Goethe's characters project their o w n fantasies (as do Eduard, the
A rchitect, and che Schoolmaster, particularly), che static, silenced and silencing
Bildlichkeit o f Ottilie's final scene is exercised, in particular, on the Architect, che book's
[LIS = W A I 20, 415 3-4

-1' "D ie neu e kulcurelle Orgamsauonsfocm, die aus der D ekadenz der hergebrachten symbolischen
O rdnung geboren w ird. wird fur cot erklart: sie teilt das Schicksal des Kindes O tto , das a u f den Leibem
der Aristokrane von Bildem erzeugc wird." WeHbery, David E. "D ie W ahlverwandtschaften." Goethes
Erzdhlwerk. Interpretationen. Paul M ichael Liitzeler and James E . M cLeod, eds. (Scuregard Reclam ,
1985), 307
118 Baioni 250
235
final survivor — and through him on us, the book's readers. If the A rchitect is in
D iderot's sense o u r souffleur, what then do his whispers suggest w e see in the dead
O ttilie? H e is in fact silent, in words and in gesture. Like the "theilnehm end traurig
stehender Krieger" "nach van Dyk," he stands aside and regards in Ottilie's death the
extinction o f so many
stifle T u g en d en . von der N atur erst kurz aus ihren gehaitreicben Tiefen hervorgerufen.
d u tch ihre gleichguitige H and schneil w ieder ausgedlgc seltene, schone. liebenswiirdige
T u g e n d e n , deren friedliche E in w irkung die bed u rftig e W elt zu je d e r Z eit m it
w onnevoliem Geniigen umfangt und m it sehnsuchtiger T rauer vermiflt.120
It is w orth noting that in this description O ttilie’s virtues and the "nature" supposed to
have produced and then destroyed them are alluded to in an indeterm inate fashion.
W e are invited to see her as virtuous (as w e were earlier led to believe she is beautiful),
w ithout concretely having been cold w hat these virtues had been. Like che idea o f
nacure icself, w hich - as A rthur O . Lovejoy observed — "has been che chief and the
most pregnant w ord in the terminology o f all the norm ative provinces o f thought in
che W est" —her ultimate indeterminacy potentially encompasses such a multiplicity o f
meanings chac it becomes easy "to slip more o r less insensibly from one connotation to
another, and thus in the end co pass from one ethical o r aesthetic standard to its very
antithesis, w hile nominally professing the same principles."121 O ttilie's final image is
semantically empcy, yet potentially ready to be invested w ith a range o f meanings
n’ See h o w e v e r Seibt, G ustav, and O liv er R.. Scholz- " Z u r F u n k d o n des M ythos in D ie
W ahlverw andtschaften.’’ DV'js 5 9 /4 (1985):629: "O ttilie aflein entsagc ganz ausdrucklich m it ihrer Liebe
auch der H ofinung [...]."
!2D 11.18 = W A I 20, 412 9-17
121 Lovejoy, A rth u r O . "'N ature' as Aesthetic N orm ." Essays in the History o f Ideas (N ew Y ork:
Putnam /C apricorn, I960), 69
236
(rather in the m anner o f what R om an Ingarden has called an Unbestimmtheitsstelle, or
W olfgang Iser a Leerstelle).172
I w o u ld like to suggest that it may have b een in this very sem antic
ecum enicalism that G oethe placed tentative hopes for Europe's future. As Stefan
Blessin has noted, Ottilie's final image achieves a kind o f balance o r equilibrium (but
noc a conciliation!) o f the forces at play in the novel —that is, o f che forces released
w ith che end o f the ancien regime™ Goethe's hopes m ight perhaps be compared with
che ones that drove Leibniz’s attem pt to reconcile the Catholic and Protestant churches
in the lace 1660s so as to attenuate che driving forces o f an earlier pan-European war;
only now che forces in question are primarily vectors o f class o r Stand, noc religion/24
I have suggesced in C hapter VI that O ttilie's gestures function som ething like
Aby W arburg’s Pathosformeln, in that they draw on an older tradition o f gestural
language in order co represenc violent momencary states o f em otion. (There is no
m ore violent m om ent in che novel chan the scene on che lake, as a com m ent reported
by W ilhelm G rim m will remind us: "[Heinrich] Steffens meinc, das Kind sterbe wie
ein H und.")125 W hat might be the Pathosformeln in question, and w hat does che novel
achieve by deploying them?126 AH three contem porary illustrations o f O ttilie's
Wendung nach oben show her kneeling, gazing upward, and holding the child’s corpse
before her as i f it were some kind o f an offering, a sacrifice. T here is no obvious
G reco -R o m an iconographicai m odel for such a gesture. N o t only were sacrifices
Cf. M uller. Ju rg en E. "Literaturewissenschattliche R ezeprions- u n d H andlungscheonen." Seue

