Language eruptions.

Where are you now? Select a historical residence for more information.

In the Carriage-room: Wandering Words

Weimar was the place, but the words were European. It was easier for words and literary works to cross borders than for people. English, French, Greek, Latin: the urban society that frequented the court, the theatre, and the salons read what Europe wrote, and the literature of Weimar was read everywhere in Europe – while many of the people who worked on the ground floor of this house were probably illiterate, and had never learned a foreign language.

As the world changed, new words came into being – as the elementary particles of philosophical, poetic, and sometimes political meaning. They wandered from one language to another, were argued about, continued to develop in form and meaning. The film in the carriage-room touches on all of these processes.

What Words Are Missing Today?

Not only poets invent words: new ones are being created everywhere, in every schoolyard, for example – and also in private spaces. Some neologisms are first written on the walls of public toilets. Whether that was a place for scribbling personal statements in Goethe’s day is not known – but we do know that Goethe occasionally wrote on walls. His second ‘Wanderer’s Night Song’, for example, was composed on the wall of a game warden’s refuge.

We invite you to write your own words on the walls we have set up in the only toilet that remains in the Goethe residence – the room that was called the Abtritt, a ‘step away’, or the Abort, a ‘separate place’. Terms for this room in Goethe’s works include the euphemistic heimliches Gemach – ‘secret chamber’ – and the vulgar Scheisshaus.

Unpublished Writings

Goethe did not publish everything he wrote. Among the texts he kept back were some that were too sexually explicit for the morality of his time – and he contrasted that morality with his image of a more liberal age of antiquity: ‘It does not befit us to say everything the ancient Greeks were permitted to say.’

In the editions of his complete works published after his death, texts that were thought to be too explicit were placed inconspicuously, or simply omitted. Some of Goethe’s erotic vocabulary and imagery is lost forever: it was rubbed out, scratched out and cut out of the original manuscripts.

The Venetian epigram shown in the corner storage room remained unharmed, however – perhaps because its outward sense was that of a linguistical commentary.

The correspondence between Goethe and his wife Christiane was never meant for other eyes than theirs. The excerpts heard here contain the couple’s intimate neologisms.

Speakers: Rolf Herman, Ulrike Hübschmann; narrator: Daniel Kuhn. © 2022 Linon Medien, Schonungen.

Literature to Take Away

Three of the quotations that continue the ‘Language Eruptions’ walk through the streets and squares of Weimar are available as posters for you to take home. Which one is the most interesting? Your choice is your vote: the poster stack that shrinks the most during the exhibition is the winner.

You can also take home a brochure with the poems displayed on the walls of the seminar room.

Here are English translations of a selection of the poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe displayed in the rool at the Goethe residence.

‘Poems are like stained-glass windows’ [Gedichte sind gemahlte Fensterscheiben], trans. Graham Good, in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethes Poems (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2015), 137. Used by permission

Poems are like stained-glass windows.                        
Seen from the marketplace outside,
The church appears quite dark and dismal;
That’s how it seems to the philistine,
And he might be put off by poetry,
And stay that way for the rest of his life.
However, once you come inside
And greet the holy chapel,
All becomes colourful and bright;
The story and its decoration shine,
And the noble image conveys its message.
Thus as God’s children you will be baptized:
This will uplift you and delight your eyes.

‘Rosebudin the Heather’ [Heidenröslein], trans. John Frederick Nims, in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Collected Works, i: Selected Poems (Boston: Suhrkamp/Insel, 1983), 17. Used by permission.

Urchin saw a rose – a dear
Rosebud in the heather.
Fresh as dawn and morning-clear;
Ran up quick and stooped to peer,
Took his fill of pleasure,
Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,
Rosebud in the heather.

Urchin blurts: “I’ll pick you, though,
Rosebud in the heather!”
Rosebud: “Then I’ll stick you so
That there’s no forgetting, no!
I’ll not stand it, ever!”
Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,
Rosebud in the heather.

But the wild young fellow’s torn
Rosebud from the heather.
Rose, she pricks him with her thorn;
Should she plead, or cry forlorn?
Makes no difference whether.
Rosebud, rosebud, rosebud red,
Rosebud in the heather.

‘We learn what rosebuds are at last’ [Nun weiß man erst was Rosenknospe sey], trans. Tony Crawford (2022). Used by permission.

We learn what rosebuds are at last
Now that the roses’ season’s past:
One late one on the bush still gleams
And by itself a world of flowers seems.

From J. W. Goethe, Faust: Parts 1 & 2, trans. Bayard Taylor (London: Sphere, 1969), 422.

For seeing intended,
Employed for my sight,
The tower’s my dwelling,
The world my delight.
I gaze on the Distant,
I look on the Near –
The moon and the planets,
The forest and deer.
So see I in all things
The grace without end,
And even as they please me,
Myself I commend.
Thou fortunate Vision,
Of all things aware,
Whatever it might be,
Yet still it was fair!

