of Goethe's productions have taken the dramatic form;
yet he cannot be said, theatrically speaking, to have been, like
Schiller, a successful dramatist. His plays, with the exception of
"Egmont" and the First Part of "Faust," have not commanded the stage;
they form no part, I believe, of the stock of any German theatre. The
characterizations are striking, but the positions are not dramatic.
Single scenes in some of them are exceptions,--like that in "Egmont,"
where Clara endeavors to rouse her fellow-citizens to the rescue of the
Count, while Brackenburg seeks to restrain her, and several of the
scenes in the First Part of "Faust." But, on the whole, the interest of
Goethe's dramas is psychological rather than scenic. Especially is this
the case with "Tasso," one of the author's noblest works, where the
characters are not so much actors as metaphysical portraitures.
Schiller, in his plays, had always the stage in view. Goethe, on the
contrary, wrote for readers, or cultivated, reflective hearers, not
spectators.....

When I say, then, that Goethe, compared with Schiller, failed of
dramatic success, I mean that his talent did not lie in the line of
plays adapted to the stage as it is; or if the talent was not wanting,
his taste did not incline to such performance. He was no playwright.

But there is another and higher sense of the word _dramatic_, where
Goethe is supreme,--the sense in which Dante's great poem is called
_Commedia_, a play. There is a drama whose scope is beyond the compass
of any earthly stage,--a drama not for theatre-goers, to be seen on the
boards, but for intellectual contemplation of men and angels. Such a
drama is "Faust," of which I shall speak hereafter.

Of Goethe's prose works,--I mean works of prose fiction,--the most
considerable are two philosophical novels, "Wilhelm Meister" and the
"Elective Affinities."

In the first of these the various and complex motives which have shaped
the composition may be comprehended in the one word _education_,--the
education of life for the business of life. The main thread of the
narrative traces through a labyrinth of loosely connected scenes and
events the growth of the hero's character,--a progressive training by
various influences, passional, intellectual, social, moral, and
religious. These are represented by the _personnel_ of the story. In
accordance with this design, the hero himself, if so he may be called,
has no pronounced traits, is more negat