The diary (Goethe)

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2. Who is speculating with Anna Amalia?
3. The police actions are not proven here at all, in the literature it looks very thin, and more from hearsay, not even a specific newspaper edition is mentioned.
4. See also the comments on the talk page.

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The diary is a poem written in 1810 by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .

content

In 24 punches , Goethe describes in the first person how the protagonist is held up by a broken car after a long absence from home on the return journey. In the inn where he has found accommodation, he meets a maid who is ready to spend a night of love with him. But the intimate act fails because of the narrator's unexpected impotence . Only when he thinks of his loved one at home does he get an erection. As a reminder of the value of conjugal fidelity, the narrator refrains from waking the maid, who has fallen asleep and who finally leaves the room at dawn.

The author bluntly describes the sexual failure. He describes his member as master , servant or with the Latin word Iste (= Der da ). From a suppressed Venetian epigram it emerges that the terms penis and (male) limb that are common today were not in use in Goethe's time, only the vulgar expression tail .

Goethe put a Latin motto in front of the poem: aliam tenui, sed iam quum gaudia adirem, / Admonuit dominae deseruitque Venus. (= I took another one, but when I was about to walk to joy / Venus reminded me of my mistress and left me. ) The quote is taken from an elegy by Tibullus , but Goethe leaves the opening word Saepe (= often ) from the original gone, probably because the event described was a one-off event.

Emergence

unknown draftsman: Goethe (around 1810)

On April 30, 1810, Goethe noted: “The stamps of the 'Diary' were copied.” It can therefore be assumed that the poem was written shortly before. But at the beginning of 1810 Goethe did not undertake a long journey on which the experience could have happened. The last absence of several months from Weimar dates from July 23rd to October 7th, 1809, when the poet was in Jena.

In the period that followed, Goethe repeatedly read his poem to a small group ( Riemer , Knebel , Eckermann ), but refrained from publishing it.

reception

Because of its “immoral” content, the poem was not included in most editions of Goethe's works. It was not until 1861 that the publisher Salomon Hirtzel brought out a private print in 24 copies. Several times, collector's prints of the work were confiscated by the police. The site was particularly offensive

In front of your mourning cross, bloodthirsty Christian,
God forgive me, the Iste moved.

This passage was left out or blackened with asterisks until well into the 20th century.

Thomas Mann was one of the admirers of the poem . When he received a copy of the work with color illustrations from Max Schwimmer , he wrote: “And thank you very much on my behalf, Professor Schwimmer, for the 'diary' which he illustrated with such an ingeniously light and delicate hand, which I enjoy very much . I've always had a special inclination for this cheeky morality. "

Also Rainer Maria Rilke was fascinated by the poem when his publisher Anton Kippenberg it read to him the 1913th

Yet the poem continued to be barely noticed. It was only when Siegfried Unseld published the work in 1978 together with Rilke's “Seven Poems” (phallic hymns) as the 1000th anniversary volume of the Insel-Bücherei that the poem's rank was recognized. It has since appeared in many anthologies and is a natural part of all editions of Goethe's poems.

interpretation

In addition, sexual impotence could also symbolize writer's block . In the second stanza the poet writes:

So in the pen of the day the event became
a friendly parable in sweet words.

But after the first encounter with the maid it says:

But I don't know, the ink words did
not run into all the little things as usual,

Only at the end of the poem is the blockade overcome, and the author writes:

At the end you will find secret words:
The disease only preserves the healthy.
This little book should show you some good things, but in the end I have to withhold the best
.

Johannes Niejahr, one of the first Germanistic commentators on the poem, identified a source in Ovid (Amores, III, 7).

Finally, we should point out the speculation that the poem contains references to an intimate relationship between Goethe and Duchess Anna Amalia . This interpretation is mainly based on the spot

It was not like this years ago,
When your mistress first saw you
in the brightly lit hall.

There your heart welled, there your senses welled,
so that the whole person was excited.
For a quick dance you carried her from around, Which was
hardly cherished by the arm and already the bosom;

But was Anna Amalia to the creation time of the poem been three years dead. In other places, the ballad, the woman who stays true to the poet ultimately, as is Traute or dearest referred. It even says:

and when I finally led her to church

which can only refer to Goethe's wife Christiane .

Expenses (selection)

  • Salomon Hirzel (ed.): Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Das Tagebuch . Private printing. Leipzig, 1861
  • Max Mendheim (ed.): Goethe. The Diary (1810). Four suppressed Roman elegies. Nicolai on Werther's grave. Verbatim reprints. With a literary historical introduction using a previously unknown correspondence. Library of literary and cultural-historical rarities. Published by Adolf Weigel, Leipzig 1904. Edition 1050.
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: The diary . With color illustrations by Max Schwimmer . Nation's Publishing House, 1955.
  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: The diary. With 27 illustrations by Eva Schwimmer . Erich Vollmer Verlag, Wiesbaden, Berlin undated [1961]

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Das Tagebuch (poem by Goethe)  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Epigram Venice 1790
  2. ↑ a b Siegfried Unseld : “The Diary” of Goethe and Rilke's “Seven Poems” , 1978, p. Xxx
  3. ↑ Who is accepting something here?
  4. ↑ Details (who, when, where?) And evidence for the multiple confiscations are missing here.
    According to Mendheim, here quoted in Sachse, p. 293, the "Kurzsche Werkausgabe" (from 1869/70 ???) was confiscated in Koblenz , although it only contained the truncated text (Sachse).
  5. ↑ Hans Sachse: Critical text on the prints of Goethe's poem “Das Tagebuch” , 1979, p. Xxx
  6. ^ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: The diary. With color illustrations by Max Schwimmer . 12th edition 1997, Verlag der Nation. Preface. P. Xxx
  7. ↑ Hans Rudolf Vaget: The act of writing and the act of love. On the interpretation of Goethe's poem “Das Tagebuch” , in: Goethe Yearbook , Vol. 1, 1982, p. Xxx
  8. ↑ Johannes Niejahr: Goethe's poem “Das Tagebuch” , in: Euphorion , 1895, p. Xxx
  9. ↑ See also Goethe and Anna Amalia - A Forbidden Love