JOHANN WOLFGANG von GOETHE IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS A Play in Five Acts Transiated by FREDERICK UNGAR PUBLISHING GO. NEW YORKadory — sony 6 snd seo ion | Tie —wopa-+ spony tata SOIVINVE [Link] JO ASQOH THL 63P Printed the United Sates of erie bray of Caopes Clg Cand No, #21812 Copyright ©1868 by erick Unger Publising Co tn.INTRODUCTION tis an arresting fact thatthe twentieth century ie in posession of far more information about Homeric Greess and its antecedent fas than has been known for over two millenia, far more, in fact, than the Greeks ofthe classical fb century xc. themseves Knew. Archeology, above all, has yielded cis information, but important interpretations ofthe data have been made posible by independent discoveries in the studies of comparative religion, ‘comparative folklore, and comparstive linguists. None ofthis ‘new information, however, will shed light on Goethe's Iphigenia fs Tauris, for this play fem work within the Hellenism of Renais- since and neodasical taditions, which knew nothing of Hein rich Schliemann or Sit Arthur Evans, nothing of Jane Harrison or Sir James Frazer. "This is not to say that Goethe's postRenaissnce and neoclat sical Hellenism was benighted. Rather, it was a nobly humanistic deal, shared, in different ways as their vermperamentsditfered, by Milton and Racine, by Gluck and Winckelmann. Greek and Latin scholarship provided its subetance, the dignity of mankind was the fixed conceptual star of it course, and its creative method was the free an eradite manipulation of old materials within a wen ty fivehundredyenr-old tradition. A fasion, in varying degree, of ‘Pagan and Chiisdan elements was characteristic of it, a5 was a Fertain lack of history tat tended to we Greece and Rome 2s ‘unity, To thove who held this view che bafingg mystery of the Homeric poems seemed to occur in 2 luminous glory before the beginning of history, while the Fit Olympiad of 776 xc, itvell a lialflegendary even, was fle co initate “dasical dviiation,” ‘which then spanned more than a thousend years down to a cote |5 semoouenon ‘amid the dismal erumph of che barbarians in 476 A. Th Goethe's “Mycenaean” age, for exemple, Roman Diana, not! ‘Artemis, isin all appropriateness the name of the heroine! tecting godden, ‘By definition, thie post-Renaissance and neoclassical Hell, was scholanly and aristocratic. The art works it inspired fro Szteenth to well ito the nineteenth centuries addresed selves toa cultural elite, among whom the artists might cou the acceptance of such ideas a international unity of founded on the cassie, choughtfal conservatism, selfs rmoral responsibility of good men everywhere, and pride in parepation, dhrough education, ja a noble dition. ‘The tral elie tended also to agre that art in general and the ¢ ‘in particular should be didactic ar well eplessing, that it properly desl with ethical consideration, and chat i shor sn educational experience onthe lotiest plane for matures ‘Western European civilization has, for better or worse, 6 4 signifant comer since the days when those views were ‘There i, accordingly, a cerain distance between Goethe at ‘modern reeder. But there is emple reward for those who ar fing to traverse that distance in order to arzive atthe fine ‘drama which Goethe completed, after ten years of interm Tabor, late in 1786, Te was from Herder in 1770 that the ewentyoneiye Goethe fist learned to study ancient Greek literature. 3 ‘Werther therefore read the Odysey with high enthusiasx fhe youthiol author himelé left the fragment of a Prom: ‘drama, dated 1774, But the notion ofa play about Ipigeni ‘ecurted to him in 1776, according to statement he made secretary Eckermann in 1891. Three yeas elapsed before pe fet to paper. Then, on February 14,1779, a5 we lea fr: Author's diary, composition was begun in the garden house muse of « quartet Goethe had installed there im order to": the toul and relese the sprit.” The diary entry for Fet 2th say he “dreamed of Iphigenia las night” On March friend came upon him in the town of Butstedt working ‘able alternately on the drama and on the routine busin pre teat heir Ube ait, ned ‘he vil: ‘pemonverio 7 enlisting recruits, at times so absorbed se not to be aware of the reruits standing all around him. For March 19th the author Gictated many yeate later this statement to Eckermann: schwalbenstein near Hmenan. Sereno die, quieta mente, ater a deliberation of thre year, Iwrote the fourth act of ‘ny Iphigenia in one day.” (On March 28h the work was completed, ‘This work, so slowly matured for three yeas in the author's sind snd so swifly executed in written form inskx'wecks time, twas a verion in “rhythmic prose,” which was yet to undergo palnitaking evsion, Nine days after its eampletion, on April 6, 1779, e wan given a unique and ideal premitre. The tene was the ducal gardens in Weimar, Beneath the open sky. Goethe himself played Orestes, while the ttle ole was assigned to the beautiful professional acts of catsical heroines, Corona SchrSter, Goethe's Fiend Knebel tok the part of King Thoat, Plades was enacted by the physically impresive but apparently amateurish Prince Constantin, 10 that, forthe third performance, Duke Carl August Dmself took over the role. The players were dressed in costumes approximating, a8 far asthe sly of Greek stztuary would per ‘mit, authentic anclent