Elective Affinities

Elective Affinities (German: Die Wahlverwandtschaften), also translated under the

Elective Affinities
title Kindred by Choice, is the third novel by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
published in 1809. The title is taken from a scientific term once used to describe the
tendency of chemical species to combine with certain substances or species in
preference to others. The novel is based on the metaphor of human passions being
governed or regulated by the laws of chemical affinity, and examines whether or
not the science and laws of chemistry undermine or uphold the institution of
marriage, as well as other human social relations.

The title page of the first edition

Contents Author Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe
Plot
Theory Original title Die
Noted critical reactions
Wahlverwandtschaften
Astrida Tantillo Language German (original)
Walter Benjamin's essay onThe Elective Affinities English (1854)
Adaptations Publisher J. G. Cottaische
References in culture and theory Buchhandlung, Berlin
References Publication 1809
External links date

Plot
The book is situated around the city of Weimar. Goethe's main characters are Eduard and Charlotte, an aristocratic couple both in
their second marriage, enjoying an idyllic but semi-dull life on the grounds of their rural estate. They invite the Captain, Eduard's
childhood friend, and Ottilie, the beautiful, orphaned, coming-of-age niece of Charlotte, to live with them. The decision to invite
Ottilie and the Captain is described as an "experiment" and this is exactly what it is. The house and its surrounding gardens are
described as "a chemical retort in which the human elements are brought together for the reader to observe the resulting
reaction."[1][2]

Theory
Elective Affinities is supposed to be the first work to model human relationships aschemical reactions or chemical processes since the
aphorism of the classical Greek philosopher Empedocles: "people who love each other mix like water and wine; people who hate
each other segregate like water and oil."[3]

The term "elective affinities" is based on the older notion of chemical affinities. In the late 19th century, German sociologist Max
Weber, who had read the works of Goethe at the age of 14, used Goethe's conception of human "elective affinities" to formulate a
large part of sociology.[4][5] In early nineteenth century chemistry, the phrase "elective affinities" or chemical affinities was used to
describe compounds that only interacted with each other under select circumstances. Goethe used this as an organizing metaphor for
marriage, and for the conflict between responsibility and passion.
In the book, people are described as chemical species whose amorous affairs and relationships were pre-determined via chemical
affinities]] similar to the pairings of alchemical species. Goethe outlined the view that passion, marriage, conflict, and free will are all
subject to the laws of chemistry and in which the lives of human species are regulated no differently from the lives of chemical
species.[6][7][8] Opinions over the years have been split as to whether Goethe's theory was used in metaphor
.[9][10]

In the novella, the central chemical reaction that takes place is a double displacement reaction (double elective affinity), between a
married couple Eduard and Charlotte (BA), at the end of their first year of marriage (for each their second marriage), and their two
good friends the Captain and Ottilie (CD), respectively. The first marriages, for both Eduard and Charlotte, are described as having
been marriages of financial convenience, essentially arranged marriages. Specifically, when they were younger, Eduard was married
off to a rich older woman through the workings and insatiable greed of his father; Charlotte, likewise, when her prospects were none
the best, was compelled or obliged to marry a wealthy man, whom she did not love.

In the fourth chapter, the characters detail the world's first ever verbally-depicted human double displacement chemical reaction. The
chapter begins with description of the affinity map (reaction map) or 'topographical chart' as Goethe calls it. On this reaction map, we
are told that on it 'the features of the estate and its surroundings were clearly depicted, on quite a large scale, in pen and in different
colors, to which the Captain had give a firm basis by taking trigonometrical measurements'.

Next, to explain the reaction, we are told:

'provided it does not seem pedantic,' the Captain said, 'I think I can briefly sum up in the
language of signs. Imagine an A intimately united with a B, so that no force is able to sunder
them; imagine a C likewise related to a D; now bring the two couples into contact: A will
throw itself at D, C at B, without our being able to say which first deserted its partner, which
first embraced the other's partner.' This is shown below:

AB + CD → AD + BC

'Now then!' Eduard interposed: 'until we see all this with our own eyes, let us look on this
formula as a metaphor from which we may extract a lesson we can apply immediately to
ourselves. You, Charlotte, represent the A, and I represent your B; for in fact I do depend
altogether on you and follow you as A is followed by B. The C is quite obviously the Captain,
who for the moment is to some extent drawing me away from you. Now it is only fair that, if
you are not to vanish into the limitless air, you must be provided with a D, and this D is
unquestionably the charming little lady Ottilie, whose approaching presence you may no
longer resist.'

