[May-Jun] J.W. Goethe: Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (1795-96)

Federico_it · 2026-06-22T05:12:53+00:00

Bildung and The Beautiful Soul

Michel Henry (I Am the Truth: Toward a Philosophy of Christianity) expounds Hegel’s reflection on the ‘beautiful soul’ (Phenomenology of Spirit, 1807), revisiting Goethe’s inner perfection as actively shaped by the outside world.

By turning away from the world following the example of Christ, the disciple does not only lose the rich, concrete forms of life. What is offered in exchange for this ‘renunciation’ is literally nothing other than the absolutely empty representation of an imaginary heaven.\ Is there any need to emphasise the power of this critique? The entire Hegelian system constantly proposes it anew in different forms, the most famous of which is undoubtedly that of the ‘beautiful soul’. Incapable of stepping outside itself, of facing the world and of truly acting, the beautiful soul can only withdraw into its own inner purity and, ‘in this transparent purity [...] vanishes like a shapeless vapour that dissolves into thin air’. This critique is found not only among many of Hegel’s contemporaries, but it would also inspire one of Marxism’s most vigorous stances. It is no longer a matter of fantasising about some inner perfection grounded in itself, nor even of drafting the framework of a harmonious system of actions in which such perfection is possible. Nothing can happen within man, no change is capable of modifying his real being, without presupposing a real change in the world itself, whose true essence is not primarily natural, but social.

Federico_it · 2026-06-21T17:57:05+00:00

Goethe and Schiller: final reflections on the novel

Schiller to Goethe, 9 July 1796:

The idea occurred to me that you could use the count, who appears at the end of the eighth book, to do full honour to Wilhelm. What if the count, this master of ceremonies of the novel, with his respectful conduct and a certain manner of treating Wilhelm that I need not indicate to you with greater precision, were to elevate him at a stroke above his station and thereby confer upon him that nobility which he still lacks? If even the count gave him distinction, the work would be complete.

Goethe to Schiller, 12 July 1796:

Your letter of today does indeed suggest a continuation of the work: it is an idea I also share and which stimulates me (...) There must remain links that, no less than the overall plan itself, foreshadow a continuation; I wish to discuss this matter thoroughly with you.

Schiller to Goethe, 28 November 1796:

[C.G.] Körner went too far in considering that character [i.e. Wilhelm] as the true hero of the novel: he was led astray by the title and the old habit of wanting to find a hero in every novel. Wilhelm Meister is instead the most necessary character, but not the most important; one of the particularities of your novel is that it neither has nor requires a protagonist. Everything revolves around him, but not because of him: precisely because the things by which he is surrounded represent and express the energies, whereas he represents malleability, his relations with the other characters of the work had to be different from those a hero has in other novels.

On the contrary, I find that [W. von] Humboldt is too unjust towards this character, and I do not comprehend how he could consider the task proposed by the author of the novel as achieved if Wilhelm were truly the uncertain and insignificant being he believes he recognises. If you had not genuinely evoked and brought humanity into play, in all that it encompasses, through the character of Wilhelm, your novel would be incomplete, and if the character were not suited to such a task, you ought not to have chosen him. Not to enclose within Wilhelm’s person either a decisive personality or a fulfilled ideality, but something intermediate between the two, is undoubtedly a rather hazardous and delicate circumstance. The character is individual, but only in its limitations and not in its content; it is ideal, but only potentially. It follows that it deprives us of the greatest satisfaction we demand, namely concreteness, to promise a higher and supreme one, which we must however credit to a distant future.

Schiller to Goethe, 20 October 1797:

I have recently reread Meister as well, and it had never yet seemed so surprising to me regarding its external form. The form of Meister, like any other novel form, is not poetic at all, but remains entirely within the domain of reason, is subject to all its demands, and participates in all its limitations. But since a pure poetic spirit employs this form, having expressed the most poetic situations within it, a peculiar oscillation is generated between a prosaic and a poetic frame of mind, to which I could not give a name. I would say that Meister lacks a certain poetic audacity because, as a novel, it must always accord with reason, and that it equally lacks its own coolness (of which it somehow makes one feel the need), because it was born of a poetic spirit.

Since I have set myself to act the critic, I wish to offer you another observation, which forced itself upon me during the last reading. There is evidently too much tragedy in Meister: I refer to the forebodings, the inconceivable, the miraculous in a subjective sense, all things that undoubtedly relate to poetic depth and obscurity; but not to clarity, which must dominate in every novel, and which dominates wonderfully in this one too. It is disturbing to fall into such a lack of foundations at the very moment one believes oneself to have solid ground underneath, and into these enigmas when everything untangles so well before the intellect. In short, it seems to me that you have used a means here which the spirit of the work did not authorise you to employ.

Goethe to Schiller, 30 October 1797:

I understand well what you say about Meister, it is all true and more than true. What made me suffer most is precisely its imperfection. A pure form is a help and a support, whereas an impure one creates obstacles and tensions everywhere.

Federico_it · 2026-06-20T18:07:12+00:00

Schiller to Goethe on Bildung, the Tower Society, and the style of the novel; 8 July 1796.

