Elective Affinities by Stuart Atkins

8/2/2019 Elective Affinities by Stuart Atkins

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Die Wahlverwandtschaften: Novel of German Classicism

Author(s): Stuart AtkinsSource: The German Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 1 (Jan., 1980), pp. 1-45Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Association of Teachers of GermanStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/405243 .

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DIE WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN:NOVEL OF GERMANCLASSICISMSTUARTATKINS

"Sich mitzuteilen st Natur;Mitgeteiltes ufzunehmen,wie es gegebenwird, st Bildung" II4/384).

Goethe first formulated his classical concept of style in 1788,shortlyafter his sojournin Italy. Reflectinghis enduringadmirationofthe idealized naturalism of Renaissance art and its Graeco-Romanmodels, it expresseda convictionthat the highest concern of the seriousartist is imitationof nature's "charakteristischeFormen" in such a waythat the essence of things-"die Eigenschaftender Dinge und die Art,wie sie bestehen"-will be faithfully revealed.' From this time on allGoethe's literarywork reflects a conscious desire to convey the broad,even universalsignificanceof themes treated with scrupulousattentionto truth of detail, yet only in Die Wahlverwandtschaftenid he sustainatsuch length and with such rigor the principleof depicting significantdetail only. The consequence is a novel so tightly knit and dense intexture-Goethe himself said that to be understood it must be readthree times (p. 645)-that it remains his one major work still eludingsome approximationof a criticalconsensus. The followingobservationsseek to clarifythe function of verisimilitudein this text by identifyingelements that by virtue of their verifiability must be regarded asembodying significanttruth, be this fact or what Goethe is known tohave believed fact. Such clarificationwill obviate many misapprehen-sions about the novel and, I hope, make possibleadequate nterpretationof it as an expressionof Goethe's classicism.

That verisimilar detail may be fraught with meaning is soonnoticed. Even on a first readingit is possible to be impressed, as wasWieland (p. 652), by the brief but revealingexchange between Eduardand Charlotte on the morning after Ottilie's arrival: "'Es ist einangenehmes, unterhaltendes Midchen.' 'Unterhaltend?' versetzteCharlottemit Licheln; 'sie hat den Mund noch nicht aufgetan.' 'So'?erwiderte Eduard, indem er sich zu besinnen schien, 'das ware doch

1


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2 STUARTATKINSwunderbar!'" (I 6/281). Descriptive details that in a less "classical"work might be merely incidentalto the creationof atmosphereor localcolor are soon recognized as having plot-relatedand other functions.Only on a second reading, however, can the reader verify, as WaltherKilly has done through close analysis of fifteen lines of landscapedescription,2the graduallyestablished impression that no such detailsare ever superfluousand that many are multiplyfunctional. But eventhen, becauseanalysisof characterand motivationis usuallydirect-it isas often accompaniedby authorialgeneralizationas it is complementedby information conveyed through such means as revealing turn ofphraseor telling gesture-he may not notice that non-descriptivedetailsare also multiply significant.Recognition of the multiple significanceof non-descriptivedetailfrequently depends on information extrinsic to the text (on factualknowledge today's readermay no longerpossess), but that it need not isnicely illustratedby an unobtrusivephrasein the action-packedaccountof the festivities (Richtfest)on Ottilie's birthday (1 15). When theSurgeon-a paramedic,not a fully trainedphysician-takes chargeof theboy rescued by the Captainafter the partial collapse of the new damunder the press of people awaitingEduard'sfireworkdisplay, Charlotteurges the Captain,whom she alreadyrespectsand loves more than herhusband, to return to the manor house for dry clothing.As he does soon being assured that everyone who fell into the lake is saved, sheremembers"dass Wein und Tee und was sonst n6tig wire, verschlossenist, . . . " (p. 337). The "other necessaries" are medicaments in theHausapothekewhich had been augmented with the Captain's adviceshortlyafter his, but before Ottilie's arrival-this was when his sugges-tion that the manor have a resident surgeon was adopted and whenCharlotte'sconcern about dangeroussubstancesled to the discussion ofelective affinitiesin which Ottilie seemed destinedto become his partner(I 4/267-76). The detail that evokes all these associationsalso demon-strates the presence of mind and sense of responsibilityeven understress and despite emotional involvement of the careful mistress whokeeps all stimulantsunder lock and key; in addition, it providesa com-pelling reason for her to follow the Captain and by her examplemotivate a general departurethat Eduard keeps Ottilie from joining,thereby gratifying his now inappropriatewish to entertain her withfireworks(I 15/338 f.).

The contemporaryreader of Die Wahlverwandtschaften,owever,not only noticed the meticulous accuracywith which the immediateenvironment and the thoughts, feelings, motives, and actions of itshuman figuresare recorded;he also recognizedhow faithfullythe largerworlds to which these relate are depicted. Singlingout for mention thefashionablenessof landscaping n the English manner, of medieval art,and of tableauxvivants,K. W. F. Solger could accordinglydeclarethatthe novel affordeda complete picture of its age: "In diesem Roman


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DIE WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN 3ist. . . alles, was die Zeit Bedeutendes und Besonderes hat, enthalten,und nach einigen Jahrhundertenwuirdeman sich hieraus ein vollkom-menes Bild von unserem jetzigen tiglichen Leben entwerfen k6nnen"(p. 637). Solgerhad no need to mention that the novel's milieu is Ger-many in the Napoleonicperiod,3or that the particularpartof Germanyis a Protestantregion underPrussiansuzerainty,4althoughboth politicalfacts are far more important than any geographicallocating of thenovel's manor at Wilhelmsthal in Saxe-Weimarbecause they permitEduard'smilitaryserviceand the illuminationof his charactern connec-tion with that service. The second fact was so stronglysensed by Tho-mas Mann that as a North GermanProtestanthe chargedGoethe with alack of "protestantischeCharakterstarke"because he "die Nachgiebig-keit gegen das Katholische so weit treibt, mitten in protestantischerSphare eine Heilige zu kreieren, zu deren Leichnam das lutherischeLandvolk sich wundergliubigin die Kirchedrangt!"5The novel's Pro-testant locale is essential, however, for establishinga milieu in which artwill be dissonant (II 2/368) and monastic withdrawal-by Ottilie-anomalousor idiosyncratic II 15/466).

Although time is treated in Die Wahiverwandtschaftenith thesame verisimilarexactitudeas all other elements, even criticsawareofhow its carefullymeasuredpassageunderscores he symbolic significanceof seasonal changes fail to remarkthat the novel's action largelycoin-cides with the latterpartof the War of the ThirdCoalition,viz., the Warof Prussiaand Russia against France in 1806-07. For this war Prussia,supportedby ElectoralSaxony and Saxe-Weimar,mobilizedits forces asof 9 August 1806, which explainsEduard'srejoiningthe Prussianarmyin late summer of the novel's first year (I 18/359). Before his birthdayin mid- or late autumn (II 3/374) he has distinguishedhimself in a"bedeutendeKriegsangelegenheit" p. 371), which is identifiableas thefirst importantmilitaryaction of the war, the Franco-Prussian ngage-ment at Saalfeld (10 October1806). (Four days later came Napoleon'svictory at Jena and Auerstidt; Napoleon occupiedBerlin after 13 moredays and on 21 November issued the BerlinDecree.) Prussiafought onuntil the Russian defeat at Friedland, 14 June 1807, but within threeweeks had signed the Treaty of Tilsit (supplemented 12 July by theTreaty of K6nigsberg). Only the events of the novel's last sevenchapters (its final half year) can therefore be said to take place in timeof peace, establishedcoincidentallywith Eduard'sreturnfrom the armyin late springafterjust undera yearof service (II 12/446).6

Failureto recognizethe significanceof these and related historicalfacts has resulted in serious misinterpretationof two of the novel'smajor characters,Eduard and the Captain. The inference that at theopeningof the novel the latteris unemployed"becausethere is no needfor soldiers in a time of peace"7--dubiousif only because he seems tobe a civil engineer in governmentservice (hence his rank and continu-ing civilian status after Prussia's mobilization)attaches misleading


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4 STUART ATKINSimportanceto the brief cessation of hostilities between the first andsecond partsof the War of the Third Coalition. To say that the noveloffers no explanation"why so able a man should be left without satis-factoryemploymentin civil life,"8 is to disregardnot only the fact that itnowhere states he is a militaryofficer, but also Eduard'smention of"die traurigeLage, in die er, wie so mancherandere, ohne sein Ver-schulden gesetzt ist" (I 1/243) -an unambiguousreference to the lay-off of public servants in every part of Germany consequent to theReichsdeputationshauptschlussf 25 February1803, which executed theTreatyof Lun6villeby radically educingthe number of Germanpoliticalentities and so made state employmentdifficult o obtainfor many years.

To speak of "a time of peace" is also to minimize grim realities9that permitan otherwise often feckless-seeming Eduardto demonstratepositive qualities of character;its corollary can be the assumption,incongruouswith a principleof stylized realism otherwise meticulouslysustained, that the novel's waris merelyconvenient literary nvention.10In war, through self-imposed ordeals and courageousrisks on behalf ofothers, Eduard overcomes what was originally a Wertherian death-wish-"Er sehnte sich nach dem Untergang, weil ihm das Daseinunertriglichzu werdendrohte;ja es war ihm ein Trost zu denken, dasser nicht mehr sein werde und eben dadurch seine Geliebten, seineFreundegliicklichmachen kinne" (I 18/359) -and achieves a sense ofworth that allows him to feel justified in seeking happinesseven if itsprice must be divorce (II 12/449). In war, moreover, he demonstratesgenuine selflessness off the battlefieldas well as on it," and so is espe-cially welcome at the inn, where he hopes to dissuade Ottilie fromreturningto her school, because he has obtained for the Hostess' son,"der als Soldatsich sehr bravgehalten, ein Ehrenzeichen... , indem erdessen Tat, wobei er allein gegenwartiggewesen, heraushob, mit Eiferbis vor den Feldherrnbrachte und die Hindernisseeiniger Misswollen-den Oberwand"II 16/471).

