GOETHE'S HELENA.* [FOREIGN REVIEW, 1828.] NOVALIS has rather tauntingly asserted of Goethe, that the grand law of his being is to conclude whatsoever he undertakes; that, let, him engage in any task, no matter what its difficulties or how small its worth, he cannot quit it till he has mastered its whole secret, finished it, and made the result of it his own. This, surely, whatever Novalis might think, is a quality of which it is far safer to have too much than too little; and if, in a friendlier spirit, we admit that it does strikingly belong to Goethe, these his present occupations will not seem out of harmony with the rest of his life; but rather it may be regarded as a singular constancy of fortune, which now allows him, after completing so many single enterprizes, to adjust deliberately the details and combination of the whole; and thus, in perfecting his individual works, to put the last hand to the highest of all his works, his own literary character, and leave the impress of it to posterity in that form and accompaniment which he himself reckons fittest. For the last two years, as many of our readers may know, the venerable Poet has been employed in a patient and thorough revisal of all his Writings; an edition of which, designated as the "complete and final" one, was commenced in 1827, under external encouragements of the most flattering sort, and with arrangements for private co-operation, which, as we learn, have secured the constant progress of the work" against every accident." The first Lieferung, of five volumes, is now in our hands; a second of like extent, we understand to be already on its way hither; and thus by regular "Deliveries," from half-year to half-year, the whole Forty Volumes are to be completed in 1831. seems moderate; so that, on every account, we doubt not but that these tasteful volumes will spread far and wide in their own country, and by and by, we may hope, be met with here in many a British library. Hitherto, in the First Portion, we have found little or no alteration of what was already known; but, in return, some changes of ar rangement; and, what is more important, some additions of heretofore unpublished poems; in particular, a piece entitled “ Helena, a classico-romantic Phantasmagoria," which oc cupies some eighty pages of Volume Fourth. It is to this piece that we now propose directing the attention of our readers. Such of these, as have studied Helena for themselves, must have felt how little calculated it is, either intrinsically or by its extrinsic relations and allusions, to be rendered very interesting or even very intelligible to the English public, and may incline to augur ill of our enterprise. Indeed, to our own eyes it already looks dubious enough. But the dainty little "Phantasmagoria," it would appear, has become a subject of diligent and truly wonderful speculation to our German neighbours; of which, also, some vague rumours scem now to have reached this country, and these likely enough to awaken on all hands a curiosity, which, whether intelligent or idle, it were a kind of good deed to allay. In a Journal of this sort, what little light on such a matter is at our disposal may naturally be looked for. Helena, like many of Goethe's works, by no means carries its significance written on its forehead, so that he who runs may read; but, on the contrary, it is enveloped in a certain mystery, under coy disguises, which, to hasty To the lover of German literature, or of readers, may not be only offensively obscure, literature in general, this undertaking will not but altogether provoking and impenetrable. be indifferent: considering, as he must do, the Neither is this any new thing with Goethe. works of Goethe to be among the most import- Often has he produced compositions, both in ant which Germany for some centuries has prose and verse, which bring critic and comsent forth, he will value their correctness and mentator into straits, or even to a total noncompleteness for its own sake; and not the plus. Some we have, wholly parabolic; some less, as forming the conclusion of a long pro- half-literal, half-parabolic; these latter are occess to which the last step was still wanting; casionally studied, by dull heads, in the literal whereby he may not only enjoy the result, but sense alone; and not only studied, but coninstruct himself by following so great a mas- demned: for, in truth, the outward meaning ter through the changes which led to it. We seems unsatisfactory enough, were it not that can now add, that, to the mere book-collector ever and anon we are reminded of a cunning, also, the business promises to be satisfactory. manifold meaning which lies hidden under This Edition, avoiding any attempt at splen- it; and incited by capricious beckonings to dour or unnecessary decoration, ranks, never-evolve this, more and more completely, from theless, in regard to accuracy, convenience, its quaint concealment. and true, simple elegance, among the best specimens of German typography. The cost, too, *Goethe's Sämmtliche Werke. Vollstandige Ausgabe letzter Hand. (Goethe's Collective Works. Complete Edition, with his final Corrections.) First Portion, vols. i-v. 16mo and Svo. Cotta: Stuttgard & Tübingen. 