The years of the teachings of William Meister

Wilhelm Meister - a talented young man from the third estate - considers his true vocation not the continuation of his father’s (prosperous burgher's) business, but theatrical art. Inspired by his love for the actress idealized by him, he writes poetry and dreams of the bohemian world of theater.

The contrast to William is his neighbor Werner with his characteristic cold, prudent practicalism. A love note accidentally caught my eye convinces William of the betrayal of her beloved. He breaks off all relations with her and, finally recognizing Werner's case, is taken for "apprenticeship" in the field of commerce.

The main action begins three years later, when in the inn Meister meets a troupe of stray comedians. An indelible impression is made on him by the 13-year-old cable dancer Mignon . Strange songs of the savage captivate the hero who gives her his protection. He helps the troupe organize a performance in the nearby castle of the Baron, where the mysterious sage Jarno first introduces him to the brilliant works of Shakespeare .

Wilhelm’s long recovery after the attack of the bandits separates these scenes from the subsequent ones, which are associated with the Zerlo city theater, where the actors of the vagrant troupe rush. In this part of the novel, Wilhelm’s production of the translated Hamlet is narrated. Impressed by his talent, the theater director prophesies a great future for William and offers to sign a contract, while a mysterious performer of the role of the shadow of Hamlet's father warns him against this. The sudden fire of the theater turns into another interlude in the action of the novel and leads to a new regrouping of the main characters.

The next scene is the castle of Lothario, the beloved of the late sister of Zerlo, where Wilhelm, under the influence of Jarno, enters into a pious order like a Masonic one , calling itself the Tower Society. Having received a scroll of his fate, William begins to understand that life should be for others, and not for himself, that art (including theater) is only a cast from life, but not life itself. One after another, secrets are revealed, the characters of the characters connecting with each other, who weave their fates into a tight knot, are unknown ^[2] .

Summarizing the years of “apprenticeship”, Wilhelm concludes that life is much richer and more diverse than the bohemian world of art, and marries a noble lady who was his good angel when he did not know about it. From now on, he sees his future in “practical economic activity in the spirit of free enterprise” ^[3] .

For many years, the figure of William Meister (whose last name translates as “master”) served Goethe as a kind of alter ego . The general concept of an essay on Meister dates from 1777 ^[4] . The existing novel in 8 books grew from the early manuscript "Theatrical Calling of William Meister" (1777-1785, accidentally discovered only in 1910) ^[5] . The songs of the Minions and the harper, included in the final version, were written in 1782-1785.

On the advice of his friend Schiller in the early 1790s. Goethe returned to the story of William Meister and completely revised it. The theatrical part of the book was mainly reduced. The author tried to distance himself as much as possible from the figure of Meister, softening the autobiographical beginning characteristic of the original manuscript. Four volumes of the novel were published in Berlin in 1795 and 1796 (circulation of 3,000 copies).

The long-term ripening of “William Meister” in prose and “ Faust ” in verses occurred in parallel. The continuation of both works became for the aging Goethe “the main feat of his last era, outwardly and generally smooth and happy, like a slow, almost cloudless sunset of a magnificent Roman day in a transparent golden melt” ( Vyach. Ivanov ) ^[6] . In the 1820s Goethe is working on a loosely structured continuation of Wilhelm’s adventures, entitled “The Years of Wilhelm Meister's Wanderings ” ^[7] .

In the wake of pre-romanticism at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, the “Years of the teachings of Wilhelm Meister” were explosive success, mainly in Germany itself. Schopenhauer declared him one of the four greatest accomplishments in the field of the novel ^[8] . Schlegel saw in him one of the sources of the literature of romanticism and in this respect compared its significance with the Great French Revolution ^[9] . Schiller wrote about Wilhelm Meister: “Calm and deep, clear and yet incomprehensible, like nature” ^[10] . Particularly attracted contemporaries was the central part of the novel, which was perceived as an apology for the theater in general and Shakespeare in particular.

