GOETHE’S LITERARY ESSAYS GOETHE AS A CRITIC “Goethe, the greatest of modern critics, the greatest critic of all times.”--SAINTE-BEUVE. “That great and supreme critic.”--MATTHEW ARNOLD. “Goethe, the most widely receptive of all critics.”--JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. “Goethe, the master of all modern spirits.”--TAINE. “The perusal of his Works would show that Criticism is also a science of which he is master; that if ever a man had studied Art in all its branches and bearings, from its origin in the depths of the creative spirit to its minutest finish on the canvas of the painter, on the lips of the poet, or under the finger of the musician, he was that man.”--CARLYLE. “He is also a great critic; yet he always said the best he could about an author. Good critics are rarer than good authors.”--TENNYSON. “The view of _Hamlet_ scattered throughout the book [_Wilhelm Meister_] is not so much criticism as high poetry. And what else except a poem can be born when a poet intuitively presents anew a work of poetry?”--FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL. “I shall die ungoethed, I doubt, so far as Poetry goes; I always believe he was Critic and Philosopher.”--EDWARD FITZGERALD. “For the Goethe of _Faust_, of the great lyrics, and of some other things, I have almost unlimited admiration; but for the critical Goethe I feel very much less.”--GEORGE SAINTSBURY. “Goethe is the supreme hero of intellectual humanity.”--REMY DE GOURMONT. “Goethe, as usual, must be pronounced to have the last word of reason and wisdom, the word which comprehends most of the truth of the matter.”--LORD MORLEY. GOETHE’S LITERARY ESSAYS A SELECTION IN ENGLISH ARRANGED BY J. E. SPINGARN WITH A FOREWORD BY VISCOUNT HALDANE [Illustration] NEW YORK HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY 1921 COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY RAHWAY, N. J. FOREWORD By VISCOUNT HALDANE