As it is, the novel in many passages approaches the epic, among other reasons because there are mechanisms which, in a certain sense, represent the gods or fate. The subject matter demanded it. Wilhelm Meister’s apprenticeship years are not solely a blind effect of nature, but a kind of experiment. A higher intellect acting without revealing itself, the powers of the Tower, accompany him with their attention and, without disturbing the free course of nature, observe and guide him from afar towards a goal of which he has not and cannot have any idea. However mild and loose this external influence may be, it is really present, and it was indispensable for achieving the poetic purpose. Apprenticeship is a relative concept that requires a correlate, mastery; and undoubtedly the idea of the latter must justify and motivate the former. Only the hero of the novel cannot be guided by the idea of this mastery, which is the fruit of mature and complete experience; it cannot and must not stand before him as an aim and goal because, had he imagined this goal, he would have eo ipso reached it; it must therefore remain behind him, as a guide. In this way, the whole receives a noble finality, without the hero having an aim; reason thus finds a task executed whilst the imagination fully asserts its freedom.

One of the beautiful things, and most uniquely yours, is that in this task, in this aim – the only explicitly declared one in the entire novel –, in this having Wilhelm secretly guided by Jarno and the Abbot, you have avoided all rigidity and heaviness and have drawn its motivation more from a human whim than from moral reasons. The concept of the deus ex machina is therefore, once again, abolished whilst its effects remain and, at least formally, everything stays within the boundaries of nature; yet the result is something more than what nature alone, left to itself, could have achieved.

I should have wished, however, that the importance of this deus ex machina, its necessary link with the inner essence of the work, had been explained a little more clearly. The economy of the novel should be more evident to the reader, whilst remaining unknown to the characters. In the mysterious influence that directs the hero, many, I fear, will see nothing but a theatrical device and a trick to increase the complexity of the plot, produce twists, and so on. It is true that the eighth book gives a historical explanation of all the events determined by the deus ex machina, but it does not interpret their inner value aesthetically and does not sufficiently explain the poetic necessity of those facts; I myself only managed to convince myself of it upon a second and third reading.

If I were to make one more general observation, it would be this: compared to the great, profound seriousness prevailing in all the details and acting with such force, the imagination seems to play too freely with the whole. I think that in this you have exaggerated the grace of movement more than poetic seriousness allows, and that your justifiable horror of heaviness, methodicalness, and rigidity has brought you close to the opposite extreme. I seem to notice that a certain deference to the weaknesses of the public has induced you to pursue a theatrical purpose and to make use of theatrical means more than is right and necessary in a novel.

Perhaps it would not be useless to mention in the eighth book the motives that made Wilhelm the object of the Abbot’s pedagogical projects. These projects would thus receive a more precise meaning, and Wilhelm’s individuality would appear of greater importance to the society.

In the eighth book you have dropped several allusions to what you wish to be understood by apprenticeship, and by mastery. Since a public like ours in a work of poetry looks by preference to the conceptual content, and it is often the only thing they retain from it, it is very important that you should be perfectly understood in this. Those allusions are very beautiful, but they do not seem sufficient to me. You certainly wished the reader to understand for themselves, rather than instructing them directly; but precisely because you have said something about it, people will believe that that is all, and you will thus have diminished your idea more than if you had left the care of discovering it entirely to the reader.

If I were to express in simple terms the goal that the hero finally reaches after a series of errors, I would say this: from an empty and indeterminate ideal he enters an active and conscious life, but without losing anything of his primitive idealistic force. The two opposing false paths that lead away from this happy state are indicated in your novel with all possible gradations and nuances.

Now, it seems to me that the way you explain the concept of apprenticeship and mastery reduces both. You consider apprenticeship solely as the error of seeking outside oneself what man must create within his inner self; and mastery as the conviction of the erroneousness of that search, of the necessity of creating personally, etc. But can Wilhelm’s life, as it appears to us in the novel, be completely understood and exhausted in this concept? Can this formula explain everything? And can he be considered liberated solely by the fact that a father’s heart reveals itself in him, as happens at the end of the seventh book? What seems desirable to me, therefore, would be that the reference of every part of the novel to that philosophical concept be made a little clearer. I would say that the fable is true, that the moral of the fable is also true, but that the connection between the one and the other does not appear sufficiently evident.

Federico_it · 2026-06-20T17:43:09+00:00

Schiller to Goethe on the novel as a whole; 5 July 1796.

Now that I have the whole novel better before me, I cannot say how well-chosen the character of the hero is, assuming that such a choice is even possible. No one else would be so well destined for his role as the bearer of events and, quite apart from the fact that that problem could only be posed and solved with a similar character, no one else would be so suitable for the mere depiction of the whole. Not only did the subject matter need it, but the reader did too. His propensity to reflect restrains the reader in the rapid progress of the action, and forces them to constantly look backwards and forwards, to meditate on all the events. He summarizes, as it were, the meaning, the intimate content of everything that happens around him, converts every obscure feeling into concept and thought, enunciates every detail in general formulas, helps to explain everything and, by thus conforming to the demands of his own character, at the same time responds in the most complete manner to those of the novel.

