Table 1.
Contents of Volume 1 of the Beyträge zur Bildung für Jünglinge (1817).
Italicized notes below titles are editorial additions to indicate the nature of each item. Unless otherwise noted, contributions are unattributed.
Foreword
by Anton von Spaun
The Youth to His Fatherland (by Ottenwalt)
2
Poem
On Friendship (by A. Spaun)
4
Essay
Passages from Plutarch
18
Translation/Paraphrase
First Paradox by Cicero
23
Translation/Paraphrase—“M. A.” (further identity unknown)
Second ________
29
Translation/Paraphrase by Anton von Spaun
Remark on the Character of Marius
[36]
The comment and the following dialogue refer to the same item; the first is given with an erroneous page number.
Dialogue on Passions (A. Spaun)
36
Passage from Collin
39
Excerpt from the writings of Heinrich Joseph von Collin
Scene from the Still Unpublished Tragedy Caesar
41
Drama by Anton Ottenwalt
Short Sayings and Maxims
52
Translations and Excerpts
The Young Beaver
[55]
Poem by Johann Georg Jacobi, with commentary
The First Two Wars of the Greeks Against the Persians
61
Herodotus, translated by Anton von Spaun
Ode
102
Poem by Josef Kenner
Wittich the Strong
104
Excerpt from a Nordic legend translated by Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen
The Warrior and his Son
161
Poem by Johann Mayrhofer
Clever and Insightful Sayings of the Germans, from Zincgref’s Deutsche Apophtegmen
164
Excerpts from the German proverbs of Julius Wilhelm Zincgref
Kunigunde
171
Legend by Johann Mayrhofer
Thoughts on Various Topics
196
Aphorisms by Anton von Spaun
Epimeleia
201
Verse dialogue by Josef Kenner
Ortwin and Edgar
205
Dialogue—“Sch.” (further identity unknown; perhaps Franz von Schober)
Summer Birds
217
Fable by Joseph Kreil
The Guardian Spirit
220
Poem
Excerpts from Jean Paul Friedrich Richter’s Works
224
Excerpts from Jean Paul’s novels, Titan and Hesperus
Praise of the Divinity
235
Poem by the Persian poet Sadi, translated in Herder’s Zerstreute Blätter
To the Highest God
239
Poem by Cleanthes
Callicratidas
243
History of the Spartan naval commander (after Plutarch)
A Scene from The Phoenician Women of Euripides
255
Translation
Table 2.
Contents of Volume 2 of the Beyträge zur Bildung für Jünglinge (1818).
Italicized notes below titles are editorial additions to indicate the nature of each item. Unless otherwise noted, contributions are unattributed.
On Indisposition, by Ottenwalt
1
Essay
Two Dialogues from Xenophon’s Memoirs of Socrates
21
Translation
The First Two Wars of the Greeks Against the Persians (continuation)
53
Continuation of Anton von Spaun’s translation of Herodotus
To Clio, by Ottenwalt
111
Poem
The Introduction to Sallust’s Jugurthine War, translated by A. v. Spaun
115
History
Short Sayings and Maxims
120
Translations and excerpts ranging from Bacon and Montaigne to contemporary German authors
Wittich the Strong (continuation)
127
Continuation of the Nordic legend translated by Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen
Pant’s Coronation, by Jos. Kenner
195
Poem
Clever and Insightful Sayings of the Germans, from Zincgref’s Deutsche Apophtegmen
203
Further excerpts from the German proverbs of Julius Wilhelm Zincgref
Admonition, by Johann Mayrhofer
210
Poem
Anecdotes on the Traits of Emperor Rudolph von Habsburg, by Posselt
211
Excerpted from a collection published in the Kleine Schriften of historian Ernst Ludwig Posselt
Something of the History of Emperor Otto III and His Time, by Ottenwalt
213
A summary history drawn from a variety of sources
Short Sayings and Excerpted Passages to Admonish, Encourage, and Impress Upon Youths Who Apply Themselves Exceptionally to the Study of Philosophy
254
Excerpts and translations from Biblical, classical, medieval, and modern authors
The Life of the Mind, by Joh. Mayrhofer
297
Poem
Raphael: A Dialogue
298
Attributed to “M.,” likely for Johann Mayrhofer
Thoughts on Various Topics, by A. v. Spaun
310
Aphorisms
That the Passion of Love Can and Should Be Resisted, by Lichtenberg
313