The young romantic Novalis , who was initially fascinated by Goethe’s novel, eventually began to perceive him as a description of the main character’s “pilgrimage” up the social ladder ^[11] . Goethe's prose debunking of the cult of art seemed to him akin to preaching skepticism in Voltaire's Candide ^[11] . Goethe was outraged by the triumph of practicality over the ministry of art to Goethe. Both writers responded to the “Meisters” with their own artistic novels : “ Heinrich von Ofterdingen ” (1799) and “ The Wanderings of Franz Sternbald ” (1798), respectively.

The first English translation of the novel (approved, by the way, by the author himself) was made in 1824 by Thomas Carlyle . Under the influence of this translation and rogue novels of the 18th century, Bulwer-Lytton composed a string of books about the “adventures and adventures” of young people. On English soil, this tradition was developed in the educational novels of young Dickens (“The Life of David Copperfield ” and others).

The most memorable character of the novel turned out to be unrequitedly in love with the main character Mignon. According to the characteristics of Vyach. Ivanova

“The romantically captivating image of Mignon, an Italian girl in a masculine outfit accompanying the old harpist, clouded by life and guilt and melodiously yearning for her distant, beautiful and already unknown motherland herself, in marble buildings where, on the shores of a mountain lake she remembers herself as a child. The young Meister takes her to the adopted daughter; she is secretly in love with her named father; her early death is surrounded by mystical insight; in her glass coffin, she looks like a sleeping princess. In a charming fairy tale, some incomprehensible, indefinite music is heard, reminiscent of something native and infinitely beautiful, mourned and long forgotten ” ^[6] .

Songs of the Minions interspersed in the narration surpassed him in popularity. They were translated into Russian by B. Pasternak ^[12] , F. Tyutchev ^[13] , Ap. Maykov ^[14] , M. Mikhailov ^[15] . The image of the singing Minions, somewhat sentimental, inspired many prominent composers:

• The German composer Ludwig van Beethoven wrote The Song of the Minions for piano.
• Robert Schumann wrote the piano play The Minion. He also wrote The Requiem for the Mignon, for choir and orchestra (1849).
• The Austrian composer Franz Schubert composed songs for the piano (1815-1826).
• Hungarian composer Ferenc Liszt wrote the song “Song of the Minions” ^[16] .
• The French composer Ambroise Thoma wrote the opera Minion (1866); Meister's party in this opera was one of L. Sobinov 's favorites in the repertoire.
• The Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky wrote the novel “No, Only He Who Knew” (1869), based on the song of Minions ^[17] .

In 1827, S. Shevyrev placed in the Moscow Bulletin the first translation of excerpts from Wilhelm Meister into Russian. A quarter of a century later, the editors of Moskvityanin represented by Ap. Grigoriev and L. Mei , having announced the translation of the whole novel, turned it down at the end of the third book. At that time, there was a prejudice that, in its naivety, Goethe's “Masonic” novel might not be interesting to a modern reader brought up on realistic narratives. Even A. Tolstoy , who was generally enthusiastic about Goethe, considered this work “murderously boring” and “meaningless” ^[18] . As a result, a full translation of all 8 books appeared only in 1870 (the author is Peter Polevoy ), and the first separate publication almost a century later ^[19] .

Of the Russian classics, Meister was most impressed with Dostoevsky , who even planned to name one of his works as Minion ^[20] . In the late 1850s. and later, when writing the novel The Idiot, Dostoevsky was almost obsessed with The Years of Learning, especially the image of the Minions ^[21] . Researchers of his work note the similarity of Minions and Nelly from the novel " Humiliated and Offended " ^[22] .

The German director Wim Wenders in 1975 transferred part of the plot of the novel to modern Germany. The film was released under the name " False Movement "; the role of Mignon was played by 14-year-old Nastasya Kinsky .

• Original text of the novel (German)
• English translation of the novel (Eng.)