Poetry and truth

Dichtung und Wahrheit , 1903-1904

In 1808, work was completed on the preparation of the first collected works of I.V. Goethe. Then the publisher invited the author to write a book of autobiographical content, which could serve as a kind of research commentary on the collected works, would explain the conditions and reasons for writing individual works, and would show internal connections and general directions in the work of I. Goethe ^[1] . The publisher formulated this idea in a letter:

“The works are still without communication, and sometimes it’s even hard to believe that they come from the same writer. <...> We ask you to reveal to us in a certain connectedness both those vital and mental states that gave the material, and the theoretical foundations that you followed. ” ^[2] .

Work on the autobiography was begun by I.V. Goethe in 1811 and completed in 1831; however, during the life of the author, only the first three books were published. The name is believed to have been suggested by the secretary of I.V. Goethe - F.V. Rimer . In the original version of the secretary, the name sounded like “Truth and Poetry” ( German: Wahrheit und Dichtung ), but JV Goethe rearranged the words in order to avoid an unpronounceable clash of two “d”. ^[3] . The narrative covers the events from 1749 to 1775, that is, from the day of birth until relocation to Weimar . The main source, undoubtedly, was for I.V. Goethe his own memory and separate, for the most part fragmentary and scattered, diary notes of different years. To restore a more complete picture of events from the earliest years of his life, he attracted correspondence with family friends and genuine historical documents . One of the largest researchers in the work of I.V. Goethe, Evgeni Maksimovich Braudo (1882-1939), describes the source base “Poetry and Truth” as follows:

“According to the record of the Weimar library’s books that Goethe has given to his home, it is possible to restore the history of his preparatory work for his autobiography. In addition to numerous essays on the history of literature, Goethe used correspondence with his sister, as well as a series of oral messages from friends of his youth and comrades in university studies. ” ^[4] .

The work of IV Goethe differs in many respects from most works of the autobiographical genre by extensive digressions, when the author temporarily leaves a story about the events of his own life and acts in full measure as a researcher, as a professional historian ^[5] . “Poetry and Truth” contains many valuable analytical observations on the literary process of the second half of the 18th century, placed in the context of social relations and the cultural life of the era. Goethe himself explained this feature in this way:

“The main task of a biography is precisely to describe a person in his relationship to his time and to show how hostile he was, how favorable it was to him, how he composed his own view of the world and people and how he reflected it in the outside world in as an artist, poet, writer. ” ^[6] .

Following this principle, I.V. Goethe wrote rather a historical essay on the world of the third quarter of the 18th century in its entirety, and in those geographical boundaries that were revealed to his consciousness in his childhood and youth.

The earliest translation into Russian dates back to 1923 and was carried out as part of the preparation of a large academic publication of the works of I.V. Goethe. The translation into Russian was done by the famous translator N. A. Kholodkovsky . Preface and scientific commentary compiled by E. M. Braudo. The work is published in three volumes: 5 books in each volume, respectively. The latest edition is Moscow, 2003, stereotyped.

• I.V. Goethe. Poetry and Truth. From my life. - Pg.,: "World Literature", 1923.
• I.V. Goethe. Poetry and Truth (Wahrheit und Dichtung) . - M .: "Zakharov", 2003. - 736 p. - ISBN 5-8159-0356-6 .

• First Edition (German)