GOETHE: Some Thoughts on His Writing and Life
As a writer and poet whose work is largely unread and rarely discussed, except on the internet among coteries most of whom are at sites of little significance and among coteries most of whom are drowning in a sea of print from the burgeoning word factories of our modern world, I felt a certain kinship with the German genius Goethe whose work is also largely unread and rarely discussed in both the circles I have been part of on my earthly journey, circles populist or academic, and circles I have not been part of since the mid-twentieth century except, Daniel Spiro informs us, among some American liberal students who never read him again after graduation.
I also felt a sense of kinship with this universal man, as the historian Thomas Carlyle called Goethe, due to a range of factors and personal qualities which he manifested in his life: his enjoyment of life with its emphasis on living in the moment combined with his rich sense of history as well as an intoxication with the eternal; his emphasis on self-expression and developing one?s faculties, on seeing things with one?s own eyes and from one?s own perspectives; his keen enthusiasm for ethics as well as learning how to be good and teaching others how to be good as well; his philosophizing within an intellectual tradition that pointed to a direction in living both for him and for others; his desire to experience epiphanies, epiphanies that had eternal significance; his doing away with traditionalist and fundamentalist Christian mythology; his view of life as a series of encounters and dialogues; his deep belief in the principles of polarity and intensity, of oscillation and reproduction, and the application of these principles to his life and the live of others and society; his view of art as a tool for integrating one?s personality and as a tool for acquiring insight about the various objects of one?s contemplations--and the passing on of these insights to future generations; his belief that happy emotions could defeat base inclinations; his lifelong effort to find patterns in life, patterns which enhanced one?s sense of meaning; his capacity to go on writing about his experience, experience which was essentially about his inner life and not about egoistic greatness and external pleasures, experience that was more about his private character, the lamps of his search and striving, his passionate devotion and love, his own raptures and ecstasies as he went about dispelling the mists of doubt, wrestling with circumstances and himself and seeking knowledge wherever it will lead. -Ron Price, From Australia
Aug 10, 2008 @ 15:09:35