Literaturtheariert. K .-M . Bogdal. ed. (Opladen: W estdeutscher Verlag, 1990), 183 fE
Blessin, Stefan. Goethes Romane. Aujbruch in die Modeme (Paderfaom: Schoningh, 1996), 217-8
:2t CE Belaval. Y von. Leibniz. Initiation a sa philosophic (Paris: Vrin, 1962), 56 fE, on chis project and its
political context; see M eyer. R u d o lf W . Leibniz und die europaische Ordnungskrise (Hamburg: Hansischer
Gildeverlag, 1948), 58-9 for a comparison o f Leibniz’s experience o f w ar in M ainz (1668-1672) w ith
G oethe’s in Bad Schwalbach (1815).
:3 H ard 85
237
m ade standing in antiquity; hum an sacrifice is norm ally n o t them atized in G reco-
R o m a n art.127 I f there is a m odel for th e pose —as I think there is —it is Christian.
D espite the neo-Classical visual aesthetic o f the three illustrations o f this scene
reproduced by Hard, Ottilie's supplication involves the Christian devotional gesture o f
genuflection, an echo confirm ed by Ernst de Valenti's objection to it as "[ejine
Paraphrase des Gebetes, die in der T h at nicht jam m eriicher seyn kann.1,128 If this is an
attitude o f sacrifice, it seems also to be one o f prayer, that "H auptm om ent des Kultus,
das das O pfer fast tiberall begleitet, und das erst vereint m it ihm die V ollendung der
kultischen H andlung darstellt" (E. Cassirer).'29
This gesture reveals itself as a Spiegelung o f an earlier pose described in the
book: O ttilie’s drop to her knees before C harlotte in 1.6 (as a rendering o f that scene
by Jean-B aptist Pierre Tardieu will rem ind us). As I have noted in C hapter VI, the
effect o f the earlier gesture on local social relations derives from its inherent liability to
tw o kinds o f interpretation. Charlotte understands O ttilie’s attitude as self-abasement;
O ttilie removes C harlotte’s embarrassment by explaining that it is m eant to express
daughterly love, not relative social position. She thus switches the standard by which
h er action is to be judged: from the objective code o f hierarchal class relations to the
subjective one o f filial devotion. In doing so, she begins to affect the social order
obtaining o n the estate. 1 have read this scene as a precursor to the revision o f political
theology that O ttilie undertakes w ith h e r anecdote o f Charles I. I w ould n o w observe
124 I am n o t using the terms Pathosformel here in a very strict sense, as I have n o t traced the gestures in
question back to ancient prototypes, as W arburg w ould have. Still. I believe that even a loose
application o f th e concept helps to explain Ottilie's gestures.
127 Thanks to Bill M etcalf for confirm ing this. D epictions o f Agamemnon's sacrifice o f Iphigenia do
seem to have been an exception o f sorts. For evidence o f Goethe's enthusiasm, in 1827, for a fresco o f
this scene recen d y unearthed at Pom peii, w hich h e later m entioned in a note e n d d e d "Beispiele
sym bolischer H andlung," see Goethe und die A n tike. Eine Sammlung. G rum ach, Ernst, ed. (Berlin:
W alter de G ruyter. 1949). 667-8; W A I 4 9 .1 .1 9 2
128 in 1831. D e Valend = H ard 357
238
chat in general, O ttilie is at her m ost resolute w hen in an attitude o f hum ility (on her
knees before Charlotte; lying o n the floor after O tto's death, "aber an der Freundin
Knie' herangehoben";130 picking up after m en, and defending the practice; or w ith her
hands pressed togecher, pleading silently w ith Eduard that h e leave). In a w ord, she
stoops —o r renounces —co conquer.
An observadon o f W arburg's o n che social psychology o f a similar gesture —the
devotional pose o f the lS^-cencury Flemish donor-im age (Stifterbild) — identifies, I
believe, che socio-political charge latent in Ottilie's apparent self-abasemencs:
D er flandrische Stil bot durch seine eigenartige geschickte M ischung von innerer Andacht
u nd auBerer Lebenswahrheic das prakcische Ideal eines Stifterbildnisses. Dabei begannen
die M enschen im Bilde doch schon, sich als individuelle G eschopte vom kirchlichen
H incergrunde zu losen, ab er o h n e um stiirzlerische M anieren. einfach du rch einen
natiiriichen, von innen heraus kom m enden W achstumsprozeB. w eil » d e r M ensch noch
mic d er W elt a u f einem Stamm geim pfet b l u h t e « [Jean Paul]; w ahrend die Hande des
Stifters n och das iibliche G ebardenspiel des Selbstvergessenen, schutzflehend autwarts
B lickenden bew ahren. richtet sich d e r Blick schon traum erisch o d er beobachtend in
irdische F em en. D ie w eitgew andte Persdnlichkeit klingt gieichsam iibertonig mit, und
aus d er M im ik des religios ergnffnen Beters entw ickelt sich von selbst die typische
Physiognomik des seibstbewuBten Zuschauers.t3t
O n this logic, there is a sacrificial m om ent in Ottilie's kneeling. Like Odysseus, she
makes herself n o -o n e in order to dodge che mythical backlash o f regicide; like
Prom echeus, she offers up a false sacrifice in order co steal che fire o f political
macurity.'32 T he Fortuna cheme that may also inform her pose on che skiff133 repeats
29 Cassirer, Ernst. Philosophic der symbolischen Formert. Zweiter Teil: Das mytkische Denken (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche BuchgeseQschaft. 1994), 273-4
130 11.14 = W A I 20. 369 20 S.
131 W arburg, Abv M . "Flandrische Kunst u n d itaiienischc Fruhrenaissance,” Ausgewahlte Schriften und
Wiirdigungen, ed. D ieter W uttke (Baden-Baden: Valentin K oem er, 1992), 122
132 C f. G irard, R ene, La violence ez le sacre (Paris: Grasset. 1972). 19 21 on Odysseus: Blumenberg, Hans.
Arbeit am Mythos (Frankfurt am M ain: Suhrkamp, 1979), 440 fE on G oethe’s neglect o f the false sacrifice
and th e theft o f fire in his treatm ent o f the Prom etheus m yth. O n the false sacrifice o f Prometheus c f
G oethe's frequent source Benjamin H ederich [Cnindliches mythologische Lexikon (Leipzig: Gleditsch. 1770
[reprint Darm stadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. 1996]), 2092]: "W eil hiem achst den G ottem
allemal d ie ganzen T hiere geopfert w u rden. u n d die A rm en also gar selten dergleichen bringen
k o n n ten , so erhielt e r vom Ju p iter, daB n u r ein T h eil verbrannt, das andere aber von den Leuten
verzehret w erden m ochte. E r opferte aber darauf selbst d em Jupiter zwey R inder; und, nachdem er die
239
this Prom ethean scheme, reinforcing the them e o f in cip ien t "Selbstgefuhl" that
W a rb u rg saw in th e Flem ish d ev o tio n al im age w ith w h a t he called an
"Auseinandersetzungssymbol des sich befreienden M enschen."134 T h e attribute
"naturalness" w ith which the text invests O ttilie is thus related to the m odem topos o f
im itation o f nature that Hans Blum enberg has identified a "D eckung gegeniiber dem
U n v erstan d en en d er m enschlichen U rsp riin g lich k eit, die als m etaphvsische
Gewaltsamkeit verm eint ist."133 W ith h er story o f Charles I, O ttilie replaces the
hierarchical metaphysics o f the anrien regime w ith the w orld-im m anent "golden chain"
o f an order o f nature conceived, Spinozistically, as its functional equivalent: Deiis seu
natura. Like W arburg’s Renaissance patrons o f art, she neutralizes w ith sacrifice the
daem onic/hubrisdc threat o f helping the older ord er to pass. W hile the patrons’
sacrifice is prayer, Ottilie's is the affective one entailed in civility.
In Warburg's view, the logic o f artists in using such visual copoi is essentially
magical. "D urch das ersetzende Bild w ird der eindriickende R eiz objektiviert und als
O b jek t der A bw ehr geschaffen."’36 As W arburg discovered o n his travels in the
American Southwest, by the logic o f magical thinking, the making o f objects from fear
m eant their disposition to hand as objects o f placadve sacrifice to the Damon that had
inspired them .’37 In notes on the subject o f Damon in Dichtung und Wahrheit, Goethe
described the reladon o f certain images to the fears that produce them in a fashion that
Eingeweide verbrannt hatte, so wickelte er in die eine H aut aflein das Fleisch von beyden Ochsen. in
die andere aber die Knochen derselben. und Iiefi den Jupiter einem u n ter beyden greifen."
133 See C hapter I.
131 W arburg, Aby M . Der Bilderatlas Mnemosyne. M artin W am ke and C laudia B rink, eds. (Berlin:
Akademie-Veriag, 2000). plate 43, pp. 78-79. & plate 48, pp. 88-89.
135 Blum enberg, Hans. " » N a c h a h m u n g der N a t u r « . Z u r Vorgeschichte der Idee des schdpferischen
M enschen." Wirklichkeiten, in denen wirleben (Stuttgart: R e c la m , 1 9 8 1 )," 61
130 W arburg, n ote rel. to Sdtlangemitual, a t . G om brich. Ernst. A by Warburg: A n Intellectual Biography.
2nd ed. (Chicago, T h e University o f Chicago Press, 1986). 218
‘3T C om pare Rilke's phrase "Dinge tnachen aus Angst" (to Lou Andreas-Salome. 18 July 1903 = Rilke,
R a in e r M aria and Lou Andreas-Salome. BtiefwethseL Ernst Pfeiffer, ed. (Frankfurt am M ain: InseL
1975), 75.
240
recalls W arburg: "Dieses W esen, das zwischen alle ubrigen hineinzutreten, sie zu
sondem , sie zu verbinden schien, nannte ich damonisch [...]. Ich suchte m ich vor
diesem furchtbaren W esen zu retten, indem icb m ich nach m einer G ew ohnheit hinter
ein Bild fiiichtece."138 O ttilie's Bildhaftigkeit may be in this sense an attem pt to
neutralize the radical contingency o f the historical change destructively at w ork in
Elective Affinities.I39 T h e novel's co n certed rep u d iatio n o f single, historically
determ inate types o f sacrifice is counterbalanced, to a degree, by a placadve sacrifice
entailed in its final visual image itse lf140 Goethe's "geiiebte T o ch ter"141 O ttilie may
thus be a sacrifice o f posirivity offered up by the text in the hopes o f reforging
com m unity — in Solger’s w ords, "das w ahre K ind d e r N a tu r u n d ih r O pfer
zugleich."142
O n this logic, O ttilie w ould correspond to the type o f the Scheinbild o f which
G oethe was later to write: "In den Jahrhunderten, da der M ensch aufier sich nichts wie
Greuel find, muBte er gliicklich seyn, da£ man ihn in sich selbst zuriickwies, dam it er
sich start der O bjekte, die man ihm genom m en hatte, Scheinbilder erschuf an ihre
Scelle."143 It is as such a Scheinbild that the image o f h er exequies exerts its utopian
function —as Benjamin recognized w hen he took G oethe to task for an "Idolatrie der
38 Didttung und Wahrheit X X = W A I 29, 174 15-20