1827. Did we believe that Goethe adopted this mode of writing as a vulgar lure, to confer on his the interest which might belong to poems *See, for instance, the "Athenæum," No. vii., where an article stands headed with these words: FAUST HELEN OF TROY, AND LORD BYRON. so many charades, we should hold it a very interpretation; or they remain, as in all prosaic poor proceeding. Of this most readers of minds the words of poetry ever do, a dead Goethe will know that he is incapable. Such letter: indications they are, barren in themjuggleries, and uncertain anglings for distinc- selves, but by following which, we also may tion, are a class of accomplishments to which reach, or approach, that Hill of Vision where he has never made any pretension. The truth the poet stood, beholding the glorious scene is, this style has, in many cases, its own ap- which it is the purport of his poem to show propriateness. Certainly, in all matters of others. A reposing state, in which the Hill were Business and Science, in all expositions of brought under us, not we obliged to mount it, fact or argument, clearness and ready compre- might, indeed, for the present be more convehensibility are a great, often an indispensable, nient; but, in the end, it could not be equally object. Nor is there any man better aware of satisfying. Continuance of passive pleasure, this principle than Goethe, or who more rigo-it should never be forgotten, is here, as under rously adheres to it, or more happily exempli- all conditions of mortal existence, an impossi fies it, wherever it seems applicable. But in bility. Everywhere in life, the true question is, this, as in many other respects, Science and not what we gain, but what we do: so also in Poetry, having separate purposes, may have intellectual matters, in conversation, in readeach its several law. If an artist has con- ing, which is more precise and careful conceived his subject in the secret shrine of his versation, it is not what we receive, but what we own mind, and knows, with a knowledge be- are made to give, that chiefly contents and profits yond all power of cavil, that it is true and pure, us. True, the mass of readers will object; behe may choose his own manner of exhibiting cause, like the mass of men, they are too indoit, and will generally be the fittest to choose it lent. But if any one affect, not the active and well. One degree of light, he may find, will watchful, but the passive and somnolent line beseem one delineation; quite a different de- of study, are there not writers, expressly gree of light another. The Face of Agamem-fashioned for him, enough and to spare? It is non was not painted but hidden in the old Picture: the Veiled Figure at Sais was the most expressive in the Temple. In fact, the grand point is to have a meaning, a genuine, deep, and noble one; the proper form for embodying this, the form best suited to the subject and to the author, will gather round it almost of its own accord. We profess ourselves unfriendly to no mode of communicating Truth; which we rejoice to meet with in all shapes, from that of the child's Catechism to the deepest poctical Allegory. Nay, the Allegory itself may sometimes be the truest part of the matter. John Bunyan, we hope, is nowise our best theologian; neither, unhappily, is theology our most attractive science; yet, which of our compends and treatises, nay, which of our romances and poems, lives in such mild sunshine as the good old Pilgrim's Progress, in the memory of so many men? but the smaller number of books that become Under Goethe's management, this style of composition has often a singular charm. The reader is kept on the alert, ever conscious of his own active co-operation; light breaks on him, and clearer and clearer vision, by degrees; till at last the whole lovely Shape comes forth, definite, it may be, and bright with heavenly radiance, or fading, on this side and that, into vague expressive mystery; but true in both To justify it in this particular, much more cascs, and beautiful with nameless enchant- might be said, were it our chief business at ments, as the poet's own eye may have beheld present. But what mainly concerns us here, it. We love it the more for the labour it has is, to know that such, justified or not, is the given us; we almost feel as if we ourselves poet's manner of writing; which also must had assisted in its creation. And herein lies prescribe for us a correspondent manner of the highest merit of a piece, and the proper art studying him, if we study him at all. For the of reading it. We have not read an author till rest, on this latter point he nowhere expresses we have seen his object, whatever it may be, any undue anxiety. His works have invaria as he saw it. It is a matter of reasoning, and bly been sent forth without preface, withou has he reasoned stupidly and falsely? We note or commen of