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محاورات غوته مع إيكرمان وسوريت
جاءت تلك المحاورات نتيجة لدافع طبيعيّ طافٍ بعقلي لكي أسطر أي جزءٍ عن تجربتي أرى أنّه ذو قيمة ومميز. إضافة لذلك فقد كنت أشعر دائماً أنني بحاجة للتعلم، ليس فقط عندما التقيت بهذا الرجل العظيم، بل عندما عشت معه لسنوات. كنت تواقاً لأن ألتقط وأسجل فحوى كلماته كي يتسنى لي أن أمتلكها فيما تبقى لي من العمر. عندما أفكر أن تلك المحاورات الثرية والشاملة معه جعلتني أعيش في غاية السعادة لفترةٍ امتدت لتسع سنوات وألاحظ الآن الجزء القليل الذي احتفظت به منها فيما كتبت، أبدو كأنني طفلٌ يحاول أن يلتقط مطر الربيع المنعش بيديه المفتوحتين بيد أنه يجد أن معظمه قد تسرب من بين أصابعه. وكما يقول المثل إن للكتب مصيرها، وبما أن هذا الأمر لا ينطبق فقط على أصل الكتاب بل على طبعاته اللاحقة في هذا العالم العريض، يمكننا أن نطبقه كذلك على أصل هذا الكتاب. مرت غالباً عدة شهور لم تكن النجوم فيها مواتية، علاوة على أن السقم والعناء اللازمين لتأمين عيشنا اليومي قد منعاني من أن أخط سطراً واحداً، إلا أن النجوم قد عادت وسطعت والتأمت الصحة ووقت الفراغ مع الرغبة في الكتابة وكان ذلك عوناً لي أن أخطو خطوة إلى الأمام، ثم حيث تكون النفوس متآلفة مع بعضها البعض وحيث لا تكون هناك مسافات أو لامبالاة، أين ذاك الذي يعرف دائماً كيف يقيم الحاضر بمعدله الحقيقي؟
781 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2020
2 people are currently reading
108 people want to read
About the author
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
13.3k books6,916 followersA master of poetry, drama, and the novel, German writer and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe spent 50 years on his two-part dramatic poem
Faust
, published in 1808 and 1832, also conducted scientific research in various fields, notably botany, and held several governmental positions.
George Eliot called him "Germany's greatest man of letters... and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Works span the fields of literature, theology, and humanism.
People laud this magnum opus as one of the peaks of world literature. Other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther .
With this key figure of German literature, the movement of Weimar classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries coincided with Enlightenment, sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang, and Romanticism. The author of the scientific text Theory of Colours , he influenced Darwin with his focus on plant morphology. He also long served as the privy councilor ("Geheimrat") of the duchy of Weimar.
Goethe took great interest in the literatures of England, France, Italy, classical Greece, Persia, and Arabia and originated the concept of Weltliteratur ("world literature"). Despite his major, virtually immeasurable influence on German philosophy especially on the generation of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, he expressly and decidedly refrained from practicing philosophy in the rarefied sense.
Influence spread across Europe, and for the next century, his works inspired much music, drama, poetry and philosophy. Many persons consider Goethe the most important writer in the German language and one of the most important thinkers in western culture as well. Early in his career, however, he wondered about painting, perhaps his true vocation; late in his life, he expressed the expectation that people ultimately would remember his work in optics.
George Eliot called him "Germany's greatest man of letters... and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Works span the fields of literature, theology, and humanism.
People laud this magnum opus as one of the peaks of world literature. Other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther .
With this key figure of German literature, the movement of Weimar classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries coincided with Enlightenment, sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang, and Romanticism. The author of the scientific text Theory of Colours , he influenced Darwin with his focus on plant morphology. He also long served as the privy councilor ("Geheimrat") of the duchy of Weimar.
Goethe took great interest in the literatures of England, France, Italy, classical Greece, Persia, and Arabia and originated the concept of Weltliteratur ("world literature"). Despite his major, virtually immeasurable influence on German philosophy especially on the generation of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, he expressly and decidedly refrained from practicing philosophy in the rarefied sense.
Influence spread across Europe, and for the next century, his works inspired much music, drama, poetry and philosophy. Many persons consider Goethe the most important writer in the German language and one of the most important thinkers in western culture as well. Early in his career, however, he wondered about painting, perhaps his true vocation; late in his life, he expressed the expectation that people ultimately would remember his work in optics.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 1, 2019
I am possibly in agreement with Nietzsche that this is the greatest book ever published in the German language. I say this for a number of reasons:
1. German is the language of the Bildungsroman, and how could there be any better Bildung than one conducted by Goethe himself?