39 "Pathos isc A ugenblick, Formel bezeich n et D auer." Sectis. Salvatore. ’’Pathos a n d Ethos,
M orphologie u n d Funkdon.” Vantage j u s dem Warburg-Haus. Band L W olfgang Kemp ft aL. eds.
(Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1997), 39-40
140 H ere I am th in k in g o f the image itself as com parable to the story (itself, qua story) o f Isaac’s
benediction o f Jacob, as read by R en e Girard: ”Le texte ne rapporte pasdirectem ent I'etrange duperie
qui definit la substitution sacrificielle mais il ne la passe pas non plus sous silence; il la melange avec une
autre substitution, il nous la Iaisse entrevoir mais de fa<;on indirecte e t firyante. C 'est dire qu’il a peut-
etre lui-m em e un caractere sacrifidel. H pretend reveler un phenom ene de substitutioa mais il v en a
o n second qui se cache a demi derriere Ie premier.” Girard 19
141 Didttung und Wahrheit XI = W A 1 28, 79 22-3
“ ■ H ard 202. T h e "denom inateur com m un d e I’efficadte sacrifidelle, [...] c’est la violence intestine; ce
sont Ies dissensions, Ies rivalites. Ies jalousies, Ies quereQes entre proches que Ie sacrifice pretend d’abord
dim iner, c’est I'unite sodale qu'il renfbrce." Girard 22
143 G oethe’s Tagebudt 21. 4, 1831 = W A III 13, 65 12-17
241
N atur" th at he called one o f the "m ythischen L ebensform en im D asein des
Kunsders."144
T he political sense o f this function is well described w ith a concept adapted by
Niklas Luhnaann from M ichel Serres, that o f the "quasi-object.'’ "Serres hat darauf
hingewiesen," Luhm ann writes.
dafi die S tabilisierung v on O b je k te n (Id en tifikarion. W ic d ererk e n n b ark e it, ecc)