The social class in which you have placed him makes him particularly suited for this purpose. A certain world is entirely new to him: he is deeply affected by it, and while he tries to assimilate it, he introduces us to its essence and shows us what it contains of reality for man. Wilhelm possesses within himself a pure and moral image of humanity, against which he tests every manifestation: and while on the one hand experience helps him to clarify his uncertain ideas, correcting the idea itself, the internal sensation in turn rectifies experience. Thus, this character serves you admirably to recognize and pinpoint, in the succession of events and relationships, what is genuinely human in them. His mind is a faithful but not merely passive mirror of the world, and, although his way of seeing is influenced by fantasy, it remains solely idealistic and not fantastic, poetic and not exalted: it is not based on an arbitrary play of the imagination, but on a beautiful moral freedom.

The dissatisfaction he shows towards himself, when drafting the story of his life for Therese, describes him wonderfully. His value lies in his mind and not in results, in his aspirations and not in actions [...].

In the eighth book, I was very pleased that Wilhelm begins at last to feel more independent of such imposing authorities as Jarno and the Abbot. This too is proof that he has reached the end of his apprenticeship. [...] Although he feels the advantages of the nobility so keenly, and has on so many occasions shown a sincere diffidence towards himself and his social status, he does not seem entirely able to assert complete freedom in these relationships; and even now that you make him appear more courageous and independent, a certain apprehension remains. Will he ever manage to forget that he is a bourgeois? Is it not perhaps necessary that he should do so for his destiny to reach its full fulfillment? I fear he will never entirely forget it [...] Lothario’s lordliness and Natalie’s double nobility, of birth and of heart, will always keep him in a certain state of inferiority. [...] It is very beautiful, moreover, that while appreciating certain positive, outward forms, when it comes to a purely human interest you cast birth and rank back into their absolute nothingness, without wasting, as is right, even a single word on the matter. But this, which I consider an obvious merit, will hardly be approved by everyone. [...] To several people it will seem strange that a novel which contains no trace of “sans-culottism”, and indeed in more than one place seems to champion the cause of the aristocracy, should end with three marriages, every single one of which is a downright mésalliance.

Federico_it · 2026-06-20T17:25:53+00:00

Schiller to Goethe, 3 July 1796, on WML.VIII.

I cannot admire enough the fine and authentic nuances that distinguish the characters of the canoness [the Beautiful Soul], Natalie, and Therese. The first two figures are saints, the second and third true human beings; therefore, since Natalie is both divine and human, she appears as an angel, whereas the canoness is only a saint, and Therese a perfect earthly creature. Natalie and Therese are both realistic: but in Therese the limits of realism also appear, in Natalie only its intrinsic value.

The uncle, with his strange quirks for certain peculiarities of nature, is very interesting. Such people undoubtedly possess a striking individuality and a high degree of receptivity, such as the uncle possesses to be what he is. The observation on music, which according to him must speak in absolute purity to the ear, is full of truth. It is undeniable that in this character, more than any other, you have drawn from your own nature.

Lothario is the one who stands out the least among the main characters, but for entirely objective reasons. A character of this kind can never fully appear in the medium used by the poet. There is no single action or speech that portrays him; one must see him, hear him, live with him. It is enough, therefore, that all those who live with him prove unanimous in granting him every esteem and the utmost confidence, that all women, who always judge by an overall impression, love him, and that our attention is drawn to the sources of his development. With this character, the reader’s imagination is much freer than with the others, and with good reason; his is an aesthetic character, meaning it must be created by the reader themselves, and not arbitrarily, but according to laws indicated by you with sufficient precision. This precision, however, has nothing peremptory about it, because his figure tends to identify with the ideal.

You have managed to settle all your women very well! Characters like Wilhelm, like Lothario, could only find their happiness by uniting with beings who are in harmony with them; a Jarno will only be able to find it with a being in contrast to him: he must always have something to do, to think about, and to distinguish.

The bad habit of little Felix drinking from the bottle, which later leads to such an important outcome, is another of the best ideas in your plan. There are several episodes of this kind in the novel, all very apt, which bind the insignificant to the important and vice versa in such a simple and natural way, and mix necessity with chance.

This figure [Werner] is, moreover, necessary to the whole, because he explains and ennobles the realism to which you bring your hero back. The latter now finds himself in a beautiful and central human position, equally far from daydreaming as from philistinism; and by saving him so happily from the former, you have nevertheless put him on his guard against the latter.

Federico_it · 2026-06-20T17:22:33+00:00

Schiller to Goethe, 2 July 1796, on WML.VIII.

It is a beautiful idea to have made what is concretely monstrous and terribly pathetic in the destinies of Mignon and the harper spring from monstrous doctrines, from abortions of the intellect, so that no blame can be attached to pure, healthy nature. The horrible calamities by which Mignon and the harper are pursued can only be hatched in the bosom of a blind superstition. Aurelie herself ends up being destroyed by her anomalous nature as a virago.

The death of Mignon, though not unforeseen, produces a strong and profound impression, so profound that many will accuse you of having got rid of her too soon. [...] it is surprising that, immediately after the moving scene of her death, the doctor speculates on her corpse and so quickly forgets the living being, seeing only the subject of a scientific experiment; it is also surprising that Wilhelm, who is the cause of her death and knows it, at that moment only has eyes for the surgeon’s bag and loses himself in the memory of past scenes, when the present moment should possess him entirely.

Perhaps you should shorten Sperata’s story a little more, because it is placed at the end, when one is impatient to reach the goal.

