but mainly this was my trying to find something to get the social media equivalant of „De La Literature Allemande“ out of Alcibiades
I could just see Alcibiades quipping: What do I think of German literature? I think it would be a good idea. :P
Elegy X actually has a Fritz and Heinrich allusion:
Heinrich as in our Heinrich? Brother of Fritz? Or Heinrich der Große as in Henri IV of France? Wait, I just checked Goethe's dates, and the elegies were written 1788-1790, when our Heinrich was still alive. So you must have meant the other Heinrich, which makes more sense anyway if the line is going in chronological order.
cahn, you may know this from your long-ago French historical fiction reading, but Henri IV of France is best known to English speakers as Henry of Navarre, was the first Bourbon king, famously said "Paris is worth a mass" and converted from being a Huguenot to Catholicism, was called "Henry the Great/Henri le Grand" had a shall we say interesting relationship with his wife Margot (FW and SD had metaphorical marital warfare; Henri and Margot had more martial marital warfare), and was assassinated in his carriage. Voltaire wrote a Henriade about him, which Fritz of course loved. (And iirc, Voltaire loved comparing Fritz favoriably to him.)
I don't know whether he actually said he wanted every peasant to have a chicken in the pot on Sunday (i.e. financial stability for everyone during his reign), but it's one of those lines that always gets associated with him. It may be apocryphal, though, and I'm way too behind on posts to look that up. :P
ETA: Another note for cahn. The chronology, at least according to German wiki, goes like this: 1786: Fritz dies. 1786-1788: Goethe goes to Italy. 1788-1790: Goethe writes the Roman Elegies. 1795: Elegies published (most of them, including X).
So when Goethe is writing about Fritz being dead, Fritz has just recently gone from being der einzige König, celebrity of Europe, to just another shade.
(I'm also, now that I've had a chance to think about it, confused why you would mention "Fritz and Heinrich" in the same phrase like that if you meant Henri IV, so maybe I'm wrong and you *did* mean he was talking about our Heinrich, selenak. Please clarify?)
Re: The Very Secret Chat Transcripts: The Sequel - the literary footnotes
but mainly this was my trying to find something to get the social media equivalant of „De La Literature Allemande“ out of Alcibiades
I could just see Alcibiades quipping: What do I think of German literature? I think it would be a good idea. :P
Elegy X actually has a Fritz and Heinrich allusion:
Heinrich as in our Heinrich? Brother of Fritz? Or Heinrich der Große as in Henri IV of France? Wait, I just checked Goethe's dates, and the elegies were written 1788-1790, when our Heinrich was still alive. So you must have meant the other Heinrich, which makes more sense anyway if the line is going in chronological order.
I don't know whether he actually said he wanted every peasant to have a chicken in the pot on Sunday (i.e. financial stability for everyone during his reign), but it's one of those lines that always gets associated with him. It may be apocryphal, though, and I'm way too behind on posts to look that up. :P
ETA: Another note for
1786: Fritz dies.
1786-1788: Goethe goes to Italy.
1788-1790: Goethe writes the Roman Elegies.
1795: Elegies published (most of them, including X).
So when Goethe is writing about Fritz being dead, Fritz has just recently gone from being der einzige König, celebrity of Europe, to just another shade.
(I'm also, now that I've had a chance to think about it, confused why you would mention "Fritz and Heinrich" in the same phrase like that if you meant Henri IV, so maybe I'm wrong and you *did* mean he was talking about our Heinrich,