The demonstrableimportanceof realistichistoricaldetail vitiatesthe now popularthesis that the novel cannot be adequately nterpretedas an expression of Goethe's classicalconcept of style, that it must beread as exemplifying a hypotheticallater manner which is ironic andsymbolic to a degree excluding consistent verisimilitude,be it that ofwhat von Wiese terms "psychologischerPerspektivismus"(p. 655), orthat of a fully informed narrator.12A discreet avoidance of journalisticexplicitness cannot be intended to prevent the reader who may beassumed to share the narrator'sknowledgefrom recognizingthe factual-ity of easily identifiablerecent events, yet it is to such knowledge-andto sharedmoraland aestheticviews, not privatematters or Weimarper-sonalia about which his Berlin correspondentZelter had never beeninformed by himself or others-that Goethe alluded when he declaredof his novel during its writing: "Ich habe viel hinein gelegt, mancheshinein versteckt. M6ge auch Ihnen dies offenbare Geheimnis zur


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DIE WAHLVERWANDTSCHATEN 5Freude gereichen" (p. 621). Deprived of their historicalcontext, how-ever, elements in the novel that should be self-explanatory onstrainthereader to discern in them non-existent inconsistenciesand ambiguitieswhichhe will be temptedto interpretas ironicand symbolicor may seekto resolve by attachingto them values they could not have for Goetheor the audienceaddressedby the narrator.

No longer self-explanatory,for example, is the patriarchal ocialorderof Germanyin the Napoleonicera. From a late twentieth-centuryperspectiveit may seem archaic,but it enjoyedwhat was tantamounttounquestionedacceptanceat a time when, in good partbecausea respon-sible land-owningclass had correctedmany of the social and economicinequities that prevailedin France, changes reflectingthe spirit of theFrench Revolution were not yet widelydemanded. Exceptas barriers omarriage,13 class differences were as much taken for grantedas whenWerther, having condemned those who treat the common people withexaggeratedaloofness or arrogantcondescension,declared on the eve ofthe American Revolution: "Ich weiss wohl, dass wir nicht gleich sind,noch sein k6nnen" (p. 11). Nevertheless, Eduard-at least afterhis warexperiences-is not so hostile to liberal ideas as to assume that inheritedwealth is per se good, declaringto the Captain: "Wenn der Sohn nachdem friihen Tode des Vaters keine so bequeme, so beguinstigte ugendhat, so gewinnt er vielleicht eben deswegen an schnellererBildungftirdie Welt, durch zeitiges Anerkennen, dass er sich in andere schickenmuss, was wir denn doch friiher oder spiter alle lernen miissen. Undhievon ist ja die Rede gar nicht: wir sind reich genug, um mehrereKinder zu versorgen, und es ist keineswegs Pflicht noch Wohltat, aufEin Hauptso viele Guiter u haufen" (II 12/448).

There is thus little plausibility n the claim--contradictedby thesimultaneous observation that "Charlotte, who belongs to the sameclass [sc. as Eduard],exhibits exemplarydevotion to duty"-that in DieWahlverwandtschaftenthe social life of a rich landednobleman,his lackof responsibility..,. are implicitlycriticized."14 Eduard'smilitaryrecordalso makes dubious the assertionthat he "appearsas a dilettanteunwil-ling or unable to pursue any task seriously and consistently, the proto-type of the self-seeking aristocrat.""15As a musician Eduard s certainlythe incompetent amateur,and as landscapearchitectsboth he and Char-lotte are more or less inadequate, but dilettantism is not necessarilyirresponsibility,et alone a serious flawof character. As Goethe's narra-tor carefully insists in "billigen Gesinnungen" apropos of the chapeldecorationsof the highly qualifiedArchitect who has replacedthe Cap-tain at the manor: "Es ist eine so angenehme Empfindung,sich mitetwaszu beschiftigen, was man nur halb kann, dass niemand den Dilet-tanten schelten sollte, wenn er sich mit einer Kunst abgibt, die er nielernen wird, noch den KUinstleradeln diirfte, wenn er Oiber ie Grenzeseiner Kunst hinaus in einem benachbartenFelde sich zu ergehen Lusthat" (II 3/370).


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6 STUARTATKINSTo say that Eduard's"only interest is amateurgardening"'6notmerely exaggerateshis dilettantism; t also depreciates he very activities

that demonstrate his sense of social responsibility. Significantly,thenovel begins as his participationn early spring implantingof new graftsis favorablynoted by the manor's Gardener,who also expresses appro-val of Charlotte'smodest landscaping fforts (I 1/242). As these effortsbecome more ambitiousand Eduardmore involved in them, they affordhim a welcome opportunity o providethe estate's villagewith improvedhygiene and flood protection (I 6/285 and 9/304). Until Ottilie's self-imposedasceticismdefinitivelyfrustratestheir hopes of divorce, Eduardand Charlotteregularlydevote their energies to constructive activities.Even after this, however, as in the moment of stress createdby Ottilie'sunexpected return to the manor after her chance encounter withEduard,Charlottestill demonstratesher abilityto do "was der Augen-blick fordert" (II 17/475), can fulfill what is for Goethe always-"Wasaber ist deine Pflicht? Die Forderungdes Tages" (VIII,283)--the firstobligationof a responsiblehuman being. All these facts are inconsistentwith the view, which derives from historicalmisconceptionsratherthantextual evidence, that the world of Eduard and Charlotte is an"aufgeklart-frivoleGesellschaft" of nobles whose aristocraticmode ofexistence is "inselhafteAbriegelung."17 heir manordoes not symbolizea worldof irresponsiblealoofness, and before Ottilie's arrival-but whenenough is known of her temperamentto guaranteethat she will intro-duce no careless gaiety-the open sociabilityof landed-gentry ife, aswell as the predominantly erious interestsof Eduard,Charlotte,and the(more obviously sober-minded) Captain, are noted in the same sen-tence: "Fand sich keine Gesellschaft von benachbarten Orten undGitern, welches 6fters geschah, so war das Gesprich wie das Lesenmeist solchen Gegenstinden gewidmet,welche den Wohlstand,die Vor-teile und das Behagen der birgerlichen Gesellschaft vermehren"(I 4/267). By identifyingthese interests as ones sharedby citizensof allclasses, the sentence further indicates not only that in DieWahlverwandtschaftenocial tensions or conflicts are not to be important,but also that the novel's sociallyresponsiblearistocratsare at least ade-quate representatives of the well-established enlightened ideal of aclass-transcending umanismto whichGoethe gave full allegiance.18

Neither aristocratic nor idiosyncratic withdrawal from normalhuman contacts is a generaltheme of Die Wahlverwandtschaften--hencethe indispensable unction of visits and visitors in the novel's action. Atthe layingof the cornerstoneon Charlotte'sbirthday he exampleof themany guests who cast trinkets into the hollow stone occasions Ottilie'ssymbolic total acceptanceof Eduard,her placingon their contributionsthe chain from which she had at his urgingearlierremoved her father'sminiature (I 9/301f.). The Count and Baroness make two visits-thefirst awakensthe erotic impulses leadingto the quasiadulterousconcep-tion of Eduard's and Charlotte's child (I 9-12); the second, coming


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DIE WAHLVERWANDTSCHA TEN 7when their marriagehas at last become possible, is for Ottiliea depress-ing reminderof how remote has become hope of happinesswith Eduard(II 5/390) -and immediatelyafter their first departure here is "wiederneuer Besuch" which, because of the emotions they have unwittinglyanimated, is "Charlotten willkommen," "Eduarden ungelegen," and"Ottilien gleichfalls unerwiinscht" (I 12/322). The presence of "vieleGiste" (I 15/335) at the Richtfest auses the dam to collapse, and theirwithdrawal o the mansion before the fireworkdisplayunderscores thepathos of what is the beginningof Eduard'sand Ottilie's social isolation.Because visits are a regular occurrence, during Charlotte's pregnancy(and in Eduard'sabsence) it is the Architect'sresponsibility o receivestrangers and decide which unexpected callers will be welcome(II 1/360), and duringLuciane'sstay (II 4-5) it is possibleto accommo-date an almost constant 'flood' of guests and visitors (II 5/390). TheAssistant Headmaster s a house guest from before Christmasuntil latewinter (II 6-8), and in the spring Charlotte'sdelivery of a son is theoccasion for many congratulatory alls, the first being that of Mittlertri-umphant (II 8/420). Shortlyafterthe next visit, that of the Englishlordand his travelingcompanionwhich is important or the story "Die wun-derlichen Nachbarskinder" and for recognition of Ottilie's abnormalpsychicsensibilities (II 10-11), comes the novel's dramaticclimax: dur-ing Charlotte's absence on a neighborhood call Eduardreturns, seesOttilie again and, for the first time, his child; delayedby her encounterwith Eduard,to save time Ottilierowsacrossthe lake, loses her balance,and lets the infant fall into the water; news of the drowning isCharlotte's welcome on her return home (II 13-14). Add to this cata-logue Mittler's increasingly requent visits (II 17/479 and 18/481)--thelast two of his five major appearances I 2, 9, and 18; II 8 and 18) occa-sion the respective deaths of the pastor who baptizes Otto and ofOttilie-and it is evident that even F. J. Stopp's exceptionallycautiousformulation "the half-isolation of a country estate""19oes not fairlydescribemanorlife in the novel.

There is, moreover, no indication that, because it is rural, theworld of Die Wahiverwandtschaftens geographicallyisolated to anyunusual degree. In fact, the novel situates its manor near a small city(II 13/453) and at what must, since its towers are possiblyvisible froman ideal vantage point (I 9/303), be considerably ess than a day's dis-tance from the provincialcapital.20Even if the estate were further fromurban centers, however, neighbors would entail the involvement ofthose living on it in the kinds of social activity depictedin Eichendorff'snovel Ahnungund Gegenwartnd other accounts of the life of the Ger-man landed gentry in the Napoleonic era. Eduard and Charlotte areurbanerepresentativesof their social class, not withdrawneccentricsintraditions so alien to Goethe's classicism as humorous grotesque orgothic romance, and they live, not isolated at some WutheringHeights,but in easy and open contact with people of every kind (domestic,


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8 STUART ATKINSgardener, nnkeeper, schoolmaster,ex-cleric, architect,and so on up thescale). In such a social milieu as theirs, privatematters are more or lesspublic knowledge, as the narrator ironically explains: ". . freilichwaren die bisherigen leidenschaftlichenVorfalle dem Publikum nichtentgangen, das ohnehin in der Uberzeugungsteht, alles, was geschieht,geschehe nur dazu, damit es etwas zu reden habe" (II 8/421). This iswhy Mittler is so eager to announce the birth of a son to EduardandCharlotte (it will allay malicious gossip), why Charlotte feels "keinenbesondern Schmerz" when the English lord unwittinglymakes com-ments that might be interpreted as allusions to Eduard's absence(II 10/431 f.), and why Eduardin his newly gained self-assurancecanclinch his arguments against the Captain'smany objections to a hastydivorce with the words: "Lass dich durch keine Betrachtungenabhal-ten; wir haben die Welt ohnehin schon von uns reden machen;sie wirdnoch einmal von uns reden, uns sodann, wie alles Librige,was aufhdrtneu zu sein, vergessen und uns gewihren lassen, wie wir k6nnen, ohneweiternTeil an uns zu nehmen" (II 12/450).