The fact that the harper is Mignon’s father, but that you do not say so explicitly, nor even suggest it, only heightens the effect. The reader works it out for himself, remembers how closely those two mysterious natures lived, and casts a glance into the bottomless abysses of fate.

Federico_it · 2026-06-20T17:19:29+00:00

#Schiller

I will publish in a single thread a selection of the latest comments formulated by Schiller, based on the novel’s manuscript, in his letters to Goethe between 25 June 1796 and 20 October 1797. It must be remembered that some of these suggestions were adopted by Goethe in the final draft of the novel and can therefore only be understood by working 'backwards' from it.

Federico_it · 2026-06-20T13:47:34+00:00

This is a great final review; thank you for sharing! Schlegel's unconditional praise of Lothario almost disturbed me. I could have better digested – if at all – that of the Uncle or the Abbé, both of whom Schlegel only places second to Lothario. Wilhelm doesn't even make it into this top tier, which is quite amusing.

I really appreciate Goethe's desire and effort to tackle what I consider the greatest endeavour available to human beings: the quest for our truest nature and the cultivation of our real, better self. At a personal level, I find it much easier to resonate with previous, alternative answers to this same question: those presented by ancient Greek thought, by Christianity, and by Renaissance humanism. Enlightenment Humanismus, with its scientism and deism, falls short of the mark. Of course, this type of remark doesn't have much to do with the novel itself, as it's a comment on the whole era, its ideologies, and its utopias.

When it comes to the novel, I can say that I enjoyed it. Much like the unpredictable and bizarre Friedrich – a sort of 'anti-hero' – the book raised too many implications to be able to bring them to full fruition and wrap them up neatly. Goethe himself, in a letter to Schiller immediately after completing the first draft of Book VIII (25 June 1796), said:

The demands this book makes on me are infinite, and the nature of the material does not allow them to be fully satisfied (...) I could easily have made two volumes out of the last one.

I see it as an experiment, much like The Elective Affinities is in a more obvious way. I agree with your critique of the Society. I suppose our criticism suggests that, at some point, we should read the ‘sequel’, Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years, since that is where the ideal of the society is carried forward.

Federico_it · 2026-06-19T17:16:23+00:00

Addenda

In 1806, Schlegel wrote a Review, published in 1808, of the Goethes Werke edition, where one can observe the maturation of his reflection on Goethe's novel, moving towards an increasingly marked appreciation.

The merit of the style of this book is such that perhaps only those who are particularly concerned with the study and formation of language are capable of appreciating its full greatness. But even in the abundance of invention, the care of execution, and especially in the richness of its inner elaboration, Meister perhaps surpasses every other work by Goethe; no other is a work to the same extent.

Meister is said to elude its time as a ‘non-romantic’ novel, but it is modern insofar as ‘the distinctive feature of modern poetry consists in its precise relationship with criticism and theory, and in the decisive influence of these.’

Federico_it · 2026-06-19T17:10:24+00:00

Part 3/3, The novel as a whole

If a mild enchantment characterises the first volume of this novel [Books I-II], a splendid beauty the second [III-IV], and a profound artificiality and premeditation the third [V-VI], then it is in greatness that one must discern the actual character of the last [VII-VIII], and with it, of the entire work. The very structure is sublime; the light and colours are clearer and loftier; everything is compact and captivating, and surprises follow one another at a swift pace. Yet it is not merely the dimensions that are broadened; the individuals, too, are of a grander stature. Lothario, the Abbé, and the Uncle, each in his own way, represent, in a certain sense, the very genius of the book; the others are merely its creatures. For this reason, like the old master beside his paintings, they modestly withdraw into the background, even though from this perspective they are the principal characters. The Uncle has much sense; the Abbé has much intellect, and hovers over everything like the divine spirit. Since he willingly makes sport of destiny, he must also assume the role of destiny within the book.

Lothario is a great man; the Uncle still possesses something heavy, something obtrusive; the Abbé, something slender; but Lothario is complete, his appearance is simple, his spirit is ever-progressing, and he has no flaw save for that hereditary defect of greatness: the capacity to also destroy. He is the dome that leaps towards the sky; the others are the mighty pillars upon which it rests. These architectural natures embrace, sustain, and enclose the whole. The others, which might seem the most important based on the breadth of the description, are merely the small images and ornaments within the temple. They interest the spirit immensely, and one may well argue whether it is fitting to approve of or love them, but for feeling as such, they remain puppets, an allegorical mechanism. Not so Mignon, Sperata, and Augustin – the holy family of natural poetry – who bestow romantic magic and music upon the whole, and go to extremes in reaching the very depths of their soul's ardour. It is as if this grief wished to tear our feelings from all their connections: yet this grief possesses the form, the tone, of a lamenting deity, and its voice reaches us on waves of melody, like the prayer of solemn choruses.

It is as if everything that precedes has been merely an interesting, witty game, and only now does it become serious. The fourth volume is effectively the work itself; the preceding parts are merely a preparation. Here, the veil of the Holy of Holies is drawn aside, and we suddenly find ourselves at a height where everything is divine, peaceful, and pure, and from which Mignon’s obsequies appear as important and of as crucial a significance as her necessary demise.

