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Popular Culture Review
buckets of earth next to the bed he suspects that something might be hidden in
them. To his disgust, all he finds are date pits. He wonders why Goethe needs to
raise date trees next to his bed when dates can be bought anywhere (116). Thus
are Goethe’s scientific efforts judged by Beri. The reader further learns that
Goethe is not working on any new piece of writing (he is still writing Iphegenia)
and that he spends his days drawing badly. Ortheil is eager to supply these
details through Beri’s naive observations. For readers familiar with Goethe’s
Italienische Reise, the humor is subtle but evident, lying partly in the contrast
between Beri’s literal observations and simplistic explanations of Goethe’s
actions and Goethe’s own account. For those who have not read much Goethe,
the humor depends more on Ortheil’s characterization of Beri and the process of
his change.
Beri’s innocent observations evolve as he too is drawn under Goethe’s
spell. Upon reading Werther he projects Werther’s situation onto Goethe.
Goethe, he decides, must be in Rome to recover from his youthful love for a
married woman. (Goethe is at this point close to forty). Determined to help his
new friend, Beri arranges for his childhood friend, Rosina, to seduce Goethe.
Her best efforts are to no avail, and Beri is mightily puzzled as to how someone
in the prime of life can so consistently resist all temptation. Goethe eventually
confides to Beri his fear of entanglement and venereal disease, “the Roman girls
have their own way. You know, of whomever wants to have them, they ask
immediately, when is the wedding? And the others, the ones that are haveable,
they are a danger for many reasons.”4 The explanation Ortheil’s Goethe gives
Beri is almost identical to a complaint the real Goethe made to Herzog Carl
August in a letter from December 1787,5 reflecting Ortheil’s use of source
materials. It is ironic that Goethe eventually consummates his visit to Rome and
gains sexual freedom with Faustina, Beri’s girlfriend. Ortheil does not dwell on
whether this is Goethe’s first experience with intercourse (a la Goethe
biographer K.R. Eissler)6 or merely an intense sexual experience. Through
Beri’s description the reader learns that Goethe is a changed man. The happier
Goethe becomes with his mysterious lover—ironically, Beri is the only one who
knows her identity—the more despondent Beri. Beri’s efforts to change Goethe
from an “ungliicklicher Nordmensch” (Kurzke 5) [unhappy northerner] into a
happy-go-lucky Roman is successful, except that it backfires for Beri. As
Kurzke observes, “Goethe’s turning towards the world contrasts with Beri’s
turning inward. At the end Goethe is the free Roman and Beri the stiff
stranger.”7 As Goethe successfully emerges from Wertherdom, Beri becomes the
hero of Goethe’s greatest literary success.
Struzyk’s Caroline unterm Freiheitsbaum is a collection of
chronological scenes representing turning points in the life of Caroline
Schelling, “geborene Michaelis, verwittwete Bohmer, geschiedene Schlegel”
(back cover) [nee Michaelis, widowed Bohmer, divorced Schlegel]. At the
beginning of the novel, Caroline, aged three, hides under her father’s desk and
listens to a discussion between her father and Benjamin Franklin. One of the