The view that the manorsymbolizesan abnormaldegree of isola-tion is also irreconcilablewith the classical principle-its violation wasthe aesthetic basis of Goethe's aversion from many manifestationsofromanticism-of treating only themes with broad human significance.For Goethe, to live withdrawn rom human society was alwaysaberrant,as it is in his "Harzreiseim Winter" of 1779 (I,50 ff.) and still is inFaustII (e.g., v. 7379: "Gesellignur lisst sich Gefahr erproben"),andwhen he met Beethoven in 1812, what most concernedhim was the factthat "ihn sein Geh6r verlaisst,das vielleicht dem musikalischen Teilseines Wesens weniger als dem geselligen schadet. Er, der ohnehinlakonischer Natur ist, wird es nun doppelt durch diesen Mangel"(Br. III, 200). Only when, towardthe end of the novel, their misfor-tunes make Eduard, Charlotte,and Ottilie more exclusively dependentupon each other than ever before, does isolation become important,butit can only be so by contrastwith the social norm alreadyfirmly esta-blished. That Goethe indeed realized in Die Wahlverwandtschaftenisannounced intention to depict human conflicts--"sociale Verhaltnisseund die Conflicte derselbensymbolisch gefasst" (p. 620)--with no unc-lassical distorting of reality and with no undue emphasizingof aber-rancy, is attested by Solger'sconfident assertion that the novel offers atrue pictureof contemporarydaily life. In Germanybefore the Indus-trial Revolution, when all cities remained to some extent agriculturalcenters, the norm was sociable rural life, and it is a sociological orsocio-historicalanachronism o see the world of Charlotteand Eduardasrepresentinga significantdeviation from it.

When "sociale Verhiltnisse" in Die Wahlverwandtschaftenre notrecognizedas typicalhuman relationships n a typicalmilieu, individualcharacter traits are mistakable as class characteristics, and falsesignificance s liable to be attached to what actually representsordinary


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DIE WAHLVERWANDTSCHA TEN 9modes of behavior and feeling. To call Eduard's obstinacy "a classcharacteristic"21s to attributeto Goethe a social bias inconsistent withhis conciliatoryhumanism and unsubstantiatedby either his life or anyof his works, includingDie Wahlverwandtschaften,n which Mittler,whoso obstinatelyrefuses to concede that divorcemay ever be justified, is acommoner of poor and-given his first small parish--presumablyhum-ble origins (I 2/225). Eduard's loyalty as a friend and his envy-freeappreciationof merit (I 1/243 f.), like his concern to managethe manorresponsiblyand his selfless courage in battle, are character raits moreimportantfor his statureas hero of a tragicnovel than the moral blem-ish of fecklessness or the venial aesthetic fault of dilettantism. His vir-tues are undulybelittledwhen, withoutregard o the use of professionaland specialist services among all social and economic classes, it isclaimed "his dilettantismand his lack of purposein social life constitutea tacit indictment of the social situation in the late eighteenth century,where a man without specific trainingwas able, on grounds of socialrankand wealth, to employ more gifted and better trained men such asthe Hauptmann nd the architect...."22 But once it has been wronglyinferred that "the whole novel... could be seen as a study in thedecline of the aristocraticway of life,"23the almost adolescentpurityofEduard's infatuationwith Ottilie and his always tender respect for herare apparentlyno longer recognizableas such, but only as his "licen-tious ways,"24for although moral corruptionmight not seem to be acapitalistmonopoly, it is obviously a literary-sociologicalruism that alldecadent aristocratsmust be morallycorrupt.

If it is furthermoreassumed that aristocraticcorruption s conta-gious, not only venial faults but even exemplaryconductmay lose theirordinary significance. Nowhere in Die Wahlverwandtschaftensimproprietyof thought or deed ever attributedto the Captain,whoseembodiment of such virtues as competence, foresightedness,and tact,whose untiringdedicationto productiveactivitymake him recognizableas Goethe's alter ego: "wenigerSchlaf als dieser taitigeMann bedurftekaum jemand, so wie sein Tag stets dem augenblicklichenZweckegewidmet und deswegen jederzeit am Abende etwas getan war"(I 4/266). Nevertheless, Nisbet and Reiss hesitate to give him a cleanbill of moral health-"His remarkable elf-controlmay exhibit signs ofpedantry,his apparentselflessness may be counterbalancedby egotismand poverty of feeling"25--althoughfor Goethe a touch of pedantrywould be no fault, and poverty of feeling is hardlywhat the Captaindisplays when he first has occasion to hold Charlotte in his arms(I 12/326). And so they conclude their case againsthim, which up tothis point has been purely speculative, with what they must regardaspositive evidence: "This man who appearsto be a model of rectitudeapplies to Eduard's flute-playing the unfortunate expressionFltendudelei. His attitude towards the child's death seems to lackhumanity; for it very soon makes him think of his own hope of


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10 STUARTATKINSmarryingCharlotte,who is, afterall, the dead child'smother."26To dis-like hearingan instrumentbadly played is no fault of character:whenWilhelm wonders in WilhelmMeisters Wanderjahre hy he hears noinstrumentalmusic at the boardingschool he visits, he is told music stu-dents must practice in a remote valley, "denn Ihr werdet selbstgestehen, dass in der wohleingerichtetenbfirgerlichenGesellschaftkaumein traurigerLeiden zu dulden sei, als das uns die Nachbarschaft inesangehenden Fl6ten- oder Violinspielers aufdringt" (VIII, 152). TheCaptain's comment to Charlotte on his friend's musicianship issignificantonly because Ottilie, who overheardit by chance, eventuallyrelays it to Eduard, demonstratinghow his bitterness towardCharlotteand the Captainhas so infected her (I 13/339 f.) that she becomesguilty of the fault he earlier displayed when, against the Captain'sexpress wish, he informed Charlotteof his criticismof her landscaping(I 3/261 f.). As for the Captain'snourishinghopes of marriagesoonafter the child's death, so exemplarya figure as the protagonistof theWanderjahreovella "SanktJoseph der Zweite" honestly admits that hehoped for the widowhood of Elizabeth while still uncertain whetherherfirst husbandhad survivedtheirencounterwith marauders:"Ich g6nnteund wiinschtedem guten Ehemann das Leben, und doch mochte ich siemirso gem als Witwe denken" (VIII,25).The function in Die Wahlverwandtschaftenf social realism is thusnot ideologicalbut, like that of historical, geographical,and other detail,to heighten verisimilitudeby setting more or less ordinarypsychologicalconfrontations in what once were readily identifiable contexts. ByGoethe's standardof idealized naturalismand his definition of style,realistic elements ("charakteristischeFormen") are incidentalsimpor-tant only insofar as they facilitaterecognitionof essential qualitiesandtheir mode of existence. Goethe's announcement of his novel clearlystates that what concernedhim was human freedom and the constraintsimposed upon it not only by social forces but also, and more impor-tantly, by individual passions so elemental as to justify the chemicalanalogyin its title. The mediumin which these passionsoperateis "dasReich der heiteren Vernunftfreiheit" (p. 621), a realm of rational,moral, and aesthetic freedom which, in an age of conflicting deologies(e.g., rationalclassicism, romanticism,orthodoxy, enlightened human-ism), allows no verificationsas certain as those applyingto the novel'ssocial (sociological)and historical elements. Romanticism,however, asthe newest development in philosophy, science, religious thought, art,and literature,is necessarilya majorcomponent of realityin 1806 and1807. Accordingly, romantic motifs have a large place in DieWahlverwandtschaften,ut they function as verisimilarincidentals, nomore representingauthorialsympathywith romanticismthan Eduard'slaudablemilitarycareerconveys authorialapprovalof Prussianor othermilitarism.27


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DIE WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN 11The three aspects of romanticismimportantin the novel are itsspeculativescience, its art, and its religiousthought, all used though not

always evaluated with neutral objectivity. Its science, having to allintents and purposesbecome historicalfact only, is most easily seen bythe modern reader to have a merely incidental function.28 Ottilie'sanorexia nervosa-at the time apparentlystill as mystifyinga cause ofdeathas is spontaneouscombustionin BleakHouse--illustratesa kind ofpsychosomaticdisorder for which romanticphysicianshad more under-standing than their materialist-rationalistic lders. Her headaches arediagnosedby the Englishlord's companionas curablewith mesmerism,the new mode of treatmentwhich the perhapswisely cautiousCharlottewill not let him use (II 11/445), but like her reaction to subterraneandeposits and metals (p. 443 f.) they are significantonly as symptomsofa dangerously heightened sensitivity. Prenatalinfluence (congenial toromanticspeculationsimplyas a popularbelief) is even less an empiricalfact than in Thomas Hardy'sstory "An ImaginativeWoman," since thefunction of the physicalresemblancesof Eduard'sand Charlotte'schildto Ottilie and the Captain s to insist on the no longervalid marriage nwhich the ill-fated infant was conceived.29Despite some critics,30hesemiraculous-seemingelements are only incidentalmotifs. The sciencethey represent is important in the novel solely as metaphor-whatEduard n the text twice (I 4/270 and 276) and Goethe in his announce-ment of it (p. 621) both call "Gleichnisrede"--forsocial and psychologi-cal interaction,so that the otherwise potentiallyvexing question of itsverisimilitude s moot.

