-Weimar, who
had recently ascended the throne of his fathers, and who was destined to
become the greatest Maecenas of the century and, as it were, the sponsor
of Germany's greatest intellectual bloom, to establish himself at
Weimar. There he arrived on November 7, 1775, at the age of twenty-six,
received with universal rejoicing and enthusiasm. "New love, new life,"
arises for him in Weimar, and with his new love and new life a new era
for Germany the era of Goethe, or Classicism proper.

CHAPTER XI

EMANCIPATION OF GERMAN WOMEN

We have shown at length how the cultural, literary, and artistic
grandeur of Germany during the Minnesong period was a direct consequence
of the high elevation of woman, and due to the worship accorded to her
on account of her lofty station. Just so woman was one of the strongest
impelling factors in bringing about well-nigh all that was great and
good in the second period of Classicism. The world-famed Court of the
Muses at Weimar, presided over by Duchess Amalia, "as unique in her way
as Frederick the Great was in his," and her circle of noble women,
aroused all the poetic power of the genius of Goethe, and later that of
Schiller. All the courtliness and elegance of their art, which had been
evolved in storm and stress, sprang from their intercourse with noble
women, a fact which Goethe again and again frankly confessed, and from
which Schiller derived the loftiest inspiration. The ancient
Minnesingers' glorification of ennobling love was renewed by Goethe,
whose highest ideal of feminine perfection was one illustrious woman, in
whom he discovered "all the lofty happiness that man in his earthly
limitations calls with divine names," Frau Charlotte von Stein alas! the
wife of another man at the same court. She and Shakespeare a strange
combination gave Goethe the incentive and stimulus by which were
produced his immortal works. This is proved by his statement: "Lida,
happiness ever present, William, star of loftiest height, to you I owe
all that I am." Goethe's relations with this extraordinary woman, says
Scherer, developed in his nature all the tenderness of which he was
capable. She was frank and true, not passionate, not enthusiastic, but
full of spiritual warmth; a gentle earnestness gave her majesty; a pure,
correct feeling, combined with a thirst for knowledge, enabled her to
share all the poetic, scientific, and human interests of Goethe. In his
numberless letters and fleeti