any kind; but left, some should understand the circumstances which to times plain and direct, sometimes dim an his mind made it seem true, or persuaded him typical, in what legree of clearness or obscu to write it, knowing that it was not so. In any rity he himself may have judged best, to b other way we do him injustice if we judge him. scanned, and g'ossed, and censur, and dis Is it of poetry? His words are so many sym-torted, as might please the innumer .ole multi bols, to which we ourselves must furnish the tude of critics, to whose verdict ne as been for a great part of his life, accused of listening | by that stupendous All, of which it forms an with unwarrantable composure. Helena is no indissoluble though so mean a fraction. He exception to that practice, but rather among who would study all this must for a long time, the strong instances of it. This Interlude to we are afraid, be content to study it in the Faust presents itself abruptly, under a charac- original. ter not a little enigmatic; so that, at first view, But our English criticisms of Faust have we know not well what to make of it; and only been of a still more unedifying sort. Let any after repeated perusals, will the scattered man fancy the Edipus Tyrannus discovered for glimmerings of significance begin to coalesce the first time, translated from an unknown into continuous light, and the whole, in any Greek manuscript, by some ready-writing measure, rise before us with that greater or less manufacturer, and "brought out" at Drury degree of coherence which it may have had in Lane, with new music, made as "apothecaries the mind of the poet. Nay, after all, no perfect make new mixtures, by pouring out of one clearness may be attained, but only various vessel into another!" Then read the theatrical approximations to it; hints and half glances report in the morning Papers, and the Magaof a meaning, which is still shrouded in vague-zines of next month. Was not the whole affair ness; nay, to the just picturing of which this rather "heavy?" How indifferent did the very vagueness was essential. For the whole audience sit; how little use was made of the piece has a dream-like character; and, in these handkerchief, except by such as took snuff! cases, no prudent soothsayer will be altogether Did not Edipus somewhat remind us of a confident. To our readers we must now en- blubbering schoolboy, and Jocasta of a decayed deavour, so far as possible, to show both the milliner? Confess that the plot was mondream and its interpretation: the former as it strous; nay, considering the marriage-law of stands written before us; the latter from our England, highly immoral. On the whole, what own private conjecture alone; for of those a singular deficiency of taste must this Sophostrange German comments we yet know no- cles have laboured under! But probably he thing, except by the faintest hearsay. was excluded from the "society of the influ without indications of genius: had we had the training of him,-And so on, through all the variations of the critical cornpipe. So might it have fared with the ancient Gre cian; for so has it fared with the only modern that writes in a Grecian spirit. This treatment of Faust may deserve to be mentioned, for various reasons; not to be lamented over, because, as in much more important instances, it is inevitable, and lies in the nature of the case. Besides, a better state of things is evidently enough coming round. By and by, the labours, poetical and intellectual, of the Germans, as of other nations, will appear before us in their true shape; and Faust, among the rest, will have justice done it. For ourselves, it were unwise presumption, at any time, to pretend opening the full poetical significarce of Faust; nor is this the place for making such an attempt. Present purposes will be answered if we can point out some general features and bearings of the piece; such as to exhibit its relation with Helena; by what contrivances this latter has been intercalated into it, and how far the strange picture and the strange framing it is inclosed in correspond. Helena forms part of a continuation to Faustential classes:" for, after all, the man is not but, happily for our present undertaking, its connection with the latter work is much looser than might have been expected. We say, happily; because Faust, though considerably talked of in England, appears still to be nowise known. We have made it our duty to inspect the English translation of Faust, as well as the Extracts which accompany Retzsch's Outlines; and various disquisitions and animadversions, vituperative or laudatory, grounded on these two works; but, unfortunately, have found there no cause to alter the above persuasion. Faust is emphatically a work of Art; a work matured in the mysterious depths of a vast and wonderful mind; and bodied forth with that truth and curious felicity of composition, in which this man is generally admitted to have no living rival. To reconstruct such a work in another language; to show it in its hard yet graceful