Love and Death in Goethe: 'One and Double' by Ellis Dye

Abstract

882 Reviews available. Carrdus then includes verses by Kuntsch's female relatives and friends (re ligious and occasional poetry) arranged by author (pp. 229-3I3), then a section of documents (Kuntsch's autobiography and letters as well as epicedia and funeral ser mons concerning Kuntsch and her circle). The commentary section (pp. 33 5-406) is rich and detailed; the individual biographies (pp. 407-26) are concise and helpful. A concluding bibliography and index help us to understand and appreciate these texts. Anna Carrdus has done a tremendous amount of archival research, organization, and thinking for this edition. It belongs in every research library. OHIO STATEUNIVERSITY BARBARA BECKER-CANTARINO Love and Death in Goethe: 'One and Double'. By ELLIS DYE. (Studies in German Literature, Linguistics and Culture) Rochester, NY: Camden House. 2004. xiv + 333 PP. $75; ?50. ISBN I-57I I3-300-3. Against a backdrop of interwoven notions of love and death in European literature and culture from theMiddle Ages to the present day, Ellis Dye sets out to look speci fically at Goethe's use of the Liebestod as topos in the immediate context of German Romanticism. Leaping back and forth in cultural history with sometimes alarming agility, Dye makes connections from Gottfried's Tristan through Grimmelshausen to Wuthering Heights, Wedekind, and Marilyn Monroe's role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The reader will need towork to keep up. The notion of something 'one and double' (like the gingko leaf) recurs throughout the textual analyses: the paradoxical coincidence of individuality and union, sameness and difference, death and life/love in human relations; 'Stirb und werde!'. An entire chapter is devoted to the paradoxical mysteries of 'Selige Sehnsucht', and Dye gives a rich, fluid, associative reading of the poem. He also looks at poems that touch, often uncomfortably, on the coexistence of pain and love, such as 'Heidenroslein', 'Das Veilchen', Gretchen's song 'Der Konig in Thule', and 'Ganymed'. Dye's reading of 'Heidenroslein' as a poem about rape is not new, but it leads him tomake an interesting connection between Heidenroslein's fate and the destruction of Adelheid von Walldorf by awould-be lover, inGotz von Berlichingen. The love-death theme, Dye argues, isparticularly at home in the ballads; although he declines to say why ('why love and death find a home in the ballad, in particular, is a question we won't answer here', p. 53). Why not? In a chapter on portrayals of women that draw on the medieval and early modern idea of Frau Welt, Dye shows us how thewill to anchor fear of sex and fear of death in woman apparently never goes out of fashion, from Grimmelshausen's Courasche via Goethe's Adelheid and Wedekind's Lulu toMarlene Dietrich. Unusual here is not the recognition of the pattern, but the inclusion of Goethe among the list of writers in thrall to it:Goethe is so often excluded, as if he alone were immune to cultural beliefs. As well as tackling Adelheid, Dye gives an interesting analysis ofWerther's Lotte as a femme fatale, and takes another look atGoethe's perilously seductive water women: the new Melusine and the nixie in 'Der Fischer'. A chapter on the Lehrjahre that focuses onWilhelm's identification with Hamlet never quite seems to fit the love-and-death argument, although identity and difference are brought into play as part of the 'one and double' theme. It is followed, however, by a really excellent chapter exploring the dialectic of separation (death) and union (love) inDie Wahlverwandtschaften-here Dye's focus fits effortlessly, and really contributes to his reading of the work. A chapter on love and death, irony, and the Romantic in Faust is also interesting, but less coherent (like Faust itself, perhaps). Overall, the reader will have to accept that coherence is probably not part of Dye's project. He states on several occasions that he isno fan of over-tidy or forced readings, MLR, 101.3, 2oo6 883 and could not be accused of producing them. The downside of this is a sense of chaos in the work: analyses are rarely followed by clear conclusions. The upside is that there is a sense of movement throughout the work...