Götz von Berlichingen

“ The pedlar with the leather back related the storming of Möckmühl by the League, where Götz von Berlichingen had shut himself up with many brave followers, and where that iron-fisted man was made prisoner.
The counsellor smiled knowingly at this piece of news, and took a long draught of wine; Raw-bones did not permit the leather back man to finish his story, but beating time with renewed force with his long fingers, said, with sepulchral voice, "That's a rank lie, friend! it is impossible, d' ye see; because Berlichingen understands the art of war, and is a determined man ”

“ His disregard for the edict against private warfare caused Götz to be twice put under the ban of the Empire, first in 1512 and again in 1518. He was a stanch supporter of Luther. In 1525 the revolted peasants, according to his story, came to the castle of Berlichingen and insisted forcibly on his assuming command over them. The revolt was soon put down and Götz taken prisoner, and only released after two years' captivity, and on promise of abstaining from further warfare. ”

“ But from whatever of the above-mentioned mania had worked itself into me, I shortly endeavoured to free myself in Götz von Berlichingen, since I described how in disordered times this brave, well-thinking man resolves to take the place of the law and the executive power, but is in despair when, to the supreme authority, which he recognises and reveres, he appears in an equivocal light, and even rebellious.
By Klopstock's odes, it was not so much the Northern mythology as the nomenclature of the divinities, that had been introduced into German poetry ”

“ Specially associated with Götz von Berlichingen, but associated also with Goethe's general development at this time, was another of those mentors whose counsel and stimulus were necessary to him at all periods of his life. This was Johann Heinrich Merck, the son of an apothecary in Darmstadt and now Paymaster of the Forces there. Of Merck Goethe says that "he had the greatest influence on my life," and he makes him the subject of one of his elaborate character sketches in his Autobiography. To men of original nature, however discordant with his own, Goethe was always attracted. ”

“ The best known is Götz von Berlichingen; his memoirs were first published in 1731. The halo, with which three hundred years after his death, Goethe's charming poem has invested him, will make it difficult for the reader of his biography to separate the ideal delineation of the poet from the figure of the historical Götz. And yet this is necessary. For however modestly and lovingly Goethe has portrayed his character, he appears quite different in history. When as an old man, in a time to which he was a stranger, he wrote his life, he loved to dwell on the knightly exploits of his wild youth. ”

“ Thomas Münzer and Götz von Berlichingen were the only leaders who took part in what is known as “The Peasants’ War,” in Germany. This was an uprising of the peasants, which first manifested itself January 1, 1525, by the capture and looting of the convent of Kempton. This served as a signal for general uprising of the peasantry from the Alps to Havz, and from the Rhine to the Bohemian frontier. Münzer quickly persuaded the whole population in and around Mühausen and Laugensalza to rise in revolt, and Götz von Berlichingen hastened to place his skill at the service of the infuriated peasants. ”

“ On the day of the fair, the Markgraf appeared with a large force of knights, Swiss and local soldiery. Amongst them was Götz von Berlichingen, who was only twenty-two years of age. The following manœuvers then took place. In the morning some sixty horsemen were seen driving off the cattle about a quarter of a mile south of Nuremberg. Ulman Stromer thereupon marched out and took up a strong position, under protection of his guns, and drove the horsemen back into the woods, “for they did not find it very amusing: it is not everybody who likes to hear the cannon roar,” says Götz. ”

“ Goethe's return to Frankfort is marked by a number of songs, of which the "Wanderer's Sturmlied" is the most remarkable. He had outgrown many of the friends of his youth. Those with whom he felt most sympathy were the two Schlossers and his sister Cornelia. He found in her one who sympathized with all his aspirations. The work into which he threw all his genius was the dramatization of the history of the imperial knight of the Middle Ages, Gottfried or Götz von Berlichingen. The immediate cause of this enterprise was his enthusiasm for Shakespeare. ”