m oglicherw eise viel m ehr zur Festigung sozialer B eziehungen beitragen konnte als der
beriihm te Gesellschaftsvertrag. [...] M an kann also verm uten, daB O bjekte, die sich a us
der rekursiven A nw endung von Kommunikacionen au f K om m unikauonen ergeben
—and w hat is O ttilie but such an object? —
...m ehr als irgeneine Art von N orm en und Sanktionen dazu beitragen. soziale Systeme mit
den norigen R edundanzen zu versorgen. Das mag dann erst rech t fur eigens fur diese
F u n k d o n erfiindene O b jek te gelten, tu rn Beispiei K onige o d e r FuBballe. Solche
> > Q u a s i- O b je k te « sind n u r von dieser Funkdon her begreifbar. Sie nehm en genugend
Varianz auf. genugend W icdererkennbarkeit in wechselnden Situadonen. um Wechselfalle
sozialer K onsteiladonen begleiten zu konnen. Aber sie behalten, im U nterschied zu
Begriffen. die durch spezifizierte A ntonym e besdm m t sind. auch in w echselnden Lagen
ih re O b je k th e it im S inne des Ausschlusses des u n m a rk e d space aller anderen
Vorkom mnisse oder Zustande. Sie sind nichts anderes als sie selbst. u nd kein BegrifF kann
ihnen gerecht w erden.14S
If in life Ottilie's "effect" arises from operative contradistinctions o f her habitus with
those o f others, in death she no longer has antonyms. She is finally nothing o ther than
simply a neutral cipher for beauty ("[d]ie fo rtd au em d schone, m ehr schlaf- als
todtenahnliche Zustand Ottiliens zog m ehrere M enschen herbei"),146 and can thus

