Truth, Life and Text in Friederike Brion’s Repeated Reflections: Rereading Books X and XI of "Poetry and Truth" by J. W. Goethe

Abstract

The article offers a rereading of Books X and XI of Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s "Poetry and Truth" (1813), in order to dignify the apparently minor female figure of Friederike Brion. First, we will approach Goethe’s construction through the eyes of Jacques Lacan, whose remarks on the individual myth of the neurotic will serve as an introduction to the Goethean love affair. Second, we’ll expand the scope by analyzing Goethe’s late text of 1823, “Repeated reflections”, where the old poet reflected upon that affair. Thanks to the mirror game generated in and by the autobiographical text, the presence of the once loved only emerges for the old writer by assuming an entoptical dimension of life, in which the figure of Friederike gains a symbolic status we will take into consideration. From a certain intertextual perspective we will –finally– show some passages of "Poetry and Truth" where the hermeneutical dignity of Friederike could be reevaluated.