GOETHE'S "CHINESE-GERMAN BOOK OF SEASONS AND HOURS"

AND 'WORLDLITERATURE*

U. C. Fischer

In 1827, at the age of seventy eight and five years before his death, Goethewas about to complete the second part of his '"Faust", the drama, that hadaccompanied him, as he writes to Wilhelm von Humboldt, for over sixty years.A by-product of his work are the "Chinesisch-Deutsche Jahres-und Tageszeiten"or "The Chinese-German Book of Seasons and Hours", the composition ofwhich can be dated to the same year.

I. The poems.

Though being near to the "Faust" in time, these fourteen poems of variouslength have nothing in common with the eternal striving and redemption that isthe theme of the play. This may already be seen from a representative selection:

I. Sag', was konnt' uns Mandarinen,satt zu herrschen, mud zu dienen,sag, was konnt' uns ubrig bleiben,als in solchen Fruhlingstagenuns des Nordens zu entschlagenund am Wasser und im Grunenfrohlich trinken, geistig schreiben,Schal'auf Schale, Zug in Zugen?

Tell me, what there is left to us Mandarinssatiated with our rule and tired of our service,tell me, what could there be left to usin these days of Spring,but to reject the North,and near by the waterside, with the green everywhere,to drink gaily bowl after bowland to write wittily one line after the other?

II. Weiss wie Lilien, reine Kerzen,Sternen gleich, bescheidner Beugung,leuchtet aus dem Mittelherzenrot gesaumt die Glut der Neigung.

So fruhzeitige Narzissenbluhen reihenweis' im Garten.Mogen wohl die Guten wissen,wen sie so spaliert erwarten.

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White as lilies, pure candlesstarlike, with modest bow:from the middle of their hearts shines forththe red rimmed glow of love.Such early narcissibloom in rows in the garden.Perhaps these brave ones knowwhom, in this array, they are expecting.

IV. Der Pfau schreit hasslich, aber sein Geschreierinnert mich ans himmlische Gefieder,so ist mir auch sein Schreien nicht zuwider.Mit indischen Gansen ist's nicht gleicherlei, •sie zu erdulden ist unmoglich :die hasslichen, sie schreien unertraglich.

The peacock screams in an ugly way, but his voicereminds me of his heavenly plumes,and therefore his screaming does not affect me.With Indian geese it is not likewise,and I find it impossible to tolerate them:those ugly animals, they scream unbearably

V. Entwickle deiner Luste Glanz;der Abendsonne goldnen Strahlen,lass deines Schweifes Rad und Kranzkuhn-augelnd ihr entgegen prahlen.Sie forscht, wo es im Grunen bluht,im Garten, uberwolbt vom Blauen;ein Liebespaar, wo sie's ersieht,glaubt sie das Herrliche zu schauen.

Unfold the radiance of your lustin the last golden rays of the evening sun,let the fan of your tailboast towards her boldly with many eyes.She searches for something unfolding itself in the green,in the garden with its blue cupola;a. couple in love, when she has made it out,is the most glorious thing to her.

VIII. Dammrung senkte sich von oben,schon ist alle Nahe fern;

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doch zuerst emporgehobenholden Lichts der Abendstern!Alles schwankt ins Ungewisse,Nebel schleichen in die Hoh';schwarzvertiefte Finsternissewiderspiegelnd ruht der See.

Nun am ostlichen Bereicheahn' ich Mondenglanz und Glut,schlanker Weiden Haargezweigescherzen auf der nachsten Flut.Durch bewegter Schatten Spielezittert Luna's Zauberschein,und durchs Auge schleicht die Kuhlesanftigend ins Herz hinein.

Dusk has settled from above,all that was new is now far away;but first was lifted upthe evening star, shining gently!Everything floats away into uncertainty,mists creep upwards,the lake is at rest and only reflectsblack depths of darkness.Now in the eastern rangeI have a presentiment of the moon's glow and radiance,the hairlike branches of gracious willowsstroke playfully over the water near me.Lunar magic tremors through the moving shadows,and through the eye a calming coolnesssteals into the heart.

IX. Nun weiss man erst, was Rosenknospe sei,jetzt da die Rosenzeit vorbei;ein Spatling noch am Stocke glanztund ganz allein die Blumenwelt erganzt.

Only now, the blossom time of roses having passed,one realizes what a rosebud means;a late one still gives a gloss to the rose-treeand completes out of her own right the world of flowers.

XI. 'Mich angstigt das Verfanglicheim widrigen Geschwatz,wo nichts verharret, alles flieht,

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wo schon verschwunden, was man sieht;und mich umfangt das bangliche,das graugestrickte Netz.'—Getrost! Das Unvergangliche,es 1st das ewige Gesetz,wonach die Ros' und Lilie bluht.

'I fear the entanglementinto idle talk,where nothing stays, and everything flees away,where that what you see, has already vanished;and the grey-spun netsurrounds me in a frightening way.'—Take courage! That which is imperishableis the eternal lawaccording to which the rose and the lily blossom.