strength; with those slight witching traits of pathos or of sarcasm, those glimpses of solemnity or terror, and so many reflexes and evanescent echoes of meaning, which connect it in strange union with the whole Infinite of thought, were business for a man of different powers than has yet attempted German translation among us. In fact, Faust is to be The story of Faust forms one of the most read not once but many times, if we would un-remarkable productions of the Middle Ages; derstand it: every line, every word has its purport; and only in such minute inspection will the essential significance of the poem display itself. Perhaps it is even chiefly by following these fainter traces and tokens, that the true point of vision for the whole is discovered to us; and we stand at last in the proper scene of Faust; a wild and wondrous region, where, in pale light, the primeval Shapes of Chaos, -as it were, the Foundations of Being itself,seem to loom forth, dim and huge, in the vague Immensity around us; and the life and nature of man, with its brief interests, its misery and sin, its mad passion and poor frivolity, struts and frets its hour, encompassed and overlooked or rather, it is the most striking embodiment of a highly remarkable belief, which originated or prevailed in those ages. Considered strictly, it may take the rank of a Christian mythus, in the same sense as the story of Prometheus, of Titan, and the like, are Pagan ones; and to our keener inspection, it will disclose a no less impressive or characteristic aspect of the same human nature,-here bright, joyful, self-confi dent, smiling even in its sternness; there deep, meditative, awe-struck, austere.—in which both they and it took their rise. To us, in these days, it is not easy to estimate how this story of Faust, invested with its magic and infernal horrors, must have harrowed up the souls of a article, suited for immediate use, and immediate oblivion. rude and earnest people, in an age when its dialect was not yet obsolete, and such contracts with the principle of Evil were thought not Goethe, we believe, was the first who tried only credible in general, but possible to every this subject; and is, on all hands, considered individual auditor who here shuddered at the as by far the most successful. His manner of mention of them. The day of Magic has gone treating it appears to us, so far as we can unby; Witchcraft has been put a stop to by act derstand it, peculiarly just and happy. He of parliament. But the mysterious relations retains the supernatural vesture of the story, which it emblemed still continue; the Soul of but retains it with the consciousness, on his Man still fights with the dark influences of and our part, that it is a chimera. His artIgnorance, Misery, and Sin; still lacerates magic comes forth in doubtful twilight; vague itself, like a captive bird, against the iron in its outline; interwoven everywhere with limits which Necessity has drawn round it; light sarcasm; nowise as a real Object, but as still follows False Shows, seeking peace and a real Shadow of an Object, which is also good on paths where no peace or good is to be real, yet lies beyond our horizon, and, except found. In this sense, Faust may still be con- in its shadows, cannot itself be seen. Nothing sidered as true; nay, as a truth of the most were simpler than to look into this poem for a impressive sort, and one which will always new "Satan's Invisible World displayed," or remain true. To body forth, in modern sym- any effort to excite the skeptical minds of these bols, a feeling so old and deep-rooted in our days by goblins, wizards, and other infernal whole European way of thought, were a task ware. Such enterprises belong to artists of a not unworthy of the highest poetical genius. different species: Goethe's Devil is a culti In Germany, accordingly, it has several times vated personage, and acquainted with the been attempted, and with very various success. modern sciences; sneers at witchcraft and Klinger has produced a Romance of Faust, full the black-art, even while employing them, as of rugged sense, and here and there not with- heartily as any member of the French Instiout considerable strength of delineation; yet, tute; for he is a philosophe, and doubts most on the whole, of an essentially unpoetical cha- things, nay, half disbelieves even his own exracter; dead, or living with only a mechanical istence. It is not without a cunning effort that life; coarse, almost gross, and, to our minds, all this is managed; but managed, in a consifar too redolent of pitch and bitumen. Maler derable degree, it is; for a world of magic is Miller's Faust, which is a Drama, must be re-opened to us which, we might almost say, we garded as a much more genial performance, so feel to be at once true and not true. far as it goes; the secondary characters, the Jews and rakish Students, often remind us of our own Fords and Marlowes. His main persons, however, Faust and the Devil, are but inadequately conceived; Faust is little more than self-willed, supercilious, and, alas, insolvent; the Devils, above all, are savage, longwinded, and insufferably noisy. Besides, the piece has been left in a fragmentary state; it can nowise pass as the best work of Müller's.