Part 8 (1/2)
Goethe, it is true, did say this; but the interpretation of the saying depends upon the context, which Mr. Arnold omits. I give the whole pa.s.sage, quoting from Oxenford's translation of the Eckermann Conversations, vol. i. p. 198 (edition 1850):-
”'Lord Byron,' said Eckermann, 'is no wiser when he takes 'Faust' to pieces and thinks you found one thing here, the other there.' 'The greater part of those fine things cited by Lord Byron,' Goethe replied, 'I have never even read; much less did I think of them when I was writing ”Faust.” But Lord Byron is only great as a poet; as soon as he reflects he is a child. He knows not how to help himself against the stupid attacks of the same kind made upon him by his own countrymen. He ought to have expressed himself more strongly against them. 'What is there is mine,' he should have said, 'and whether I got it from a book or from life is of no consequence; the only point is, whether I have made a right use of it.' Walter Scott used a scene from my 'Egmont,'
and he had a right to do so; and because he did it well, he deserves praise.'”
Goethe certainly does not mean that Byron was unable to reflect in the sense in which Mr. Arnold interprets the word. What was really meant we shall see in a moment.
We will, however, continue the quotations from the Eckermann:-
”We see how the inadequate dogmas of the Church work upon a free mind like Byron's and how by such a piece ('Cain') he struggles to get rid of a doctrine which has been forced upon him” (vol. i. p. 129).
”The world to him was transparent, and he could paint by way of antic.i.p.ation” (vol. i. p. 140).
”That which I call invention I never saw in any one in the world to a greater degree than in him” (vol. i. p. 205).
”Lord Byron is to be regarded as a man, as an Englishman, and as a great talent. His good qualities belong chiefly to the man, his bad to the Englishman and the peer, his talent is incommensurable. All Englishmen are, as such, without reflection properly so-called; distractions and party-spirit will not permit them to perfect themselves in quiet. But they are great as practical men. Thus, Lord Byron could never attain reflection on himself, and on this account his maxims in general are not successful. . . . But where he will create, he always succeeds; and we may truly say that, with him, inspiration supplies the place of reflection. He was always obliged to go on poetizing, and then everything that came from the man, especially from his heart, was excellent. He produced his best things, as women do pretty children, without thinking about it, or knowing how it was done. He is a great talent, a born talent, and I never saw the true poetical power greater in any man than in him. In the apprehension of external objects, and a clear penetration into past situations, he is quite as great as Shakespeare. But as a pure individuality, Shakespeare is his superior”
(vol. i. p. 209).
We see now what Goethe means by ”reflection.” It is the faculty of self-separation, or conscious CONSIDERATION, a faculty which would have enabled Byron, as it enabled Goethe, to reply successfully to a charge of plagiarism. It is not thought in its widest sense, nor creation, and it has not much to do with the production of poems of the highest order- -the poems that is to say, which are written by the impersonal thought.
But again--
”The English may think of Byron as they please; but this is certain, that they can show no poet who is to be compared to him. He is different from all the others, and for the most part, greater” (vol. i.
p. 290).
This pa.s.sage is one which Mr. Arnold quotes, and he strives to diminish its importance by translating der ihm zu vergleichen ware, by ”who is his parallel,” and maintains that Goethe ”was not so much thinking of the strict rank, as poetry, of Byron's production; he was thinking of that wonderful personality of Byron which so enters into his poetry.”
It is just possible; but if Goethe did think this, he used words which are misleading, and if the phrase der ihm zu vergleichen ware simply indicates parallelism, it has no point, for in that sense it might have been applied to Scott or to Southey.
”I have read once more Byron's 'Deformed Transformed,' and must say that to me his talent appears greater than ever. His devil was suggested by my Mephistopheles; but it is no imitation--it is thoroughly new and original; close, genuine, and spirited. There are no weak pa.s.sages--not a place where you could put the head of a pin, where you do not find INVENTION AND THOUGHT [italics mine]. Were it not for his hypochondriacal negative turn, he would be as great as Shakespeare and the ancients” (vol. i. p. 294).
Eckermann expressed his surprise. ”Yes,” said Goethe, ”you may believe me, I have studied him anew and am confirmed in this opinion.” The position which Byron occupies in the Second Part of ”Faust” is well known. Eckermann talked to Goethe about it, and Goethe said, ”I could not make use of any man as the representative of the modern poetical era except him, who undoubtedly is to be regarded as the greatest genius of our century” (vol. i. p. 425). Mr. Arnold translates this word ”genius”
by ”talent.” The word in the original is TALENT, and I will not dispute with so accomplished a German scholar as Mr. Arnold as to what is the precise meaning of TALENT. In both the English translations of Eckermann the word is rendered ”genius,” and after the comparison between Byron, Shakespeare, and the ancients just quoted, we can hardly admit that Goethe meant to distinguish scientifically between the two orders of intellect and to a.s.sign the lower to Byron.
But, last of all, I will translate Goethe's criticism upon ”Cain.” So far as I know, it has not yet appeared in English. It is to be found in the Stuttgart and Tubingen edition of Goethe, 1840, vol. x.x.xiii. p. 157.
Some portions which are immaterial I have omitted:-
”After I had listened to the strangest things about this work for almost a year, I at last took it myself in hand, and it excited in me astonishment and admiration; an effect which will produce in the mind which is simply susceptible, everything good, beautiful, and great. . .
. The poet who, surpa.s.sing the limit of all our conceptions, has penetrated with burning spiritual vision the past and present, and consequently the future, has now subdued new regions under his limitless talent, but what he will accomplish therein can be predicted by no human being. His procedure, however, we can nevertheless in a measure more closely determine. He adheres to the letter of the Biblical tradition, for he allows the first pair of human beings to exchange their original purity and innocence for a guilt mysterious in its origin; the punishment which is its consequence descending upon all posterity. The monstrous burden of such an event he lays upon the shoulders of Cain as the representative of a wretched humanity, plunged for no fault of its own into the depths of misery.
”To this primitive son of man, bowed down and heavily burdened, death, which as yet he has not seen, is an especial trouble; and although he may desire the end of his present distress, it seems still more hateful to exchange it for a condition altogether unknown. Hence we already see that the full weight of a dogmatic system, explaining, mediating, yet always in conflict with itself, just as it still for ever occupies us, was imposed on the first miserable son of man. These contradictions, which are not strange to human nature, possessed his mind, and could not be brought to rest, either through the divinely-given gentleness of his father and brother, or the loving and alleviating co-operation of his sister-wife. In order to sharpen them to the point of impossibility of endurance, Satan comes upon the scene, a mighty and misleading spirit, who begins by unsettling him morally, and then conducts him miraculously through all worlds, causing him to see the past as overwhelmingly vast, the present as small and of no account, and the future as full of foreboding and void of consolation.
”So he turns back to his own family, more excited, but not worse than before; and finding in the family circle everything as he has left it, the urgency of Abel, who wishes to make him offer a sacrifice, becomes altogether insupportable. More say we not, excepting that the motivation of the scene in which Abel perishes is of the rarest excellence, and what follows is equally great and priceless. There now lies Abel! That now is Death--there was so much talk about it, and man knows about it as little as he did before.