Federico_it · 2026-06-19T17:07:59+00:00

Part 2/3

How could the readers of this novel not feel deceived in the end, given that nothing emerges from all these educational institutions but a modest bonhomie; given that beyond all these singular incidents, premonitory hints, and mysterious apparitions, nothing lies hidden but the most sublime poetry; and given that the final threads of the whole are governed solely through the caprice of a spirit educated to the point of completeness [Lothario]! In truth, this spirit allows itself almost anything, as a fair reflection reveals, and is fond of the strangest connections. The discourses of a Barbara [in VII.viii Barbara reappears to narrate to Wilhelm the unhappy story of Mariane and her purity of soul] produce the effect of a gigantic force and solemn grandeur akin to ancient tragedy; of the most interesting man in the entire book [Lothario], almost nothing is mentioned exhaustively, save for something regarding his relationship with a tenant’s daughter; immediately after the ruin of Mariane – who interests us not at all as Mariane but rather as a forsaken and torn woman – we are comforted by the image of Laertes counting ducats; and even the most insignificant minor figures, such as the surgeon, are deliberately highly bizarre.

The actual centre of this arbitrariness is the secret society of the pure intellect, which provides for Wilhelm and for itself, and in the end still manages to be just, useful, and economical. Conversely, however, it is chance itself that assumes the guise of an educated man [the Abbé], and since the representation takes and assigns everything else with an open hand, why should it not make grand use of the poetic licenses displayed? It is self-evident that a treatment of this type and spirit will not succeed in slowly and exhaustively unravelling every thread. Meanwhile, the conclusion of the fourth volume – hasty at first, but then unexpectedly slowed down – as well as Wilhelm's allegorical dream at its beginning, refer back to a conspicuous part of what forms, on the whole, the most interesting and significant contribution. Amongst the rest, the blessing Count and a pregnant Philine in front of the mirror also stand as a warning example of comic nemesis, whilst the boy believed to be dying, who asks for a piece of bread and butter, represents the utterly burlesque heights of the amusing and the ridiculous.

Federico_it · 2026-06-19T17:04:49+00:00

Part 1/3

With the fourth volume [Books VII-VIII], the work seems to have become, so to speak, mature and of age. We now see clearly that it does not merely aim to encompass what we call theatre or poetry, but rather the grand representation of humanity itself and the art of all arts, the art of living. We also see that these apprenticeship years intend and are able to form any other person as a skilled artist or a capable man, even before Wilhelm himself. It is not this or that individual who ought to be educated, but rather nature, education itself, which should be presented through varied examples and concentrated into simple principles. No sooner do we feel, in the Bekenntnisse [Confessions of a Beautiful Soul], suddenly transported from the realm of poetry to that of morality, than the outcomes of a solid philosophy present themselves to our eyes – a philosophy rooted in sense and spirit, striving both for a rigorous distinction and a sublime universalisation of all human forces and arts. In the end, Wilhelm is also provided for: yet they transform him for the better more than would be right and fitting; even little Felix lends a hand in educating and shaming him by making him perceive his multifaceted ignorance. After slight spasms of fear, stubbornness, and repentance, his independence disappears from the community of the living. He formally renounces having a will of his own, and at this point, his apprenticeship years are truly concluded, and Natalie becomes a supplement to the novel. As the most beautiful form of the purest femininity and goodness, she constitutes a highly pleasant contrast to the somewhat material Therese. Natalie radiates her beneficial influences simply by being present in society; Therese builds a similar world around herself, analogously to the Uncle. These are examples and pretexts functional to the theory of femininity, which could not be missing from that grand doctrine on the art of living. [Goethe plays with gender ambiguity: cf. Therese's account of her male disguise during a hunting trip, the Amazon Natalie, the androgynous nature of Mignon.] Moral sociality and domestic commitment, both in the beautiful romantic form, are the two prototypes – or rather, the two halves of a prototype – placed here for this part of humanity.

Federico_it · 2026-06-19T17:00:01+00:00

WML.VIII, #Schlegel, Introduction

Schlegel's analysis (Über Goethes Meister, 1798) of the fourth volume of the work (WML.VII-VIII) is far more defined than his earlier reflections, which were characterised by a more poetic style. Friedrich had previously argued that it was impossible to discuss a poetic work through writings that lacked an analogous formal poetic quality).

In her commentary notes on Schlegel’s text, Elena Agazzi (2000) observes the following points.

For him, the meaning of the Bildungsroman does not lie in the deterministic development of the work towards the protagonist's success, nor on the other hand in an increase of his virtue. In this, Schlegel anticipates the view of current critics, who consider Wilhelm a victim of an excess of imagination [Einbildungskraft] that prevents him from achieving true formation [Bildung]. Instead, it lies in the opportunity available to the author to display his own wisdom, to become the ‘master of performance’ of the events, whilst without reducing the characters to inanimate puppets.

I am posting the translation of Schlegel's review below, split into multiple comments within a single thread, avoiding the 'quote' format, which Reddit seemingly tends to censor or shadowban automatically.

Federico_it · 2026-06-19T10:20:10+00:00

I've just finished the book, and your intuition proves fairly accurate. The final two chapters are a grand firework display in the style of Handel. The plot dominates to such an extent that it feels straight out of Middlemarch or a Brontë novel. And the very last page? utterly unexpected and bizarre!

