He wanted to be better than he was. Though Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was saying it in a different language (Anne Bennett would later translate his German into English), he was essentially saying ‘I’m not as good at this life as I want to be’. “Purer Yet and Purer” was only one part of eight ways in which Johann Goethe sought to express how he wanted to improve. Goethe was multitalented, which says that even the accomplished person might feel something is missing in all the various pursuits of his life. Sadly, Johann did not seem to cling without reserve to the God that Christians know, yet he said something in his poem about striving progressively as a human creation of the Divine One that spoke to those who came after him, including Anne Bennett.
Does it really matter that the year and the circumstances of Goethe’s poetry are not crystal clear? Poetry was but one facet of this 18th/19th Century German literary figure, regarded by many as a giant of his era, perhaps because of the various interests in which he engaged. He was trained in the legal profession, yet ultimately pursued poetry and other related literary interests – novels, plays, and art -- and then various scientific fields like botany, anatomy, and color, besides being involved in statecraft and politics. Perhaps it was early in his life, when he still was studying and then practicing law (late 1760s-early 1770s), and when the young Goethe reportedly wrote much of his early poetry, that he penned ‘Purer Yet and Purer’. Goethe was said to be a ‘freethinker’, meaning that he believed in parts of the Christian faith, yet was critical of church practices and even disliked the cross and its symbolism. God, for him, was more than what the Lutherans had conveyed during his childhood, and Goethe instead gravitated toward Spinozan thought – God’s attributes were evident in thought and matter, and God is a self-reliant substance. One can see how Goethe might have been seeking this God in all the variety of his life’s interests. In his poetry, it wasn’t just purity in his mind (v.1) that Johann sought, but seven other personal goals that he wanted to attain. ‘Dearer’(v.1) – more devoted, perhaps -- he wanted to be in all he did. He wanted to be ‘calmer’ and ‘surer’ (v.2) in times of suffering, and ultimately trusting joyfully in God. Was Goethe anticipating or actually going through a more advanced stage of life when he wrote that he aspired to rise ‘higher’ and ‘nearer’ (v.3) toward something, and to run the race of life ‘swifter’ and feel ‘firmer’ (v.4) on his path toward a goal? How many of these expressions of Goethe echoed also in the spirit of the translator Anne Bennett by the mid-19th Century, when the Goethe’s poem was first published in English?
Goethe was not a model Christian believer. And, he wasn’t a perfectly tuned human, despite all the acclaim he garnered by the end of his life; notably, he failed at the legal profession, the choice of profession he made early in his life. In the same period, he also experienced severe illness as a young man. Later, Goethe fathered one son out of wedlock, before marrying his mistress and fathering two other children. And, some of the works Goethe penned would be characterized as bawdy, and pushed the boundaries of social etiquette for his time, not to mention Christian values. All this says even someone as brilliant as Goethe has warts. And yet, he did say something in this one poem, something that is true for everyone. I fall short of my Creator. I can see Him off in the distance. And, I want and need Him to be closer every day that I get older. Is He getting closer for you?
See all the verses and some very brief information on the hymn here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/p/u/r/e/pureryet.htm
See information on the author here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe
No comments:
Post a Comment