The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany

-Goethe's Aversion for Hindu Mythology-Origin of the Divan-Or

uing his law studies at Wetzlar, in 1771. He amused his circle of literary friends by relating stories of Rāma and the monkey Hanneman (i.e. Hanuman), who speedily

nd die Bajadere" and "Der Paria", the material was taken, not from works of Sanskrit literature, but from a book of travel. The former poem was completed in 1797, though the idea was taken as early as 1783 from a German version of Sonnerat's travels, where the story is related according to the account of Abraham Roger88 in De Open-Deure. There the account is as follows: "'t Is ghebeurt ... dat Dewendre, onder Menschelijcke ghedaente, op eenen tijdt ghekomen is by een sekere Hoere, de welcke hy heeft willen beproeven of sy oock ghetrouw was. Hy accordeert met haer, ende gaf haer een goet Hoeren loon. Na den loon onthaelde sy hem dien nacht heel wel, sonder dat sy haer tot slapen begaf. Doch

the maiden with her divine lover on the flaming pyre from which both ascend to heaven! It may also be observed that Goethe sub

ntil December, 1821. Even then it was not quite complete. The appearance of Delavigne's Le Paria and still more of

nterchange of heads.92 The former story is that of the ascetic Jamadagni and his wife Rē?ukā, who was slain by her son Rāma at the command of the ascetic himself, in punishment for her yielding to an impure desire on beholding the prince Citraratha. Subsequently at

twelfth book of the Kathāsaritsāgara.96 It relates how Madanasundarī, whose husband and brother-in-law had beheaded themselves in honor of Dur

oethe followed this form closely without inventing anything. He did, however, put into the poem an ethica

he poet whose boast was his cosmopolitanism,97 but they did not incite him to production. For India's mythology, its religion

ich, ein f

ien in dem

en Elephan

ungene Schla

ldkr?t' im

k?pf' auf e

s zur Verzwei

t reiner Ost

expressed in one of his prose proverbs: "Chinesische, Indische, Aegyptische Altertümer sind immer nur Curiosit?ten: es ist sehr woh

the Indus. It was confined mainly to Persia and

ader, and when the whole nation nerved itself for the life and death struggle that was to break its chains. The aged poet shrank from the tu

t impulse to the composition of the work was the appearance, in 1812, of the first complete version of Persia's greatest lyric poet Hāfi?, by the famous Viennese Orientalist von Hammer. The bulk of the

Oriental poetry.103 For the heroic there was no material, nor were some of the other divisions suitable for Goethe's purpose. So only the Buch der Liebe and the Buch des Unmuts (to correspond to satire) could be formed. Other books were formed in an analogous manner until the

and study. The thoroughness and earnestness of these studies is attested by the explanatory notes which were added to the Divan and were published with it in 1819,

passage of Sa?dī's Gulistān was used for "Im Athemholen," p. 10, where the sense, however, is altered and the line "So sonderbar ist das Leben gemischt" is added. A number of poems are based on the Pand Nāmah of ?A??ār, e.g. pp. 58, 60,105 and two are taken from Firdausī, namely "Firdusi spricht," p. 75 (Sh. N. i. p. 62, couplet 538; Mohl, i. 84; Fundgruben. ii. 64) and "Was machst du an der Welt?" p. 96 (Sh. N. i. p. 482, coupl. 788, 789; Red. p. 58). But it was not only the poetical works of Persia that were laid under contribution; sayings, anecdotes, descriptions, remarks of any kind in books of travel and the like were utilized as well. Thus Hammer in the preface to his version of Hāfi? relates the fatvā or judgment which a famous muftī of Constantinople pronounced o

. 414. 4); the love of the nightingale for the rose, p. 125 (cf. H. 318. 1); the lover captive in the maiden's tresses, p. 46 (cf. H. 338. 1); the arrows of the eye lashes, p. 129 (cf. H. 173. 2); the verses strung together like pearls, p. 193 (cf. H. 499. 11), are some of the peculiarly Persian

hetic matters. Again, many are inspired by personal experiences, and, as is now well known, the whole Buch Suleika owes its origin to the poet's love for Marianne von Willemer; some of its finest poems have been proved to have been written by

versions could teach him on this point was certainly very little. Perhaps he did not realize what an essential element form is in Persian poetry, that, in fact, it generally predominates over the thought, and this so much that the unity of a γazal is entirely dep

of clear thinking. Speaking of Rūmī, the prince of mystics, he doubts if this poet could give a clear account of his own doctrine;110 the grades by which, according to Sūfī-doctrine, man rises to ultimate union with the Godhead he calls follies.111 Therefore to him Hāfi? was the singer of real love, real roses and real wine, and this conception of the great lyric

later Hafizian singers remembered gratefully what they owed the sage of Weimar. Rückert pays his tribute to him in the opening poem of his ?stlic

nt sei n

ch dir die We

du hast's i

was ein Jüng

reisen H?n

man literature; it was reserved for Rückert and Platen to

TNO

chreibung, etc. See Benfey, Ori

Goethes Faust, L

i. p. 167, note. The French ed. of Sonnerat, Paris, 1783, does not contain the

ure, Leyden, 1651, p

krit literature dēvēndra is an ep

et à la Chine, Par

Vorbild in Or. u. Occ. i. 719-732. Benfey erroneously suppos

Engl. trans. of Mahābh. ed

407 seq. Cf. also Engl. tr. in Wealth o

sources see Petersb.

1889, p. 481 seq. Cf. also Engl.

ntalā, Gītagōvinda and Mēghadūta in Indisc

. ii.

n Prosa, vol

the's West-?stlicher Divan, Goet

te from the years 1814, 1815 alone. L

er, ibid

iam Jones, ed. Lord Teignmouth, Lo

tained in Hammer's Gesch. der sch?n

Wien, 1809, vol. ii. pp. 222, 495,

cit. p

. pp. xv

. i. p. 7. This story inspired also the scene between Helena and Faust

p. 169; Sie haben wegen

. Abhandlun

bid.

fi? is subjected by Oriental commentators is evident from "Of

anken wir Persien?, in Nord

's Werke, v

n, Werke,