Der junge Goethe. Neu bearbeitete Ausgabe in fünf Bänden (+ Registerband) (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS Hanna Fischer-Lamberg, ed., Der junge Goethe. Neu bearbeitete Ausgabe in fünf Bänden (+ Registerband). Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 19631974 . Unveränderte Neuausgabe 1999The present volumes are a new paperback version, with sUghtly reduced page (but not print) size, of the stately original Fischer-Lamberg, which was, at the time of original pubUcation, and remains the niUest elaboration yet of the editorial principles practiced Ui the two earUer Young Goethe editions by Michael Bernays (1875, three volumes) and Max Morris (1909-1912, six volumes ). The concept from the beginning was to pubUsh all of young Goethe, from his earliest notebooks to the time of his departure from Frankfurt am Main for Weimar in the faU of 1775. Chronological divisions were worked out that would yield more or less a volume of material, and—a significant innovation to this day—the letters, poems, notebooks, prose works, dramas, legal documents, etc. were presented one genre after the other within one of those chronological divisions, rather than aU the poems foUowed by aU the dramas foUowed by aU the prose works, letters, etc. running from beginning to end as has usually been the custom with editions of Goethe's works. That was a relatively simple, thoroughly defensible, and m fact very iUuminating way to treat the products of the young Goethe, whereas any attempt to do the same with all of Goethe's works poses various difficulties that cannot be easUy overcome (although the Münchner Ausgabe of Goethe's Sämtliche Werke nach Epochen seines Schaffens made a vaUant effort to extend the Young Goethe edition principle to the works as a whole by pubUshing the earUest versions of the works, even manuscript versions Ui some cases, rather than later revised versions or the Ausgabe letzter Hand). Obviously the new printing of the Fischer-Lamberg edition was meant to offer itsetf to the market Ui the Goethe celebration year which produced so many other phenomena, both welcome and questionable. It is somewhat disappointing that this is a completely unrevised new printing with no corrections or updatings (even though there have been developments in the last twenty-five years that might by rights have demanded inclusion). One might beUeve that offering the edition also on CD-ROM would have been a great boon (there were, of course, other Goethe CD-ROMs that came out in 1999, including one of the Berliner Ausgabe and a competing one oÃ- Der junge Goethe in seinerzeit, of which more below). But making revisions and updates would presumably have involved considerable effort, including the recruitment of a new editorial team; and a simple CD-ROM Uke those of the Berliner Ausgabe or the ChadwyckHealey production of the Weimarer Ausgabe, is also not the answer to everyone 's prayers. Both are searchable, the Berliner much more clumsUy than the Weimarer, but that is about the limit of theft capacities—they do not offer new possibiUties like Der junge Goethe in seiner Zeit, which contains considerable background and context material in addition to the text. 258 Book Reviews The question is: does a new printing of Fischer-Lamberg make sense, even so thoroughly unrevised? assuming, of course, that the passage of twenty-five years, der Zahn der Zeit, in effect, makes the volumes, tf desirable, otherwise unobtainable . In fact the three most important recent Goethe pubUshing projects have not, even aU together, been able to render the Fischer-Lamberg obsolete. The extensive Frankfurter Ausgabe pubUshed m the Klassiker Verlag does not even contain a section devoted to Young Goethe, organizing itsetf instead in the more or less time-honored manner by genres. Even though it contains most or aU of the correspondence from the Young Goethe period, it does not include aU of aU the other categories of writing offered at their fuUest Ui Fischer-Lamberg. (It does, however, offer a very useful volume with the two versions of Werther on facing pages.) The first two volumes of the Hanser Münchner Ausgabe (1.1 and 1.2) are labeled Der junge Goethe 1757-1775, and of course the commentary and bibUographical information are more up-to-date than Fischer-Lamberg, but the Münchner...