Only indirectly, as an influence on artistic taste, does romanticreligious thought affect the world of Die Wahlverwandtschaften.otmerely is it basicallyalien to Goethe's secular, stronglyethicalhuman-ism, but it would also be incongruous n a milieu of enlightenedProtes-tants for whom religiousritualsare ceremonialonly. The_ baptismofOtto (II 8) and the funeral of Ottilie (II 18) are the only services dep-icted in the novel; the former was to have been "wi*rdig,aberbeschrinkt und kurz" (II 8/421), althoughMittler'sloquacity engthensit catastrophicallyfor the offically officiating clergyman; the latter,because of Eduard's refusal to acceptOttilie's death, is an idiosyncraticrite describedwith no mention of clerical participation II 18/484 ff.).In this Protestantmilieu, where the goblet that the mason intends todestroy is caught by Eduard not miraculouslybut "ohne Wunder"(I 9/303), the proprietyof divorce is never questioned on theologicalgrounds,31and even for the ex-clergymanMittler the sanctityof mar-riageis founded not on divine law but on the moral principleof consci-ence (I 10/307). Mittler's abandonment of his pastoralcalling so thathe may devote himself completelyto social service (I 2/255) is an act ofsecularized Protestantconsistency that adequately explains his friendlywelcome in the circles to which Eduardand Charlottebelong, and it isperhaps because the novel's usually neutral narrator is primarily


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12 STUARTATKINSaddressingmembersof such a milieu that he occasionallyallows himselfhumorous or ironictones when mentioningwhat might seem naive reli-gious beliefs.32Ethics have here supplantedecclesiastical,supernatural,perhaps even transcendent authority, and although Mittler is theextremist spokesmanfor this secularizationof religion-most obviouslyin his reinterpretation f the Commandmentsand catechism (II 18/481ff.)--never in the novel does the narratoror any charactertake issuewith his ethical views, however ill-timed their expression may be.33Indeed, when the narratorfor the last time generalizesabout humandestiny, religion receives no mention; what count are "Charakter,Individualitit, Neigung, Richtung, Ortlichkeit, Umgebungen undGewohnheiten" (II 17/478). In this Protestantworld the novel's con-cluding apotheosis cannot be taken literallyand simply provides whatGoethe, interpretingcatharsisin his "Nachlese zu Aristoteles' Poetik"with reference to both tragedies and tragic novels, later called the"auss6hnende Abrundung, welche eigentlich.. .von allen poetischenWerkengefordertwird" (XII,343).

It is less easy, however, to distinguish-in partbecause of a subse-quent rise of literary and art historical eclecticism, in part becauseromanticism s a timeless mode of feeling--incidentalaspectsof roman-tic art and aesthetics in Die Wahlverwandtschaftenrom those which inthe largercontext of Goethe's classicism may also represent essentialvalues. This difficulty s aggravatedby the fact that for a Goethe cons-ciously hostile to much that is romantic, and hence for his narrator,what is as it were aesthetically ncidentalmay nevertheless be otherwisesignificant,introducingan element of ironicambiguitywhich would nothave existed for the informed and enlightened audience originallyaddressed. In the novel's Protestantmilieu, in what Aurelie in WilhelmMeistersLehrjahre alls "den gebildeten, aber auch den bildlosen Teilvon Deutschland" (VII, 271), art has no romantic-religiousconnota-tions, as is evident from the purelysecular motives behind Charlotte'sbeautificationof the churchyard nd, even more, from those behind theArchitect's of the church and its chapel. Moreover, the novel's verytitle helps establish a fundamental premise of Goethe's classicalaesthetic, that every work of art is analogousto, though never identicalwith, what nature may produce,and in this aestheticmimesis cannot bean end in itself either as naturalisticmitation of an immediaterealityoras literal recreationof an art belongingto a past age. The Architect'senthusiasm for German art of the Renaissance can be shared byGoethe's narrator,who as it were commends unqualifiedlyhe powertorecognizeand appreciatehigh artisticachievementof a worldso differentfrom one's own as to seem "ein Traum" (II 2/367).34 But no greaterintrinsic worth is attached to the Architect's imitation, with Ottilie'sassistance, of primitive features of this art than to its imitation byNazarene painterswhose works Goethe disliked. And so the narratorhumorouslynotes that his paintingmerelyserves to reveal his obsession


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DIE WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN 13with Ottilie (II 3/372), then later remarks more grimly that the chapelthey have restoredwill remain a pointless "Kfinstlergrille"unless usedas a tomb (p. 374), which is in fact its final function (II 15/464, and18/485 and 490).

In contrast to the narrator'snegative or at best neutral evaluationof romantic art as cultivatedby Ottilieand the Architect, is his explicitapprovalof Charlotte's less pretentious but more traditionalaesthetictaste. Althouh critics have often interpretednegativelyher simultane-ous use of naturaland artificial lowersand greeneryto decorateher gar-den house, the effect is actuallysaid to do her "Kunstsinn"greatcredit(I 3/258), and although her beautificationof the churchyardhas beencalled an act of impiety by even non-Christianstandards,35he narratorhas only positive words for what she achieves: "Mit m6glichsterSchonung der alten Denkmiler hatte sie alles so zu vergleichenund zuordnen gewusst, dass es ein angenehmer Raum erschien, auf dem dasAuge und die Einbildungskraftgerne verweilten" (I 2/254). Only inher rejectionof the Architect's-and Goethe's36--opinion that the bestmemorialsto the dead are portraitbusts does Charlotte'sProtestanthos-tility to religiousart outweigh her aesthetic feeling (II 2/365), but herweaknesshas its counterpartn the Architect'selegiacpreferencefor urnburial (p. 363), the manifestation of a hellenism no less romanticandother-timelythan the medievalismof his painting.37

That romantic art-motifsin Die Wahlverwandtschaftenre inciden-tals, is confirmedby Goethe's objectionto a pictureof Ottilie lying onher bier for emphasizingtoo much a Madonna and not enough thedead, and real, Ottilie.38 ignificantly, he novel's last tableauvivant thesecond nativity scene), the least realisticof the five described, s the oneleast sympathetically haracterizedby the narrator. His phrase"frommeKunstmummerei"(II 6/405) supportsRonald Peacock'srejectionof thethesis that Ottilie as the Madonna in glory is "a pre-figurationof thefinal events of the novel, indicatingthat she fits the tableauperfectly,"and confirms Peacock's insistence that Ottilie's sense of the incongruityof her role marksher becoming "for the first time. . . keenly consciousof the latentelements of guilt in her situation in the Eduard-Charlottehousehold."'39To say, as does von Wiese (p. 667), that by virtue ofresembling virginal madonnas of the Early Renaissance Ottilie canappropriatelypose as Queen of Heaven, is to ignore the AssistantHeadmaster's ndirectgloss-his very Protestantdisapprovalof the res-toration of church and chapel-on what he terms "diese Anndiherung,diese Vermischungdes Heiligenzu und mit dem Sinnlichen" because itobscures the importantprinciple: "Das H6chste, das Vorz~iglichste mMenschen ist gestaltlos, und man soll sich hiiten, es anders als in edlerTat zu gestalten" (II 7/407). What this gloss says with decorumis alsothe sentiment of the narratorwho has ironicallyspoken of "frommeKunstmummerei,"and of the Goethe who angrilywrote an old friendjust over a month before he beganDie Wahlverwandtschaften:Bei den


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14 STUARTATKINSAlten, in ihrer besten Zeit, entsprang das Heilige aus dem sinnlichfasslichen Schoinen.... Das Moderne ruht auf dem sittlich Sch6nen,dem, wenn man will, das sinnliche entgegensteht;und ich verargeDir'sgar nicht wenn Du das Verkoppelnund Verkuppelndes Heiligen mitdem Sch6nen oder vielmehr Angenehmen und Reizenden nicht ver-tragen magst: denn es entsteht daraus... eine iisterne Redouten-undHalb-Bordellwirtschaft,die nach und nach noch schlimmer werdenwird" (Br. III, 66).

Ottilie's sensing of the discrepancybetween her role as Madonnaand the fundamentallynon-aestheticizingProtestantismn which she hasbeen raised marks a religiousawakeningthat will henceforthdetermineher conduct. Until little Otto is no longer regardedas an obstacle todivorce, she can gracefullyacceptrenunciationof Eduardand in adoles-cent idealism even believe "dass ihre Liebe, um sich zu vollenden,vollig uneigenniitzigwerdenmisse" (II 9/425). But when she has beenthe cause of the child's death, by virtue of her sense of remorse(II 15/464) renunciationbecomes atonement. She resolves-with someuncertaintyat first, as her "vielleicht" betrays-to be "eine geweihtePerson..., die nur dadurchein ungeheures Ubel for sich und andrevielleichtaufzuwiegen vermag,wenn sie sich dem Heiligenwidmet,das,uns unsichtbarumgebend, allein gegen die ungeheuren zudringendenMichte beschirmenkann" (pp. 467 f.). As Peacocknotes, this is "thenaturalnaive religiouslanguage. . of a woman who declares her resolveto be pure in heart and action amid misfortune and is for that reason,apartfrom religion,an ethicalpower."4 It is, however, also the biblicallanguage of Ottilie's Protestant upbringing,to which she had alreadyreverted when, on the morning after Otto's drowning, she used thewords "ich bin aus meiner Bahn geschritten" as synonymous with anappositive "ich habe meine Gesetze [i.e., principlesof humilityshe hadvowed to follow] gebrochen" (II 14/462). She repeatsthe first phrase,in which "Bahn" is the "paths of uprightness"of Proverbs i,13, in theletter informingher friends of her vow of silence and abstemiousness:"Ich bin aus meiner Bahn geschritten,und ich soll nicht wieder hinein.Ein feindseligerDaimon,der MachtOibermich gewonnen, scheint michvon aussen zu hindern, haitte ch mich auch"-i.e., she has not-"mitmir selbst wieder zur Einigkeit gefunden" (II 17/476 f.). As in thatmost secularof Goethe's poems "Das Tagebuch,"writtenbarelya yearlater than this passageand containingthe lines "Denn zeigt sich auchein Dimon, uns versuchend,/ So waltetWas, gerettet ist die Tugend,"here Diimonis only "diaboliccreature" or "diabolictemptation"in anaive Christian-religiousense. Although Ottilie's "Dimon" has oftenbeen incautiously dentifiedwith a concept of the daemonic Goethe hadnot yet formulated when writing Die Wahlverwandtschaften,heidentificationattributes to her a verbal sophisticationinconsistent withher characterand upbringingand hence with the principleof verisimili-tude that controlsevery detail of the text.41


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DIE WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN 15Ottilie's belief in supernaturalbeings is naive, childlike, and, byenlightened Protestantstandards,almost primitive. It is shared in the

novel by no one of her own educationalor social background,not evenby the one adult said-"Eduard hatte bei zunehmenden Jahrenimmeretwas Kindlichesbehalten, das der JugendOttiliens besonderszusagte"(I 7/289)--to be also somewhat naive, but only by Nanny and by thecreduloushoping for miraculous relief who so crowdchapeland churchthat the chapelmust be kept permanently ocked and the churchcan beopened only for divine service (II 18/488 f.). As faith, however, itcommands a frustratedCharlotte's tolerant respect, and even its mostprimitive counterpart, Nanny's conviction that Ottilie still lives andworks "in einer hohern Region," can help assuagethe Architect'sgrieffor what to him is life totallyended (p. 487 f.). Ottilie'ssense of "dasHeilige," however, is shared as the voice of conscience by other maincharacters,since it is an integralelement of both secularizedProtestan-tism and ethical humanism. Nevertheless, but appropriatelyn the caseof one named after a saint bornblind, for her "das Heilige" has a com-ponent of the supernaturalwhich, to use Goethe's own language in aReflexionof 1825, is her blindspot:

Alle gesundeMenschen abendie UberzeugunghresDaseinsund eines Daseienden m sie her. Indessen ibtes aucheinenhohlenFleck im Gehirn,das heisst eine Stelle,wo sich keinGegenstand bspiegelt,wie denn auch im Auge selbst einFleckchenst,das nichtsieht. WirdderMensch ufdieseStellebesonders ufmerksam,ertiefter sichdarin,so verfallter ineineGeisteskrankheit,hnethierDingeauseiner andernWelt[e.g., "die ungeheuren zudringendenMachte" and the"Damon"of Ottilie],dieabereigentlichUndinge ind... (XII,373).