2. On the flip side of this equation, Eckermann’s worship of Goethe produces a master-student relationship unlike anything else in Western literature. The pure positivity emanating from this book is a source of boundless creative energy.
3. It is a masterpiece of aesthetics, as it is not merely the work of a single aesthete offering opinions, nor of two aesthetes debating, but of a combination of inspired conversation and hard contemplation. Eckermann seriously believes in this stuff, and through his seriousness he convinces you to believe in it too.
4. Compared to German classics like The Magic Mountain which are unspeakably deep but also grandiloquent, this is a book that speaks to the novice and the expert alike. It introduces you to the idea of Germany and Europe through straightforward table talk, while digging in as deep as any historian of thought would be willing to go.
Some of what Goethe says is actually absurd or self-contradictory, but when he is not contradicting himself he is offering brilliant insights. In a single evening of chatting with Eckermann, Goethe prophesied that America would build the Panama Canal, England would come to own the Suez Canal, and Germany would eventually have a Rhine—Danube canal. On another evening, he transformed the concept of occasional poetry, from an act performed in court for a patron to a tribute to the ultimate patron, Nature. He performs these daily marvels with joy and cheer. It is a book you can drink from like a well.
1. German is the language of the Bildungsroman, and how could there be any better Bildung than one conducted by Goethe himself?
2. On the flip side of this equation, Eckermann’s worship of Goethe produces a master-student relationship unlike anything else in Western literature. The pure positivity emanating from this book is a source of boundless creative energy.
3. It is a masterpiece of aesthetics, as it is not merely the work of a single aesthete offering opinions, nor of two aesthetes debating, but of a combination of inspired conversation and hard contemplation. Eckermann seriously believes in this stuff, and through his seriousness he convinces you to believe in it too.
4. Compared to German classics like The Magic Mountain which are unspeakably deep but also grandiloquent, this is a book that speaks to the novice and the expert alike. It introduces you to the idea of Germany and Europe through straightforward table talk, while digging in as deep as any historian of thought would be willing to go.
Some of what Goethe says is actually absurd or self-contradictory, but when he is not contradicting himself he is offering brilliant insights. In a single evening of chatting with Eckermann, Goethe prophesied that America would build the Panama Canal, England would come to own the Suez Canal, and Germany would eventually have a Rhine—Danube canal. On another evening, he transformed the concept of occasional poetry, from an act performed in court for a patron to a tribute to the ultimate patron, Nature. He performs these daily marvels with joy and cheer. It is a book you can drink from like a well.
May 17, 2010
During the last ten years of his life, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), the famous German author of "The Sorrows of Young Werther", "Egmont" and "Faust" became mentor to a young man named Johann Peter Eckermann who had decided to make writing his career. After a few years had passed, Eckermann began to compile his most memorable conversations with the great poet, scientist and statesman of Weimar, and asked for his blessing to publish them. According to Eckermann, Goethe approved of the plan and directed which conversations should be printed. Trusting the dates provided by Eckermann, the first two volumes appeared about three years after Goethe's death in 1835, and a third volume with additional conversations was published in 1848, which also featured various discussions Goethe had with an acquaintance named M. Soret.
This edition by Adamant is a complete facsimile of the 1883 English translation by John Oxford printed by William Clowes and Sons and revised by George Bell and Sons. Hence, you will find in this one book all three volumes, including the short autobiography of Eckermann. The entries compiled from the third volume, and Soret's conversations, are clearly marked. This is an important book as Goethe did not publish his autobiography in one complete form -- this edition chronicles Goethe's last decade and reveals his personal opinions on many interesting subjects. Of importance, there are discussions with Eckermann and Soret featuring Goethe's hindsight views of his earlier endeavours, and also discussions of his work-in-progress concerning his later writings, such as the "Novella" and "Faust Part Two". In addition, the style of this compilation is quite charming to read with its nineteenth-century expressions, which helps to bring the reader back to Goethe's era, even the font-style is reproduced exactly as seen in the 1883 edition. The original select index is also included. According to Eckermann, contemporaries agreed the conversations were true-to-life representations of Goethe's personality and manner of speech. This book is a real time-capsule, a gem for Goethe devotees.
