31. The Girl from Oberkirch

A tragedy in five acts by Goethe

Introduction

The drama fragment "Das Mädchen von Oberkirch" is printed for the first time in the Weimar Goethe edition. Only the first act, which we present here, has been performed. The second breaks off in the middle of a sentence. The two characters in the first act are joined by the clergyman Manner. We learn that both the Baron and Manner had previously joined the revolutionary movement, but were put off by the horrors of the terrorists. In the course of the conversation, it becomes clear that Manner also loves Marie. The baron explains that he had already wanted to make the girl his "under certain conditions" in the "times of prosperous happiness". Now he is relying primarily on the advantage that a union with one of the noblest daughters of the people would bring him and his family. He believes that this rationale will get through to the countess more easily than if he simply lets his love, the real motive, speak for itself. Manner believes that the mob will by no means be won over by the union, just as little as by the behavior of the prince, who gave himself the name of "Equality". "The terrible Jacobins are not to be deceived, they scent the trail of every legal man and thirst for the blood of everyone." When Manner sees that his rival cannot be swayed by these ideas, he asks him whether he is in agreement with Marie. The Baron has to confess that he had not even thought to make sure of this consent. The fragment breaks off at the moment when the Countess declares herself inclined to discuss with the Baron what would be most useful in the dangerous situation in which the family finds itself.

There is only a very poor outline for the sequel.

A. 1st Baroness (as the Countess is called in the scheme), Baron. 2. baroness, baron. 3. baroness, baron, man. 4. baroness, baron, the sansculottes. B. 1. baroness, Marie. 2nd Baroness, Marie, Manner. 3rd Municipality. C. 1. baroness, baron. 2nd Baroness, Marie. 3rd Marie. 4. Marie, Manner. 5. Marie. D. 1. Marie (with the leaf). 2. the Municipality. 3. the cathedral. 4. crowd, train. 5. address as reason. 6. adoration. 7. offers, consort. 8. turn. 9. capture. 5. Marie, Baron, Manner (consulting to save her), Sansculottes in addition.

Gustav Roethe, the editor of the drama fragment in the Weimar edition, published an essay in the "Nachrichten der K. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften in Göttingen" (Philologisch-historische Klasse 1895, Heft 4) in which he published his views on the time of composition and the content of the "Mädchen von Oberkirch" as Goethe had envisioned it. Roethe has undoubtedly correctly determined the time of origin. The play speaks of the unfortunate Prince Philipp Egalit&, who was executed on November 6, 1793, and of the cult of reason, which was celebrated for the first time in Paris on November 10, 1793, and was imitated in Strasbourg that same month. The idea for the drama therefore originated after this time. The other time limit results from the consideration that the "Mädchen von Oberkirch" must have been written before the "Natürliche Tochter". Both poems are reflections of the revolutionary events in Goethe's mind. But the "Natural Daughter" represents a more mature stage. Goethe no longer deals with the manifestations of the revolutionary movement in a region outside the place of origin of the revolution; he seeks out the social currents underlying the great upheaval in Paris itself. Goethe began work on the "Natural Daughter" in December 1799. The plan for the "Girl of Oberkirch" was therefore created between 1794 and 1799. Roethe is certainly right up to this point. Goethe's diaries provide no information about the genesis of the fragment. Roethe goes even further and would like to conclude from studies of Goethe's prose style, from the comparison of the characters in the "Aufgeregten" (1793 or 94) and in the "Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderter" (1794-95) with those in the "Mädchen von Oberkirch", that the fragment is close to the first-mentioned dramas and was written soon after them. He also believes that the conception of the revolution is clearer in "Hermann und Dorothea" than in "Mädchen von Oberkirch". "Hermann and Dorothea" was conceived before September 9, 1796. The drama fragment is therefore thought to have been written in 1795 or 96. However, considerations as to whether a poet uses certain stylistic turns or not, whether a character in a work appears more mature or not, stem from an overly mechanical view of the course of development when we are only talking about a period of 7 years.

For the hypothetical determination of the progression of the plot, Roethe draws on the story of Strasbourg, without arriving at a result in this way. The fact that the plot of Heyse's "Goddess of Reason" is essentially the same as that of Goethe's play also yields nothing. For Heyse replied to a question from Roethe (see the above-mentioned treatise p. 510) that his source studies were "more concerned with the mood of the time than with more precise historical facts" and that his drama was based on free invention. Roethe therefore feels compelled to construct the alleged plot by interpreting the scheme. But such an interpretation always has something dubious about it. There is nothing to suggest that Goethe would not have overturned important points of the thought-scheme when working it out. Anyone who reconstructs it runs the risk of constructing something that would never have come into existence in its supposed form. And if he wanted to say: but for the moment of writing, the construction is correct, then the answer must be: no one can know how many possibilities for shaping one of the points thrown out have more or less clearly crossed the poet's mind. Whoever wants to try to think or write the drama fragment to the end according to the plan may do so. He must only be aware that he is not dealing with Goethe's work, but with his own.