Goethe’s Reception of Ulrich von Hutten

Abstract

TOWARD THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH BOOK of Dichtung und Wtthrheit, Goethe recalls his discovery of the works of the humanist Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523):DieWerke Ulrichs von Hutten kamen mir in die Hande und es wundersam genug das in unsern neuern Tagen sich das Ahnliche, was dort hervorgetreten, hier sich gleichfalls wieder zu manifestieren schien (FA 14:773). This remark is followed by a long quotation from Hutten's autobiographical letter the Nuremberg humanist Willibald Pirckheimer (1470-1530). In the cited part of the letter, Hutten expresses the desire be ennobled on his own merit and criticizes the aristocratic attitude towards education.The immediate context of the quotation seems restrict the significance of Hutten's work the relation between the nobility and the third-estate. However, Hutten's life and work were of importance not only the Germany of the Sturm und Drang, but also Goethe's own life and work, particularly Gotz von Berlichingen. This study will historically and culturally situate Goethe's reception of Hutten. The first part outlines what Hans Robert Jauss calls the Erwartungshorizont by describing the historical forces that made Goethe's reading of Hutten's work possible.1 It seeks answer the questions: why was Hutten's work relevant Sturm-und-Drang Germany and what were the events that Goethe thought were repeating themselves? In the second part, I will examine Gotz von Berlichingen in the light of some of Hutten's dialogues, pointing out possible influences of the humanist on the young Goethe.The success of Goethe's Gotz von Berlichingen, which contributed the revival of interest in Renaissance Germany and the creation of Hutten as a German site of memory, will be the theme of the third part.The fourth part will analyze the politics of Goethe's long citation from Hutten's letter Pirckheimer, while the final part will follow the metamorphosis of Goethe's horizon of expectation which made different aspects of Hutten's work and life come the forefront. Hutten's presence in Goethe's late work demonstrates the lasting impression the humanist left on him. I. Cultural Confrontation in Renaissance and Sturm-und-Drang Germany Understanding Goethe's wonderment at how some events of Hutten's time were repeating themselves in the second half of the eighteenth century requires a closer look at certain political and cultural currents that influenced both Hutten's life and Goethe's youth.The reaction of the Sturm-und-Drang generation French cultural hegemony is common knowledge scholars of eighteenth-century Germany, just as the response of German humanists Rome's exploitation of the German states is well known scholars of the German Renaissance and Reformation. These two conflicts will be revisited here because no scholar date has pointed out the similarities between them and because it is probably the parallel between these two cultural confrontations that made Goethe's reading of Hutten possible. The Italian claim cultural superiority over the Barbarians forced Hutten reflect upon his own identity2 At a time when German humanists still looked Italy as the model of accomplishment in the liberal arts, this was no easy task. Albrecht Durer's statement comparing his social position in Venice that in Nuremberg, Hier bin ich Herr, daheim ein Schmarotzer,3 gives an idea of the difficulty a German artist faced in identifying with the Germany of 1500. Before the Reformation, Hutten thought his task as a humanist was to rid Germany of its barbarity by spreading learning and culture, as he wrote Pirckheimer:Deutschland soil sich mit Kultur bekleiden und die Barbarei fiber die Garamanten und das Baltische Meer hinaus ausgezischt und verstoBen werden.4This was the aim of his contribution the Epistolae obscurorum virorum (1515-17). However, this attitude changed radically with the beginning of the Reformation. …