Goethe, die Romantik und die islamische Mystik im West-Ӧstlichen Divan
Goethe, Romanticism, and Islamic Mysticism in the West-Eastern Divan

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the relationship of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to the Romantic ideals. Was he actually hostile to the Romantics as suggested by so many literary critics? His comment that Romanticism is "sick" vis-a-vis the "healthy" Classical period, is often quoted to prove his distance from the Romantics. However his late work West-Eastern Divan (1816) shows that the opposite was true. Some esoteric motifs in one of his well-known poems Selige Sehnsucht (Blessed Longing) from the Divan are presented here to establish Goethe's spiritual connection with Romanticism. The article also attempts to establish a connection between the mystical Islamic tradition i.e. Sufism and Romanticism.

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