The establishment of the Goethian poetic vocation in books 13 to 16 of Dichtung und Wahrheit (an investigation)

Abstract

Designed do fill in the gaps of an existence that became widely known with the publication of Werther, the autobiographical account of Dichtung und Wahrheit will devote much of the last seven books to the narration of circumstances that would have enabled Goethe to find a field of work compatible with the strident repercussion of Werther, but at the same time consistent with a poetic vocation to which Goethe refuses any direct and ‘didactic’ interference in human affairs, since he begins to conceive it 'entirely as nature'. The article intends to review this decisive moment in the construction of the Goethean Bildung, mainly between books 13 and 16, together with a definition of the foundations of the poetic vocation that will mark the spiritual shape of Goethe's production throughout his life. To do so, it will investigate the suitability of the concept of teleology as a proper explanatory principle for the clarification of the moment mentioned above, in the light of the discussion proposed by Fotis Jannidis (1996); and it will analyze the role of the most important references and influences for Goethe in this process: Lavater, Basedow and Zimmermann among the acquaintences; Spinoza and Prometheus among the luminaries.