* Klingemann's Faust, which also is (or lately was) a Drama, we have never seen; and have only heard of it as of a tawdry and hollow In fact, Mephistopheles comes before us, not arrayed in the terrors of Cocytus and Phlegethon, but in the natural indelible deformity of Wickedness; he is the Devil, not of Superstition, but of Knowledge. Here is no cloven foot, or horns and tail: he himself informs us that, during the late march of intellect, the very Devil has participated in the spirit of the age, and laid these appendages aside. Doubtless, Mephistopheles "has the manners of a gentleman;" he "knows the world; " nothing can exceed the easy tact with which he manages himself; his wit and sarcasm are unlimited; the cool heartfelt contempt with which he despises all things, human and divine, might make the fortune of half a dozen "fellows about town." Yet, withal, he is a devil in very deed; a genuine Son of Night. He calls himself the Denier, and this truly is his Frederic Müller (more commonly called Maler, or Painter Müller) is here, so far as we know, named for the first time to English readers. Nevertheless, in any solid study of German literature, this author must take precedence of many hundreds whose reputation has travelled faster. But Müller has been unfortunate in his own country, as well as here. At an early age, meeting with no success as a poet, he quitted that art for paint-name; for, as Voltaire did with historical ing; and retired, perhaps in disgust, into Italy; where doubt, so does he with all moral appearances; also but little preferment seems to have awaited him. settles them with a N'en croyez rien. The His writings, after almost half a century of neglect, were shrewd, all-informed intellect he has, is an atat length brought into sight and general estimation by Ludwig Tieck; at a time when the author might indeed torney intellect; it can contradict, but it cannot say, that he was "old and could not enjoy it, solitary affirm. With lynx vision, he descries at a and could not impart it," but not, unhappily, that he was "known and did not want it," for his fine genius had glance the ridiculous, the unsuitable, the bad; yet made for itself no free way amid so many obstruc- but for the solemn, the noble, the worthy, he is tions, and still continued unrewarded and unrecognised. blind as his ancient Mother. Thus does he go His paintings, chiefly of still-life and animals, are said to possess a true though no very extraordinary merit: along, qualifying, confuting, despising: on ail but of his poetry we will venture to assert that it be- hands detecting the false, but without force to speaks a genuine feeling and talent, nay, rises at times bring forth, or even to discern, any glimpse eaing, his Satyr Mopsus, his Nusskernen (Nutshelling), of the true. Poor Devil! what truth should informed as they are with simple kindly strength, with there be for him? To see Falsehood is his clear vision, and love of nature, are incomparably the best German or, indeed, modern Idyls; his "Genoveva" only truth: falsehood ar.. evil are the rule, will still stand reading, even with that of Tieck. These things are now acknowledged among the Germans; but to Müller the acknowledgment is of no avail. He died some two years ago at Ronie, where he seems to have subsisted latterly as a sort of picture-cicerone even into the higher regions of Art. His Adam's Awak truth and gr the exception which confirms it. He car. believe in nothing, but in his own self-conceit, and in the indestructible baseness, folly, and hypocrisy of men. For him. virtue is some bubble of the blood: "it stands written | Brutus, reproaches as a shadow, what he once on his face that he never loved a living soul." worshipped as a substance. Whither shall Nay, he cannot even hate: at Faust himself he has no grudge; he merely tempts him by way of experiment, to pass the time scientifically. Such a combination of perfect Understanding with perfect Selfishness, of logical Life with moral Death; so universal a denier, both in heart and head,-is undoubtedly a child of Darkness, an emissary of the primeval Nothing: and coming forward, as he does, like a person of breeding, and without any flavour of Brimstone, may stand here, in his merely spiritual deformity, at once potent, dangerous, and contemptible, as the best and only genuine Devil of these latter times. In strong contrast with this impersonation of modern worldly-mindedness, stands Faust himself, by nature the antagonist of it, but destined also to be its victim. If Mephistopheles represent the spirit of Denial, Faust may represent that of Inquiry and Endeavour: the two are, by necessity, in conflict; the light and the darkness of man's life and mind. Intrinsically, Faust is a noble being, though no wise one. His desires are towards the high and true; nay, with a whirlwind