. Backgrounds of literature. as the works of Sophocles werefreed from all trace of connection, except theinevitable local color and individual touch, withthe dramatists personal experience. From Iphigenia, Tasso, the Roman Elegies,and from a number of shorter poems like TheBride of Corinth and Alexis und Dora,Goethe endeavored to detach himself entirelyand to give his work an objectivity as definiteand complete as that of a Greek statue. He didnot succeed, because his works are one and allrooted in his experience, and because the effortwas out of date; no modern man can do perfectlywhat Goethe
. Backgrounds of literature. as the works of Sophocles werefreed from all trace of connection, except theinevitable local color and individual touch, withthe dramatists personal experience. From Iphigenia, Tasso, the Roman Elegies,and from a number of shorter poems like TheBride of Corinth and Alexis und Dora,Goethe endeavored to detach himself entirelyand to give his work an objectivity as definiteand complete as that of a Greek statue. He didnot succeed, because his works are one and allrooted in his experience, and because the effortwas out of date; no modern man can do perfectlywhat Goethe attempted to do. Iphigenia is avery noble work, but when we search for the es-sential Goethe we do not look into Iphigenia or Tasso; we look into the first part of Faust —the Faust of the Romantic, notthe Faust of the classical, period. Thusthere appears in the maturity of Goethes yearsand genius a transformation which was re-garded at the time and is now regarded by manyas a complete revolution in his aims and meth- 154. WEIMAR AND GOETHE ods, indeed in his very nature; for it was notuntil liis return to Weimar, after the two mo-mentous years in Italy, that the charge of cold-ness began to be heard. From any point of view, the change is strik-ing and of far-reaching influence, and couldhave been possible only in a man to whom hisown country and time did not furnish all themeans of expression he craved, and who was inthe habit of a constant and connected meditationon his art and his life. A man of Goethesyears, intelligence, and self-command does notsever himself from his artistic past, break withhis audience, and essay entirely new methods ofcreation without deep and prolonged conversion was rapidly accomplishedin the genial Italian air, but it had been longin preparation. It is probable that no greatwriter ever searched his own nature more rigor-ously or reflected on the conditions and func-tions of art more exhaustively than Goethe didbefore and after the
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