“ In earlier times, while I still hoped to gain Lili's hand, I had applied myself with the utmost diligence to the study and practice of legal business, but now I sought to fill the fearful gulf which separated me from her, with occupations of more intellect and soul. I therefore set to work in earnest with the composition of Egmont. Unlike the first Götz von Berlichingen, however, it was not written in succession and in order ”

“ Goetz: God be praised! Now release my soul! My poor wife! I leave you in a wicked world. Lerse, forsake her not! Blessings upon Marie and her husband. Selbitz is dead, and the good emperor, and my George. Give me some water! Heavenly air! Freedom!
[He dies.
Elizabeth: Freedom is only above—with thee; the world is a prison.
Lerse: Noble man! Woe to this age that rejected thee! Woe to the future that shall misjudge thee!
FOOTNOTES:
[A] The story of "Goetz von Berlichingen" was founded on the life of a German soldier of fortune who flourished between 1480 and 1562. ”

“ Equality of rank, the dream of many democrats, was established in aristocratic Germany.
Many nobles, some through fear, others from ambition, then joined the insurgents. The famous Goetz von Berlichingen, finding his vassals refuse to obey him, desired to flee to the Elector of Saxony; but his wife, who was lying-in, wishing to keep him near her, concealed the Elector's answer. Goetz, being closely pursued, was compelled to put himself at the head of the rebel army. On the 7th of May the peasants entered Wuerzburg, where the citizens received them with acclamations. ”

“ In his twenty-third year appeared Goetz von Berlichingen, the firstling of a pen, which, in the following sixty years, filled as many volumes with works of almost every form wherein literature embodies itself, a series of boundless wealth and unequalled excellence, to gain access to which, a year were well spent in daily labor to master the fine language it enriches. ”

“ It had been suggested to me by the reading of Goethe's famous drama Goetz von Berlichingen. Three or four scenes are buried in that titanic drama, each of which seemed to me sufficient of themselves to make separate dramas. There was always the same situation of the woman urging the man she does not love to kill the one she loves, as Chimène in the Cid, as Hermione in Andromaque. The analysis of Goetz von Berlichingen would carry us too far afield, we will therefore be content to quote these three or four scenes from our friend Marmier's translation:
"ADÉLAÏDE, femme de Weislingen ”

“ It is difficult to imagine that the same man can have produced both works, so different are they in matter and style. Götz was the first manly appeal to the chivalry of German spirit, which, caught up by other voices, sounded throughout the Fatherland like the call of a warder's trumpet, till it produced a national courage, founded on the recollection of an illustrious past, which overthrew the might of the conqueror at the moment when he seemed about to dominate the world. ”

“ The princes, nobles, and bishops, abusing their victory, indulged in the most unprecedented cruelties. The prisoners were hung on the trees by the wayside. The Bishop of Wurtzburg, who had run away, now returned, traversed his diocese accompanied by executioners, and watered it alike with the blood of the rebels and of the peaceful friends of the Word of God. Goetz von Berlichingen was sentenced to imprisonment for life. The Margrave Casimir of Anspach put out the eyes of eighty-five insurgents, who had sworn that their eyes should never look upon that prince again ”

“ At last the adversaries were obliged to shake hands in presence of the Emperor.
Hans Von Schweinichen.
About the end of the sixteenth century the deeds of violence of the noble landed proprietors were less barefaced and less frequent. Most of them became peaceful Landjunkers, the ablest and poorest sought shelter at the numerous courts. When Götz was young every Landjunker was a soldier, for he was a knight, and the traditions of knighthood had influence even in great wars. But it was just then that the great change was preparing which made the infantry the nucleus of the new army ”

“ Meanwhile Herzbruder, learning from the public prints that it stood well with General Count Götz, and that in particular he would succeed in his vindication before his Imperial Majesty, would be set free, and even again receive command of an army, sent an account of how he stood to that general at Vienna, and wrote also to the Bavarian army on the score of his baggage that he had there: yea, and began to hope his fortunes would again flourish. ”