It is Ottilie's tragicflaw that she confuses "das Heilige" of consciencewith external forces-"Auf eine schreckliche Weise hat Gott mir dieAugen ge6ffnet, in welchemVerbrechen ch befangen bin," she declareswhen definitively renouncingEduard(II 14/463). In Goethe's Weltan-schauung,however, there are but two true forms of religion, "die eine,die das Heilige, das in und um uns wohnt, ganz formlos [i.e., invisible],die andere, die es in der sch6nsten Form anerkennt und anbetet. Alleswas dazwischen iegt, ist G6tzendienst"(XII, 372).In Die Wahlverwandtschaftenoethe's view that, when not thegloryof things seen, "das Heilige" is an invisiblerealmof ethicalvaluesfinds its most eloquent spokesmanin Charlotte. It lies behind her rejec-tion of portraitmemorialsto the dead that turn our thoughts to the past"und erinnern..., wie schwer es sei, die Gegenwartrecht zu ehren"(II 2/365). It is, however, given clearest expression shortly beforeOttilie invokes its authoritywhen, finally consenting to a divorce thatOttilie's remorse will frustrate,Charlottesays of "Schicksal,"42he cir-cumstances that have led to her child's death: "Vergebens, dass


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16 STUARTATKINSVernunft und Tugend, Pflicht und alles Heilige sich ihm in den Wegstellen" (II 14/460). "Das Heilige" is that which is vital and life-giving, and in WilhelmMeistersLehrjahrehere can be read on the rollheld by the Uncle's funerary statue the quintessentially Goetheaninjunction"Gedenke zu leben" (VII, 540). Human life at its fullest is,moreover, social, and so in Vier JahreszeitenGoethe defines "dasHeilige" as that which "viele Seelen zusammen / Bindet" and "dasHeiligste" as that which "heut und ewig die Geister, / tief und tiefergefiihlt, immer nur einiger macht" (I, 227). The "nichste Nihe" inwhich toward the end of Die Wahlverwandtschaftenttilie, Eduard,andCharlotte exist, "aber selbst ohne gerade aneinander zu denken"(II 17/478), is thus only a sad counterfeit of "das Heilige" as Goetheenvisioned it. And nothingcasts a more dubious light on the seeminglysaint-like death of Ottilie and the doubtful miracles attributedto hersaintliness than that her last words should be her dying injunctiontoEduard--"Versprichmir zu leben!" (II 18/484)--to continue such anexistence. There is bitterestirony in the fact that these words are spo-ken by one whom the narratorcalls, as he has before (II 15/464),"das... himmlische Kind," for the apparently religious epithethimmlisch ike its secular synonym herrlich43--e.g.,n "das herrlicheKind" (II 14/462) -represents a fashionableusage that has lost all asso-ciationswith the celestialor, in the case of herrlich,he sublime.44

Failure to see and interpret reality objectivelyis not, however, aweakness unique to Ottilie. Her blindness is shared in greateror lessdegreeby the other majorcharactersof the novel, though not by its nar-rator. This is especiallytrue when they view Ottilie, and in the case ofEduard,blindedby wishfulor fatalisticthinking,the all too human incli-nation to see only what one wants to see is unusually strong. Headmis-tress, Assistant Headmaster,and Charlotteare all aware of Ottilie'slackof appetitewithout recognizinghow serious a symptomit is of anorexianervosa. That her helpfulness-from her arrivalon, Ottilie is "gegenjedermann... dienstfertigund zuvorkommend" (I 7/289)--is a form ofself-abasement inappropriateo a girl her age, is conveniently ignoredand, if not consciouslyexploited, at least taken for grantedby everyone.Ottilie's conduct to all intents and purposes never violates adult stan-dardsof decorum, and the Architecteven tells her "das Schickliche stmit Ihnen geboren" (II 6/401). Inappropriatedecorum, however, canbe the symptomof dangerousneurosis--Luciane,whom the Architect isindirectlycriticizing,has the healthy vitalityOttilielacks, and in WilhelmMeistersLehrjahrehat novel's true "sch6ne Seele" Nataliecan be over-joyed to report to Wilhelm that his son's "Unart [i.e., his drinkingdirectlyfrom a bottle] hat ihn gerettet" (VII, 604).

Ottilie herself, however, is chiefly responsible for Charlotte'sfailure to attach properimportanceto what is symptomatically trangebehavior. Her first act on arrivingat the manor is her kneeling beforeCharlotte,whose disturbed "Wozu die Demtitigung!"she assuages by


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DIE WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN 17explainingthat to kneel is a pleasurablewayof recalling he time "da ichnoch nicht h6her reichte als bis an Ihre Kniee und IhrerLiebe schon sogewiss war" (I 6/281). And althoughher "anstindige Dienstfertigkeit"soon wins her Charlotte's approval, the latter is again-or still-disturbedby her unseemly readiness to pick up things men drop; butagain Ottilie, who this time promises to refrain henceforth from thisimpropriety,has a ready explanation: the distress she felt in historyclass on hearinghow when on trialCharlesI of Englandhimself had tostoop to pick up the knob that fell from his cane (p. 284 f.). As wehowever learn only when, after the novel's catastrophe,she resolves torenounce Eduard forever, these explanations are only half-truths.Ottilie'shumility is the consequenceof a childhood decision made whenshe overheard-or heard while apparentlyasleep--Charlotte expressconcern that her impoverishedorphanhoodwould doom her to a life ofdependency unless fortune especially favored her: "Ich machte mirnach meinen beschrinkten Einsichten hier~iberGesetze; nach diesenhabe ich lange gelebt... " (II 14/462). And the fatal consequence ofthis humilityis Eduard's ove for her.

As a defense mechanismOttilie'shumility may ultimatelybe self-serving, but it is legitimatelyso because she remains a child from herenteringthe manor as "das liebe Kind" (I 6/281) -each time "Kind" isthe narrator'sword-until her departing t and this world as "das bleichehimmlische Kind" (II 18/482). It is also the explanation,both as atten-tiveness to others and as a childlikequality,of why Eduard s attractedto her: "Gegen jedermann war sie dienstfertig und zuvorkommend;dass sie es gegen ihn am meisten sei, das wollte seiner Selbstliebescheinen" (I 7/289). Why Charlotteand the Captain,similar in tem-peramentand equal in age, are attractedto each other, is as evident tothemselves as it is to narratorand reader; but the affinity betweenOttilie, in the best or kindest sense of the words innocent and naive,and a much older man of considerable,even sophisticated,experienceissomething these two never understand even when, at the end of thenovel, they have finally become as it were one: "es war nur EinMensch im bewusstlosen, vollkommnen Behagen, mit sich selbstzufrieden und mit der Welt. .... Das Leben war ihnen ein Ritsel,dessen Aufl6sung sie nur miteinander fanden" (II 17/478). Only thenarratorand the reader know that self-interest and self-love are elec-tively affinitive,and they alone see the total verisimilitude of the anal-ogy between elementaland psychologicalaffinity hatjustifiesthe novel'stitle and Goethe's announcementof his intention "in einem sittlichen[i.e., psychological-moral]Falle eine chemische Gleichnisredezu ihremgeistigen Ursprungezurdck[zu]fihren" (p. 621).As Ottilie is blinded by her own naiveness, Charlotte-withOttilie's assistance-by the benefits of Ottilie's humble service, andMittler-most notablywhen he observes too late what proves to be thefatal weakness of the aged clergymanat Otto's baptism (II 8/422) -by


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18 STUART ATKINShis idWesixes, so Eduard is blinded by affinitieswhich, had he recog-nized their nature,might have exerted little or no powerover him. Thisis moreover hinted, if not stated, by Goethe's narrator n the alreadycited "das wollte seiner Selbstliebescheinen," for only here in the textis "scheinen" not the narrator's iteral 'to appear,to put in an appear-ance' or his figurative, often cautious or ironic, used in the sense"erhellen, klar sein" ('to be evident'). Elsewhere "scheinen" isreferred only to appearances, and for most of the novel almostexclusively to verifiably deceptive ones: the Assistant Headmasterreportsthat Ottilie,when tauntedat school by Luciane,"schiengelassenfir jeden andern, nur nicht for mich," for he has observeda change ofcolor on one side of her face (I 5/279); when the occupants of themanor house retire on the night when Otto will unfortunatelybe con-ceived, the narrator ambiguously remarks, "so schien dieser Tagabgeschlossen" (I 10/317); when Ottilie's handwritinghas so come toresembleEduard's hat Charlotte hinksa note from her to him is some-thing he has written, he suspects his wife of deviousness and disregardsgraphological evidence of Ottilie's unhealthy over-adaptiveness, for"diese sonderbaren,zufiilligenZeichen, durch die ein hoheres Wesenmit uns zu sprechenscheint, waren seiner Leidenschaftunverstindlich"(II 13/331); after Eduard eaves, Charlotteis "ruhig und heiter; Ottilieschien es nur" (I 17/348); etc. In the novel's final chapter, however,"scheinen" (which in the last sentence of the precedingchaptermeans'put in an appearance')chieflyconnotes dubiety: when Ottiliecollapses,to the manor's medical advisor what is actually her agony"scheint... nur eine Ersch6pfung,"and she is "sich selbst bewusst, wiees schien" (II 18/483 f.); when a funeral to his liking has beenarranged,Eduard "schien sich in alles ergeben zu haben"; when toNanny the corpseof Ottilie"schien... zu winken," she falls and we aretold "Das Kind... schien an allen Gliedern zerschmettert. Man hob esauf; und zufillig... lehnte man es Ober die Leiche, ja es schien selbstnoch mit dem letzten Lebensrest seine geliebteHerrin erreichen zu wol-len" (p. 485 f.); Eduardsoon seems impassive-"er schien keine Trinemehr zu haben, keines Schmerzes weiter fihig zu sein"-and "Nurnoch einige Erquickungscheint er aus dem Glase [i.e., the goblet hecaught and saved from destructionat the Richtfest]zu schliirfen, dasihm freilich kein wahrhafterProphet gewesen," but when he realizesthat he is only drinking rom a replacementof the recentlybrokenorigi-nal, "Der Trankscheint ihm von nun an zu widerstehen;er scheint sichmit Vorsatz der Speise, des Gesprichs zu enthalten" (p. 489) and whathas seemed submissive acceptanceof the irremediableproves to be thesame fatalapathythat has destroyedOttilie.