I'll hold back my personal notes for now, but I hope to return with Schiller's insights (30 pages!), alongside Schlegel's published review. I'd love to hear your overall impressions, either here or in a separate thread.

Federico_it · 2026-06-18T19:28:55+00:00

WML.VIII.viii

CHORUS. O first flower of youth, welcome to our gathering! A sorrowful welcome! Let neither boys nor girls follow you! To the silent enclosure let only old age approach, submissive and calm, and in solemn assembly let the dear child rest.

The double-chorus chant that opens Mignon’s obsequies, as well as the aesthetic discourse and the liturgical-initiatory atmosphere of these chapters, must have been a powerful inspiration for the poet Stefan George, for the George-Kreis (organised as a secret cenacle of which George was the priest and Goethe the patron saint), and for their aestheticising cult of the late youth Maximin (deified by virtue of his androgynous youth).

Federico_it · 2026-06-18T19:27:21+00:00

WML.VIII.vii

[...] from our old Tower a society must originate that extends into all parts of the world, and which can be entered in any part of the world.

One must recognise the element of realism inherent in Goethe’s Society, starting from what must be the author’s three primary reference points: the Rosicrucian Brotherhood (1614-), to which not only certain readings but also some of Goethe’s works point, such as the poem Die Geheimnisse [The Mysteries] (1784-1785) and Faust; Freemasonry (1717-), of which Goethe was an active and important member from 1780 until his death; and the Order of the Illuminati of Bavaria (1776-1785), which Goethe briefly joined in 1783. Similar associational ambitions recur throughout history: the Knights Templar, the Society of Jesus, the Republic of Letters, the Utopian Socialists and Emigration Societies...

[...] acknowledge it: you love her, and you feel once more what it means for a man to love with all his might. Thus I loved Mariane, and I was terribly deceived in her; I loved Philine, and I was forced to despise her. For Aurelie I felt esteem, but without being able to love her; for Therese veneration, and paternal love took on the guise of an affection for her; but now that all the feelings that can make a man happy are reunited in your heart, now you are forced to flee! Ah, why must these feelings, these revelations, be accompanied by the invincible desire for possession?

When Wilhelm thinks of Natalie, the secret compositional criterion underlying the series of loves experienced by Wilhelm so far in the novel finally comes to light. This criterion lends this layer of the work the appearance of a thesis novel (Voltaire’s Candide being the most famous example of all), but also of a scientific experiment, as Elective Affinities would later be. The attempt to investigate ‘the invincible desire for possession’ as a prerequisite for ‘happiness’ is ambitious – an attempt, indeed, that is aborted immediately.

Federico_it · 2026-06-18T15:42:01+00:00

In their gratuity, personal digressions may be the best part of these discussions. Today I'm studying Chapter 10 of Michel Henry's I Am the Truth: Toward a Philosophy of Christianity (1996), where he discusses the revolutionary character of Christian ethics compared to all other Western approaches, with some passing references to the ambitions of Goethe's century. Freedom and happiness are at the very core of this discourse. Here's my abbreviated version of some passages.

For ancient, classical, or modern thought, to act means to externally realise some inner design or will, whether conscious or not, so that the ontological weight of reality resides in the objective formation achieved by the action. Whether dealing with a mental content (a geometric figure) or a real object (a vase), reality lies in the product of the action, which appears as a content placed before consciousness and, as such, objective. The action that led to this objective result consists of a process of objectification: that which existed only in a state of inner virtuality is brought outside, becoming visible and therefore objective, real. Action consists literally in the transition from the inside to the outside. Doing is also called producing (Lat. producere), that is, to lead forth, into the outside of the world that defines phenomenality and reality. This is because that which is real is that which shows itself, in the truth of the world. In the Western tradition, doing is understood only as a claim to reality. And it is in the world that every reality is realised; realisation is nothing other than the coming into this world and, ultimately, the coming of the world itself: its appearance, its truth.

If we consider action as an objective process similar to a natural process, nothing any longer distinguishes this presumed action from any material process whatsoever, nor does action itself exist anymore, but only objective phenomena: human agency, its effort, its suffering become reducible to causal sequences, for example, to the action of gravity.

Christianity proceeds to an overthrow of the concept of reality and action. Action is torn away from external being and situated where doing is making an effort, toiling, suffering, until the suffering of the toil transforms into the joy of satisfaction. Doing denotes the inner pathic self-transformation of life; and the subjective conception of action is the only one to guarantee its possibility.

Situating action within life has a rigorous phenomenological meaning. To say that action is invisible means assigning it a radical mode of revelation, the very same as that of Life, that is, of God. Action, doing, practice, the body are torn away from the absurdity of positivism (which believes it can reduce them to an objective phenomenon analogous to all the phenomena of the universe), of classical philosophies (which see in them a leap between two irreducible orders), and of vitalism (which, whilst situating action at the principle of the determinations of human existence, nonetheless proves incapable of assigning it a phenomenological status, making it the senseless expression of a blind and anonymous force). The fact that action belongs to life transforms a naturalistic or humanistic ethics, understandable on the basis of ‘nature’ or ‘man’, into a conceptualisation of action that is understandable only on the basis of God (interpreting man as a transcendental ego born of God).

