Goethes und Schillers Xenien über »Die Philosophen«

Abstract:

Goethe's and Schiller's Xenien on 'The Philosophers'

The Xenien is a series of satirical epigrams that Johnnn Wolfgang von Goethe und Friedrich Schiller first published in 1797 in Schiller's Musenalmanach. The name Xenien was coined by the Roman poet Martial (1st century AD) who thus named the 13th book of his Martial Epigrams which contained verses to accompany hostess gifts. The descriptiom originally derives from the Greek word Xénos meaning stranger, guest. Goethe and Schiller polemicised in their Xenien especially against the Literary Guild of the time, in order to defend themselves from criticism of their Horen (The Horae). But some of the Xenien are directed against middle-class contemporaries, and 13 of the 676 Xenien deal with a number of philosophers.

The aim of this paper is to analyse each of the Xenien that are connected with philosophers (verses 371-389). The 13 Xenien have a strong connection to each other. A connection to the other Xenien (both before and after) is not detectable. For this reason, these Xenien can be considered in isolation from the whole work. The question shall be discussed as to whether Goethe and Schiller appropriately describe each philosopher. We take it as appropriate if it relates to the part of a particular philosopher's philosophy for which he is known in the secondary literature (e.g. in philosophy dictionaries). Furthermore, we shall describe the philosophical argumentation which they use to tackle the philosophical ideas of a particular philosopher. The assignment of the philosophers not recognisable by name was taken from the Hamburg edition of Goethe's works.