XIV. 'Nun denn! Eh' wir von hinnen eilen,hast noch was Kluges mitzuteilen?'—Sehnsucht ins Feme, Kunftige zu beschwichtigen,beschaftige dich hier und heut im Tuchtigen.

'Now! Before we hurry on,is there any wise word, that you want to tell us ?'—Soothe your yearning for things far away and in the future,and be good, here and now, at what is required.

2. A possible Chinese source.

The question arises as to whether Goethe had, according to the title of thesequence, a Chinese source, and how much he took from it.

The well known "Talks with Goethe", written by Eckermann, the secretaryand intimus of the poet, can give a hint. Under the date of January 31, 1827,the entry runs as follows: "At Goethe's table. 'During these days, since Ihave not seen you', he said,' I have read a great deal, and of various kind,especially a Chinese novel, that still is in my mind, and which seems to me avery curious work.' Chinese novel? I said, that will probably be somethingvery strange. 'Not as much as one should believe1, Goethe said. 'The thoughts,actions, and sentiments of people over there are almost the same as ours, andvery soon one feels to be similar to them, only with the difference, that withthem everything seems to be clearer, more cleanly, and more moral. Every-thing they do is reasonable, civil, without great passions or poetic impetus andhas therefore much in common with my ''Hermann und Dorothea", as well aswith the English novels written by Richardson. The difference is to be found

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in the circumstance, that with them nature always lives together with humanbeings. The goldfish can be heard making splashes in the ponds, the birds arecontinuously singing on their branches, the day is always serene and sunny, thenight always clear; the moon is mentioned frequently, but she does not changethe landscape, because her light is thought to be as clear as daylight. And theinterior of the houses are as pleasant and graceful as their drawings. For ex-ample : "I heard the lovely girls laugh, and when I saw them, they sat on finecane-chairs". There you have a delightful situation, because cane-chairs can-not be imagined without thinking of them as being light and graceful. Andthen there is a great number of legends that always accompany the story andare used in an almost proverbial way. For example, the talk goes of a girl,whose feet were as light and graceful, that she could keep her balance on aflower without breaking her. Or of a young man, who was so well-behaved andbrave that on his thirtieth birthday he had the honour to talk with the emperor.And of couples being after a long time engaged still in such chaste love, thatwhen once it was necessary that they stayed together in a room over night—theydid not touch each other, but talked, and watched in this way until the night wasover. And thus a lot of legends., which all consider of what is moral and properto do. But just by means of such a strict restraint in everything the ChineseEmpire had the great force to maintain its existence since thousands of years,and in this way will continue to exist also in the future.' " 2)

In order to be better informed on the novel Goethe has read, the secretaryEckermann asks the poet whether the book could be considered one of the moreoutstanding ones. The answer of Goethe is: "Not at all. The Chinese havethousands of these novels and already had them, when our ancestors were stillliving in the forests." 3)

We have in this colloquy a clear indication at least to one possible Chinesesource of inspiration for Goethe: the novel. Nothing is said about translationsfrom Chinese poetry, though we know that Goethe has read some of them as well.

A novel of the kind mentioned by Goethe is "The Affectionate Pair or theHistory of Sung-Kin" 4). The translator, Peter Perring Thorns, was a printerin the service of the China department of the East India Company, living in 1817at Macao. It is known that the library of Goethe at Weimar contained Englishtranslations done by Thorns.

The story is one of a collection of forty ancient and modern wonderful tales,all of them of a moral tendency, as Thorns mentions. The History of Sung-Kin,late son of a brave couple, describes an occurence in low life, and is interestingfor the customs and manners described. It is a tale in three parts, dealing withthe upbringing, the period of trial for the hero, and the bestowment of a pricefor worthy conduct, the observance of old customs, perseverance, and conjugalfidelity being the values exalted.

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Inserted into the text, and giving an atmosphere to it, are some poems thatfor their descriptive and symbolic qualities are in some ways near to the poemsof Goethe:

When the moon dips and the cloudsare filled with frost, the birds twitter.When reclining, how pleasant to see from thebridge the fisherman's fragrant fires:on the cold hill, without the city Koo-soo,stands the lonely temple:half the night over the sound of itsbell visits each stranger's boat. 5)

The falling showers fade the blooming flower,and the grass by hoar frost is nipt of its verdant hue. 6)

When men's affairs take a prosperous change,they are lightly and sprightly;and the moon, when she reaches the autumnalsolstice, shines with resplendent lustre. 7)

By mentioning this novel and comparing it with the poems of Goethe, it isnot intended to say, that the story of Sung-Kin was a direct source of inspiration.As a matter of fact, the sign-like, almost proverbial quality that can be noticedwith the prose text as well as with the inserted poems, is something not to befound with Goethe's poems. The similarity stands in the unlyrical way of avery natural, detached, and objective description, as well as in the didacticapplication of some medium size wisdom, where more subtle wisdom can besupposed in the background. It is also likely that Goethe took some of histhemes from the novels he read.