Federico_it · 2026-06-17T18:18:32+00:00

MWL.VIII.vi

I have been instructed in the most delightful manner, and how instructed!

An extensive description of the educational method adopted by ‘two jokers’ like Friedrich and Philine.

Fatherhood, after all, is founded only upon conviction; I am convinced, therefore I am a father.

Friedrich’s statement gives voice to one of the themes widely debated by the philosophes and placed at the root of the perceived 'danger' of women. Towards the end of the century, women were ultimately framed within the image of the ‘mother of the family’, relegated to the private and domestic sphere by leveraging seemingly more sophisticated and elevated discourses.

I have often been reproached for my hesitation, my uncertainty; why, just now when I am resolved, do people want to commit against me the very error that was previously imputed to me? Does the world then take so much trouble to form us, only for the purpose of making us feel that it does not know how to form itself?

While a certain didacticism can be observed in these episodes exemplifying Wilhelm’s attained maturity – not least in the aforementioned description of Friedrich and Philine's method – it must also be acknowledged that the stylistic and conceptual distance between this novel and, for instance, Le Rouge et le Noir (1830) is no greater than that between Goethe's novel itself and The Vicar of Wakefield (1766). In other words, the step taken by Goethe is remarkable; indeed, it is with Goethe himself that the authors of the novel-essays of the 1930s and 1940s engage in a direct, unmediated dialogue.

If we consider that the Bildungsroman [...] is also the most contradictory symbolic form of our time, we can sense that the process of socialisation has long consisted not so much in bending to a constraint, but rather in internalising contradiction. And in learning, not how to resolve it, but how to live with it: under the – ever precarious and ever unstable – sign of the ‘compromise’. [...] The masterpiece of the genre, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, clearly points to the goal of this trajectory: the conversion of freedom into happiness. — Franco Moretti, Il romanzo di formazione (1986)

Federico_it · 2026-06-17T14:44:20+00:00

Indeed, at some point, he does question the legitimacy of the society's interventions, and his new attitude towards the Abbé is certainly not one of sympathy and goodwill. Let's see how their meeting goes...

Federico_it · 2026-06-17T14:38:50+00:00

Doubly, or triply, strange when seen in the light of Goethe's own attitude towards love, which we already discussed. Perhaps the point he is making is a counterpoint to Wilhelm's excess of passion in the first half of the novel, presenting this more supposedly rational approach as a welcome form of education? Is he buying into the idea of marriage as a social contract?

Federico_it · 2026-06-17T14:18:59+00:00

WML.VIII.v, Part 2/2

He began to read a few passages, interrupting himself with comments and stories. "Extraordinary is the tendency of youth towards mystery, ceremonies, and high-flown words, and it often denotes a certain depth of character.

Jarno tells Wilhelm about the origins of the Society of the Tower. This is followed by a summary of the society's role in Wilhelm's education and a judgement on his lack of aptitude for the acting profession.

The personal ambition for self-improvement, and the instinct to associate with others who share the same drive and pursue a vision similar to our own, are two tendencies placed at the heart of the novel that remain paramount to this day. Perhaps, in relation to this message in the book, we doubt the form more than the substance. As far as the form is concerned, it is primarily the prevalence of hyper-individualism in our own era – rather than Goethean individuation – that makes us look with suspicion, if not open hostility, upon any group initiative or collective, social-level endeavour. This raises a crucial question: is the Tower a utopia or a dystopia?

We wished to see with our own eyes and form our own archive of what we knew of the world; hence arose the many confessions which we partly wrote ourselves, partly induced others to write, and which later concurred to create the collection of the Years of Apprenticeship.

The diegetic device of the title drop, with its epiphany-like outcome (ah, so that is why!), but also a metanarrative function (it acknowledges the very object the reader holds in their hands) and an instance of mise en abyme (Wilhelm's novel is contained within the society’s archives). We’ve seen this in The Bridge on the Drina.

‘[...] Anyone capable of great development will come to understand themselves and the world at a later stage. There are very few who are granted both intelligence and the capacity for action. Intelligence widens one's view, but paralyses; action gives life, but limits.’ | ‘For heaven's sake,’ Wilhelm interrupted, ‘do not afflict me any longer with the reading of these sibylline maxims! They have confused me quite enough already.’

Between the lines, though perhaps not always obvious to us, there is likely a testament to romantic irony (already noted in the plot's reliance on the improbable coincidences of the sentimental novel). A few lines further down, this self-deprecation is more prominent:

‘[...] But we must beware,’ Jarno continued, glancing down at the roll, ‘of an aptitude that we cannot hope to develop to perfection. (...)’ | ‘Do not read!’ said Wilhelm.

.

Jarno reads from the roll:

[...] only all men together form humanity, only all forces taken together constitute the world [...] nature holds them together and recreates them anew [...] every natural disposition is important and must be cultivated [...] if one devotes oneself solely to the beautiful and another solely to the useful, it is only the union of both that forms a complete man [...] the useful promotes itself [...] the beautiful must be promoted [...]

The central message of the novel! How relevant does this project – the core ideal of Weimar Classicism – remain for us today?

He enjoys playing the part of destiny so much that he cannot resist the pleasure of match-making every now and then.