145 Luhm ann, Niklas. Die Kurtst der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt am M ain: Suhrkam p, 1995), 81-2: cf. Serres,
M ichel. Gertese (Paris: Grasset, 1982), 146-157. Alain Boureau has m ade a similar point, observing o f
Zincgrefs emblems: "W hat w e see here is that the em blem provided a corpus o f predicadve statements
(which could change into single utterances), the grammadcal subject o f w hich is the public individual
(sovereign, hero, courder, magistrate, o r simple citizen) and the predicate some given attdbute (force,
strength, authority, pow er). T h e governors and th e governed, aside from any individual o r external
ends they m ay have had, shared in a general orientadon to th e co m m o n welfare — to the state."
Boureau, Alain. ’’Books o f Emblems or. the Public Stage: Cote jardin and cote cour." The Culture o f Print:
Power and the Uses o f Print in Early M odem Europe. R o g er C h ard er. ed ., Lydia G . C ochrane, trans.
(Cambridge: Policy Press, 1989), 273
144 II. 18 = 1 20, 413 17-19
242
potentially becom e a "quasi-object" fo r all. This effect is clearly expressed in her
ambiguous sanctification. For some o f the villagers, she becomes a saint; for others, a
curiosity; others are no t quite certain. In any case, she is som ething for everyone, and
everyone comes: "m anche um dariiber zu spotten, die meisten um da ran zu zweifeln
un d w enige sich glaubend dagegen zu verhaiten."147 Even in recent years, the
reactions o f readers have displayed the same riveted ambivalence. Some critics have
insisted that the novel's last sentence "nicht nur als Ironie verstanden werden muB;”148
for others, "was [G oethe m it O ttilies Exequienj dem Leser verm ittelt. ist nicht
R elig io n , so n d em die A nschauung, w ie eine Legende entsteht."149 W h at the
Architect's attitude (and also Nanni's ecstasy)lS0 prom pts may thus be the provisional
acceptance o f a formal utopia in w h ich history's tensions are stabilized, i f not
overcom e; kings replaced, the social contract trum ped, and the forms o f civility
maintained by com m on consent - through symbolic investm ent in a com m on object
o f w hat Benjamin saw as the hope this book offers the hopeless:151 the beautiful "quasi
object" Ottilie.
Is this w eak utopian m om ent m eant by G oethe as such, o r does his text
ultimately retract it? Does his novel aim at a mythical utopia (as Benjamin's accusation
o f idolatry w ould suggest) —o r does it deliver a critical parody o f m yth, an object
lesson in failed redem ption? I w ould suggest it does both. T h e book includes
m oments both mythical and anti-mythical —mom ents o f hope and ones o f despair —
:4T 11.18 = I 20, +13 17-19

