Goethe und Frau von Stein: Geschichte einer Liebe by Helmut Koopmann (review)

Abstract

246 Reviews the immortal longings of some kind of mythical world-view on the one hand, and the relentless resistances and disenchantments of modernity on the other. I yield to few in my admiration for Benjamin; but not for the Wahlverwandtschaften essay. Tantillo's treatment of it comes close to absolutizing it, which is curious, given that the whole point of her book is to demonstrate that Die Wahlverwandtschaften is a text which strenuously resists monolithic readings. University College London Martin Swales Goethe und Frau von Stein: Geschichte einer Liebe. By Helmut Koopmann. Munich: Beck. 2002. 282 pp. ?20.50. ISBN 3-406-48652-5 (hbk). Though written by a respected academic, this book is not directed primarily at an academic audience. This is clear from the title, from Beck's presentation of the vol? ume, and from the style of the text, which contains no footnotes or specific references for the passages quoted from Goethe's and von Stein's correspondence, and from Goethe's diaries. The excerpts from von Stein's correspondence are not, of course, from her let? ters to Goethe: these she demanded back from him and destroyed. This makes any 'Geschichte einer Liebe' necessarily rather one-sided. Koopmann is aware of this, and of how difficult it is to ascertain whether the relationship, at least in its early stages, was mutual or existed primarily in Goethe's imagination. From the available evidence, the latter seems as likely as the former. Helmut Koopmann accuses Goethe of 'monologic' style as a correspondent, and wonders how farany ofthe letters Goethe wrote are about anyone other than their author. But that is a question one could prob? ably ask about many letters, and about other forms of writing too. Koopmann observes but does not really problematize von Stein's status as a 'stimulant ' for Goethe's self-expression in his letters to her and in his Italian travel diary (which purports to be addressed to her). In a wider study of self-expression and the writer,a recipient with the status of stimulant need not be a difficulty;but in a book about the relationship between Goethe and Charlotte von Stein, to east von Stein in this role is to reproduce a commonplace view of that friendship that is not particularly stimulating for the reader. Koopmann is not interested in the meaning of writing as such, but in one specific individual's writing and its development through or by means of another person. He even suggests that it does not matter that von Stein's letters were destroyed, because we know all we need to know about her from Goethe, and her best effortsat letter-writing would never have matched up to his simplest missive. If von Stein's letters had survived, Koopmann concludes, they would, anyway, have been second-rate ('zweitrangig'), at best a charming complement ('eine reizvolle Erganzung') to the words ofthe great man (p. 278). The ever-popular question whether Goethe and von Stein had sexual relations does interest Koopmann. The two standard answers, crudely put, are: yes they did, because Goethe's passion was so great; and no they didn't, because von Stein was frigid. Koopmann treads a path between those two answers. His historical lovers did have sex, he decides, but it was 'wohltemperiert' (p. 273) rather than passionate: Goethe may have found true love in von Stein, but he did not find true sex until he travelled to Rome, then wrote the Roman Elegies and married Christiane Vulpius. Given that we are in the realm of speculation here, any possible version must be deemed acceptable, and Koopmann's version does not depart radically from many that have gone before. The work is fluently written and leaves the reader in no doubt that its author is MLR, 99. i, 2004 247 genuinely fascinated by his subject, Goethe. It is likely to do well in the 'general readership' market forwhich it is intended. University of Edinburgh Sarah Colvin Goethe and theEnglish-Speaking World: Essays from the Cambridge Symposium for his 250th Anniversary. Ed. by Nicholas Boyle and John Guthrie. (Studies in German Literature, Linguistics and Culture) Rochester, NY: Camden House. 2002. vi + 285pp. ?50...