“ Soon after Goethe left Strasburg he printed his play of "Goetz von Berlichingen." The hero is a true character of history. He was born about the year 1480 and died in 1562. His life had been published in 1731, and Goethe made the drama on the lines of the true history. The play defies all the "unities" of the French drama, like the plays of Shakespeare, whom all the young Germans were reading with enthusiasm ”

“ Goetz von Berlichingen [A]
Persons in the Drama
Act I
Scene I.—Forest; a poor hut in the background. Goetz and George.
Goetz: Where can my men be? Up and down I have to walk, lest sleep should overcome me. Five days and nights already in ambush. But when I get thee, Weislingen, I shall make up for it! You priests may send [Pg 2] round your obliging Weislingen to decry me—I am awake. You escaped me, bishop! So your dear Weislingen may pay the piper. George! George! (Enter George.) Tell Hans to get ready. My scouts may be back any moment. ”

“ For Count Götz lying in Westphalia with many Imperial troops and his headquarters at Dortmund, my commandant looked to be besieged next spring, and so was seeking to enlist good soldiers. Yet was this care of his in vain: for the said Count Götz was, by reason of the defeat of John de Werth in the Breisgau, forced to leave Westphalia that same spring and take the field against the Duke of Weimar on the Rhine.
Chap. xxiii.: HOW SIMPLICISSIMUS CAME TO A CERTAIN TOWN (WHICH HE NAMETH FOR CONVENIENCE COLOGNE) TO FETCH HIS TREASURE
Things do happen in different fashions. ”

“ Every personage is made to live; they speak in short, sharp sentences like the powerful lines of a great master's drawing. The first sketch of Götz was finished in six weeks, in the autumn of 1771. It ran like wild-fire through the whole of Germany.
Goethe left Frankfort in the spring of 1772 for Wetzlar, a quiet country town on the Lahn, one of the seats of government of the Holy Roman Empire. The emperors lived at Vienna; they were crowned at Frankfort; they held their parliaments at Ratisbon, and at Wetzlar their courts of justice. ”

“ This, however, was not the lesson which was drawn from it by Goethe’s contemporaries; they shed tears of sympathy over the lovelorn youth whose burden becomes too great for him to bear. While Götz inaugurated the manlier side of the Sturm und Drang literature, Werther was responsible for its sentimental excesses. And to the sentimental rather than to the heroic side belongs also Stella, “a drama for lovers,” in which the poet again reproduced, if with less fidelity than in Werther, certain aspects of his own love troubles. ”

“ Götz understood so little his own times and his interest, that he, the aristocrat, allowed himself to be made use of by the democratic peasants as a man of straw; Schärtlin understood his own time so well, that after the unfortunate Smalkaldic war he withdrew into Switzerland a rich man, and a few years afterwards was reinstated triumphantly in all his honours. Götz had all his life a strong hankering after the merchant's gold, yet after all his daring plundering expeditions had but little in his coffers ”

“ Götz, towards the end, is without activity, and afterwards only returns to an unlucky participation in the Bauernkrieg [3] nothing was more natural than that a charming woman should supplant him in the mind of the author, who, casting off the fetters of art, thought to try himself in a new field. This defect, or rather this culpable superfluity, I soon perceived, since the nature of my poetry always impelled me to unity. ”

“ Before Gottschalk's departure from Paris, Hector Berlioz thus wrote of his protégé, for whom we may fancy he had a strong bias of liking; and no judge is so generous in estimation as one artist of another, unless the critic has personal cause of dislike, and then no judge is so sweepingly unjust: "Gottschalk is one of the very small number who possess all the different elements of a consummate pianist, all the faculties which surround him with an irresistible prestige, and give him a sovereign power. He is an accomplished musician; he knows just how far fancy may be indulged in expression. ”

“ To continue the record of Berlioz's life in consecutive narrative would be without significance, for it contains but little for many years except the same indomitable battle against circumstance and enmity, never yielding an inch, and always keeping his eyes bent on his own lofty ideal. In all of art history is there no more masterful heroic struggle than Berlioz waged for thirty-five years, firm in his belief that some time, if not during his own life, his principles would be triumphant, and his name ranked among the immortals. ”