As goodness is relative,so is self-interest, which is hardlya moralblemish unless consciously pursued. It may be more or lessenlightened, more or less naive, according o the state of self-awarenessand responsibility an individual has achieved. Charlotte and the


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DIE WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN 19Captain,who weigh self-interestagainstthe values of family obligation,are willing to renounce each other until persuadedby Eduardthat hischild may be better off with them as parents (II 12/448), and likeEduard, though less hastily, they accept the child's death as removingthe barrierto eventual marriage (II 14/461). All three, however, arefrustratedin their various hopes by Ottilie, who is accordingly he cen-traldramatic igureof the novel-not, as is sometimes said, because sherepresentsan ideal,45but because she is the unwittingkey to its plot andalone has the power to resolve the "Conflicte" of its "socialeVerhiltnisse." This is why Goethe could approve without the usualovertones of ironic qualification (p. 624) Reinhard's interpretationofher- and Eduard'scharacter:DieseslieblicheWesensteht untereinerArtvon Naturnotwen-digkeit,die von ihraufalleihreUmgebung usgeht... Wederin ihremWirken och n ihremLeidenstvolles,hellesBewusst-sein;sie handeltundempfindet,ie lebt und stirbt o und nichtanders,weil sie nichtanderskann..... WasEduard etrifft, oversieht r sich freilich arin,dasser sichetwasnachsieht,berwersiehtsichnichtetwasnach,undwerhattedarum asRecht,ihneinenarmlichen harakteruschelten?p.651)Ottilie's single-mindednessis a fault that both constrains respect andevokes pity, and so she can be the novel's tragicheroine, can producethat catharsiswhich "wirklich... oder durchein Surrogat"-so Goethe,with reference to "Trag6dienund tragischeRomane," in his "Nachlesezu Aristoteles' Poetik"-"geschieht... durcheine Art Menschenopfer"and is demandedonly when a tragicfigureis "wederganz schuldignochganz schuldfrei"(XII, 343 ff.).

Ottilie is thus not simply "das gute, reine Kind" she seems toCharlotte when the latter regretsthat the (first) visit of the Count andBaroness will expose her ward at too early an age-"so frih"-to anunsuitableexample of social impropriety I 9/305).46 Even if not all hercurious psychologicalsymptoms are to be rationalisticallyderived fromthe unhappy fear of poverty accidentallyinstilled in her when newlyorphaned,at least her anorexia nervosa is consistentwith a fear that shemight at some future time be in circumstancesnot permittingher to eatproperly,can be a suppressedform of the fear that explainsher humblehelpfulness. Before her arrivalat the manor her "grosse Missigkeit imEssen und Trinken," her "Dienstbarkeit," and her "Kopfweh" havebeen noted as disturbing n the headmistress'reporton Luciane'sgoodprogress. Only the first of these, however, is again mentioned, presum-ably because her explanationsof her humility have been taken at facevalue: when, soon after her arrival,Charlotteresponsiblyre-examinesher school reports "Sie fand. . nichts Neues, aber manches Bekannteward ihr bedeutender und auffallender. So konnte ihr zum BeispielOttiliens Missigkeit im Essen und Trinken wirklichSorge machen" (I6/283).47 Saints may die of anorexia nervosa, and-like Heathcliff-


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20 STUART ATKINSEduard too when his life becomes empty of meaning; moderatelywelladjusted young women do not, and so it is to this disorder that thegreatest significanceis attached at the very start of the novel. Ottilie'sheadachesare diagnosedas curable (althoughthe cure would be only ofsymptoms,not causes), her humilityis explained,but what has been thesymptom of the guiltless crime of being poor remains, even when itscause is known, because it becomes instead the ultimatelyfatalsymptomof crimelessguilt for Otto's accidentaldeath.

There is pathetic irony in Ottilie's helpless blindness to her ownmotives, in what Reinhard called the lack of "volles, helles Bewusst-sein" in both "ihrem Wirken" and "ihrem Leiden." It appearsnowherewith more childlikeinconsistencythan in her two renunciationsof Eduard. "Gott hat mir die Augen ge6ffnet, in welchem Verbrechenich befangen bin," she declares after her first self-condemnation forhaving cherished the hope of marryingEduard and escaping poverty,then threatens the un-Christianact of suicide should Charlotteagree toa divorce and marrythe Captain: "In dem Augenblick... b sse ich indemselbigenSee [i.e., the lake in which she let Otto drown]mein Ver-gehen, mein Verbrechen" (II 14/462 f.). And when she reiterates inwritingher "Ich bin aus meiner Bahngeschritten," it is an incongruousexpression of un-Christian despair to claim "ich soll nicht wiederhinein" because "ein feindseligerDimon" seems to have takenposses-sion of her. In the same letter, moreover, she announces her"Ordensgeliibde"of silence and abstemiousness,whichis tantamount oa renunciation of life, yet inconsistentlyadds a reassuring-this recallsher 'explanations' of her self-abasement and her servility-"Ich binjung, die Jugendstellt sich unversehens wieder her" (II 16/476 f.).

To speak, like von Wiese, of Ottilie's "TragOdie" p. 669) is thusproper only if it is recognized that her resolve to dedicate herself to"dem Heiligen" and diminish Eduard'spassion by having him come tosee her as "eine geweihte Person" (II 15/467) is tragic-and youthfullyromantic--self-delusion. To interpret positively her renunciation oflife-"damit die Geisteskraft och iber alle Schwachheit es Leibes tri-umphiere" (p. 669)--is to endow her with a "Geisteskraft"that onlyshe attributesto herself and is nowherein the text (nor by Goethe else-where) ever attributed o her, is to readinto the novel a transcendental-ism irreconcilablewith the fundamentallyenlightenedethical Protestan-tism of its narratorand its author as well as with the latter'ssecularcon-cept of tragedy. The most famous utterance credited to Ottilie'ssaintlynamesake, "La vie solitaire est le principalmoyen de la perfection," isalone so alien to the novel's concern with "sociale Verhiltnisse" as tomake untenable the inference that the parallelbetween her and Ottilieimpliesexemplariness.

That Ottilie does not typifyfor Goethe a high form of saintlinessis evident from the contrastbetween her and the three "saints" depicted


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DIE WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN 21by him with personalsympathy n his works. The first, never sanctified,is the founder of the Medici line, Giovanni di Bicce, whom Goetheadmires "als einen Heiligen; gute Gefiihle, gute Handlungensind beiihm Natur..... unaufgefordert eilt er den Beduirfnissen anderer zu Hfilfe,seine Milde, seine Wohltaitigkeit erregen Wohlwollen undFreundschaft... ."48(Lucianehas more of these qualitiesthan Ottilie).The second is St. Philip Neri, "der humoristischeHeilige" whose lifeGoethe sketches in ZweiterR6mischerAufenthalt,as a young man he isnot only devout and sociallyconcerned, but also vigorous, enthusiastic,sociable,and aestheticallyresponsive,and afterhe is ordainedwe find inthe humble priest, except in moments of mystic ecstasy and levitation,"zwar immer einen leidenschaftlichwundersamen,aber immer h6chstverstindig praktischenMann" (XI, 465) whose unconventionality s amajor source of the effectiveness that in Goethe's eyes warrantshissanctification. (Vigor, humor, sociability, and the ability to haveenthusiasmsare not qualitiesOttilienotably possesses.) The third is St.Roch, whom Goethe characterizeswith clearlypersonalemphasis in hisreport of the sermon given by the venerable priest of "Sankt-Rochus-Fest zu Bingen," which stresses not only "unbedingte Ergebenheitinden Willen Gottes" but also selfless love of sacrificefor others (X, 424ff.). Whatmost distinguishesthis saint, and the two others, from Ottilieis an abilityto rise above introspectiveself-concern, and so there is nosubstantiationfor the view that although no real miracles occur in DieWahlverwandtschaftenGoethe will offenbar auch bekennen, dass er inOttilie alle Voraussetzungen erfuilltsieht, die zu einem Leben undeinem Tod im Geiste der Acta sanctorumgeh6ren: h6chsteLiebesinnig-keit, die Pruifungder Stinde und die Entsagung."49There is, rather, astronger component of truth in the acerbiccomment, "her end appearsjust as inconsiderate and as unloving as Werther's,"so5owever unrea-sonable it may be to expect the strength of will and degree of self-understandingeven Wertherpossesses in a girl conditionedearly in lifeto an abnormally passive role and tragically failing, largely thoughperhaps not exclusively because of fatal circumstances, to achievematureadulthood.

Since for Goethe tragedy s not transcendentalbut human, is con-cerned with autonomous acts in psychological,social, and-in the broad-est sense-moral contexts, whatGoethe calleda tragicnovel cannotbe afate tragedy,a drama of fatal or "daemonic" coincidence, in narrativeform. In Die Wahlverwandtschaftenragedyensues as the consequenceof abdication of moral autonomy by Eduard-who in his clearestmoment knows that it is "ein straflicherSelbstbetrug" o hope or expect"dass der Zufall uns leiten und begiinstigensolle" (II 12/450 f.) -whenunder the sway of passion, but even more by Ottilie under the doubleconstraint of povertyand an impoverishedreligion. The openingwordsof the novel, "Eduard-so nennen wir einen reichen Baron... ," areusually only taken to refer to the fact that Eduard,out of friendshipfor


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22 STUARTATKINSthe Captain,has given up using the given name Otto which is also thelatter's. But they also refer to the independentfortune that, because itis enough for several heirs, obviates an often importantobstacle todivorce (II 12/448). Although Ottilie never consciouslythinks of mar-riagewith Eduardas an escape from povertyuntil the child's death, thishope-and not, of course, the accidentaldeath of the child who was theobstacle to the marriage-is the "Verbrechen," the violation of herchildhood vow of humble poverty,to which she believes God has finallyopened her eyes (II 14/463). But when walkingearlierwith the child inher arms about the manor, "verbargsie sich nicht, zu welchemgrossen,reichen Zustande das Kindgeborensei; denn fast alles, wohin das Augeblickte, sollte dereinst ihm geh6ren," although in her adolescent ideal-ism the child's welfare and his reconciliationof his parentsinspires atthe time a conviction "dass ihre Liebe, um sich zu vollenden, v61liguneigenniitzigwerden miisse" (II 9/425). The fact that Ottilie knowswhat it is to be poor among the rich has led more than one interpreterof Die Wahlverwandtschafteno compare or contrast her with JaneAusten's Fanny Price;" that she so long lacks the "helles Bewusstsein"of what she knows is what makes Die Wahlverwandtschaftenot simplyanovel of manners but a tragicnovel.