E.A. Bucchianeri, author of "Faust: My Soul be Damned for the World"
This edition by Adamant is a complete facsimile of the 1883 English translation by John Oxford printed by William Clowes and Sons and revised by George Bell and Sons. Hence, you will find in this one book all three volumes, including the short autobiography of Eckermann. The entries compiled from the third volume, and Soret's conversations, are clearly marked. This is an important book as Goethe did not publish his autobiography in one complete form -- this edition chronicles Goethe's last decade and reveals his personal opinions on many interesting subjects. Of importance, there are discussions with Eckermann and Soret featuring Goethe's hindsight views of his earlier endeavours, and also discussions of his work-in-progress concerning his later writings, such as the "Novella" and "Faust Part Two". In addition, the style of this compilation is quite charming to read with its nineteenth-century expressions, which helps to bring the reader back to Goethe's era, even the font-style is reproduced exactly as seen in the 1883 edition. The original select index is also included. According to Eckermann, contemporaries agreed the conversations were true-to-life representations of Goethe's personality and manner of speech. This book is a real time-capsule, a gem for Goethe devotees.
E.A. Bucchianeri, author of "Faust: My Soul be Damned for the World"
January 7, 2023
أفكر أني سأحب أن أعود إليه وأفتح أيّ من هذين المجلدين على صفحة عشوائية وأقرأ فيها قليلاً من حوارات المؤلف وزياراته المتكررة لجوته خلال التسع سنين الأخيرة في حياته وهو يستمع إليه كاستماع الطالب إلى معلّمه، فالمؤلف إيكرمان كان في الثلاثين من العمر فيما كان جوته يدلف إلى الثمانين، فهي ليست حوارات متبادلة بقدر ما هي استماع وتقدير لخبرة الرجل العظيم واسع الشهرة، ولا أدري لماذا كُتب على هذا العمل الجميل أنه ينتمي لتصنيف الفلسفة، فهو بجلاء سيرة ذاتية ومحاورات متنوّعة وأحاديث عامة ووصف لقاءات، وليس مما قد تجلبه كلمة «فلسفة» من صورة جهمة غير واقعية لطبيعة هذا الكتاب خفيف الروح وبسيط العبارة، والتي سيخرج القارئ له بإعجابه بحكمة جوته في الثمانين من عمره وهدوءه النفسي وتعليقاته المتأملة لما كان من حياته وخبراته، وسيعجب أيضًا بامتنان للمؤلف إيكرمان من أجل هذا التواري بشخصه ليفسح المرور للمزيد من النور إلى شخصية جوته دون أن يلقي عليه الكثير من ظلاله.
..
أجاب جوته:
بالطبع قلت ذلك، ولكن هل يصغى الناس لما نقوله نحن المسنّين؟! الكلّ يرى أنه سيعرف بنفسه بشكل أفضل ثم وفي الطريق لذلك يتوه البعض عن الطريق وينحرف الآخر طويلاً عن الجادّة، إنه لم يعد هناك وقت كاف لارتكاب الأخطاء التي وقعنا فيها، بل ما جدوى رحلتنا وإنحرافتنا على الطريق إذا كنتم أيها الشباب تريدون السير على الطريق نفسه مرة أخرى؟! بهذا الشكل لن نتمكن أبدًا من السير قدمًا إلى الأمام، وإننا لمعذرورن في أخطائنا لأننا لم نجد الطريق معبَّدًا، ولكن على الذين يجيئون من بعدنا أن يبدأوا من حيث توقفنا، لا أن يتوهوا وينحرفوا هم أيضًا! استعينوا أيها الشباب بما قدّمه لكم القدماء ثم استمروا في الطريق الصحيح، فليس كافيًا أن تتخذوا الخطوات التي سوف تقودكم يومًا إلى هدفكم، بل الأحرى أن تصبح كل خطوة بمثابة هدف في حدّ ذاتها، إلى جانب كونها خطوة على الطريق.
..
أو كما قال، وهو كتاب جميل وافر التأملات، وإن تعجّبت قليلاً من مقولة نيتشه عنه من أنه أفضل كتاب نشر بالألمانية!
..
أجاب جوته:
بالطبع قلت ذلك، ولكن هل يصغى الناس لما نقوله نحن المسنّين؟! الكلّ يرى أنه سيعرف بنفسه بشكل أفضل ثم وفي الطريق لذلك يتوه البعض عن الطريق وينحرف الآخر طويلاً عن الجادّة، إنه لم يعد هناك وقت كاف لارتكاب الأخطاء التي وقعنا فيها، بل ما جدوى رحلتنا وإنحرافتنا على الطريق إذا كنتم أيها الشباب تريدون السير على الطريق نفسه مرة أخرى؟! بهذا الشكل لن نتمكن أبدًا من السير قدمًا إلى الأمام، وإننا لمعذرورن في أخطائنا لأننا لم نجد الطريق معبَّدًا، ولكن على الذين يجيئون من بعدنا أن يبدأوا من حيث توقفنا، لا أن يتوهوا وينحرفوا هم أيضًا! استعينوا أيها الشباب بما قدّمه لكم القدماء ثم استمروا في الطريق الصحيح، فليس كافيًا أن تتخذوا الخطوات التي سوف تقودكم يومًا إلى هدفكم، بل الأحرى أن تصبح كل خطوة بمثابة هدف في حدّ ذاتها، إلى جانب كونها خطوة على الطريق.