impetuosity he rushes forth over the Universe to grasp all excellence; his heart yearns towards the infinite and the invisible: only that he knows not the conditions under which alone this is to be attained. Confiding in his feeling of himself, he has started with the tacit persuasions, so natural to all men, that he at least, however it may fare with others, shall and must be happy a deep-seated, though only half-conscious conviction lurks in him, that wherever he is not successful, fortune has dealt with him unjustly. His purposes are fair, nay, generous: why should he not prosper in them? For in all his lofty aspirings, his strivings after truth and more than human greatness of mind, it has never struck him to inquire how he, the striver, was warranted for such enterprises; with what faculty Nature had equipped him; within what limits she had hemmed him in; by what right he pretended to be happy, or could, some short space ago, have pretended to be at all. Experience, indeed, will teach him, for "Experience is the best of schoolmasters; only the school-fees are heavy." As yet, too, disappointment, which fronts him on every hand, rather maddens than instructs. Faust has spent his youth and manhood, not 23 others do in the sunny crowded paths of profit, or among the rosy bowers of pleasure, but darkly and alone in the search of Truth: is it fit that Truth should now hide herself, and his sleepless pilgrimage towards Knowledge and Vision end in the pale shadow of Doubt? To his dream of a glorious higher happiness, all earthly happiness has been sacrificed; friendship, love, the social rewards of ambition were cheerfully cast aside, for his eye and his heart were bent on a region of clear and supreme good; and now, in its stead, he finds isolation, silence, and despair. What solace remains? Virtue once promised to be ner own reward; but because she does not pay him in the current coin of worldly enjoynent, he reckons her too a delusion; and, like he now tend? For his loadstars have gone out one by one; and as the darkness fell, the strong and steady wind has changed into a fierce and aimless tornado. Faust calls himself a monster, "without object, yet without rest." The vehement, keen, and stormful nature of the man is stung into fary, as he thinks of all he has endured and lost; he broods in gloomy meditation, and, like Bellerophon, wanders apart, "eating his own heart;" or bursting into fiery paroxysms, curses man's whole existence as a mockery; curses hope, and faith, and joy, and care, and what is worst, "curses patience more than all the rest." Had his weak arm the power, he could smite the Universe asunder, as at the crack of Doom, and hurl his own vexed being along with it into the silence of Annihilation. Thus Faust is a man who has quitted the ways of vulgar men, without light to guide him on a better way. No longer restricted by the sympathies, the common interests and common persuasions by which the mass of mortals, each individually ignorant, nay, it may be, stolid, and altogether blind as to the proper aim of life, are yet held together, and like stones in the channel of a torrent, by their very multitude and mutal collision, are made to move with some regularity, he is still but a slave; the slave of impulses, which are stronger, not truer or better, and the more unsafe that they are solitary. He sees the vulgar of mankind happy; but happy only in their baseness. Himself he feels to be peculiar; the victim of a strange, an unexampled destiny; not as other men, he is "with them, not of them." There is misery here; nay, as Goethe has elsewhere wisely remarked, the beginning of madness itself. It is only in the sentiment of companionship that men feel safe and assured: to all doubts and mysterious "questionings of destiny," their sole satisfying answer is, Others do and suffer the like. Were it not for this, the dullest day-drudge of Mammon might think himself into unspeakable abysses of despair; for he, too, is "fearfully and wonderfully made;" Infinitude and Incomprehensibility surround him on this hand and that; and the vague spectre Death, silent and sure as Time, is advancing at all moments to sweep him away for ever. But he answers, Others do and suffer the like; and plods along without misgivings. Were there but One Man in the world, he would be a terror to himself; and the highest man not less so than the lowest. Now it is as this One Man that Faust regards himself; he is divided from his fellows; cannot answer with them, Others do the like; and yet, why or how he specially is to do or suffer will nowhere reveal itself. For he is still "in the gall of bitterness" Pride and an entire uncompromising, though secret love of Self, are still the mainsprings of his conduct. Knowledge with him is precious only because it is power; even virtue he would love chiefly as a finer sort of sensusity, and because it was his virtue. A ravenous hunger for enjoyment haunts him everywhere; the stinted allotments of earthly life are as a mockery to him: to the iron law of Force h |