Die Geheimnisse

Geheimnisse, Die, a projected religious epic poem in ottava rima, of which Goethe wrote the first 44 stanzas, plus one intended to come later. The stanzas of this esoteric work, which were written in 1783-4, introduce Bruder Markus, who arrives at a monastery, is admitted, and discovers a mysterious brotherhood of twelve knights presided over by a superior named Humanus. In an essay (Die Geheimnisse. Fragment) published in Cotta's Morgenblatt für gebildete Stände in 1816, Goethe explained that the reader was to be led through an ‘ideal Montserrat’, and that each of the knights was to represent a religion, each with its attributes and special virtues. The poem ‘Zueignung’, which Goethe later placed at the head of his collected poems, was originally intended as an introductory poem to Die Geheimnisse. The fragment of the epic was first published in Goethes Schriften, vol. 8, 1789.