148 W eis. V olkhard. "O pfer und Erlosung. Eine Auslegung von Goethes IVahlvenvandtschaften nach ihrer
theologischen Begriffiichkeit." Euphorion 88 /4 (1994) :406
tw Schaeder, G rete. Goct und W elt. Drei Kapitel Goethescher Weltanschauung (HamelnrSeifert, 1947), 318;
cf. Atkins, Scuart. "D ie W ahlverwandtschaften: N ovel o f G erm an Classicism." The German Quarterly
53 (1980): 39 (n. 44); see also Blessin Erzdhlstruktur und Leserhandlung 130 21 o n h ow che cechnique o f
Spiegelung permits th e novel to be read both ways.
:so "Ein w eiteres. w eit verbreitetes Beispiel [des "Q uasi-O bjekts”] aus dem Bereich d er R eligion waxen
in Ekstase versetzte Personen, deren odentiiche Besessenheic als H inw eis a u f das W irken jenseidger
M achte aufgefaBt w ird, ohne dafi es dazu verbaler K om m unikation bedurfte." Luhm ann 81 n. 112
243
and it does n o t fully resolve them . As Giuliano Baioni has w ritten, "Solo la tragedia
d elle Wahlverwandtschaften p u o of&ire la m isura della speranza espressa dai
Wandeijahre."152 That hope, w hich was to lead to the Oheim’s agricultural utopia in the
Wanderjahre and to the formal conciliation o f R om antic w ith neo-classical aesthetics in
the Helena-scene o f Faust II, is already latent in O ttilie, though dashed by the current
crisis o f the society in w hich she lives. O ttilie is part o f the com plex diagnosis o f a
crisis, not a proposal for its resolution. This tolerance o f complexity, o f irresolution, is
w hat makes Elective Affinities an honest and adequate response to a set o f historical
problems that did not yet seem, at the time o f its writing, to admit o f solution.
In 1827, nearly tw o decades after com pleting Elective Affinities, G o eth e
observed to his friend Carl Friedrich Zelter apropos W alter Scott’s recent biography o f
N apoleon:
[W]as m an [i.e., Scott's public] gegen ihn vorbringt [...[ kann nicht anders als hochst interessant
sevn. M an w ird sehen, ob e r Facta anzutuhren veisaumt, ob e r sie entstellt, ob er sie parteiisch
ansiehr. einseitig beurtheilt oder ob man ihm R.echt lassen muB. Voraus aber sage ich mir:
M an w ird dabey die M enschen naher kennen lem en als den Gegenstand, u nd im G anzen wird
m an es doch endlich bew enden lassen; denn w enn m an sich bey e in er G eschichte nicht
beruhigt wie bey einer Legende. so lost sich zuletzt alles in Zweifel auf.133
In its general sense and in several particulars, this remark recalls Goethe's letter to
R einhard o f 1809 regarding his ow n work:
W en n ungeachtet alles Tadelns u nd Geschreys das was das B uchlein enthalt. als ein
unveranderliches R e tu rn vor der Einbildungskraft steht. w enn man sieht, daB m an m it
allem W illen und W iderwiHen daran doch nichts andert; so laBt man sich in der Fabel
zuletzt auch so ein apprehensives W underkind gefallen, w ie man sich in d er Geschichte
nach einigen Jahren die H inrichtung eines alten Konigs un d die K ronung eines neuen
Kaisers gefallen IaBt. Das Gedichtete behauptet sein R.echt. wie das G eschehene.154
151 "N u r um d er Hofmungslosen willen ist uns die Hoffnung gegeben." Benjamin I.1J201
132 Baioni 268
153 to Zelter. 4.12.1827
154 WA. IV 114. 153 11-21
244
Goethe's note on Scott could be read as a paraphrase o f the choice we are left at the
end o f Elective Affinities-, w e may accept the O ttilie legend, and be calmed by it; o r we
may find it dubious, and accept to continue in d o u b t. T h e d oubt entailed in
disbelieving the legend, how ever, may be mitigated by o u r com prehending the story
that frames it —in its quality as literature; that is, in its autonom y as a w ork o f art. Like
Elective Affinities, Scott's Life o f Napoleon must be ju d g ed as literature: not primarily as
either reportage o r a legend to be believed, b u t as a w o rk o f art to be understood.135
T he "right" that both o f these works may claim is that o f things as they are: as they
have occurred, becom e, o r been made. It must therefore be m ore than coincidence
that as the "new em peror" taken for granted by 1809, and as the subject o f W alter
Scott's history, N apoleon figures here tw ice as an epitom e o f das Geschehene; for
N apoleon, after Jena, is G oethe's m etonym for the invasion o f m odernity into
Germany. Just as for G oethe the reader's proper task is to understand a w ork o f art as
it is, and then to respond w ith an adequacy b o m o f that com prehension, so also is it
the p ro p er task o f the citizen to see the post-Jena w orld as it is, and respond
commensuratelv. Elective Affinities sketches this w orld, while showing the dangers o f
an inadequate response. Goethe's answer to modernity's daw ning crisis o f traditional
symbolic orders — social, political, econom ic, religious, aesthetic — is thus most
emphatically n o t the new call to belief o f the R om antics’ new mythologies. It is a call
to see things as they are: to Schauen, not Glauben.
25 Unpublished notes o f 1827 show thac Goethe considered the novelistic and autobiographical
techniques to w hich critics objected in Scott’s history an aesthetic advantage, whatever the
consequences to r factual truth: "D ie Eigenshaft des R om ans und die Form desselben begunstigt ihn,
tndem er durch Sngirte M otive das histonsch W ahre naher an einander riickt u nd zu einem FaBIichen
vereinigt, da es sonst in der Geschichte w eit aus einander steht u n d sich kaum dem Geist, am wenigsten
aber dem G cm uth ergreiflich darstellt.” [WA. I -12.2. 478 I8-22J W e have here once again the Spinozist
distinction o f Schauen from Glauben thac G oethe defended to Jacobi as a receptive behavior in 1786. and
implicidy recom m ended to readers o f Didttung und Wahrheit in 1815 [C £ pp. 133-4 supraJ.
245
Appendix I
Daniel C hodow iecki
&
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
"Natiirliche und affecdrte Handlungen des Lebens"

