E. M. Butler (1885–1959)

A Mournful Paean to German Scholarship on Greece, July 23, 2006

This is a delightful book, first published, I believe, in 1935. It includes chapters on Winckelmann, Lessing and Herder, Goethe, Schiller, Holderlin, Heine and a concluding chapter that includes a section on Nietzsche. A fine examination of the (over) 200 year fascination of Germany with ancient Greece. This wonderfully sentimental and evocative work, that is tinged throughout with the spice of despair, both examines and exhibits said fascination. See especially the chapters on Holderlin and Heine in this regard. I was still quite young (in high school) when I first read this book and it left me yearning for more Greece, and also, I add somewhat sheepishly, a bit of Ms. Butler too! Yes, of course it is not really serious scholarship, but rather a romance with and about such scholarship. But nonetheless, it is filled with fine observations. I pick two at (or near) random:

"Goethe and Shakespeare, Homer and Dante, tower above their fellows but stand with them on the earth. Their range is immeasurably wider than Holderlin's, but no one has ever reached the same dizzy heights. [...] Then came the time when this life in poetry gradually changed to a life in prophecy"

"Dionysus, who came late into Greece, came late into Germany too. Heine ushered him in and then left it to Nietzsche..."

Thus the Germans went from admiring the Greek gods to wanting to be them, which would not have been a problem if their conception of the gods did not go from the light of Apollo to the shadows of Dionysus. - With results that even today, in our dumbed-down world, are studied in civics classes throughout the land. 'Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.' ...It really is such a pity that this bittersweet study is so long out of print.… (meer)