Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of May 5, 1876

Overview

By now the Vienna and Berlin matters seem settled, but public anxiety has shifted onto typhoid fever and the newspapers’ exaggerations. Her reading of Goethe, Wolf, and Bernays feels increasingly tedious, and Wagner grows impatient with the whole literary fashion. He insists that only Faust would let Goethe appear truly legendary, with the rest seeming like belated attempts to imitate Homer.

Content

Friday, May 5:

All is now settled in Vienna and Berlin; in their place we have typhoid fever, which, making a harmless appearance among the soldiers, has been built up in the most malicious way by the newspapers; inquiries for certificates are ceasing to arrive, all people want to know is the state of the epidemic! ...

In the evening, little pleasure in Wolf-Goethe-Bernays; ink-splashing century! R. wishes we had nothing of Goethe except Faust; he would then look as great and legendary as Homer. All these attempts to emulate Homer's successors seem almost childish.