..
أو كما قال، وهو كتاب جميل وافر التأملات، وإن تعجّبت قليلاً من مقولة نيتشه عنه من أنه أفضل كتاب نشر بالألمانية!
June 15, 2023
"Look closely. In the shadows. There is violence."
This is going to be a depressing review.
When confronted with the intellectual arguments Goethe talked about in this book, I always went back to reciting Former Ode on the Red Cliff (1082) (my high school literature teacher is gonna be so proud) and found Su Dongpo a succint summary of what Goethe struggled to express. Granted, given the fact that it's not a standard practice to bring up Su whenever people talk about Goethe, the relation between these two needs a detailed explanation starting with a faithful, annotated translation of Former Odes. But that's for another time. Another review of Goethe's work that includes Selige Sehnsucht (1814) perhaps.
Also, if one come to think of it, what Goethe having trouble expressing was spelled out some 700 years ago by one of the greatest literary works in another civilization. And said civilization was misinterpreted almost to the point of being smeared by Thomas Mann in Lotte in Weimar. The inequality in influence is staggering.
But this is just the appetizer of depression that this review is going to dish out.
What's really depressing, about this book, is how explicitly Goethe laid out the materialist root of "knowledge" of his time.
Notice how a certain single-displacement reaction is happening in the process: money out, "bon mot" in. That "bon mot", later explained as "knowing mankind such as it is", is the foundation of political power at that time (cf. Court Society by Norbert Elias). Behind such an innnocent facade, however, is the whole 19th century economic system that supported such transactions. A system that undoubtedly was built by political power. Thus goes the life circle: money — knowledge (of a certain kind in a certain cultural tradition) — power — money. Look closely, in the shadows, between the lines, there is violence.
Later, Goethe praised one of the poems by Schiller:
So to make the picture clearer, the indigenous people lost their lives in the process of establishing the economic system in Goethe time, only to have them idealized into "bon mot" like Schiller's Indian Death Song (Nadowessische Totenklage). If one does away with any romanticizing, any enchantment Goethe's reputation might exude, THAT, is what's really happening.
Millions of actual human lives sacrificed to be congealed into some verses, some imaginary idealistic "Nadowessische".
That's it.
I have searched and read Schiller's Nadowessische Totenklage. Crappy as my German is, the verses reminded me of Ratonhnhaké:ton face. Once I put a face into this picture, once the victim became visible, the sinisterness became tangible and the reading almost became unbearable.
And yet, if observant enough, one cannot conclude that Goethe's single displacement reaction is a thing of the past. Money is no longer the raw material of nice speech. Money IS speech — at least in the USA, post Citizens United v. FEC. I have heard jokes about "corporates are people", which, as the preface of the King's Two Bodies suggests, has a kernel of truth like many other jokes. What, then, would current inflation and cost-of-living crisis make? The spectre-body of corporates silencing vox populi on a national, even global, scale? Monopolizing and confining the life cycle of "bon mot" to a selective group of actual human, if any? Isn't history rhyming at this point: sacrificing the well-being of actual flesh, of living people, only to sing a Totenklage of their idealistic and abstract image afterwards?
Such earthly observations are certainly below Goethe. But this does not mean we should pretend these observations never existed. I walked away from Conversations with this haunting observation, and reciting Former Ode on the Red Cliff a million times.
Every review here noted how this is credited by Nietzsche "the greatest book in German language that's out there". I regard Friedrich Nietzsche's recommended reading list as my eye candy jar — anything he enjoyed, I also enjoyed (perhaps with the rare exception of Jean-Jacques Rousseau). I hate myself for doing this to his favorite book but f*ck.
I'm sorry Freddy. I'm so, so sorry.
This is going to be a depressing review.
When confronted with the intellectual arguments Goethe talked about in this book, I always went back to reciting Former Ode on the Red Cliff (1082) (my high school literature teacher is gonna be so proud) and found Su Dongpo a succint summary of what Goethe struggled to express. Granted, given the fact that it's not a standard practice to bring up Su whenever people talk about Goethe, the relation between these two needs a detailed explanation starting with a faithful, annotated translation of Former Odes. But that's for another time. Another review of Goethe's work that includes Selige Sehnsucht (1814) perhaps.