Noted critical reactions

Astrida Tantillo
In her 2001 book Goethe's Elective Affinities and the Critics, she writes:

“ From the time of its publication to today, Goethe's novel, Die Wahlverwandtschaften
(Elective Affinities, 1809), has aroused a storm of interpretive confusion. Readers
fiercely debate the role of the chemical theory of elective affinities presented in the
novel. Some argue that it suggests a philosophy of nature that is rooted in fate.
Others maintain that it is about free choice. Others believe that the chemical theory
is merely a structural device that allows the author to foreshadow events in the
novel and bears no relevance to the greater issues of the novel.[11] ”
Walter Benjamin's essay on The Elective Affinities
This essay by Walter Benjamin, written around 1924-25, was described by Austrian critic Hugo von Hoffmannsthal, as "absolutely
incomparable". It is renowned as an exemplary instance of Benjamin subjecting his literary subject matter to a process of intensive
dialectical mediation. In the essay, which attacks Goethe's prose style and intentions, Benjamin argues for the possibility of the
transcendence of mythic thinking (which he locates in the medium of Goethe's prose) in favour of the possibility of an as yet
unencountered (and, in principle, unimaginable) "freedom". Typically, Benjamin locates this experience in art, which is, according to
him, alone able, through mediation, to transcend the powers of myth.

Adaptations
A 1974 East German film withthe same title was directed by Siegfried Kühn for DEFA-Studio für Spielfilme.[12]

Francis Ford Coppola, in the grip of clinical manic depression and anxiety over his incomplete opus Apocalypse Now, and while
purportedly under the influence of his girlfriend, screenwriter Melissa Mathison, proposed making a "ten-hour film version of
Goethe's Elective Affinities, in 3D".[13]

John Banville's 1982 novelThe Newton Letter adapts the story to Ireland. (A description by Gordon Burgess can be found in German
life and letters, April 1992.

The 1993 play Arcadia, by British playwright Tom Stoppard, is a modern-day remake of Elective Affinities, albeit with a twist. The
play takes place in modern times and 1809, Goethe's time; characters are replaced subtly, e.g. 'The Captain' becomes 'The Naval
Captain'; and the chemical affinity becomes updated in the play with discussion on the second law of thermodynamics, chaos theory,
and other subjects; albeit the play still holds to the idea that the characters are reactive entities, discussing ideas such as the "heat" of
interactions between the characters.

Robin Gordon's 1995 short story "Leaves in the Wind" adapts the story to modern England, with Edward and Charlotte as an
academic couple.

In 1996, a film version was made, entitledThe Elective Affinities, by director Paolo Taviani.

The 2009 film Sometime in August directed by Sebastian Schipper is loosely based on Goethe's novel and transposes the story to
modern-day Germany.[14]

References in culture and theory

Max Weber, who offered a way to describe the development of capitalism that distinguished itself from the theories
of Karl Marx, described the rise of capitalism in terms of a number of social, cultural, and historicalelective affinities
or links between ideas rather than purely in terms of economic material, most notably in the Protestant Work Ethic.[5]
Walter Benjamin wrote an essay entitled "Goethe's Elective Af finities". Published in Neue Deutsche Beiträgein 1924.
It is one of his important early essays onGerman Romanticism.
In 1933, René Magritte executed a painting entitledElective Affinities.
In French New Wave director François Truffaut's 1962 movie Jules et Jim, one of the two male characters, Jim, who
is visiting his friend Jules, is lent the book, but Jules' wife, Catherine, suddenly asks him to return it. She then
becomes Jim's lover.
In Michael Ondaatje's novel,Anil's Ghost, the book is discussed as being placed with other novels in the doctors'
common room of a Sri Lankan hospital, but remaining unread.
In Günter Grass's first novel The Tin Drum, Elective Affinities is one of the two books which the central character
Oskar uses for guidance, along with a book onRasputin.
In Maurice Baring’s novel “Cat’s Cradle” (Heineman, 1925) Elsie Lawless drolly and accur ately comments (in relation
to the attractions for Walter and Bernard to women other than their wives) “Quite a case of ‘elective af finities’, isn’t
it?” The scene occurs in 1901 just after the Coronation of King Edward VII.