[Cdctinger Taschenkalender]
1. Folge (1779)
2. Folge (1780)
reproduced from
Chodowiecki et Lichtenberg. R u d o lf Focke, ecL (Leipzig; W eicher, 1901)
246
1779: Nature et Affectation; Premiere Serie.
tOwfrrriefe
Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission
247
1779 - Nature et Affectation. Premiere Serie.
5 6
248
249
1780: Nature et Affectation. Deuxieme Serie.
•-S■ ■ ' ■ ~3£-V: - ;.« £ £
250
1780: Nature et Affectation. Deuxfeme Serie.
5 6
33#
' r r-
j£/S£*Mc£ 5ifcJi"U tch

Jfotft.
aa~*c.j^r
251
c*p5¥’
252
Appendix II
T he "Belisar nach van Dyk"
reproduced from
Trunz, Erich.
"Die Kupfersriche zu den 'Lebenden Bildem' in den Wahlverwandtschaften."
Weimarer Goethe-Studien
(Weimar: Bohlaus Nachf., 1980)
.5 ." L itciar.a B c r p o n e . D e r p t im i c B e lrsa riu s.
:\n p !c rstie [i rvn J e a n -B a p tiste ScuLnt. t B c z c n ir n c t: .V a m iy ite Pir.xit '.l
254
Appendix III
Contemporary illustrations to Goethe's Elective Affinities
reproduced from
Die Wahlverwandtschaften. Eine Dokumentation der Wirkung von Goethes Roman 1808-
1832. Heinz Hartl, ed. (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1983)
with the kind permission o f the
Stiftung Weimarer Klassik, Weimar
255
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14 ..D ie WnJUrcrwnrnltnelutflen T h . I I . C a p . 13.

O ttilie a u f d em S e e m it d e m c r tr u n k e n e n K im le. K n ieen d is t s ie in ile m Kiihm - n ie d erg esim -
k e n , unci h e b t d a s e rsta rrte K in d , K u lfe fte h e n d , h in a u f z u d e m d a in m e rn d e n Hitntn«‘l.“
K u p fe r . g e z e ie h n e t v o n J o h a n n M ich ael V o ltz ,
g e sto c h e n v o n L u d w ig G o ttlie b P ort m a n . 1S 1 1
257
11 .rD e r S arg O ttiiiens. N an n y v erlan g t hartn n ck ig d as Am t d e r W achterin.

Sie bleibt n ic h t lange allein. Mit sinkender N a ch t t r i t t d e r A rch itek t in die K apelle.
N an n y sitz t a n d e r einen Seite des Sarges. Schw eigend d e u te t sie a u f die verblichene
H errin. D er A rc h ite k t s te h t a u f d e r an d ern S eite in jugendlicher K ra ft und A nm uth auf
sich seibst z u ru c k gew iesen. s ta r r in sich gek eh rt, m it nieder gesenkten Augen, gefalti-ten
m itleidig gerungenen H anden, H a u p t und B iicke nach d e r E n tseelten hingeneigt."
K u p fer, gezeichnet vo n H einrich A n to n D ahiing, gestochen
von F riedrich W ilhelm M eyer d . A. ( ?)r 1S1I
16 N anny und d e r A rc h itek t am Sarge O ttiiies.
T itelvignette, gezeichnec von Ludw ig F erd in a n d Schnorr von Carolsfeid.
gestochen von Cart H einrich R a h l; aufierdem a u f dem
T itelb iatt d e r N am e D rechsler (wahrscheinlich d er
Porzellanm aier K a sp a r D rechsler). 1817
f \ ' t t i fttfm i/rrr :
2 O ttilies A nkunft
a u f dem SchloC.
T itelkupfer, gestochen
von Je a n -B a p tist
Pierre T ardieu. 1810
260
A fter Jen a
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m . Primary works (other)
IV. Secondary works (Goethe)
V . Secondary works (Other)
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INFORMATION TO USERS

