[7] “I have just re-read the _Poetics_ of Aristotle with the greatest pleasure; intelligence in its highest manifestation is a fine thing. It is really remarkable how Aristotle limits himself entirely to experience, and so appears, if perhaps somewhat material, for the most part all the more solid. It was also stimulating to me to see with what liberality he always shields the poet against the fault-finders and the hypercritical, how he always insists on essentials, and in everything else is so lax that in more than one place I was simply amazed. It is this that makes his whole view of poetry, and especially of his favorite forms, so vivifying that I shall soon take up the book again, especially in regard to some important passages which are not quite clear and the meaning of which I wish to investigate further.”--Goethe to Schiller, April 28, 1797. ON THE GERMAN THEATRE (1815) Now that the German stage, as one of our best national institutions, is emerging from an unfortunate narrowness and seclusion into freedom and vitality, wise directors are exerting themselves to produce an effect on a wide public, and not to confine themselves, however earnestly, to any single institution. Poets, actors, managers, and public will come to a better and better’ mutual understanding, but in the gratification of the moment they must not forget what their predecessors accomplished. Only upon a repertory which includes older plays can a national theatre be founded. I hope that the following words will have a favorable reception, so that the author’s courage will be stimulated and he will come forward from time to time with similar suggestions. _A Plan of Schiller’s, and What Came of It_ When the lamented Schiller, through the influence of the court, the solicitations of society, and the inclinations of his friends, was moved to change his place of residence from Jena to Weimar, and to renounce that seclusion in which until then he had wrapt himself, he had the theatre at Weimar particularly in his mind, and he decided to devote his attention carefully and closely to the productions there. And such a narrowing of his field the poet needed, for his extraordinary genius from his youth up had sought the heights and the depths. The power of his imagination, his poetical activity, had led him over a great range; but in spite of the ardor with which his mind traversed this broad range, with further experience it could not escape his clear insight that these qualities must necessarily lead him astray in the field of the theatre.