During the months that followed its publication, at all
events, he was possessed with a wanton humour which spared neither
friends nor foes, nor the society of which he had apparently caught
the contagion as completely as any of its members. At a later date,
Goethe speaks of his "considerate levity" and his "warm
coolness";[136] and in a succession of pieces which he threw off at
this time we have an interesting commentary on this characterisation
of himself. In these pieces we have an old vein reopened. We have seen
how in Leipzig he had burlesqued the professor of literature, Clodius,
but in the years that followed his departure from Leipzig--the
depressing period in Frankfort and the period of rapid development in
Strassburg--there was neither the occasion nor the prompting to
personal or general satire. Now, however, in the tumult of his own
feelings and in the follies of the society around him he found themes
for satirical comment which afforded scope for a side of his genius
rarely manifested in his later years. The short satirical dramas
produced at this time on the mere impulse of the moment have in
themselves only a local and temporary interest, but they derive
importance from the fact that they proceed from the same mental
attitude which was to find its definitive expression in the character
of Mephistopheles--essentially the creation of this period of Goethe's
development.
Pages:
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215