GOETHE'S Dichtung und Wahrheit (the first FOUR BOOKS) EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND INDEX BY C. A. BUCHHEIM, PHIL. Doc., F. C. P. PROFESSOR OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE AND LITErature PREFACE. It com FROM whatever point of view Dichtung und Wahrheit may be considered, there seems full reason to assign to the work a foremost rank among the prose writings of Goethe. bines, in fact, all the advantages which the various stages of life are capable of imparting to an author's writings. Goethe began to pen his Autobiography when he was on the threshold of old age, and consequently it bears throughout the stamp of maturity and judicial calm. It is, besides, distinguished by a spirit of manliness and dignity which is a distinctive characteristic of the narrative, alike in its serious and in its playful topics; while the brightness of youth is reflected in many a passage of tender feeling and genial affection. And it is this blending together of the various elements of sober age, of life's earnest prime and of stormy youth, which lends a peculiar charm to Goethe's Autobiography. It is quite true that the details of Dichtung und Wahrheit cannot be relied upon in all instances for the history of the author's life, since some of them have been, consciously or unconsciously, misstated or misplaced; but, taken as a whole, the Autobiography offers a true picture of the boy, the youth and the man in the various stages of intellectual development. Goethe looked at his own past life with the eye of an impartial judge. He did not conceal his faults and foibles, but laid bare all the workings of his mind and character unsparingly; not iii -- He even making use of that "benevolent neutrality' to borrow an expression from political parlance - which seems to be exercised by nearly everyone who writes his own life. shows us the gradual progress of his mental powers and the formation of his character as “if in a looking glass," and this circumstance heightens the ethical, not to say the educational character of his Autobiography. It is generally admitted that the reading of the lives of great men is calculated to exercise a beneficial influence on the minds of the young. How much more must this be the case with the Autobiography of a transcendent genius! If we consider, besides, that Dichtung und Wahrheit affords most entertaining reading, that it is interspersed with pithy reflections and is written in a truly classical style, it will be conceded that there are few books in modern literature which deserve so much attention; more especially as it furnishes not only full information about the poet himself, but also paints a vivid picture of his times, particularly of Germany, from a social, literary and political point of view. The merits of Goethe's Autobiography which I have but feebly sketched here — induced me to annotate the first four books, so that they might serve partly as an introduction to the work and partly as an incentive to read, nay, to study it, in its entirety. In order to facilitate this task I have not only prefixed a brief sketch of the " History of the Composition" of the Autobiography, but also a "General Outline of the Contents." Such an Uebersicht seemed to me desirable both for the benefit of those who may wish to read the whole work, and for those who may content themselves with the perusal of the present volume. For the better understanding of the biographical I 1 It was first my intention to prefix also a full critical estimate of Dichtung und Wahrheit, but finding that this addition would too much increase the bulk of the present volume, I considered it advisable to defer my critical estimate to another occasion. I could not help, however, embodying in this preface a few remarks on the literary value of Goethe's Autobiography. details, I have also given a short "Sketch of the Goethe family," as far as it is required for the contents of the first four books. As regards the elucidation of the Text which has been given according to the great Weimar Edition, with the exception that I employed the modern orthography — I have explained throughout all the historical, biographical, literary and other allusions; and bearing in mind the advanced character of the style, I have given renderings of phrases and unusual expressions, the equivalents of which are not to be found in the current dictionaries, and occasionally I have inserted some rules relating to syntax, pointing out at the same time the characteristic advantages of the German language. Here and there I may have furnished a Note which might appear at first sight superfluous to advanced German scholars, but I did so mostly in those instances only where I found that the respective passages have been misunderstood by others. Whenever I am indebted for any information to my predecessors in the same field, I have, according to my usual practice, distinctly pointed out my obligations to them. At the same time I consider it right to mention in particular that Herr Von Loeper's edition of Dichtung und Wahrheit (included in Hempel's edition of Goethe's works) has been of great assistance to me, and in many respects still more so Heinrich Düntzer's exhaustive Erläuterungen zu Dichtung und Wahrheit, in which the history of the composition of the various parts is given with marvellous minuteness. His Goethe's Leben, of which Mr. Thomas W. Lyster has produced an excellent English translation under the title of "Life of Goethe " (Macmillan), has also been of some help to me.1 The annotation of the present work has required more thought, study and research on my part than any of my former editions of German Classics. A mere glance at the Index will give 1 I may perhaps be allowed to refer the reader at the same time to my "Life of Goethe," prefixed to my edition of Egmont (C. P. S.), which gives a succinct critical estimate of his works and a general outline of his life. |