THOMAS CARLYLE.
(1795-1881.)
X. GOETHE.
The brief account here given of the work of Goethe was originally
published as part of the introduction to the volume of translations
called _German Romance_, which was published in 1827. It is now commonly
printed as an appendix to the first volume of Carlyle's _Miscellanies_.
Carlyle was probably never at his best when he gave himself to the
study of a particular author. His genius rather lay in the more general
aspects of his work, and in the force with which he gave an entirely
new turn to the currents of English criticism. Of his studies upon
particular authors, the essay on Burns is perhaps the most complete
and the most penetrating. But it is too long for the purposes of this
selection. Nor is it amiss that he should here be represented by a
work which may remind us that, among his services to English letters,
to have opened the stores of German poetry and thought was by no means
the least memorable.
Of a nature so rare and complex as Goethe's it is difficult to form
a true comprehension; difficult even to express what comprehension one
has formed.
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