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The Principle of the Dominant Metaphor in Goethe's Werther

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Max Diez
Max Diez*
Affiliation:
Bryn Mawr College
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Extract

Having thus completed the death cycle, we turn now to the metaphors of sickness, and again we must start with Werther's application to himself of what he had said of the unhappy suicide girl. He sees himself as “der Unglückliche, dessen Leben unter einer schleichenden Krankheit unaufhaltsam abstirbt. … Und das Übel, das ihm die Kräfte verzehrt, raubt ihm zugleich den Mut, sich davon zu befreien” (61.22). In Werther's case it is not just a sickness of love as with Rousseau's St. Preux. From the very outset, Werther sees himself as a sick man, his own emotionalism as a “verderbliche Leidenschaft … Auch halte ich mein Herzchen wie ein krankes Kind” (10.12–14). And so it continues after he has met Lotte: “Was Lotte einem Kranken sein muss, fühl' ich an meinem eignen Herzen, das übler dran ist als manches, das auf dem Siechbette verschmachtet” (42.4); “wenn meine Krankheit zu heilen wäre” (78.2). Hence his sympathy for the invalid in whom he sees his own case: “Müsse der trostlos umkommen, der eines Kranken spottet, der nach der entferntesten Quelle reist, die seine Krankheit vermehren, sein Ausleben schmerzhafter machen wird” (137.4–). This invalid serves as a double simile; he is like Werther himself on the one hand, he is like a religious pilgrim on the other: “das bedrängte Herz, das, um seine Gewissensbisse los zu werden und die Leiden seiner Seele abzutun, eine Pilgrimschaft nach dem heiligen Grabe tut” (137.9). Ill humor, the peevishness and jealousy of the lover, becomes the subject of discussion at the home of the vicar and is treated als eine Art Krankheit, and the question is, “ob dafür kein Mittel ist” (45.8). The moral is found by developing the simile—seek the remedy and take it: “Gewiss, wer krank ist, wird bei allen Ärzten herumfragen, und die grössten Resignationen, die bittersten Arzneien wird er nicht abweisen, um seine Gesundheit zu erhalten” (45.28). This Art Krankheit is “eine Art Trägheit” and so indolence and inertia also becomes a disease (45.16).

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 51 , Issue 4 , December 1936 , pp. 985 - 1006
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1936

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References

29 Rousseau's St. Preux uses the amputation as an analogue to, and argument for, suicide: “mais c'est précisément parcequ'elle [la vie] nous a été donnée qu'elle est à nous. Dieu ne leur a-t-il pas donné deux bras? cependant, quand ils craignent la gangrène, ils s'en font couper un, et tous les deux, s'il se faut. La parité est exacte pour qui croit l'immortalité de l'âme; car si je sacrifie mon bras à la conservation d'une chose plus précieuse, qui est mon corps, je sacrifie mon corps à la conservation d'une chose plus précieuse qui est mon bienêtre.”

30 Used once in the sense of “permit,” 65.7, once in the discarded preface, 310.2, and once in the passage quoted above, where the distinction is made between moral and physical suffering.

31 They are very elusive and one never finds them all. They have not been included in the statistical count given above, as they should not really be considered as metaphor unless their metaphoric life is restored.

32 The importance of the physiological metaphor for Goethe's Storm and Stress style was pointed to by Max Morris in 1905, “Körperbewegung als Lebenssymbol von Goethes Jugendlyrik,” GJb., xxvi, 159–164. This article is merely a hint at its real significance; the Körperbewegungen which he cites (gehen and wandern, Wasserfahrt, Schlittschuhlaufen, etc.) form, as we have seen, only a small portion of this widespread phenomenon.—The significance of the psycho-physiological metonymy, of the “Bilder des Körpergefühls” is set forth by Helene Herrmann (“das atmende Drängen, das die Brust schwellt, das Kraftgefühl bei korperlichen Bewegungen,” Bilder des Tastsinns), as quoted by Max Hermann in his introduction to Vol. xvi of the Jubiläumsausgabe, p. xx.

33 Cited by Burdach, Vorspiel, ii, 45.

34 But still outdone by Rousseau, who uses cæur over 150 times on an equal number of pages in the Nouvelle Héloïse.

35 Quoted by Burdach, Vorspiel, ii, 45 (cf. Grimms Wb. s.v. “Geschmack”).

36 Pauls Wörterbuch and Wilhelm Feldmann, “Modewörter des 18. Jahrhunderts,” Z.f.d.W., vi, 318–325; Schönaich ridicules the excessive use of the word in his Neologisches Wörterbuch (Sauers Dte. Litdenkm., Vol. lxx), p. 104.

37 Gose, Goethes “Werther,” p. 91, quoting a dissertation by Spickernagel, Die Geschichte des Fräulein von Sternheim und Goethes Werther, 1911, which I have not been able to consult.

38 Weimar ed., iv, ii, 15.20–.