Goethe and the Present

GA 68c — 22 November 1889, Vienna

I. What Weimar's Goethe Archive Means to us, from Personal Experience

Public lecture in Vienna, November 22, 1889

Report in the “Chronik des Wiener Goethe-Vereins” of January 20, 1890.

On Friday, November 22, 1889, Mr. Rudolf Steiner opened the series of Goethe evenings with a highly interesting lecture on the “Goethe Archive in Weimar”.

Mr. Steiner is entrusted with the publication of Goethe's scientific writings and had the opportunity to study the Goethe Archive in detail over the summer. He described in detail the natural history collection exhibited in the Goethe House and emphasized the great value of the scientific legacy. From it it would become clear by what route the poet had climbed to the heights of light, and that the master had been a tireless researcher in every field and was considered the spiritual center of the age.

The lecturer started from the idea that we have a twofold task to fulfill in relation to Goethe. One of these is to grasp and appreciate the poet's magnificent appearance in all its aspects, to understand the origin of his writings from his soul life and to put the relationships of his works to each other in the proper light. But this purely historical side of the matter achieves only the lesser part of what we have to achieve in relation to Goethe. The far more important part is to be found in the fact that we, insofar as it is the task of each and every one of us, participate in the further development of our culture in the sense that has been opened up to us by Goethe. The cultural perspective that he has opened up for the future must be ours. We have to follow the lines of thought that find a magnificent beginning in him; we have to approach the questions of science, art, and the state from his point of view. We have to work our way up to that kind of vision through which he gained such penetrating insights, but through which he also found the blissful calm of the truly wise in the face of all the disharmonies of life. And this is the goal of the Goethe-Schiller Archives in Weimar. Whoever enters this classical place will be overcome by a breath of that mighty ethos that emanates from Goethe and spreads through all his works. Those who enter the workshop of Goethe's poetry and thought, who are able to follow in the footsteps of the spirit that led to the heights of his creativity by the hand of the treasures he left behind, will find their inner selves mightily uplifted by the impact of the ideal seriousness and high morality of Goethe's life and world view. He sees how every idea of this genius goes back to spiritual struggles that he has undergone in his inner being, how every conviction he has expressed is the conclusion of a spiritual process that we can follow in very many cases. We can often see from the notes he has jotted down the exact moment when an idea flashes in his mind, which then had a fruitful effect on his work. In particular, Goethe's scientific significance will be more clearly revealed to us through the Weimar publications than has been the case so far. The sheer shallowness that has so far dared to approach Goethe in a judgmental manner will be contemptuously rejected by all educated people, for whom new insights will arise from Weimar's handwritten treasures.

We also have important things to expect from the diaries. They will not only give us precise insights into the poet's external life, but also into the process of his inner development. They will show how he progresses from stage to stage, up to that “spiritual Montserrat” where he feels misunderstood and lonely, but enlightened by the deepest ideas. Goethe kept records not only of his external life, but above all of his inner life.

But the correspondence is also of particular importance. The intellectual life in Germany from 1790 to 1832 appears as a mighty organism, of which Goethe is the soul. He exerts a direct personal influence on the most important contemporaries, and they in turn have an effect on him. This magnificent network of intellectual interests will only become clear through the correspondence.

Above all, the publication of Goethe's scientific writings, diaries and correspondence will be an immortal monument erected by Weimar's high-minded princess. This is proof that in Weimar they know how to promote the legacy of the great German with just as much understanding as they once understood how to create the basis for the man on which he could build his way up to the heights of humanity.

It is thanks to Professor Suphan, the humane and amiable director of the archive, and to Schiller's noble descendants that, just over a year ago, Schiller's estate was also incorporated into the archive. Schiller belongs to Goethe. Through Schiller, the nation was finally opened up to Goethe. His view of the great friend is the ideal of all Goethe research.