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Eissler's monumental study devotes about two thirds of its two volumes to Goethe's life focusing on the decade 1775-1785. It examines many of Goethe's poems, his Wilhelm Meister and Iphigenia, as well as a number of lesser known works.1 In connection with this study, Eissler develops a theory of the psychology of the genius.2 The following comments are restricted to a brief review of these two themes in Eissler's book.
Eissler views Goethe as “the very model of a genius” and as an “ideal type of creativity” (pp. XXXI, 1353). He argues—and this ties in with Eissler's thesis on the psychology of the genius—that Goethe would never have become the great artist and man that he was if he had not suffered from various pathologies. However, Eissler distinguishes between pathology in an ordinary person, or such as we meet in clinical practice, and the ‘healthy disease’ (Carus' term) of a genius. In Goethe, Eissler sees an example of a “constructive or organizing” disease (p. XXXIII).
In his examination of Goethe's life, Eissler suggests that Goethe was able to circumvent the oedipal relationship to his father, partly by his being nearer in years to his mother than she was to her husband which made possible Goethe's near-indentification with his mother.
The focus of Goethe's problem is seen in an incestuous fixation on his sister Cornelia. Apart from an early love affair, Goethe could not fall in love so long as Cornelia remained unmarried. Her marriage to Schlosser brought Goethe close to suicide, an impulse sublimated in his Werther. Goethe's deepest guilt feelings stemmed primarily from his involvement with Cornelia. At the same time, this fixation saved Goethe from a full-blown psychosis and from overt homo-