‘The Metamorphosis of Plants’ [Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen], trans. Michael Hamburger, in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Roman Elegies and other Poems (London: Anvil Press Poetry, 1996), 75–77. Used by permisssion.

The Metamorphosis of Plants

Overwhelming, belovèd, you find all this mixture of thousands,
Riot of flowers let loose over the garden’s expanse;
Many names you take in, and always the last to be spoken
Drives out the one heard before, barbarous both to your ear.
All the shapes are akin and none is quite like the other;
So to a secret law surely that chorus must point,
To a sacred enigma. Dear friend, how I wish I were able
All at once to pass on, happy, the word that unlocks!
Growing consider the plant and see how by gradual phases,
Slowly evolved, it forms, rises to blossom and fruit.
From the seed it develops as soon as the quietly fertile
Womb of earth sends it out, sweetly released into life,
And to the prompting of light, the holy, for ever in motion,
Like the burgeoning leaves’ tenderest build, hands it on.
Single, dormant the power in the seed was; the germ of an image,
Closed in itself, lay concealed, prototype curled in the husk,
Leaf and root and bud, although colourless yet, half-amorphous;
Drily the nucleus so safeguards incipient life,
Then, aspiring, springs up, entrusting itself to mild moisture,
Speedily raises itself out of encompassing night.
Single, simple, however, remains the first visible structure;
So that what first appears, even in plants, is the child.
Following, rising at once, with one nodule piled on another,
Always the second renews only the shape of the first.
Not the same, though, for ever; for manifold – you can observe it –
Mutably fashioned each leaf after the last one unfolds,
More extended, spikier, split into lances or segments
Which, intergrown before, lay in the organ below.
Only now it attains the complete intended perfection
Which, in many a kind, moves you to wonder, admire.
Many-jagged and ribbed, on a lusciously, fully fleshed surface,
Growth so lavishly fed seems without limit and free.
Forcefully here, however, will Nature step in to contain it,
Curbing rankness here, gently perfecting the shapes.
Now more slowly the sap she conducts, and constricts the vessels,
And at once the form yields, with diminished effects.
Calmly the outward thrust of the spreading leaf-rims recedes now,
While, more firmly defined, swells the thin rib of the stalks.
Leafless, though, and swift the more delicate stem rises up now,
And, a miracle wrought, catches the onlooker’s eye.
In a circular cluster, all counted and yet without number
Smaller leaves take their place, next to a similar leaf.
Pushed close up to the hub now, the harbouring calyx develops
Which to the highest of forms rises in colourful crowns.
Thus in fulness of being does Nature now glory, resplendent,
Limb to limb having joined, all her gradations displayed.
Time after time you wonder as soon as the stalk-crowning blossom
Sways on its slender support, gamut of mutable leaves.
Yet the splendour becomes an announcement of further creation.
Yes, to the hand that’s divine colourful leaves will respond.
And it quickly furls, contracts; the most delicate structures
Twofold venture forth, destined to meet and unite.
Wedded now they stand, those delighted couples, together.
Round the high altar they form multiple, ordered arrays.
Hymen, hovering, nears, and pungent perfumes, exquisite,
Fill with fragrance and life all the environing air.
One by one now, though numberless, germs are impelled into swelling
Sweetly wrapped in the womb, likewise swelling, of fruit.
Nature here closes her ring of the energies never-exhausted
Yet a new one at once links to the circle that’s closed,
That the chain may extend into the ages for ever,
And the whole be infused amply with life, like the part.
Look, belovèd, once more on the teeming of so many colours,
Which no longer may now fill with confusion your mind.
Every plant now declares those eternal designs that have shaped it,
Ever more clearly to you every flower-head can speak.
Yet if here you decipher the holy runes of the goddess,
Everywhere you can read, even though scripts are diverse:
Let the grub drag along, the butterfly busily scurry,
Imaging man by himself alter the pre-imposed shape.
Oh, and consider then how in us from the germ of acquaintance
Stage by stage there grew, dear to us, habit’s long grace,
Friendship from deep within us burst out of its wrapping,
And how Amor at last blessed it with blossom and fruit.
Think how variously Nature, the quietly forming, unfolding,
Lent to our feelings now this, now that so different mode!
Also rejoice in this day. Because love, our holiest blessing
Looks for the consummate fruit, marriage of minds, in the end,
One perception of things, that together, concerted in seeing,
Both to the higher world, truly conjoined, find their way.

‘Prometheus’, trans. Michael Hamburger, in Goethe, Roman Elegies and other Poems, 23–24. Used by permission.

Like the burgeoning leaves’ tenderest build, hands it on.
Cover your heaven, Zeus,
With cloudy vapours
And like a boy
Beheading thistles
Practice on oaks and mountain peaks –
Still you must leave
My earth intact
And my small hovel, which you did not build,
And this my hearth
Whose glowing heat
You envy me.

I know of nothing more wretched
Under the sun than you gods!
Meagrely you nourish
Your majesty
On dues of sacrifice
And breath of prayer
And would suffer want
But for children and beggars,
Poor hopeful fools.

Once too, a child,
Not knowing where to turn,
I raised bewildered eyes
Up to the sun, as if above there were
An ear to hear my complaint,
A heart like mine
To take pity on the oppressed.

*

Who helped me
Against the Titans’ arrogance?
Who rescued me from death,
From slavery?
Did not my holy and glowing heart,
Unaided, accomplish all?
And did it not, young and good,
Cheated, glow thankfulness
For its safety to him, to the sleeper above?

I pay homage to you? For what?
Have you ever relieved
The burdened man’s anguish!
Have you ever assuaged
The frightened man’s tears?
Was it not omnipotent Time
That forged me into manhood,
And eternal Fate,
My masters and yours?

Or did you think perhaps
That I should hate this life,
Flee into deserts
Because not all
The blossoms of dream grew ripe?

Here I sit, forming men
In my image,
A race to resemble me:
To suffer, to weep,
To enjoy, to be glad –
And never to heed you,
Like me!

‘Ganymede’ [Ganymed], trans. Graham Good, in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethes Poems (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2015), 76. Used by permission.

Ganymede                                    
My beloved Spring,
How you shine all around me
In morning’s brilliance.
Touching my heart
With rapturous love
Is the sacred feeling
Of you eternal warmth,
O infinite beauty!
I long to hold you
In these arms of mine!
Yearning, I lie at your breast,
And your flowers and grass
Brush against my heart.
Beloved morning breeze,
You cool the burning
Thirst of my breast!
The nightingale calls to me
Lovingly out of the misty valley.
I’m coming, I’m coming!
But to where?
Upwards! Moving upwards!
The clouds float down
To meet my ardent love.
To me, to me!
Upwards,
To your bosom.
Embracing and embraced!
Upwards to your bosom,
All-loving father!

‘Wandrer’s Night Song’ [Wandrers Nachtlied II], trans. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1893).

Wandrer’s Night Song

O’er all the hill-tops
Is quiet now,
In all the tree-tops
Hearest thou
Hardly a breath;
The birds are asleep in the trees:
Wait; soon like these
Thou too shalt rest.

‘Fifth Roman Elegy’, trans. Michael Hamburger, in Goethe, Roman Elegies and other Poems, 50. Used by permission.

Fifth Roman Elegy

Happy now I can feel the classical climate inspire me,
Past and present at last clearly, more vividly speak –
Here I take their advice, perusing the works of the ancients
With industrious care, pleasure that grows every day –
But throughout the nights by Amor I’m differently busied,
If only half improved, doubly delighted instead –
Also, am I not learning when at the shape of her bosom,
Graceful lines, I can glance, guide a light hand down her hips?
Only thus I appreciate marble; reflecting, comparing,
See with an eye that can feel, feel with a hand that can see.
True, the loved one besides may claim a few hours of the daytime,
But in night hours as well makes full amends for the loss.
For not always we’re kissing; often hold sensible converse.
When she succumbs to sleep, pondering, long I lie still.
Often too in her arms I’ve lain composing a poem,
Gently with fingering hand count the hexameter’s beat
Out on her back; she breathes, so lovely and calm in her sleeping
That the glow from her lips deeply transfuses my heart.
Amor meanwhile refuels the lamp and remembers the times when
Likewise he’d served and obliged them, his triumvirs of verse.

‘Submerged’ [Versunken], trans. Michael Hamburger, in Goethe, Roman Elegies and other Poems, 93. Used by permission.

Submerged

Full of crisp curls, a head so round! –
And if in such abundant hair I may
With full hands travel, or return to stay,
Down to my inmost being I feel sound.
If forehead, eyebrow, eye and lips I kiss,
Ever again renewed, I’m sore with bliss.
The five comb-fingers, where should their roaming end?
Already to those curls again they bend.
Nor do the ears refuse their part.
They are not flesh, they are not skin,
Such a love-gamut for tenderly bantering art!
No matter how fondled, here, within
One little head’s abundant hair,
For ever forth and back you’ll fare.
So, Hafiz, once you used to do,
And we embark on it anew.

Who Writes? Whose Writing Do We Read?

Charlotte von Stein, a very important woman in Goethe’s life, writes to Charlotte Schiller, the most important woman in Schiller’s life – and expresses the opinion that, under equal conditions, it might be possible for women to become great poets too.

Goethe’s daughter-in-law Ottilie von Goethe, who lived in this house for many years, wrote poems and translations, and edited the magazine ‘Chaos’. Her papers have not yet been exhaustively studied. From 26 August to 18 December 2022, the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv will present Weimar’s first literary exhibition on Ottilie von Goethe.

Ode an die Freude // Ode to Joy