Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-x5cpj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-29T16:49:27.264Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“Selige Sehnsucht” and Goethean Enlightenment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Robert Ellis Dye
Robert Ellis Dye*
Affiliation:
Macalester College, Saint Paul, Minnesota
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Goethe's poem “Selige Sehnsucht” has been variously interpreted in the light of different readers' notions of what is characteristically “Goethean.” This essay examines syntactic, semantic, and rhetorical ambiguities in the poem and adds to the variety of interpretations by suggesting that the opening lines' elitist restriction of the message to “none but the wise” is, ironically, democratic and that the familiar closing maxim discriminates not between “us” and “them” but between “before” and “after”—between blessed, half-blind (“trübe”) desire and a brilliant fulfillment potentially in store for everyone. Goethean enlightenment, like irony, is indirect. Temporarily obfuscating, it promises—beyond time and selfhood—a consummate unitary illumination.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 104 , Issue 2 , March 1989 , pp. 190 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Abrams, Meyer H. “Rationality and Imagination in Cultural History: A Reply to Wayne Booth.” Critical Inquiry 2 (1976): 447–64.10.1086/447851CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, Benjamin. Goethe's Theory of Poetry: “Faust” and the Regeneration of Language. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Burdach, Konrad. “Anmerkungen.” Goethes Sämtliche Werke. Jubiläumsausgabe. Vol. 5. Stuttgart: Cotta, c. 1904. 319–432. 40 vols. 1902–12.Google Scholar
de Man, Paul. “Intentional Structure of the Romantic Image.” Romanticism and Consciousness. Ed. Bloom, Harold. New York: Norton, 1970. 65–77. Rpt. in The Rhetoric of Romanticism. New York: Columbia UP, 1984. 1–17.Google Scholar
de Man, Paul. “The Rhetoric of Temporality.” Interpretation. Ed. Singleton, Charles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1969. 173–209. Rpt. in Blindness and Insight. 2nd rev. ed. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983. 187–228.Google Scholar
Dowden, Edward, trans. West-Eastern Divan. By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. London: Dent, 1914.Google Scholar
Dülmen, Richard van. Der Geheimbund der Illuminaten: Darstellung, Analyse, Dokumentation. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1975.Google Scholar
Dye, Robert Ellis. “The Easter Cantata and the Idea of Mediation in Goethe's Faust.” PMLA 92 (1977): 963–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dye, Robert Ellis. “Goethe's Line ‘In der Finsternis Beschattung.‘” Germanic Notes 18 (1987): 20–21.Google Scholar
Emrich, Wilhelm. “Symbolinterpretation und Mythenforschung.” 1953. Protest und Verheißung. Frankfurt a. M.: Athenäum, 1963. 67–94.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 16. London: Imago, 1950. 18 vols. 1940–68.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Ed. Strachey, James. Vol. 23. London: Hogarth, 1964. 24 vols. 1953–74.Google Scholar
Goethe, Goethe Johann Wolfgang. Gedenkausgabe der Werke, Briefe und Gespräche. Ed. Beutler, Ernst. 24 vols. Zürich: Artemis, 1948–60.Google Scholar
Goethe, Goethe Johann Wolfgang. Werke. Ed. Trunz, Erich. Hamburger Ausgabe. 14 vols. 1948–64. München: Beck, 1981.Google Scholar
Gray, Ronald. Goethe the Alchemist. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1952.Google Scholar
Gray, Ronald. Goethe: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1967.Google Scholar
Hölscher-Lohmeyer, Dorothea. “Die Entwicklung des Goetheschen Naturdenkens im Spiegel seiner Lyrik—am Beispiel der Gedichte ‘Mailied’—‘Selige Sehnsucht’—‘Eins und Alles.’” Goethe Jahrbuch 99 (1982): 11–31.Google Scholar
Klein, Johannes. Geschichte der deutschen Lyrik von Luther bis zum Ausgang des zweiten Weltkrieges. 2nd ed. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1960.Google Scholar
Kommereil, Max. Gedanken über Gedichte. Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann, 1943.Google Scholar
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim. “Eine Duplik.” Gesammelte Werke. Vol. 8. Berlin: Aufbau, 1968. 24–107. 10 vols.Google Scholar
Lohner, Edgar, ed. Interpretationen zum West-östlicher Divan Goethes. Darmstatt: Wissenschaftliche, 1973.Google Scholar
Miller, J. Hillis. “Tradition and Difference.” Diacritics 2 (1972): 6–13.Google Scholar
Molnar, Geza von. “Confinement or Containment: Goethe's Werther and the Concept of Limitation.” German Life and Letters 23 (1970): 226–34.Google Scholar
Pyritz, Hans. Goethe-Studien. Köln: Böhlau, 1962.Google Scholar
Rang, Florens Christian. “Goethes ‘Selige Sehnsucht.‘” Neue deutsche Beiträge 1 (1922–23): 83–125. Rpt. in Lohner 1–38.Google Scholar
Rösch, Ewald. “Goethes ‘Selige Sehnsucht‘—eine tragische Bewegung.” Germanisch-romanische Monatsschrift ns 20 (1970): 241–56. Rpt. in Lohner 228–49.Google Scholar
Schneider, Wilhelm. “Goethe: ‘Selige Sehnsucht.‘” Liebe zum deutschen Gedicht. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1954. 298–309. Rpt. in Lohner 72–83.Google Scholar
Staiger, Emil. Goethe. Vol. 3. Zürich: Atlantis, 1959. 3 vols. 1952–59.Google Scholar
Stamm, Israel. “Herder and the Aufklärung: A Leibnizian Context.” Germanic Review 38 (1963): 197–208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tanner, Tony. Adultery in the Novel. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1979.Google Scholar
Vietor, Karl. Goethe: The Poet. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1949.Google Scholar
Wasserman, Earl. “The English Romantics: The Grounds of Knowledge.” Studies in Romanticism 4 (1964): 17–34.10.2307/25599631CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wellek, René. A History of Modern Criticism: 1750–1950. Vol. 1. New Haven: Yale UP, 1955. 6 vols. 1955–86.Google Scholar
Zimmermann, Rolf Christian. Das Weltbild des jungen Goethe. 2 vols. München: Fink, 1969–79.Google Scholar