Dear Nathaniel,

Last night, for the first time in more than 60 years,
if I remember correctly, I reread Goethe's Egmont, - and this 
morning I need to write down my thoughts before they escape.

My college essay for which I sent you the URL
http://home.earthlink.net/~ej2meyer/Egmont.pdf
is an expanded echo of Karl Vietor's lectures, - hence the grade.
What Vietor taught and what I mimicked, Egmont as a reflection
of Goethe's own insouciant love of life, seems still valid, but
today I see other perspectives which we then overlooked: Egmont
as an expression of Goethe's anxiety about the turbulence and
threats to "life liberty and property" in a decade (1775-1788) of
revolutionary upheaval, and of Goethe's discovery of his own art
as the brazen serpent (Numbers 21:6-9) that assuaged his fears.

The lengthy introduction and interpolations of the political thoughts
of commoners, I read as an imitation and parody of Shakespeare's plays.
Goethe was a Shakespeare enthusiast. cf. "Rede zum Shakespearestag"
In the Greek tragedies, if I remember correctly, the common people were
consigned to the Chorus, and in French classical tragedy they don't
appear at all. Even for Goethe, if I read him correctly tragedy is
enacted by heroes and villains, Egmont, Klaerchen, Ferdinand and Alba.
Klaerchen's mother and Brackenberg play only supporting roles.

The myths of the past no longer suffice. Klaerchen's futile aspirations
to the role of Joan of Arc end in her suicide. Neither for her nor for
her lover is there an afterlife. The Enlightenment has shut the gates
of heaven, once and for all. Under the circumstances, it's inevitable
that the meaning of death should be assigned to the life and to the 
demise of the decedent. I contemplate the death of Klaerchen and, of
course especially of Egmont himself, as anticipations of Rilke's:

O, Herr, gib jedem seinen eigenen Tod.
Das Sterben, das aus jenem Leben geht,
darin er Liebe hatte, Sinn und Not.
(Rainer Maria Rilke)

Lord, give to each a death his own,
A dying that proceeds out of the life
that was his love, his meaning and his pain.

===================
Goethe's invention of Egmont's revenge on Alba by the calculated
poisoning of Ferdinand's filial loyalty, reminds me of Kleist's
account at the end of "Michael Kohlhaas",  when Kohlhaas, on the
threshold of execution, swallows the paper on which his enemy's
the Elector's, destiny is inscribed, thus conquering death, not by
resurrection but by laying a curse on the man who is about to
destroy him.

Paradoxically, Egmont's fate as the history of murder by tyranny,
is presented by Goethe as an affirmation of life. This contradiction
is subject to a spectrum of interpretations, from "feel-good" 
frivolousness to the ultimate affirmation of human existence.

So far as Beethoven's overture is concerned, I hear it as yet
another demonstration of the genius of Beethoven who is forever
writing music of which it can truly be said with respect to the
spirit, that one size fits all.

Jochen

PS Please remember that you have a standing invitation to spend
a week - or a month - in Konnarock, in Belmont, and perhaps on
Nantucket - for an ultra-intensive course in spoken German, 
with no word in English - not even from your newly German
speaking grandmother.