The Religious Significance of Goethe's "Amerikabild"

Abstract

I Major studies of and include: Walter Wadepuhl, Goethe's Interest in the New World (Jena: Frommansche Buchhandlung, 1934); Ernst Beutler, Von der lm zum Susequehanna, in Essays um (Bremen: Carl Schonemann Verlag, 1957); Johannis Urzidil, Das Gliick der Gegenwart: Amerikabild (Zurich/Stuttgart: Artemis Verlag, 1958); Victor Lange, Goethes Amerikabild. Wirklichkeit und Vision, in Amerika in der deutschen Literatur (Stuttgart: Phillip Reclam, 1975), pp. 63-74; and Harold Jantz, 'America and the Younger Goethe, MLN, vol. 97, (1982), 515-45. Each of these works focuses on Goethe's interest in American literature, geology, politics, and prominent American scholars and politicians. Articles by Karl Arndt, Harmony Society and Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, in Comparative Literature, 10 (1958), 193-202, Harry Pfund, Goethe and the Quakers' in Germanic Review 14 (1939), 258-69 and Anna Hellersberg-Wendriner, America in the World View of the Aged Goethe, in Germanic Review 14 (1939), 270-76, concentrate on specific religious groups such as the Quakers and Harmonites as models for Goethe's Tower Society. The purpose of this paper is to explore the religious liberalism and eclecticism which accompany Goethe's references to America. It should also be noted that although some scholars have recently emphasized negative aspects of the Tower Society or have treated the novel as a whole as an ironic work (see Karl Schlechta, Wilhelm Meister. (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1953); Jane Brown, Goethe's Critical Narratives, (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1975); and Hannelore Schlaffer, Wilhelm Meister. Das Ende der Kunst und die Wiederkehr des Mythos (Stuttgart, 1980), Goethe's comments on religion in the Lehrand Wanderjahre correlate so closely to his own religious beliefs that it is difficult to doubt their seriousness.