Thursday, 20 February 2020

Attenborough and Goethe

Attenborough, Sir David Attenborough, and Goethe have struck up an acquaintance.
In some encounters Attenborough is young and Goethe is old; in others, Goethe, as Werther, is young and Attenborough is the man of 'great learning and mature judgement' that Werther confides in and appeals to. Attenborough is in this scenario Count C., whom you'll find mention of in Book Two, should you care to buy a copy.
And this acquaintance – that imagined between Attenborough and Goethe - if there was a time in which it could exist which as you know there's not - would have led, in my opinion, to a great friendship, for they would bond over Nature. One would be more lyrical, one would be more scientific; depending on what nature of flora and fauna was being discussed.
If I met Sir Attenborough, I would ask him had he ever in his lifetime met Goethe and was it, as I would like to think, a meeting of minds. Though I would have to phrase that better, wouldn't I? to make it abundantly clear I meant through his works, as otherwise Security might decide to tackle me to the ground, or grab both my arms and swing me along it.
No, I can't imagine Sir David Attenborough sanctioning that kind of behaviour, but then all Nature can be studied, can't it?, and perhaps my reaction to brute force would prove interesting. Would I lash out? Would I submit and allow myself to be sheepishly led away? Would I instead of using my limbs use my voice: scream my horror at such treatment, shout and try to explain the confusion I'd caused?
No, I think Attenborough would entertain my unusual question and attempt an answer. And if it turns out they haven't yet met, maybe my asking would bring them together.
Then one can be Count C. to a young man.
But if you can't, in fact, converse with another whom you esteem, or think you're likely to, can there be a true meeting of minds? Minds change and may not meet all the time. Written material doesn't always allow for that, unless some document somewhere testifies to it, so a mind, in that case, can only be met at that particular time and place.
I think, however on that score, we're safe with Goethe. And Attenborough, too. Because their fascination with, and love of, Nature is deep-rooted like a large oak with an unquenchable thirst.
But why Attenborough? Why shouldn't Goethe meet someone like Gilbert White (1720-1793), the “parson-naturalist” and ornithologist? Perhaps he did as a very young man, though it seems unlikely they could have met in Selborne, Hampshire, and I don't know if White travelled. I didn't have to, like my mother, read about him at school. I wonder if Goethe had heard of him...but if he had there's no record, to my knowledge, recorded of it, but it wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong, and later proved so.
No, it's no good, I can't imagine that because I don't know White and I do know Attenborough by his face and voice and Goethe by his words. I think for this you have to at least know visually one of the people, and have perhaps read something of or by the other.
What would the pair of them talk of, though? Well, I think Attenborough would end up listening, mostly, particularly if Goethe was Werther, because that young man can talk, but Sir David, would, I think, respond to him kindly, understanding that here was a sensitive soul. Goethe would speak on the little worlds, so laboriously built, that Man destroys underfoot,or of a magnificent walnut tree that has been cut down and bring himself to tears; or even be so moved (or maddened) he resorts to reading aloud, in a voice half-broken, passages of Ossian. I'm not sure Sir David would have much sympathy with or feeling for the latter. I think, however, he would remain stoic, from which Goethe (as Werther) would draw strength.
Maybe such a meeting, even imagined as it is, is selfish of me, for what would Attenborough get from it? Very little, it seems, if he had the fortune (or misfortune) to meet a tormented Werther on the brink of despair.
Oh, let's hope, in my head, Attenborough meets Goethe instead!

Book recommendation: The Sorrows of Young Werther, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Picture credit: Goethe or the Metamorphosis of Plants, 1940, Andre Masson

This post was penned during 2019.