cahn | Frederick the Great discussion post 9

...I leave you guys alone for one weekend and it's time for a new Fritz post, lol!

I'm gonna reply to the previous post comments but I guess new letter-reading, etc. should go in this one :)

Frederick the Great links

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From:

selenak

Inquiring but sadly not-literate-enough minds want to know

Well, you asked! That was a silly allusion to the most famous of the „Roman Elegies“, aka the series of (erotic) poems Goethe wrote in the aftermath of his journey to Italy to the great scandal of Weimar when he returned. (See my Carl August and Goethe write up reposted at Rheinsberg.)

Roman Elegy V

I feel I’m happily inspired now on Classical soil:
The Past and Present speak louder, more charmingly.
Here, as advised, I leaf through the works of the Ancients
With busy hands, and, each day, with fresh delight.
But at night Love keeps me busy another way:
I become half a scholar but twice as contented.
And am I not learning, studying the shape
Of her lovely breasts: her hips guiding my hand?
Then I know marble more: thinking, comparing,
See with a feeling eye: feel with a seeing hand.
If my darling is stealing the day’s hours from me,
She gives me hours of night in compensation.
We’re not always kissing: we often talk sense:
When she’s asleep, I lie there filled with thought.
Often I’ve even made poetry there in her arms,
Counted hexameters gently there on my fingers
Over her body. She breathes in sweetest sleep,
And her breath burns down to my deepest heart.
Amor trims the lamp then and thinks of the times
When he did the same for his three poets of love.

(Translation not mine but from this site which also has further context and a good portrait of Goethe by Angelika Kauffmann: http://thaumazein-albert.blogspot.com/2010/10/goethe-roman-elegy-v.html )

Incidentally, the manifestos have all some actual Goethe equivalent, too; He didn‘t just make one but several „Shakespeare Rocks“ speeches as a young man - remember, this wasn‘t yet a standard take in a culture majorly inflluenced by the French model , this was the very point where it shifted towards good old Will instead) , he wrote an article about what a future German novel could be like before writing Werther, and years later, when Germaine de Stael came to Weimar, he had this exchange with her:

Madame de Stael: I think German verse feels clumsy.
Goethe: I think French verse feels like tapeworm

(It should be added that Goethe was anything but nationalistic and actually quite fond of French and French literature, starting with his boyhood when Frankfurt, during the wars that someone kept starting in Central Europe, was at times occupied by the French and the Goethes had a French officer living in their house who however was polite and got along with the kids - Goethe and his sister Cornelia - very well. Goethe lived in to the nationalistic 19th century and was not a little appalled when post Napoleonic Wars everyone started to become more and more nationalistic in the German states. Which was when he put on the medal Napoleon had given him to the consternation of many a visitor to Germany‘s Greatest Poet (tm) and said „why should I scorn the French? I was educated in their language, and it and their literature have always given me great pleasure“. But that was in the last decade of his life, in a world so very different from his youth when abandoning the rules of classic French Drama in favour of Shakespearan free for all and writing poetry that didn‘t draw on French examples anymore had felt incredibly liberating.)

...but mainly this was my trying to find something to get the social media equivalant of „De La Literature Allemande“ out of Alcibiades. ;)

The „I smelled a rotten apple“ otoh was a Schiller joke. Supposedly Schiller kept some rotten apples at hand because the smell helped him concentrating.

„Erlaubt ist, was gefällt“ - from Goethe‘s play „Torquato Tasso“. This is actually what the characters in the scene argue about.

ETA: Was only just reminded of this again when googling whether I can find more on the Roman Elegies in English for you, and Elegy X actually has a Fritz and Heinrich allusion:

From the same website:
Alexander, and Cæsar, and Henry, and Frederick, the mighty,
On me would gladly bestow half of the glory they earn’d,
Could I but grant unto each one night on the couch where I’m lying;
But they, by Orcus’s night, sternly, alas! are held down.
Therefore rejoice, O thou living one, bless’d in thy love-lighted homestead,
Ere the dark Lethe’s sad wave wetteth thy fugitive foot."

And here‘s the Gutenberg trranslation:

All of those greats: Alexander, Caesar and Henry and Fredrick,

Gladly would share with me half of their hard fought renown,

Could I but grant them my bed for one single night, and its comfort,

But the poor wretches are held stark in cold Orkian grip.

Therefore, ye living, rejoice that love keeps you warm for a while yet,

Until cold Lethe anoints, captures your foot in its flight

(Original:
"Alexander und Cäsar und Heinrich und Friedrich, die Großen,
Gäben die Hälfte mir gern ihres erworbenen Ruhms,
Könnt ich auf eine Nacht dies Lager jedem vergönnen;
Aber die Armen, sie hält strenge des Orkus Gewalt.
Freue dich also, Lebendger, der lieberwärmeten Stätte,
Ehe den fliehenden Fuß schauerlich Lethe dir netzt."

Edited Date: 2020-01-25 05:10 am (UTC)

From:

cahn

I did ask! Thank you, this is delightful!

Madame de Stael: I think German verse feels clumsy.
Goethe: I think French verse feels like tapeworm

ahahahaha! this totally made me laugh.

...but mainly this was my trying to find something to get the social media equivalant of „De La Literature Allemande“ out of Alcibiades. ;)

Hee, yes, I was admiring how you wrote this and put up the relevant

rheinsberg post at the same time -- very helpful for me :D

Alexander, and Cæsar, and Henry, and Frederick, the mighty,
On me would gladly bestow half of the glory they earn’d,
Could I but grant unto each one night on the couch where I’m lying;

...this is giving me a lot of Feelings.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I'm glad she asked! This was fascinating.

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?)

Edited Date: 2020-01-26 03:05 am (UTC)

From:

cahn

Heh. This is one of those things I did read about in long-ago French historical fiction, mostly forgot, and then learned again through opera (Les Huguenots), what else :P