Excerpt from the notebooks of scientist and author Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
On The Sorrows of Young Werther, by Claudius
318
Matthias Claudius’s brief comment on Goethe’s novel, from the Wandsbecker Bothe
The Will-o’-the-Wisp, by Joseph Kreil
320
Poem
The Substance of Life, by Ottenwalt
322
Poem, “Gehalt des Lebens”
The Skipper, by Joh. Mayrhofer
325
Poem
The Happy Day, by A. v. Spaun
326
Memoir/Travelogue, “Felix-Tag”
The Lakes, by Ottenwalt
343
A cycle of five poems; the full title is “The Lakes in the Mountains”
An Excerpt from Jean Paul’s Kampanertal
363
Excerpt from the story by Jean Paul Friedrich Richter
Foreword
(vol. 1, iii–viii)
Anton von Spaun’s foreword to the first volume of the Beyträge zur Bildung für Jünglinge outlines the aim and scope of the project, as well as setting its tone. Characteristically, he begins not with abstraction, but with the circle of friends of which the volumes present a public record. The apparent motivation for making that record public, however, goes unmentioned: a need to present the activities of the circle as above all virtuous and patriotic. As Josef von Spaun wrote on 9 October 1815 to Franz von Schober (1798–1882), the younger friend whose behavior occasioned a great deal of consternation among the circle’s leaders, the entire group was under investigation as an illegal secret society.6 Ilija Dürhammer cites a newly discovered letter that provides a lengthier discussion of the matter; the document makes clear that the incident took place before the summer holiday of 1814 at the Kremsmünster Monastic School that many of the friends attended, and that it revolved around a figure whose name has been partially expunged but began with “Sch.” Dürhammer plausibly argues that the most likely identity for “Sch” is Schober, and also that the suspicion was likely moral rather than political—for love
of freedom and fatherland were, at the time of the Congress of Vienna, not yet values under political repression, as they would be within a few years.7 Sincere though the collection’s expressions of loyalty to the Austrian authorities may have been, then, they also had value as implicit reassurances of innocence. The intense male friendship that was one of the circle’s highest values was also one of its greatest liabilities, so the way that the journal presents both the friends’ activities and the concept of friendship itself can be read, in part, as an apologia.
The foreword begins with “shared, cheerful diligence” and “pious, quiet hope.” It then proceeds to describe what the reader will encounter within: translations and excerpts from exemplary authors, essays written under the influence of those authors, and poems. Only in the case of the last does Spaun allow an emotional motivation: they were inspired, he writes, “by the exalted mood of some lovely moment.” If the correspondence of the friends suggests that such moments were as valued and sought after as the philosophical thought and exhortations to “manly civic virtue” on which Spaun dwells, we may suspect that among the reasons for this difference is not only the desire of an elder leader of the group to maintain values threatened by its younger participants (always most prominently including Schober), but also a constant awareness of the need to project the intellectual and civic utility of the group rather than its often sentimental tone of interaction.
The present collection arose among a circle of young friends in the course of their youthful education. Accordingly it can and should make claim to nothing less than the title and the merit of a learned work, which, granted, consists of more than can be acquired in the brief years of youth. In it, what was acquired during a time of youth spent in shared, cheerful diligence, and several memories dear to us, are laid out with feelings of gratitude, in the quiet, pious hope that it may be a friendly encouragement to others. To that and nothing more do these pages wish to make their claim.
