The gift which keeps on giving...
Mar. 23rd, 2020 12:24 pmIt'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,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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. :)
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. :)