Despite WalterBenjamin,H. A. Korff, and the many others whohave emphasizedher inadequacies o a degree that is tantamount o hos-tile denigrationof her character,52 ttilieis, as she is repeatedlycalled,a"Kind." To childrenadult standardsdo not apply, and in them faultsmust be toleratedthat in mature persons would rightlycall for severedisapprobation.This, and not condonement of Ottilie'sfoibles, explainsboth the forebearancewith which Charlottetreats her even in momentsof greatest stress or anguish and the kindly tone in which the narratorreports even her shortcomings. He notes, for instance, that afterEduard'sdepartureshe has become-it is as if she were sympatheticallyinfected with his neuroticism-"klug, scharfsinnig,argw6hnisch,"thenobjectively adds: "ohne es zu wissen" (I 17/348). He scrupulouslyrecords the beneficent effect of her abnormallyunlagging helpfulness,and he never disparages(as a less liberalProtestantmight) what is afterall her merely physicalattractiveness,notingthat in the new styles Char-lotte soon encourages her to adopt she becomes "den Minnern, wievon Anfang so immer mehr. . . ein wahrer Augentrost" while alsoinsisting by elaborateemblematicsimile that 'a sight for sore eyes' is notan ironically trite metaphor: "Denn wie der Smaragd durch seineherrlicheFarbe dem Gesicht wohltut,ja sogareinige Heilkraftan diesemedlen Sinn ausiibt, so wirkt die menschliche Sch6nheit noch mit weitgr6ssererGewalt auf den diussernund innern Sinn. Wer sie erblickt,den kann nichts Ubles anwehen;er fiihlt sich mit sich selbst und mit derWelt in Ubereinstimmung"(I 6/283).

The power to exert a harmonizing influence on others Ottilienever loses, but her inner disharmonyalreadybecomes "eine dunkle


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DIE WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN 23Fiihllosigkeit"when she has learnedduringEduard's ong absence thathe "sich dem wechselndenKriegsgliickberliefert habe." Whatenablesher to escape, at least temporarily,from this neurotic apathy is heryouthful abilityto rise to the stresses createdby Luciane'sarrival: "Eswar daher, als wenn ein guter Geist fUr Ottilie gesorgt hitte, indemer... ein wildes Heer hereinbrachte,das, indem es ihr von aussengenug zu schaffengab und sie aus sich selbst fiihrte, zugleichin ihr dasGefiihl eigener Kriifteanregte" (II 4/376). It is thus untrue that Luci-ane, as we are told for exampleby von Wiese, is simplya negative foilto "die himmlische Ruhe Ottiliens" (p. 660), and what he calls "dasMorbide, Unfromme, Kiinstliche(der) Gesellschaftsordnung" o whichshe belongs has a not unhealthy vitality. Her jealousy of Ottilie(II 6/402) is no admirable rait, and her efforts to performgood worksare not always lasting in their results (II 5/386), although they aresometimes successful, as with the young officerwho has lost his hand,sometimes disastrous, as with the young woman who has withdrawnfrom life because she is responsiblefor the death of a youngerchild inher family (I 6/399 f.). Nevertheless Charlotte,who in the late monthsof her pregnancy is anything but blinded by maternal love,"hatte... aus der Erfahrung,dass solche Personen [sc. as her somewhateccentricdaughter,a "seltsamerCharakter"],durchLeben... gebildet,eine sehr angenehmeund liebenswiirdigeReife erlangenk6nnen, indemdie Selbstigkeit gemildert wird und die schwirmende Tiitigkeit eineentschiedeneRichtungerhilt" (p. 398 f.).

These words or musings of an afflictedparent on what childrenmay become when they have at last matured touch on a central,but toooften ignored, theme of Goethe's thought which also is central in DieWahiverwandtschaften.ven before Ottilie has come to the manor,Charlotterealistically nterpretsthe headmistress'"Hymnen... .iber dieVortreffiichkeit ines solchen Kindes" as "Entschuldigungauf Entschul-digung, dass ein uibrigenso sch6n heranwachsendesMaidchen ich nichtentwickeln... wolle" (I 2/251). The Assistant Headmaster, who issmitten with Ottilie's beauty, also glosses over her failure to developnormally, and hopefully interprets it as illustratingthe principlethatthere are "verschlossene Fruichte,die erst die rechten kernhaftensind,und die sich friuheroder spater zu einem schonen Leben entwickeln"(I 3/264). Charlotte's pregnancy, however, halts any development-"Ottilie, nachdem... ihr CharlottensGeheimnis bekanntgeworden...,ging in sich zurfick" (I 18/359)--and so, at the novel's denouement,

ina pose recallingthe Belisariustableau, the Architect ponders the deadOttilie: "Auch hier war etwas unschiitzbarWiirdigesvon seiner H6heherabgestfirzt;... [hier] waren soviel... stille Tugenden [the word hasthe older meaning potentialqualities,potentialities],von der Natur erstkurz [i.e., recently, in connection with someone still relatively young]aus ihren gehaltreichenTiefen hervorgerufen,durch ihre gleichgiiltigeHand schnell wieder ausgetilgt, seltene, sch6ne liebenswlirdige


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24 STUART ATKINSTugenden,deren friedlicheEinwirkungdie bedtirftigeWelt zu jeder Zeitmit wonnevollem Genfigen umfdingtund mit sehnsUichtiger rauerver-misst" (II 18/487 f.).The tragedy in Die Wahlverwandtschaften,nd of Ottilie, isfailure-as much the stuntingof growthas consequent inabilityto sum-mon up the moral strengthto live maturely-to advancefrom one nor-mal stage of development to the next, to complete what in "Metamor-phose der Tiere" Goethe calls the 'heiligerKreis lebendigerBildung' (I,202). Although the novel's title is taken from the science of physicalchemistry, there is as Goethe declared in his announcement "dochuiberallnur eine Natur" (p. 620); what is metaphor for that science istruth in a biology whose fundamentalprinciple s metamorphosis. Thepathos of unfulfilled potential,of the inabilityto realize the imperative"Stirb und werde!" (II, 19), is heightened by the fact that, when shefirst resolved to renounce Eduard and remain a spinster (II 9/425),Ottilieherself had been vouchsafeda glimpseof this universalpotential,had recorded in her diary: "Alles Vollkommene in seiner Art mussOiber eine Art hinausgehen, es muss etwas anderes, Unvergleichbareswerden" (p. 427). At the same time, her illustrationof this insightwiththe nightingale and its song insists that this development ormetamorphosis this iiber-seine-Art-Hinausgehen-akes place within anatural,not a transcendent,order.

Specialsignificance s attachedto Ottilie's diaryentry by virtue ofits position in the novel. It is the extension of four preceding,morespecific observations on seasonal growth patterns that begin "Sowiederholtsich denn abermalsdas Jahresmirchenvon vorn" (p. 426 f.)and that reflect the thoughts, at the openingof the same chapter,of themanor's Gardener. When Ottilie seeks to console him for the damagewreakedby Luciane's lavish winter cutting of trees and potted plants,the narrator explains why it is in vain: "So wenig der Girtnersich... zerstreuen darf, so wenig darf der ruhige Gang unterbrochenwerden, den die Pflanzezur dauernden oder zur vordibergehendenVol-lendungnimmt" (p. 423). And the next chapterrestates the pointwiththe novella "Die wunderlichen Nachbarskinder," whose hero andheroine pass successfully throughtheir adolescent crises and cheerfullyembracein the weddingclothes of the young couple who shelter them(II 10/441). "Die Kraft der Jugend und die Regsamkeit der Liebestellten sie in wenigen Augenblickenv611igwieder her," comments theEnglish lord's travelingcompanion matter-of-factly, or the point (or atleast one point) of his story is that such crises, however 'wunderlich,'are stages of normalgrowth. For Ottilie, who lacks youthful resilience,and who is alreadybadlyshaken by Mittler'sglosses on the command-ment against adultery, Nanny's descriptionof the finery she plans towear on Eduard's birthdayas "ein Brautschmuck,ganz Ihrer wert"(II 18/483) is the coup de grace; she dies with her feet resting onEduard's irst presentto her, the chest filledwith unused items that, like


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DIE WAHLVERWANDTSCHATEN 25the one dress she has made from its contents (p. 480), symbolizes thepathosof hopes of life never fulfilled.

To recognize the significanceof the theme of growthpatternsisfar more fruitful for understandingDie Wahlverwandtschaftenhan tospeculateabout "das Dimonische" or to seek to distinguishbetween its"Novelle" and "Roman" components. Over-concernwith novella-likeelements only diverts attentionfrom the majortheme of the only workGoethe actuallysubtitled "Ein Roman,"s53 nd even obscures the factthat this theme is treated not-as it would be in a novella-simply inconnectionwith the story of a threatenedmarriage,but also with refer-ence to manners, ethics, landscape, music, acting, architecture, art,social pastimes, scientific and educational ideas, and socio-economicactivities (social work, village betterment, estate improvement). If thenovel is read as a novella, what Eduardin moral scrupulousnesscallsdouble adultery(II 13/455) usuallybecomes the "unerh6rte[i.e., novel]Begebenheit" that for Goethe (p. 663) and many others etymologicallydefines Novelle.54Such adultery-Geiler of Keisersberg defined it as"turpiter uxorem in actu carnali tractare, aut de alia non suatractare"--is, however, so little 'unerhdrt'that it was a common themein Renaissance (sermonizing)authors55 nd occursat least twice beforeDie Wahlverwandtschaftenn Goethe's literarywritings.56Even less fruit-ful is to find novel or novellistic the re-pairingof two couples, a tiredmotif of novella-and pastoralcomedy-that Wieland had made slightlyless unnovel by reduplicatingt in a short story (firstpublishedin 1803)about two couples whose four divorces are possible because of theliberalized aws of post-RevolutionaryFrance.57As for a child's concep-tion becoming the obstacle to a divorce (presumablewith adulterianGeiler's sense), it is also not per se a novella motif and is centrallyimportant in Mme. de Stadl's Delphine,a novel Goethe read when itappeared n 1803.58Although Goethe's earliest known reference to DieWahlverwandtschaften-An den kleinen Erzahlungen schematisirt,besonders den 'Wahlverwandtschaften'und dem 'Mann von funfzigJahren" 59-is usually taken to mean that the novel was originallyplanned as a novella and converted into a novel, this is irreconcilablewith both his classical aesthetic and his classical practice.60From thetime he and Schillerin their discussions and correspondenceagreedonthe classicalprinciplethat genres should ideallybe kept distinct,Goetheconceived all his works with simultaneous reference to both theme andgenre. As is indicated by the posthumously published maxim, "Beijedem Kunstwerk,gross oder klein, bis ins Kleinste kommt alles auf dieKonzeption n" (XII, 482), this principleapplies to every formal andsubstantive detailof a text, and when Goethe found it impossibleto fol-low it, as was the case with the plannedverse-taleDie Jagd (whose hemeand motifhe recognized,hreedecadesafterhe hadgottennowherewiththework, weresuitable or a prose-tale-his Novelle), he would abandon a


