Goethe in Frankfurt

A couple of weeks ago I visited Frankfurt - my first time. I decided that I would take an experimental walk through the city, on the traces of the famous Book Fair. That idea didn't quite take shape as I wanted it to! The fair seems pretty invisible when it's not on, apart from one installation I came across - by artist Franz Mon, 2008 - carrying the text "The Frankfurt Book Fair originated in the Buchgasse".

However, I stepped inside Goethe's Haus in search of one of Germany's most important writers, on the 260th anniversary of his birth.

This was an interesting experience, in a disappointing sense. I walked in, a la recherche du Goethe, and I found his home, his mother's linen cupboards, his sister's bedroom, his writing desk, a vertical piano, his father's Library, the family painting collections, the kitchen pantry, traditional heating stoves, a grand central staircase, the secret window from which his father watched warily over his children...the 19th century home of a successful pro-Prussian Councillor. There is a contemporary annex too, which houses an art gallery - the making of the myth of Goethe, the origins of Sturm und Drang, the fascination of German Romanticism.

But...where was Goethe, the writer? Where his words? Where his poetry? 

It felt like the sociological side of the now trendy "behind the scenes" approach to interpretation has overridden and taken over the primary purpose of having a Goethe Haus Museum in the first place: meeting Goethe! 

What a shame! What a shame that nowhere does the power, resonance, verbal strength, romantic sensibility of his great works seep through! What a shame that such an amazing opportunity has been passed by! 

In talking with the very kind gentleman on reception, I asked him about access to the Library - and of course, where opening times allow, it is publicly accessible. But the problem with that is that it is a study centre for German speaking academics. Who surely know lots about Goethe anyway!

The curious traveller, the language lover, the teenager empathising with Werther's troubles, the international visitor who may not know enough German to read Goethe in the original - well, obviously these people are not the primary audiences. 

Goethe lost.