covtume, the first departure in Germany from the unhistoricl "heroic costume” worn by tragic players fon European stages since the Renate, A small and select audi fence was in attendance, and the author noted in his diary that ‘ight what a good elect the piece had, “expecially on pure human Deings” Th many respects the ply costed ite of moet unpet- alleled homage to «beloved, for Iphigenia represented, in trans figuted form and with all but goddess nature, Garlorte von Stein, aliving member of the Weimar court «9 whom Goethe as de ‘ote in exalted love for more than ten years. Whether the real fe woman—with her husband and several children—merited such a portrait as the drama ofers, posterity eannot judge. The homage, twe may be sure, was wholly sincere on Gotce's part, even if the plays final revision in aly in 1786 came very close chronolog fealy wieh the authors ultimate break with the Indy. In real life,she apparently felt, Charlotte von Stein bad lifted from him the ‘madness of his youth, even as Iphigenia Its madness from Ores- tet. Even among the intimate audience of those initial perform- snes only Frat von Stein knew fully what constituted that ‘youthful madness and precsely of what her alleviation was ean- Fieuted chat had brought the dinteseed author to eptitual cl “The fall significance ofthe words “brother and sister” must have been known to her alone, though we too may be aware that Goethe's sister Cornelia had died two years previously, and—what i more imporeant-though we too ae in possession of a poem which had gravely displeaed Fras von Stein and in which the ‘writer had expresed the poignant fancy that, ia prior existence, the had known ler either ora sister or ae a wife. Our drama em Dodies a profound psychologial experience of is author's and fully ment the definition which Goethe himalfasigned to all his works: "a fragment of m great confexion.” ‘A year alter the premitre of the original “rhythmic prose version Goethe was busily engage! in rewriting his play. Prose ‘was again hie medium, thovgh this second version is usvaly printed in a quasimetrical form termed “tree iambic!” (rie JJamben), now believed to be the arrangement given to the text bby Goethe's friend Lavater and accepted by Goethe, These “fee imbies" of the spring of 1780 yielded place in zn to 2 third version in the ammer nd suum of 1781, sli prose but with ‘numerous modifications in detail. By now, many of his fiends, including Frau von Stein, were scrutinizing the ext minutely and suggesting words and phrases to the author. Suill unsatisfactory to him, the manuscript was among the papers he took with him when he abruptly let court, Duke, duties, and beloved to set ‘ot forIealy in 1786. There, 2 reading ofthe Flectra of Sophocles lefe him discouraged with both the content, and ail more with the prot form of his drama. Consultation by leer with Herder Drought. useful counsel about venification. A reat book on prosody by K.P. Moric yielded further avifcation and help, 8 Goethe explicdy acknowledged. Then, in Italy the lte mondhe (oF 1785 saw he complete rewriting of the drama in the limpidly pure blank verse of the fourth and final version. _nernooverion ° Blank verse was far from being unknown in the prosodic rep- criory of German poets, and scholars have listed almost Inundred instances ofits we in eightenth century compositions, ‘even in afew dramas. Only Lesing, however, had hitherto used fn a dramatic work of high seriousnest and merit, Nethan the Wise (1778), There the idiom had appeared suff and awkward, ‘whereas in Iphigenia in Tauris is full melodic posbiliis were fist made apparent. German crites are at one in praising the subile ow aud alvery sheen of Goethe's vere inthis play, and Indeed ite besuty had much to do with making blank verse the normative idiom for the German drama just entering upon he cm of its glory. ‘Completed in its final form on January 18, 1787, Iphigenia was fast published in the fourvolume set of Goethes Schriften that sppetced that same yexr. The public was unimpresed and re- viewers were cool, One of the Inter remarked that it had “a few food panages and some short maxims that merit being learned by hear.” German friends in Italy were equally cool. Goethe men tions their lck of enthusisam for the work in the course of his align Journey, saying that they expected. "something Berichin fgian” We need t recall that the 1780's were witnessing the ‘Stormy triumphs of Sellers early plas im all their tempestuous renewal of "Storm and Stress” and that 1787 was the very year ofthe highly sucesful Don Carle. No public performances-of Iphigenia were attempted until the Vienna staging of 1800—which ‘wat again received coolly. The Viennese public were stil ex pecting “something Berlichingian.” Nineteenth century revivals {ould not be described as frequent and more likely than mot they ‘were conceived as vehicles for one ar another actes of established prestige. With thoughtful reader, on the other hand tbe play has, generation after generation, won fervent admirers some of them quite willing to recond Thomas Mann's opinion that it Should be ranked supseme among works of German literature. “The scenario for Goethe's Iphigenia in Tauris isto be found, ‘of coure, in the drama of the same nzme by Euripides. A brief symopeis of the ancient work of 412 2.6 will luminate Goethe's ‘methods and procedures