Faustian Pursuits: The Political-Cultural Dimension of Goethe's Weltliteratur and the Tragedy of Translation

Abstract

Ach, `Weltliteratur!' Das ist ein schoner Traum geblieben, selbst heute, da Globalisierung trotz Internet and Abertausender Kulturkongresse offensichtlich nur vollkommenes and gAnzliches Vergessen meint.i That Goethe's concept of Weltliteratur should find its way on to front page of a leading German weekly newspaper may be seen as a cheering sign of contemporary interest in Goethe studies. On other hand, occurrence is perhaps unsurprising given its year, 1999, and occasion of Weimar's ascension to status of European city of culture. The context for journalist's somewhat melancholy judgment on fate of Weltliteratur is a wistful reflection on failure of today's gebildete[r] deutsche[r] Mensch to evince any familiarity with many of world's nonGerman canonical classics. There is, however, an alternative and more urgent contemporary context that might equally well prompt renewed consideration of Goethe's Riesenkind. 112 The beginning of 1999 saw birth of euro. Rightly or wrongly, political proponents of a European single currency-- from Pierre Werner, former prime minister of Luxembourg, who in 1970 produced first report on establishing such a currency, to Helmut Kohl, speaking on occasion of its birth-have seen euro as a means to ending wars, to creating international peace and political harmony between nations.3 The extent to which Goethe projetted similar goals with his Weltliteratur has been a bone of some contention ever since earliest commentaries on concept; but that Weltliteratur does evoke some such cosmopolitan political perspective is surely beyond doubt. It was therefore only to be expected that coincidence between location for launching of euro at European Central Bank and birthplace of Germany's national poet and celebrated internationalist would not pass without notice.4 However, voluble-and politically expedient-optimism evinced by former German chancellor and his ilk may strike us as both hollow and irrelevant in light of tragic developments elsewhere in Europe during 1990s. Ethnic cleansing, for example, in various parts of former Yugoslavia not only casts an ironic pall over enthusiasm with which European monetary union was welcomed in several quarters; it may also serve as a reminder of distance between international understanding that Goethe's world literature would foster and reality of international hostilities that marks dawn of a new millennium. On at least two momentous occasions in twentieth century an appeal was made to Goethe-and specifically to his concept of Weltliteratur-in a hopeful and optimistic spirit of reconciliation among nations: by Friedrich von der Leyen writing at end of World War I and more famously by Fritz Strich in his book Goethe and die Weltliteratur(1946).5 With passage of the most terrible century in Western history6 it is difficult to deny abject failure of such appeals or to evade question this raises against quality of Goethe's political-cultural projections during final decade of his life. The purpose of following essay is to suggest that for all lofty idealism inscribed in goals of Weltliteratur Goethe was eminently aware that these were probably unrealizable. His project remains of vital significance even today, however, not least as a humanizing counter to greed and political-economic expediency driving processes of contemporary globalization. Rather like his dying Faust, Goethe believed in continuous and constructive pursuit of his world-literary goals, if not by political power-brokers, then by his world-literary reading public. I will demonstrate this with reference to two distinct but related major aspects of Weltliteratur. The first concerns its political-cultural dimension. An examination of several of Goethe's pronouncements on Weltliteratur reveals his sense of prodigiously difficult purpose it serves as a counter to post-Napoleonic nationalism. …