Idealism and Asexualism j 449449 449
Metamorphosis and Old Age
In his posthumously published collection of aphorisms, Maxims and Reflections, Goethe
laid out the four stages of a man’s life in philosophical terms:Every stage of life corresponds to a certain philosophy. A child appears as a realist; for
it is as certain of the existence of pears and apples as it is of its own being. A young
man, caught up in the storm of his inner passions, has to pay attention to himself, look
and feel ahead; he is transformed into an idealist. A grown man, on the other hand,
has every reason to be a skeptic; he is well advised to doubt whether the means he has
chosen to achieve his purpose can really be right. Before action and in the course of
action he has every reason to keep his mind flexible so that he will not have to grieve
later on about a wrong choice. An old man, however, will always avow mysticism.
He sees that so much seems to depend on chance: unreason succeeds, reason fails,
fortune and misfortune unexpectedly come to the same thing in the end; this is how
things are, how they were, and old age comes to rest in him who is, who was, and ever
will be.^59Goethe’s youthful phase lasted much longer than it did for most of his peers, but he
returned from his Italian adventures a changed man. He not only set up a household with
his devoted, twenty- three- year- old mistress, Christiane Vulpius, he also shed many of his
most burdensome official duties, giving him more time to pursue his artistic and scientific
interests. In the same year, he met Friedrich Schiller, and the two began a close friendship.
Disenchanted with the subjectivism of their fellow Romantics, they set about to educate the
German public on the superiority of classical culture. They co- founded the movement of
Weimar Classicism, with the goal of synthesizing classical, Enlightenment, and Romantic
aesthetic values.
Romanticism had grown out of the Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) movement that
flourished in Germany from the 1760s to the 1780s. Although Schiller always considered
Goethe one of the founders of Romanticism, Goethe resisted the label, preferring to iden-
tify with eighteenth- century rationalism. It was only after Schiller’s death, while writing
his own autobiography, Dichtung und Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth), that Goethe finally
accepted his friend’s assessment— that he had, indeed, been a Romantic and had played a
major role in defining the movement.
The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 both intrigued and disturbed Goethe.
Although he had little sympathy with the French aristocrats who escaped across Germany’s
border, he also took a dim view of the ability of ordinary citizens to rule themselves, a
view that was increasingly reinforced in 1793 with the beginning of the Reign of Terror.
Goethe believed in gradual rather than catastrophic change, whether it was the formation
of the earth, the metamorphosis of plants, or the evolution of human society. He welcomed
Napoleon’s rise to power at the end of the century, viewing him as a savior who had led
France out of anarchy.
During the decade between 1795 and 1805, he was involved with several major proj-
ects: promoting Weimar Classicism, writing Part I of Faust and other literary projects, and
developing his color theory. He was also plagued by chronic bouts of illness and depression.
Many of his closest friends died, including his mentor Herder in 1803, and, most traumatic