Also, if one come to think of it, what Goethe having trouble expressing was spelled out some 700 years ago by one of the greatest literary works in another civilization. And said civilization was misinterpreted almost to the point of being smeared by Thomas Mann in Lotte in Weimar. The inequality in influence is staggering.
But this is just the appetizer of depression that this review is going to dish out.
What's really depressing, about this book, is how explicitly Goethe laid out the materialist root of "knowledge" of his time.
“One must be old to see all this, and have money enough to pay for one's experience. Every bon mot that I utter costs me a purseful of money (Jedes Bonmot, das ich sage, kostet mir eine Börse voll Gold); half a million of my private fortune has passed through my hands that I might learn what I know now;—not only the whole of my father's fortune, but my own salary, and my large literary income for more than fifty years. I have, besides, seen a million and a half expended for great objects by the princes, with whom I have been intimately connected, and in whose progress, success, and failure I have been interested.
“More than mere talent is required to become a proficient. One must also live amid important circumstances, and have an opportunity of watching the cards held by the players of the age, and of participating in their gain and loss.
“Without my attempts in natural science, I should never have learned to know mankind such as it is. In nothing else can we so closely approach pure contemplation and thought, so closely observe the errors of the senses and of the understanding, the weak and the strong points of character. [...]
— Goethe, 1829/02/13
Notice how a certain single-displacement reaction is happening in the process: money out, "bon mot" in. That "bon mot", later explained as "knowing mankind such as it is", is the foundation of political power at that time (cf. Court Society by Norbert Elias). Behind such an innnocent facade, however, is the whole 19th century economic system that supported such transactions. A system that undoubtedly was built by political power. Thus goes the life circle: money — knowledge (of a certain kind in a certain cultural tradition) — power — money. Look closely, in the shadows, between the lines, there is violence.
Later, Goethe praised one of the poems by Schiller:
(1829/03/23) “You see,” said Goethe, “what a great artist Schiller was, and how he could manage even the objective, when brought traditionally before his eyes. That ‘Indian Death Song’ is certainly one of his very best poems, and I only wish he had made a dozen like it."
So to make the picture clearer, the indigenous people lost their lives in the process of establishing the economic system in Goethe time, only to have them idealized into "bon mot" like Schiller's Indian Death Song (Nadowessische Totenklage). If one does away with any romanticizing, any enchantment Goethe's reputation might exude, THAT, is what's really happening.
Millions of actual human lives sacrificed to be congealed into some verses, some imaginary idealistic "Nadowessische".
That's it.
I have searched and read Schiller's Nadowessische Totenklage. Crappy as my German is, the verses reminded me of Ratonhnhaké:ton face. Once I put a face into this picture, once the victim became visible, the sinisterness became tangible and the reading almost became unbearable.
And yet, if observant enough, one cannot conclude that Goethe's single displacement reaction is a thing of the past. Money is no longer the raw material of nice speech. Money IS speech — at least in the USA, post Citizens United v. FEC. I have heard jokes about "corporates are people", which, as the preface of the King's Two Bodies suggests, has a kernel of truth like many other jokes. What, then, would current inflation and cost-of-living crisis make? The spectre-body of corporates silencing vox populi on a national, even global, scale? Monopolizing and confining the life cycle of "bon mot" to a selective group of actual human, if any? Isn't history rhyming at this point: sacrificing the well-being of actual flesh, of living people, only to sing a Totenklage of their idealistic and abstract image afterwards?
Such earthly observations are certainly below Goethe. But this does not mean we should pretend these observations never existed. I walked away from Conversations with this haunting observation, and reciting Former Ode on the Red Cliff a million times.
Every review here noted how this is credited by Nietzsche "the greatest book in German language that's out there". I regard Friedrich Nietzsche's recommended reading list as my eye candy jar — anything he enjoyed, I also enjoyed (perhaps with the rare exception of Jean-Jacques Rousseau). I hate myself for doing this to his favorite book but f*ck.
I'm sorry Freddy. I'm so, so sorry.
February 9, 2023
كتاب من مجلدين عن الاديب الالماني غوته
في اعوامه الأخيرة حيث يدون فيها سكرتيره
مراسلاته و مقابلاته الشبه يوميه مع غوته
كتاب لابأس به لمن قرأ كتب لغوته
وان لم تقرأ عنه فلن يفيدك الكتاب
في اعوامه الأخيرة حيث يدون فيها سكرتيره
مراسلاته و مقابلاته الشبه يوميه مع غوته
كتاب لابأس به لمن قرأ كتب لغوته
وان لم تقرأ عنه فلن يفيدك الكتاب
February 11, 2023
"Goethe me vio pasar, y me hizo gestos desde la ventana para que me acercara"
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews