Goethe Lite
23
Roche; and her 1999 Das sanfte Joch der Vortrefflichkeit [The Gentle Yoke o f
Excellence] about Schiller’s sister-in-law, Karoline von Wolzogen. There are
several additional texts that deal with Goethe at various stages in his life and
career. In addition to Sparschuh’s novel, there are Martin Walser’s In Goethes
Hand (1984); Sigrid Damm’s “Recherche” Christianne und Goethe (2001)—
classified as biography, although it reads like fiction; and Otto Bohmer’s 1999
novel Der junge Herr Goethe [The Young Mr. Goethe].
Nor is this type of novel limited to German literary figures. In addition
to the above, a half hour’s worth of following links on Amazon.com turns up a
respectable number of recent and similar books fictionalizing the lives of other
famous artists, scientists, musicians, and writers. Among these are two books
about the renaissance painter Artemesia Gentileschi (1593-1653)—Susan
Vreeland’s novel The Passion o f Artemesia published in 2002, and Alexandra
Lapierre’s Artemesia: A Novel, of 2000, which was apparently billed as a
biography in Great Britain. Ortheil has also written a book about Mozart and
Casanova in Prague, Die Nacht des Don Juan (2000) [The Night o f Don Juan].
Tracy Chevalier’s 1999 Girl with a Pearl Earring describes the household of
Vermeer. Then there are Dava Sobel’s Galileo’s Daughter (1999), about
Galileo’s illegitimate daughter based on recently uncovered correspondence; and
Harriet Scott Chessman’s 2001 Lydia Cassat Reading the Morning Paper, a
fictional account of the American painter Mary Cassat’s older sister, who was
the subject of several paintings. The above-listed works are meticulously
researched, interweaving primary documents with fictional dialogue in
accurately defined settings. All portray the human, every-day side of genius,
emphasizing the quirkiness of the person in question, rather than the oeuvre, and
concentrating on detail, rather than plot.
In the following study, I shall focus on faction dealing with German
luminaries of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. It is not my
intention to clarify the reasons for the respective authors’ choice of genre, but
rather to understand better the genre’s place in today’s culture. By examining
the types of sources used by the respective authors and the way the information
is fictionalized, I hope to shed light on the popularity of this sometimes
maligned genre.
Fitzgerald, Ortheil, Struzyk, and for that matter, Thomas Mann, use
autobiographical source materials and other historical documents and facts to
describe the lives and times of the literary giants they are fictionalizing.
Fitzgerald, for example, draws not only from Novalis’s works, but also from his
correspondence, diaries, and even lecture notes, gleaning bits of information and
turns of phrase from the collected works, which were originally edited by Paul
Kluckhohn and Richard Samuel between 1960 and 1988.
Ortheil also uses contemporary materials. Goethe’s own Italienische
Reise [The Italian Journey] is rather obviously his main source, although he also
weaves in excerpts from Goethe’s letters and Moritz’s diaries, “aus denen er die
krudesten Stellen original ubemommen habe,. . . ” (Schiilke 30) [from which he