The gift which keeps on giving...

[selenak]

It's been 16 years (zomg!) since I wrote this post about how if German universities were like lj world (as it then was), Goethe/Schiller would be an incredibly popular pairing, listing some letter quotes as to why. The fannish world has turned quite a lot since then, and over the weekend, I saw there's now a neat assembly of fanfiction to choose from. Here are my two favourites so far:


Anakreons Grab: despite the German title, (gorgeously) written in English. Schiller pov, covers the entire relationship, is told in a non-linear fashion and circles around the three "first" meetings they had. (The sort of one when Schiller was still in Würtemberg as a cadet and the ten years older Goethe was visiting together with his Duke, Carl August, where we don't even know whether they talked, the incredibly awkward and unsuccessful one in Rudolfstadt where they were brought together by mutual friends which gave Schiller a few more years to obsess in love/hate from a distance, and the successful one after having both attended a lecture that Goethe later described as "Glückliche Begegnung" where they hit it off and started the most productive relationship between two German writers ever.) This is basically the Goethe/Schiller story of my dreams.


Die Metamorphose der Pflanzen: this one is written in German, and focuses on the successful meeting in question; also an intense Schiller pov, which makes sense, since the Goethe pov on that meeting was already written by Goethe himself, and it has a delightful Alexander von Humboldt cameo to boot!


Still on a literary note, mildred_of_midgard has summed beautifully why the 40-years-long relationship between Voltaire and Frederick the Great is so hilarious, passionate and tremendously entertaining to read about. Talk about two people totally deserving each other. :)

Comments

[felis]

Thanks for the link to the Voltaire/Frederick post, which was a fun read. I also clicked through to your own post about their correspondence, which was highly entertaining as well and made me put the book on my to-read list.

[selenak]

I'm glad you enjoyed both posts! Pleschinski is something of an 18th century letter guy extaordinaire: he's also translated those of Madame de Pompadour and the diary of the Duc de Croy into German. Having translated the Voltaire/Frederick correspondance also offered him the chance to do a reading in front of the European parliament from it at one occasion, aided by a Belgian writer reading Voltaire, because whatever else they were, those two very definitely border-crossing Europeans in spirit and deed! :)

[makamu]

Well, you can always trust that fandom provides, it seems :) I am off to read the Goethe/Schiler fics now... it always made sense to me, as pairings go, but I don't like Goethe enough to write it myself, I think. When it comes to the dioscuri I am definitely a Schiller girl (read Don Karlos at just the right moment to leave the kind of lasting impression even Faust cannot quite emotionally top).

[selenak]

Ah, I don't see them as either/or but both/and. :) Mind you, I read Carlos after I saw Faust performed - the Urfaust, no less, in one of the most beautiful historical courtyards we have in Bamberg, in Freilichttheater. So that was that for twelve years old me. Whereas I was 16 with Don Karlos. Loved it, absolutely, and it's still my favourite Schiller play. Because the Räuber don't quite do it for me, the two and a half Wallensteins are too cold, Maria Stuart has my inner Elizabeth fangirl protesting, and wtf with the falling-in-love-with-an-Englishman-Jeanne d'Arc dying in battle, Schiller? (No opinion on Don Fiesco. Still haven't read it.) Kabale und Liebe works though I'm always frustrated we didn't get more of Lady Milford, and Ferdinand's "Engländerin! Wappne dich! Ein teutsccher Jüngling..." cracks me up every time.

I absolutely love what Schiller chooses to do with language in all of them, though, nitpicking notwithstanding, so you can guess which part of the first fanfiction made me squee in particular.

[makamu]

Ah, I don't see them as either/or but both/and. :)

As is right and proper. I just had the worst possible introduction to Goethe in my German LK ever (seriously, I know Sturm und Drang is really important for German literature, and I get why, but at eighteen I was no great lover of non-ironic sentimentalism, so all I felt when Werther offed himself was relief). Sure, I mean Karlos has elements of that as well - not least Carlos himself - but it also has that speech going for it, so... no contest.


I have only recently started to get into Goethe more when I read Werther with the help of a proper critical commentary, so I am starting to mellow on that front. Faust is still peak-Goethe for me, though, closely followed by Iphigenie and Götz .

I feel the same way you do about Die Räuber - I get why it was as popular as it was when it was first published (the ending alone ensures that), but I am hard pressed to think of a play where I find the main character less sympathetic overall. Though, as an English major I sometimes couldn't help but laugh at the obvious Shakespeare references and allusions :) I also agree on Maria Stuart and Die Jungfrau von Orleans (down to the "what the heck, Friedrich?" moments). I have read Don Fiesco and can recommend it overall. It still has Räuber-like wonky bits, but it has one or two brilliant characters and lines (among them the context for "Der Mohr hat seine Schuldigkeit getan...", which gave me shivers the first time I read them). I agree that Kabale would have been a better play with lots more Lady Milford :), but I have fond memories of the way I was introduced to Wallenstein in a seminar at university, which still shapes the way I look at the play twelve years later.

Oh, yes, I can :) That was one of the things that again reminded me why I love reading (and writing, if and when I get to it, natch) fanfic.