Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 45

[cahn]

Unfortunately, there was then at Berlin a King who pursued one policy only, who deceived his enemies, but not his servants, and who lied without scruple, but never without necessity.

(from The King's Secret - by Duke de Broglie, grand-nephew of the subject of the book, Comte de Broglie, and grandfather of the physicist) )

Comments

Re: Goethe and Frederick II

[selenak]

Well, teenage Goethe had been a fan, remember:) . Anyway, I will check out the original passage in the Italienische Reise to make sure what he actually wrote, but it‘s entirely possible there was such a misunderstanding.

Re: MacDonogh, though, there is of course the famous quote by Dr. Johnson about Fritz as the one true monarch of Europe or something like that, but whatever the Sicilians thought about Fritz (if they thought of him at all and not his Hohenstaufen namesake), Goethe‘s overall opinion was a bit more critical thaqn MacDonogh acknowledges here, and not just because of Fritz attacking him personally in his anti-German-literature book. He always stood by his teenage fanishness, but he also saw the darker sides, and remember, Fritz‘ niece Amalie as Duchess of Weimar (where Goethe lived) had done her level best not having to provide Fritz with „voluntary“ troops during the War of the Bavarian Succession, and Goethe had also seen the way Saxony was still recovering from what Fritz had done first hand.

Re: Goethe and Frederick II

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yep, I remember all this!

Anyway, I will check out the original passage in the Italienische Reise to make sure what he actually wrote, but it‘s entirely possible there was such a misunderstanding.

Awesome, would love your take on whether MacDonogh is overly confident in his straightforward reading of Goethe or whether Dirk is overly confident in his "It was all a misunderstanding!" reading of Goethe. Maybe we just can't tell!

Re: Goethe and Frederick II

[cahn]

I realize we don't know for sure, but

...which makes sense given this was taking place in Sicily, homeland of the stupor mundi where he was actually remembered

I'm still going to LOL at this, in case it was true!

I wonder if after he left, the Sicilians were all thinking, "Who is that weird German guy and why on earth would he think we care about his Prussian?"

Or maybe they were like, "German guy has proper respect for stupor mundi, good for him!"