![]() ![]() If, therefore, the works that prove enduring are precisely those whose truth is most deeply sunken in their material content, then, in the course of this duration, the concrete realities rise up before the eyes of the beholder all the more distinctly the more they die out in the world. The relation between the two is determined by that basic law of literature according to which the more significant the work, the more inconspicuously and intimately its truth content is bound up with its material content. Critique seeks the truth content of a work of art commentary, its material content. It could appear to be commentary in fact, it is meant as critique. ![]() The following exposition of Elective Affinities, which also goes into detail, could therefore easily prove misleading about the intention with which it is being presented. The writings we have on works of literature suggest that the minuteness of detail in such studies be reckoned more to the account of the interests of philology than of critique. I Whoever chooses blindly is struck in the eyes By the smoke of sacrifice. Goethe's Elective Affinities Dedicated to Jula Cohn ![]()
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