The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

"Next they come and ask what idea I meant to embody in my 'Faust'? As if I knew that myself, and could inform them. From Heaven through the world to hell would, indeed, be something; but that is no idea, only a course of action. And further, that the devil loses the wager, and that a man, continually struggling from difficult errors towards something better, should be redeemed, is truly a more effective, and to many a good, enlightening thought; but it is no idea lying at the basis of the whole, and of each individual scene. It would have been a fine thing, indeed, if I had strung so rich and diversified a life as I have brought to view in 'Faust' upon the slender thread of one single, pervading idea.

"It was altogether out of my province, as a poet, to strive to embody anything abstract. I received in my mind impressions of an animated, charming, hundredfold kind, just as a lively imagination presented them; and as a poet I had nothing more to do than artistically to elaborate these impressions, and so to present them that others might receive like impressions. But I am somewhat of the opinion that the more incommensurable, and the more incomprehensible to the understanding a poetic production is, so much the better it is."

June 20, 1831. At Goethe's, after dinner, the conversation fell upon the use and misuse of terms. Said he, "The French use the word 'composition' inappropriately. The expression is degrading as applied to genuine productions of art and poetry. It is a thoroughly contemptible word, of which we should seek to get rid as soon as possible.

"How can one say, Mozart has composed 'Don Juan'! Composition! As if it were a piece of cake or biscuit, which had been mixed together with eggs, flour, and sugar! It is a spiritual creation, in which the details as well as the whole are pervaded by one spirit. Consequently, the producer did not follow his own experimental impulse, but acted under that of his demoniac genius."

June 27, 1831. We conversed about Victor Hugo. "He has a fine talent," said Goethe. "But he is altogether ensnared in the unhappy romantic tendency of his time, by which he is constrained to represent, side by side with the beautiful, the most hateful and intolerable. I have recently read his 'Notre Dame de Paris,' and needed no little patience to endure the horror that I felt. It is the most abominable book ever written! And one is not even compensated by truthful representation of human nature or character. On the contrary, his book is totally destitute of nature and truth. The so-called acting personages whom he brings forward are not men with living flesh and blood, but miserable wooden puppets, moved according to his fancy and made to produce all sorts of contortions and grimaces. But what kind of an age is this, which not only makes such a book possible, but even finds it endurable and delightful!"

V.--On the Bible

Sunday, March 11, 1832. This evening for an hour Goethe talked on various excellent topics. I had purchased an English Bible, but found to my great regret that it did not include the Apocrypha, because these were not considered genuine and divinely inspired. I missed the truly noble Tobias, the wisdom of Solomon and Jesus Sirach, all writings of such deeply spiritual value, that few others equal them. I expressed to Goethe my regret at the narrow exclusiveness thus manifested. He entirely agreed with me.

"Still," said he, "there are two points of view from which Biblical subjects may be regarded. There is that of primitive religion, of pure nature and reason, which is of divine origin. This will ever remain the same, and will endure as long as divinely endowed beings exist. It is, however, only for the elect, and is far too high and noble to become universal.

"Then there is the point of view of the Church, which is of a more human nature. This is fallible and fickle, but, though perpetually changing, it will last as long as there are weak human beings. The light of cloudless divine revelation is far too pure and radiant for poor, weak man. But the Church interposes as mediator, to soften and moderate, and all are helped. Its influence is immense, through the notion that as successor of Christ it can relieve the burden of human sin. To secure this power, and to consolidate ecclesiasticism is the special aim of the Christian priesthood.

"Therefore it does not so much ask whether this or that book in the Bible effects a great enlightenment of the mind, it much more looks to the Mosaic and prophetic and Gospel records for allusions to the fall of man, and the advent to earth and death of Christ, as the atonement for sin. Thus you see that for such purposes the noble Tobias, the wisdom of Solomon, and the sayings of Sirach have little weight.

"Still, the question as to authenticity in details of the Bible is truly singular. What is genuine but the really excellent, which harmonises with the purest reason and nature, and even now ministers to our highest development? What is spurious but the absurd, hollow, and stupid, which brings no worthy fruit? If the authenticity of a Biblical writing depends on the question whether something true throughout has been handed down to us, we might on some points doubt the genuineness of the Gospels, of which Mark and Luke were not written from immediate presence and experience, but long afterwards from oral tradition. And the last, by the disciple John, was written in his old age.