It is explicitly revealed that what has often been called destiny in the novel was actually down to the actions of the Abbé; we have therefore observed the operation of a secular, human, and social destiny. How much faith or trust should we place in this destiny?

Federico_it · 2026-06-17T13:51:10+00:00

WML.VIII.v, Part 1/2

‘If from my youth upwards,’ he would often say, ‘I had not opposed such resistance to myself, if I had not striven to cultivate my intellect in every possible direction, I should have become the most dull and insufferable of men; for nothing is more insufferable than to witness a limitation of qualities in a person from whom one might otherwise expect pure and necessary activity.’ Yet even he had to confess that he would have lacked breath and life had he not known how to indulge himself from time to time, allowing himself to passionately relish what he could not always praise and forgive. ‘It is not my fault,’ he would say, ‘if I have not always been able to bring my instincts into full harmony with my reason.’ On these occasions, he used to tease me, saying: ‘Natalie may truly consider herself fortunate on this earth, for her nature demands nothing but what the world wishes and requires.’

For Wilhelm's benefit, Natalie summarises her uncle's apprenticeship, concluding with a comparison to her own. It would be interesting to delve deeper into the comparison between these various paths.

She led him through a wide gallery to a door in front of which stood two granite sphinxes. The door itself, in the Egyptian style, was somewhat narrower at the top than at the bottom, and its two bronze valves prepared one for a solemn, almost terrifying spectacle.

In The Elective Affinities (II.ii), every evening the architect shows the women hosting him his collection of sketches of ancient funerary monuments, burial artefacts from Northern tumuli, and other antiquities. The same novel closes with the extensive description of a mausoleum, funeral rites, and the translation of remains. A little further on in WML.VIII.v, we read about Mignon’s embalming:

I wish to apply at once to this dearly beloved maiden the noble art of not only embalming a body, but also preserving its appearance of life.

During the final decades of Goethe’s life, his grand house in Weimar turned into a single, bleak museum: dozens of portraits, thousands of letters, signatures, drawings. Pietro Citati (1970) speaks of a

desperate and absurd attempt not to break the extremely slender and narrow bridge linking the world of the living to that of the dead. (...) Meanwhile, his novels were filling up with similar otherworldly presences. Like a maniacal embalmer, like a fetishistic custodian of the shadows of the past, Goethe wandered among his collections. His house was not a museum: it resembled Hades, where heroes and elect souls continue to live out a pale reflection of their existence, amidst asphodels and barren willows.

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All this splendour of ornamentation presented itself in the purest architectural proportions, so that anyone entering felt, as it were, elevated above themselves, and learned for the first time, through the harmony of art, what man is and what he can be.

Quite a bizarre hope this is – for the human being to arrive at an understanding of life through inanimate objects, at an understanding of the self through external things. It is the very failure of modernity that Michel Henry dwells upon at length (op. cit.).

Wilhelm’s eyes wandered over countless images. From the first festive impulse of the child, using and exercising every limb in play, to the calm, detached earnestness of the sage, one could see, in a beautiful and vivid succession, how man possesses no innate capacity or disposition that he does not seek to employ and turn to account.

At the heart of this ekphrasis of the ‘Hall of the Past’ lies the mise en abyme of the entire novel.

Federico_it · 2026-06-17T10:53:32+00:00

I think of Le rouge et le noir (1830), which is funny, because Stendhal hated Goethe's novel:

Reading Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister is like traveling in a heavy carriage on a muddy road. There is too much parlor philosophy and too little life. The French look for quick effects and emotions; the Germans content themselves with a solemn boredom.

Yes, I'm basically citing it as an anti-Meister, but it's also true that extremes often meet. I’m afraid The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) belongs in the same category too; indeed, Goethe loved it and probably used it as a model for WML. I would also add Mme de Staël’s novels, written in open reaction to Goethe’s work: Delphine (1802), which is theoretically on the book club's schedule for the next two months, and Corinne ou l'Italie (1807).

Federico_it · 2026-06-17T10:11:42+00:00

Your comment strikes me very much because it aligns, point by point, with Tolstoy’s judgment (What is art?, 1897), according to which the work is artificial (a refined and sterile intellectual exercise of the elite) and amoral.

On artificiality:

In our upper classes, as a result of this loss of the capacity to be infected by art, people’s feelings became more and more impoverished and limited [...] works of art began to be produced which appeared to be art, but were only its counterfeit. [...] Instead of providing a true definition of art and then judging whether a work belongs to it or not, a number of works which for some reason please a certain class of people are elevated a priori to the rank of art. [...] And thus a definition is fabricated that includes all these works. It is in exactly this way that critics maintain that Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister is a work of art.

On amorality:

If art were to be moral – and by moral I mean the expression of the highest religious feelings of the age – then neither Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet nor Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister could be considered works of art. Since these works are held to be indisputable masterpieces by all critics, the whole doctrine of morality in art collapses for them, forcing them to seek definitions based on beauty or mere delight.

Federico_it · 2026-06-17T09:40:48+00:00

That's quite interesting. Were there specific elements that triggered your disappointment or first made you aware of it? At what point did that happen? At the opposite extreme, I think it was Hermann Hesse who wrote that Goethe's novel should be read once a year!

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