"--Max Morris, _op. cit._ ii. 33.]
To the same period to which Goethe assigns his transformation by
Spinoza he also assigns the original conception of a work in which
Spinoza was, at least, to find a place. As has been said, there are
passages in the fragments of this poem that were actually written
which may have been suggested by the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_
of Spinoza, but the general tone and tendency of the fragments are
equally remote from the temper and the contemplations of the Spinoza
whom the world knows. The dominant note of _Der Ewige Jude_, as the
fragments are designated, is, indeed, suggestive, not of Spinoza,
but of him who may already have been in embryo in Goethe's
mind--Mephistopheles. Mephistophelian is the ironical presentment in
_Der Ewige Jude_ of the follies, the delusions of man in his highest
aspirations.
Near the close of his life it was said of Goethe that the world would
come to believe that there had been not one but many Goethes,[173] and
the contrast between the author of _Werther_ and the author of _Der
Ewige Jude_ is an interesting commentary on the remark. Yet the
subject of the abortive poem, as we have it--the perversions of
Christianity in its historical development--was not a new interest for
him.
Pages:
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267