References
1. Oxford University Press. (2006).Book Review (http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-283776-1?version=1) of Goethe's
Elective Affinities.
 2. Smith, Peter, D. (2001). Elective Affinities (http://www.prometheus.demon.co.uk/04/04smith.htm). Abstract from the
article that appears in Prometheus 04.
3. Adler, Jeremy. (1990). "Goethe's Use of Chemical Theory in his Elective Af
finities" (ch. 18, pgs. 263-79) in
Romanticism and the Sciences, edited by Andrew Cunningham and Nicholas Jardine, New ork: Y Cambridge
University Press.
4. Herbert, Richard, H. (1978)."Max Weber's Elective Affinities: Sociology within the Bounds of Pure Reason"(https://w
ww.jstor.org/stable/2777853?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents) , American Journal of Sociology, 84, 366–85.
5. McKinnon, A.M. (2010)"Elective affinities of the Protestant ethic: Weber and the chemistry of capitalism."(http://aur
a.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/2164/303/1/McKinnon_Elective_Af finities_final_non_format.pdf)Sociological Theory, vol 28,
no. 1, pp. 108-126.
6. Constantine, David. (1994).Translation, Introduction, and Notes to OxfordWorld Classics (translation of Goethe's
Elective Affinities). Oxford University Press.ISBN 0-19-283776-1
7. Prigogine, Ilya; Stengers, Isabelle (1984).Order Out of Chaos – Man's New Dialogue with Nature
. Bantam Books.
p. 319. ISBN 0-553-34082-4.
8. According to Belgian chemical engineer Ilya Prigogine, "B.J. Dobbs, The Foundation of Newton's Alchemy(1975),
also examined the role of the "mediator" by which two substances are made "sociable"; we may recall here the
importance of the mediator in Goethe'sElective Affinities (Engl. trans. Greenwood, 1976). For what concerns
chemistry, Goethe was not far from Newton."
9. Adler, Jeremy. (1987). "Eine fast magische Anziehungskraft". Goethe's "W ahlverwandtschafte" und die Chemie
seiner Zeit ("An almost Magical Attraction". Goethe's Elective Af
finity and the Chemistry of its Time), Munich.
10. On possible issues associated with the chemical analogy , see: (a) Robert T. Clark Jr, (1954). "The Metamorphosis of
Character in Die Wahlverwandtschaften",The Germanic Review, 29, 243–53.
(b) John Milfull, (1972). "The 'Idea' of Goethe's Die Wahlverwandtschaften", The Germanic Review, 47, 83–94;
(c) H. B. Nisbet, (1969). "Die Wahlverwandtschaften: Explanation and its Limits",Deutsche Viertejahrsschrift fur
Literaturwissenschaft and Geistesgeschichte, 43, 458–86;
(d) E. L Stahl, (1945). "Die Wahlverwandtschaften", Publications of the English Goethe Society, new series, 15, 71–
95;
(e) F. J. Stopp, (1959–60). "Einwahrer narziss: Reflections on the Eduard-Ottilie Relations in Goethe's
Wahlverwandtschaften",Publications of the English Goethe Society, new series, 52–85;
(f) Waltraud Wietholter, (1973). "Legenden. Zur Mythologie von Goethe's Wahlverwandtschaften", Deutsche
Viedrteljahrsschrift fur Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte, 56, 1–64.
11. Tantillo, Astrida, O. (2001).Goethe's Elective Affinities and the Critics(http://www.boydell.co.uk/71132120.HTM).
Camden House.
12. "Die Wahlverwandtschaften" (http://www.filmportal.de/film/die-wahlverwandtschaften_81f6308978ff4fe6938f7612b6b
97066). Filmportal.de (in German). Deutsches Filminstitut. Retrieved 2015-07-04.
13. Peter Biskind. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, New York: Touchstone, imprint of Simon & Schuster, 1998, 1999, p. 373.
ISBN 0-684-85708-1.
14. "Mitte Ende August" (http://www.filmportal.de/film/mitte-ende-august_aa6344733ad54c9ea528f3de1d291df0).
Filmportal.de (in German). Deutsches Filminstitut. Retrieved 2015-06-16.

External links
Elective Affinities – Peter D. Smith
Elective Affinities – The Literary Encyclopedia
Die Wahlverwandtschaften (in German)
Elective affinities Cornell University Library Historical Monographs Collection.
Scanned Version
William G. Howard (1920). "Elective Affinities, The". Encyclopedia Americana.

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