Things of Art and Amor: Mediation in Goethe's Römische Elegien

Abstract:Poetry versus love, aesthetic form versus sensual experience, ancient past versus present: Goethe's Römische Elegien works through a series of opposites that dominate scholarly discussion to this day. This essay interprets the things of art and Amor as the common ground of a comprehensive mediation that underlies the oppositions noted in scholarship and places lyric form above all else. In a journey through selected elegies of the cycle, the paper thereby focuses on the function of Amor who regulates mediation in various roles. Amor as a clever guide (elegy II*), as a matchmaker (II), as a servant (V), as a rogue and committed teacher (XIII), and as an authority (XIX) who advances to become the leading figure in Goethe's cycle. In its continuous dynamics of playful mediation, it has one clear goal: poetic form.