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the

Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by

ProQuest Information and Learning

P eter Joseph Schw artz

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Peter Joseph Schwartz

Peter Joseph Schwartz

as ambivalent explorations o f the pow er o f pathos to establish a new bourgeois social

In tro d u ctio n ......................................................................................................................... 1-25

I. W hy did G oethe marry w hen he did,

II. Eduard's E gotism ........................................................................................................71-107

III. O n the Supposed Amorality o f Elective A ffinities............................................. 108-137

IV. Goethe's Spinozism, After Jena:

V. O tdlie vs. Luciane:

VII. T h e Failure o f Sacrifice:

A ppendix I. Chodow iecki & Lichtenberg*.

Appendix II. T h e "Belisar nach van D y k " ................................................................ 252-253

Appendix III. Contem porary illustrations to Goethe's Elective A ffinities 254-259

I owe a special debt o f thanks to my advisor, Andreas Huyssen, for having

Damrosch, Willi Goetschel, Rosalinde Gothe, Christoph Holzhey, A. Kiarina

Kordela, Kathrin Maurer, Winfried Menninghaus, Dorothea von Mucke, Harro

from the responses of other students in Winfried Menninghaus's Oberseminar at the

FU Berlin (Fall 1996), o f the participants in the Columbia University German

audience at a special session on Goethe sponsored by the Goethe Society of North

America at the October 2001 meeting o f the German Studies Association, in

and to the memory o f my mother, Frances Messik Schwartz (1942-1984).

Chapter II and part o f the Introduction were published in substantially the

present form as an article, "Eduard’s Egotism: Historical Notes on Goethe's Elective

I am grateful to the Stiftung Weimarer KJassik, Weimar, for permission to

reproduce the illustrations on pages 255-259.

An Vollendung, denke ich, besitzt unsre Literam r niches ahnliches

w ritte n has b een understood since its publication in 1809. T h e author's

treuer, ausfuhrlicher Darstellung aufgespeichert."3 T h e critic Karl W ilhelm Ferdinand

jetzigen taglichen Leben entwerfen konnen."4

ahistoricallv. As W erner Schwan has shown, the tw o schools o f interpretation that

metaphysical "Auffassung des Romangeschehens als eines schicksalhaft determ inierten,

tragischen Zusammenhangs" o n the o th er — stem from early reviews by B ernhard

focus on timeless questions o f character and fate.

o r N apoleon's then ongoing occupation o f C entral Europe — in favor o f datable

aesthetics'0 and as a critique o f R om antic ideas on the subject o f m arriage.11 T he

socialization,14 as a "middle-class cridque o f aesthetic aristocratism,"13 and as a didactic

"text o f m anners."16 It has been taken to represent a sw eeping "disorganization o f

[Vahlvenuandtschaften insgesamt einen R eflex a u f zeitgeschichtliche Erfahrungen von

der R evolution bis zu r Kriegszeit 1806 sieht, d er fireilich m it Einzelheiten nicht

einfach belegt w erden kann; denn hiscorische Ereignisse schilderr d er R om an nicht."20

critics have done; but not simply.21

reform provoked in Saxe-W eimar, as in Prussia and elsewhere, by N apoleon's drastic

a u f dem Standpunkt unsrer W elt- und Menschenansichc darin vermissen."25 But

o f history clothed in the "sichtbare[n] Kleid der Personlichkeiten."26 N o t that either

arguments w oven m ore rightly w ith history's warp.

Elective Affinities is a novel about a marriage. In so far as the problems besetting

Verhaltnisse und die Conflicte derselben symbolisch gefafit darzustellen."29 Goethe's

w ith a m ore general m om ent o f socio-political flux: th e crisis in social relations

occasioned in Germany by the end o f the feudal age.

longer continuum o f developm ent. Accordingly, I w ould interpret Goethe's novel

b o th as a reaction to a discrete situation o f crisis, and as a m om ent in the broader

o r as an amplification o f problems, themes and thoughts present in earlier works, and a

harbinger o f ones later differently treated.

Any life, o f course, o r any history, is ju st that: the integration o f present

(and no t ju st to G oethe), Napoleon's victory seem ed to have sprung the prevailing

meant from the statement: