113
See also: Doctor Faustus 75 ■ The Robbers 98–99 ■ Les Liaisons dangereuses 100 – 01 ■ The Sorrows of Young Werther 105 ■
The Magic Mountain 224–27 ■ The Catcher in the Rye 256–57As young men, both had been
involved with the late 18th-century
movement known as Sturm und
Drang (“storm and urge”), which
featured novels and plays that
broke with the literary traditions
of the Enlightenment and promoted
passionate emotional expression.
However, in the 1780s, as the fire
of their youth subsided, Goethe
and Schiller began to look back at
the Enlightenment values that they
had previously rejected, reconciling
them with the energy of Sturm und
Drang, and revisiting the Greek
classics with a view to creating
new and finer aesthetic standards.Collaborative classicism
Weimar Classicism is often
regarded as Goethe and Schiller’s
joint achievement, although it
included other writers—notably
the philosopher Johann Gottfried
Herder (1744–1803) and Christoph
Martin Wieland (1733–1813), a poet
and novelist.
In formulating their ideas about
good literature, Goethe and Schiller
agreed that aesthetic perfection
was an impossible goal. Instead,
they emphasized the importanceof balance and harmony, arguing
that a literary work could be
considered great if it existed
in perfect balance with its own
imperfect elements. In this way,
a work could achieve the unity
and wholeness that the authors
of the Greek classics had sought.
This balance, according to
Goethe and Schiller, was achieved
by a combination of the three
elements essential to a work of
art. The first, gehalt, the author’s
primary inspiration or vision,
combined with the second, gestalt,
the aesthetic form of the work,
which might be based on close
study of classical models. The
third element, the inhalt, is the
bulk of the author’s invention—
the “content” or, in effect, the words
in a work of literature. The inhalt
is therefore the element that mustbe managed carefully because
it can create an imbalance that
could distract from the gehalt
and the gestalt.
Goethe and Schiller collaborated
on each other’s productions and
encouraged one another—it was ❯❯ROMANTICISM AND THE RISE OF THE NOVEL
Weimar Classicism
argued that works of
aesthetic harmony
could be created if an
author had the skill to
keep three key elements
in balance.Gehalt
The living inspirational
force within the mind
of the artist or writer.For any great work, inhalt
and gestalt should
Inhalt merge seamlesly.
The main content, or
substance, of the work.Gestalt
The structure and
shape of the work,
through which its
principal ideas
are expressed.Age is no second childhood—
age makes plain,
Children we were, true
children we remain.
FaustHere deeds have understood
Words they were darkened by;
The Eternal Feminine,
Draws us on high.
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