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VII - The Märchen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2010

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Summary

In the year 1795, a few years after his first contributions to botany and optics, Goethe composed a number of short stories and anecdotes, published under the title of Conversations of German Emigrants. The name was given in allusion to the inhabitants of Western Germany who were driven out of their homes by the armies of the French Revolution, and the stories were supposed to represent the tales with which the emigrants amused themselves during the pauses of their flight. There is, however, very little political matter in them. For the most part they are concerned with the supernatural: haunting footsteps, ghosts, premonitions of death, sympathetic reactions between non-living objects, and the like, all treated in a matter-of-fact and circumstantial manner. The last of these narratives is the Märchen, a fairy-tale crammed with mysterious prophecies and allegorical or symbolical fancies. In view of its position at the end of this series, it is difficult to see why the Märchen should have been interpreted, by some commentators, as an allegory of the French Revolution, or of the internal conditions of the Duchy of Wiemar. The atmosphere of the story suggests the supernatural, or at least the occult and the mysterious, as much as those which precede it.

But any interpretation of the tale which pins it down to a particular meaning is bound to destroy rather than illuminate its purpose.

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Goethe the Alchemist
A Study of Alchemical Symbolism in Goethe’s Literary and Scientific Works
, pp. 163 - 181
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010
First published in: 1952

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  • The Märchen
  • Ronald Douglas Gray
  • Book: Goethe the Alchemist
  • Online publication: 10 November 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511710285.008
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  • The Märchen
  • Ronald Douglas Gray
  • Book: Goethe the Alchemist
  • Online publication: 10 November 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511710285.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Märchen
  • Ronald Douglas Gray
  • Book: Goethe the Alchemist
  • Online publication: 10 November 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511710285.008
Available formats
×