Goethe (post 2): German literary giant said he was “a collective singular consisting of several persons with the same name,” which is multiple personality.

The quotation from Goethe about himself is taken from the review of a new biography.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/books/review/goethe-biography-rudiger-safranski.html

I previously discussed Goethe’s first major work in the following post:

February 21, 2015

Goethe’s The Sufferings of Young Werther: Main Character Has Both Depression and Multiple Personality

In Goethe’s autobiography, he says that he wrote “Werther in four weeks,” and that he wrote it “more or less unconsciously, like a sleepwalker” (1, p. 116). That is, more or less, he had dissociative amnesia—a symptom of multiple personality—for doing the writing.

That the novel was inspired by real-life experiences and events is well known. Goethe, himself, had been infatuated with a married woman. And a man Goethe had known had committed suicide in a similar situation. Moreover, the main character is given the exact same birthday as the author.

The novel itself is about Werther, a young man who commits suicide, because he is infatuated with a young woman (Lotte) he can’t have. This seemingly simple scenario is extremely puzzling for four reasons: First, before Werther meets Lotte, he is explicitly told that she is already engaged to be married. Second, she is maternal, not flirtatious. Third, he has no sexual feelings for her: “She is sacred to me. All lust falls silent in her presence” (1, p. 29). Fourth, his moods, attitudes, and even his abilities are puzzlingly inconsistent and contradictory.

The inconsistency of his moods is illustrated by the fact that during the same period of time that he says “I’ve never been happier” (1, p. 30), he also has “moments when I feel like putting a gun to my head!” (1, p. 29). This kind of inconsistency cannot be accounted for by clinical depression or bipolar disorder, but it could represent the contrary attitudes of two alternate identities.

The inconsistency of his abilities—he is an artist—is illustrated by the fact that on the same day he says he’s never been happier, he says “I’ve begun Lotte’s portrait three times, and three times I’ve made a mess of it. That depresses me all the more because not long ago I was very good at doing likenesses” (1, p. 30). Inconsistency of abilities may be a symptom of multiple personality, since different identities may not have the same talents.

An illustration of out-of-character behavior: On one occasion, “I become boisterously foolish and play pranks and do a lot of confused stuff,” which comes across as so odd that the next day Lotte comments, “You are frightful when you’re so merry” (1, p. 32). His behavior makes no sense to either Werther or Lotte, because it is probably done by an alternate identity, possibly child-aged, whom neither of them recognizes.

Werther says, “My diary, which I have neglected for some time, fell into my hands again today, and I am amazed at how knowingly I went into all this, step by step! How I have always seen my situation so clearly and yet have acted like a child” (1, p. 33). His behavior may have been by a child-aged alternate identity, but his diary was written by an adult self. And the identity telling us about this is apparently different from both of them.

“The ease with which we turn over a hand: that’s the way I change” (1, p. 59).

“I am in a state that must have been experienced by those unfortunate creatures who were once thought to be ridden by an evil demon. At times it takes hold of me…” (1, p. 76). “I frighten myself! Isn’t my love for her the most sacred, chaste, brotherly love?…Oh, how truthfully those men felt who attributed such contradictory effects to alien powers!” (1, p. 77). See past posts on “possession” as really being multiple personality.

Conventional wisdom, psychiatrically speaking, is that Goethe is an example of the relationship between depression and creativity (2). And both he and his character, Werther, certainly did have depression. But depression, per se, cannot explain the puzzling inconsistencies and contradictions discussed in this post. Multiple personality can.

1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The Sufferings of Young Werther. Translated and Edited by Stanley Corngold. A Norton Critical Edition. New York, WW Norton & Company, 2013.
2. Holm-Hadulla, R.M., et al., Depression and creativity—The case of the german poet, scientist and statesman J. W. v. Goethe, J. Affect. Disord. (2010), doi:10.1016/j.jad.2010.05.007