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26 STUARTATKINSprojectas ill-conceived. The classical ideal of harmony of form, style,and substance ("Gehalt") extends "bis ins Kleinste," so that whatGoethe called the decorum of the milieu depicted in DieWahlverwandtschaftenp. 622) is also mirroredboth in the structureofthe novel and in many of its rhetoricalelements. On the level of rhe-toric it serves the fundamentalaim of achievingstylized naturalism,andit explains such textual features as the deliberate suppression ofirrelevancies61and a normalization of diction which even transformsverse into the measured prose used for narrative, dialogue, andreflective commentary.62 Despite Ren6 Wellek's claim that DieWahlverwandtschaftenllustratesGoethe's "late, pompous, and involvedmanner,"63n clarity ts diction is no less exemplary hanthe meticulousverisimilitude with which every detail of motivation and milieu isrecorded. Conscious classicizationappears chiefly in the use of setepithet-in ironic passagesa device especiallyconfusing for the unwaryreader64--andof the euphuistic vocabularyof enlightened Protestan-tism,65although it may also be evident in the use of sententious obser-vation as a means of generalizing (giving largersignificance o) psycho-logical motives, a device that recallsthe Frenchclassicalnovel.66

Dramaticelements are subordinated o a deliberatelyepic tone inaccordancewith the principlesof Goethe's and Schiller's essay "Uberepische und dramatischeDichtung" (XII, 249 ff.), and an unhurried,steadily progressivemode of narration67 erves to minimize drama-likeeffects in passages of dialogue (speeches, however, are legitimateepicdevices) or in climacticepisodes. This last principleis sustained withsuch rigorthat when there is a moment of concentrated,eventful exter-nal action-examples are: the Richtfest,the day of the encounter ofEduard and Ottilie that ends with Otto's death and is followed by herrevelation of the motives behind what has always seemed her innatelyagreeable behavior; the day of Ottilie's death-the pages suddenlybecome packed with narrativedetail and as it were visibly mirrortheintensityof such a climax. The almost alwayspreannouncedappearance(preparedentrances)of characters ecallsneoclassicaldrama,and theaterpracticein general when accompaniedby descriptionof significantges-ture or mode of conduct, but the technique actuallyserves to minimizetheatricality(surpriseelements) in a plot so tightly knit as to resemblethat of a nineteenth-centurypidcebien aite.68Retrospectiveexpositionisused with epic restraint,69 ut as in the epic unity of place is discretion-ary (ratherthan absolute70) in that almost all the action takes place onparts of Eduard'sestates, although a few episodes and most retrospec-tive scenes have other settings-the boardingschool, the palace,the inn,etc. Also epic-like, ratherthan theatrical, s the use of both serious andcomic irony, a combinationthat helps counterany effect of sentimental,tragicomic, or melodramatic theatricality. Although humor-"DerHumor ist eins der Elemente des Genies, aber, sobald er vorwaltet,nurein Surrogatdesselben" (XII, 472)71-is used decorously,it is healthily


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DIE WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN 27evident, servingalso to providethe breadthof perspectiveand varietyoftone whichare featuresof the novel ratherthan of novella or drama.

Over-attention to novellistic details leads back to reading DieWahlverwandtschaftens an "Eheroman,"even by those who insist thatmarriage s merely an occasionfor social criticism;72 ut if the theme ofthe novel were marriage,Ottilie's return to the manor, which excludesall further hope of divorce, would be the end of the action."73lthoughGoethe, in an often adducedletter, wrote a Catholic admirer"Der sehreinfache Text dieses weitliufigen Biichleinssind die WorteChristi,'Werein Weib ansieht, ihrerzu begehrenpp.'," he did so only afterassertingthat the true poet seeks solely to show "das Gefihrliche der Gesinnungan den Folgen. . . " (p. 625).74The correctivesto this simplificationareGoethe's statement of 1809 to Riemer that "Der Kampfdes Sittlicheneignet sich niemals zu einer isthetischen Darstellung" (p. 623); hisdeclaration to Georg Christian Miller that the novel demonstrates"wohin er [i.e., der Mensch] durchdas natUirliche riebwerkeines zwarunverdorbenen,aber nicht sittlichgeschiitztenHerzens geleitet wird";7sand the wry confession to Zelter, in a letter of 1830, that he has no illu-sion that "irgend ein hiibscherMann k6nne dadurch [i.e., because ofthe novel's catharticending] von dem Geliist, nach eines Andern Weibzu blicken, gereinigtwerden" (p. 626). By virtue of the innocence ofinexperienceOttilieis 'unverdorben,'but for the same reasonshe is not'sittlich geschftzt' and with childlike inconsistency can support herChristianresolve to atone ("biissen") the crime she believes God haslet her recognize by threatening to expiate ("In demAugenblick... biisse ich") her "Vergehen" and "Verbrechen"by sui-cide in the very lake in whichOtto died (II 14/463).

The three other main figures of the novel, who all are in greateror less degree 'sittlichgeschiitzt' (even Eduardnever considers the pos-sibility of an extra-marital iaison), are rendered helpless by Ottilie'sdisproportionateense of guilt, and when it has been fatallyaggravatedby her hearingMittler'sinterpretationof "Du sollst nicht ehebrechen"as "Du sollst Ehrfurchthaben vor der ehelichen Verbindung,"she her-self is its first victim. At this point, however, she enters too late to hearwhat is far more applicableto her exaggeratedguilt feelings, Mittler'sintroductorycomments on why he finds "ganz abscheulich" a Com-mandmentthat can "Die NeugierdevorahnenderKinderauf gefiihrlicheMysterien reizen, ihre Einbildungskraftzu wunderlichen Bildern undVorstellungen aufregen, die gerade das, was man entfernen will, mitGewalt heranbringen"(II 18/482). Destructivefeelings of guilt are farmore important in Die Wahlverwandtschaftenhan any demonstrationthat "in this life. . . the sanctityof marriage s absolute,"" which is whythe Count and Baroness can finallyregularizetheir relationshiphappily,and why there is never a suggestion that, without Ottilie's moral scru-ples as intensifiedby naive religiousbeliefs, the divorce to which Char-lotte consents after Otto's death is an unreasonable way to end a


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28 STUART ATKINShopeless unhappiness. What Schiller wrote Goethe about "das Pathe-tische im SchicksalMignons und des Harfenspielers" s also-as Wie-land implied by asking "wie sollen wir nicht merken, dass diese Ottilienur eine neue Auflage, oder vielmehr die Carricatur iner Kopieseiner[i.e., Goethe's] Mignon... ist... ?"77-applicable to Ottilie: "Nur imSchoss des dummen Aberglaubenswerden monstrose... Schicksaleaus-geheckt" (VII, 629). That this was Goethe's tacit stance in DieWahlverwandtschaftenntelligent Christianreaders immediately sensed,and it explainsthe hostile reactionsof Fritz Jacobi, Jacobi'ssisters, andThiimmel (p. 644 f.). Carl ErnstSchubarth,however, whose humanisticinterpretationsof his works Goethe approved, recognized that in thenovel is representedthe threat "dass das Geffihl und Bewusstseinvonder Gottheit und dem G6ttlichen fiir den Menschen... verderblichwerde, ihn verwtiste und zerst6re," although he perhaps somewhatnaively assumed that it could be warded off simply by "Ubung derTugend und h6chsten Pflicht" (p. 653). Goethe, who much earlier haddepictedin Der Grosskophtahe consequencesof innocent credulity,hadlong been less optimistic and by not later than the early 1790's hadbegun to lament (as he would still in Dichtungund Wahrheit)"DieBeschriinktheit orindie Menschen eben"thatmakes mortalsvulnerableo"dieSehnsucht. . nach ernen,unechten,unverniinftigen itteln.78In view of the fact that Goethe's moral and psychological kepti-cism (not to say pessimism) is not new when he writes DieWahlverwandtschaften,Gonthier-Louis Fink's question "Inwiefernspiegelt er [i.e., the novel] noch die Harmonie der Welt?"79 s relevantonly to the false assumptions that the novel no longer representsGoethe's classicismand that such classicism representsa shallow opti-mism. Significantly,however, the critiqueof his newly publishednovelto which Goethe respondedmost warmly-"ich danke Ihnen daftiraufdas herzlichste" (Br. III, 115)-was that of Rochlitz, who declaredthat"classische Gediegenheit, Rundung, Sicherheit und Harmonie"effectively made Die Wahlverwandtschaftenhe most perfectof Goethe'snarrativeworks (p. 640). It is still the author of Faustand WilhelmMeistersLehrjahrewho resignedlyobserves in 1826, "Wie in Rom ausserden R6mern noch ein Volk von Statuenwar, so ist ausser dieser realenWelt noch eine Welt des Wahns, viel maichtigerbeinahe, in der diemeisten leben" (XII, 520). But it is also the author of Winckelmann,the Goethe who in 1805 asked in all seriousness, "wozu dient alle derAufwand von Sonnen und Planeten und Monden, von Sternen undMilchstrassenund Nebelflecken,von gewordenenund werdendenMen-schen, wenn sich nicht zuletzt ein glticklicherMensch unbewusstseinesDaseins erfreut?" (XII, 98). When referringto Die Wahlverwandtschaf-ten Goethe rarely used such impatient phrases as Schiller's "[der]Schoss des dummen Aberglaubens" (although he published his andSchiller's not always discreet correspondence),but his ironic questionsto General von Rtihle-"Ich heidnisch? Nun, ich habe doch Gretchen


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DIE WAHLVERWANDTSCHAFTEN 29hinrichten und Ottilien verhungern lassen, ist das den Leuten nichtchristlichgenug?" (p. 623)--reveal the impatienceof a humanismtaxedto its limits.Although Wieland was not to remain an unqualifiedadmirerofDie Wahlv

Elective Affinities by Stuart Atkins

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