Here are excerpts from good authors of ancient and modern times as we collected them from the beginning of our acquaintance with them; translations which we undertook among ourselves for practice; larger and smaller essays, in which we attempted to express our thoughts and views about various things from the inner and outer world of youth, and to present historical developments; and finally, such poems as were brought into being by the exalted mood of some lovely moment.
The whole collection contains perhaps less of our own than that of others; but the reader will not lose anything thereby. With the latter, we are certain of providing everyone with contributions to cultured education. Beyond this, should the smallest part of our own work be unique to us, it is only a demonstration that we learned from those others, that we too drew cultivation from them. May it be counted to our credit that we set down alongside the thoughts of our great teachers that which we have thought in following their example.
There is much in these pages that belongs to philosophy; too much, it might seem, for such a publication and for young people, our readers. But there is so much talk these days about such matters in life and in books—talk often so dangerously superficial, and often so dangerously deep and captious—that this tendency of the Zeitgeist must not be overlooked in pages for the cultivation of youth; it is thus far from a worthless effort to oppose this by bringing to mind the simple, powerful teachings of wise men concerning the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, which are alone suited to develop character and a manly, noble, and generally useful life. Their wisdom speaks comprehensible words and is the serious but intimate friend of youth.
More emphatic and elevating to us than any teaching, however, is a great deed, a great life—most forcefully as expressed by a man who has his own sense for great things. Thus we gladly choose such pieces from the famous historians, presenting in their own words that which cannot be said more strongly or worthily. History is the teacher of manly civic virtue; when a young man reads of men who lived and died for their Fatherland, he learns to feel what a Fatherland is, and that he too has duties toward his own. May these pages contribute to making this feeling, which has in our own day accomplished such splendid things, alive and active in a good many youths—for true cultivation derives only from activity for the common good.
We hereby set the tone of these pages rather seriously, and on the whole they are and shall remain so; may the support of the friendly Muses keep them from becoming strict and dry. Is there any noble young spirit who does not feel himself more touchingly addressed and inwardly moved by warm words about the True and the Good, by great men and their life and work, by ancient history, the Fatherland, its heroes and its history, than by any sort of mere recreational reading? No, we want to provide something better—something, however small it may be, in return for all that is great and invaluable that we received from the beloved Fatherland. Were we not aware of the power of this desire, greater than all timidity and caution, these pages would never have left the small circle that gave them their existence; for we know well enough how slight these contributions are and what a great matter education is. But our times are a great summons for every man to do what he can in working together toward the greatest good; and so we give as well the best that we can, hesitant yet happy that we are able to give something. May the Fatherland not scorn this small offering, and may it be an inspiration and guide to some youth, that one day he may himself be able to accomplish something better in word or in deed! That alone is our wish and, because the smallest seed of the Good flourishes easily and powerfully in a youth’s warm heart, also our quietly rewarding hope.
On Friendship
(vol. 1, 4–17)
The anxieties that underpin the high-minded project of education become apparent early in the collection’s first essay. The essay, Anton von Spaun’s consideration of the phenomenon of friendship, which is preceded only by a brief dedicatory and patriotic poem, represents the activity of collective cultivation at its most reflexive: it applies the practice of reading the classics and modeling behavior to the phenomenon of the circle of friends itself, going to great lengths to build a securely virtuous basis, not so much for intellectual activities themselves as for the relational context in which they take place.8 Beginning with a paean to the value of friendship among the Ancients and stressing its civic and public value, yet warning against their “sad aberrations”—for the intellectually respectable grounding in Socratic philosophy brought with it precisely the risk of association with homosexual interaction that the publication needed to avoid—Spaun proceeds to explore his topic enthusiastically, if unsystematically. What we love in others, he posits, is an ideal “which we suppose to exist even within ourselves,” but that internal ideal is threatened by repression, which brings about a longing that “rages through the breast with tormenting flames—or, breaking out somewhere, often drags us into errors or vices.” Mutual recognition of that ideal between two beings who “have recognized each other in truth, penetrated one another, and united in spirit,” is friendship.
Franz Schubert and His World Page 7