Dämonisch

Dämonisch, a word which Goethe defines in the last book of Dichtung und Wahrheit (iv. 20), attaching it to an irrational phenomenon (‘Wesen’) of Nature (both inorganic and organic) capable of determining man's destiny. Detecting it in himself, he felt that it contravened established laws of existence and moral concepts. He experienced it as an irresistible urge threatening his conscious will and conduct. ‘Ich suchte mich vor diesem furchtbaren Wesen zu retten, indem ich mich, nach meiner Gewohnheit, hinter ein Bild flüchtete’, he wrote with reference to Egmont. The ‘daemonic’ manifests itself in Egmont's blind trust in the rightness of his instincts. In concluding Dichtung und Wahrheit Goethe quoted once more Egmont's own words in Act Two: ‘Wie von unsichtbaren Geistern gepeitscht, gehen die Sonnenpferde der Zeit mit unsers Schicksals leichtem Wagen durch; und uns bleibt nichts, als mutig gefaßt die Zügel festzuhalten, und bald rechts, bald links, vom Steine hier, vom Sturze da, die Räder wegzulenken. Wohin es geht, wer weiß es? Erinnert er sich doch kaum, woher er kam.’ The ‘daemonic’ embraces Egmont's self-destructive impulsion. Other creations from Prometheus to Faust owe their life-blood to this experience of the young Goethe. However, Goethe also points out that when it dominates a man it can manifest itself in tyranny over others. He claims that he knew or had heard of men who were invincible in human terms, and to whom the words ‘Nemo contra deum nisi deus ipse’ might well apply. Goethe refrains from quoting examples. But he is thought to have mentioned to Eckermann Napoleon, Karl August, Byron, Friedrich II of Prussia, and Peter the Great of Russia. The ‘daemonic’ is related to Goethe's use of the word ‘Dämon’ in various works of his later creative period (cf. the poem Urworte. Orphisch).