3. Themes.

The first impression of the "Chinesisch-Deutsche Jahres-und Tageszeiten" isthat of a collection of stray poems or afterthoughts following the edition of the"West—ostlicher Divan", a collection of two hundred and fifty poems dividedinto twelve books 8), in which the poet turns for the first time his eyes towardthe Orient, i.e. to Persia.

This impression is, however, erroneous. The sequence is well-knit, startingwith an introduction, where a Chinese court official retires from the forthcominghot season to the waterside, where he sips his wine, meditates, and writes(strophe I). The same mandarin can be found at the end, when a company ofyoung people come to him, asking his counsel.

Into this frame is inserted one long meditation on the various forms of love(II-XI), only interrupted by a description of a nightscape in moonlight (VIII).

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Up to this intersection we have a contrast between heavenly (lilies, pure candles,central heart, glow of sympathy, paradise) and earthly love (peacock as anallegory, peacock's tail as a symbol of manly potency, couple united in love,cuckoo and nightingale) together with the memory of a beautiful lady whoapproaches the poet to show him her love (VII).

The second part of the sequence, after the landscape description, containsa reflection: what a rose really is, can be known only after the time of roses, i.e.youth and love have passed. Not this particular rosebud raises the interestof the poet, but the eternal law by which the rose and the lily blossom (XI).

Goethe expounds here an idea that he had made his possession after return-ing from his voyage to Italy. He tried to show by his own research that thestructure in microcosm as well as in macrocosm is governed by an organic rule,and that all appearances in outward nature are only a reflection of this generalrule, or, as he calls it here, 'eternal law'.

\That is the result of the mandarin's meditation, the mandarin being nobody

else than the poet himself. But when the young people come to ask him, hedoes not tell them his thoughts, but gives them a practical advice for theirdaily life.

4. Poetical treatment.

Evidently Goethe in his "Chinese-German Book of Hours and Seasons" hasovercome the kind of verse he used during his classical period. Hexameter,ionic, and choriambic verse are left for an irregular measure running up totwelve lines and rhyming either in couples or alternatively. The languagematerial is treated with extreme firmness and audacity, the tools being newcombinations of words, syntactic eliminations, dislocations, and contractions.The result is en astonishing flexibility and smoothness.

Other, more contenutistical tools are nature symbols, such as 'lily' and'rose', approaching allegory, and allegory itself with the peacock being anemblem for man's lust. It is significant that Goethe in his old age takes allegoryas a new means for abbreviation and concentration, turning in this way to acertain degree of hermetism not to be found in the poems of his earlier periods.

5. Conclusion.

"The Chinese—German Book of Seasons and Hours" is a small sequenceof poems with an unlyrical, objective, moralizing, and didactic approach, that ismost likely to have been inspired, by the English translations of Chinese novelsread by Goethe. Apart from the insertion of strophe VIII, where descriptioncomes near to the character of an ink-drawing, there is nothing especially

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Chinese, "China" and the "mandarin" being used as a sort of disguise for whatGoethe has to tell us. The main confrontation between heavenly and earthlylove is an old one and common to the tradition of Western literature and artsince the time of Renaissance. The reflection following it uses Goethe's guidingprinciple of an organic structure being reflected in all particular appearances ofnature. The distinction between the "West—Ostlicher Divan" and the"Chinesisch—Deutsche Jahres-und Tagezeiten" following to some extent theearlier poems in their strophic and metric form, as well as their mode of rhyming,stands in the well-knit composition and the unity of thought.

But another circumstance has to be mentioned. The colloquy, reported byEckermann, with Goethe's judgment on Chinese novels, contains also the follow-ing passage: "I (therefore) like to look around, in order to know what is going onwith other nations and advise everyone to do the same. At the point where weare, national literature does not mean very much; the epoch of world literaturehas to come about, and everyone should work now to accelerate the forthcomingof this epoch." 9)

It is, after all, this aspect that is significant for the above poems, mergingthe East and the West as before in the "West—Ostlicher Divan". Thus, besidesthe composition of the poems, it is the concept of literature developed at thesame time by Goethe, that has to be considered, a concept gradually followedby only today.

Notes.

1) Goethe, Samtliche Werke. Vollstandige Ausgabe in 15 Banden. Stuttgart1872. 1. Band, pp 392-95.

2) Tempel Klassiker. Eckermann: Gesprache mit Goethe. Berlin, Darm-stadt 1958. pp 233-34.

3) Eckermann. p 235.4) London 1820.5) The History of Sung-Kin. p 116) „ „ „ p 347) „ ,, „ P 668) First edition, Stuttgart 18199) Eckermann, p 235.

Other books used:E. Reisinger. Goethe. 3. Anflage. Munchen 1958

The translations from the "Chinesisch-Deutsche Jahresund Tageszeiten andfrom the "Gesprache mit Goethe" have been done by the author of this article.

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