Faced with the brittle humanity of romantics like Hölderlin and his madness or Kleist and their shared suicide, Johan Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) carved out a marble solidity that sometimes intimidates the reader who decides to approach his work a little. Since the Conversations with Goethe assembled by the devoted Eckermann, the pedestal of the immaculate posthumous glory of genius has been propped up. It was not until the second half of the 20th century that biographies began to appear that tried to find the human being under the mask of the demigod.
The book by Helena Cortés points in this direction, but without falling into the so current temptation of indulging in the demolition of statues and the skinning of myths, exposing all their miseries.
From the outset, the audacity of writing a biography of Goethe without being German may surprise you. It should be clarified that the author is a Germanist, she has to her credit annotated editions of a couple of major works of her biography and in 2020 she received the National Translation Award for her work with another, El diván de Oriente and West.
Sticking to the scope of what is translated into Spanish about Goethe, Safranski's intellectual biography continues to be unbeatable (and another title of his is added to it: Goethe and Schiller). What Cortés proposes has a different tone and another purpose: it is an informative approach (in the noblest sense of the word) focused above all on the writer's vital vicissitudes.
Orchestrated from the great moments in the life of the person being biographed, it is a very entertaining and very well documented journey through the figure of Goethe and the historical time in which he lived. It addresses issues such as the gestation of the Werther; the crucial trip to Italy, with the discovery of classical antiquity, which germinated in texts such as the Roman Elegies; the friendship with Schiller and the relationship with the young romantics of Jena...
Also the political positions in the Duchy of Weimar and the admiration for the figure of Napoleon; his interest in science, and his relationship with eroticism and women. He pays special attention to four that were very relevant: the early and fleeting Lili Schüneman; the cultured Charlotte von Stein, friend, mentor and perhaps platonic lover; Christine Vulpius, who became the wife, and the very young Ulrike von Levetzow, the object of Goethe's belated old-age crush, whose failure would inspire one of his great poems, the Marienbad Elegy. He also dedicates interesting pages to the writer's obsession with his legacy and the effort to achieve literary immortality.
The result is a very good synthesis of the polyhedral figure of Goethe, which allows us to understand the relevance he had in his time and the reason for his subsequent survival. Given the special attention paid to his life, in the final part a reading guide to ten fundamental works is included as an appendix, which provides suggestive clues to delve into his literature. The well-selected images that accompany the text and enrich it are also appreciated, and the only thing missing is a name index, essential for browsing this type of book.
Whoever wants to get closer to Goethe has a very good guide in Helena Cortés.
Helena Cortes Goethe. live to be immortal
Harp. 430 pages, €22.90
