634
PARTISAN REVIEW
be banished, not even a Prologue in Heaven. Here we breathe our
modern climate of opinion- in which we must even ask in the end
whether psychology cannot explain the different attitudes toward
majesty and mystery in Shakespeare and in Goethe. To what extent
might Shakespeare's surely troubled relation to his father- though
not as difficult as Dostoevsky's- ilIuminate his attitudes where they
are different from Goethe's? Particularly the way in which he again
and again elevates one man above all others and then leads him to
his doom? We cannot charge "contempt of art" and be done with
such queries. But while conceding free sway to psychology, we need
not overlook the limits of its power and the relevance of cultural
developments. In his
Antichrist,
Nietzsche said, "In the son that be–
comes conviction which in the father stilI was a lie"- and a look at
totalitarian countries bears him out. But we can also say, conversely:
"In the son that becomes a lie which in the father still was a con–
viction." Whatever its psychological roots may have been, Goethe's
attitude toward miracle, mystery and authority (the trinity of Dos–
toevsky's Grand Inquisitor) is all that is left for us today : reflective
wit which does not halt before the numinous.
Shakespeare's less Mephistophelian attitude has not lost meaning
for us: his ghosts and witches are still vivid symbols of the frontiers
of the mind, and his heroes move us with the eloquence of dreams
like voices from inner abysses. But symbols, when recognized as such,
evoke reflection and lose the strength to integrate a world: like
Mephistopheles' minions and the legions of heaven in
Faust,
they be–
come legitimate butts of sarcasm and themselves require integration.
This, however, Goethe had the power to provide. Without the ostrich
attitudes of some of the later nineteenth century, without curbing
his wit, and without seeking refuge in ruins, he fashioned a whole
world and repaired the damage of a lifetime. And since the damage
of his day was more like ours, he can give us what we cannot find
even in Shakespeare. Surely, his age and ours is far from exemplary
or exhilarating, but it is precisely this that makes Goethe himself
exemplary and the experience of his personality, as reflected in
his
work, exhilarating.
