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Eternal feminine
The eternal feminine is a psychological archetype or philosophical principle that idealizes an
immutable concept of "woman". It is one component of gender essentialism, the belief that men
and women have different core "essences" that cannot be altered by time or environment.[1] The
conceptual ideal was particularly vivid in the 19th century, when women were often depicted as
angelic, responsible for drawing men upward on a moral and spiritual path.[2] Among those virtues
variously regarded as essentially feminine are "modesty, gracefulness, purity, delicacy, civility,
compliancy, reticence, chastity, affability, [and] politeness".[3]

Contents
Goethe
Feminist Transcendentalism
Later developments
In music
In popular culture
See also
References

Goethe
The concept of the "eternal feminine" (German: das Ewig-Weibliche) was introduced by Goethe at
the end of Faust, Part Two (1832):

Everything transient

Is but a symbol;

The insufficient

Here finds fulfilment;

The indescribable

Here becomes deed;

The eternal-feminine

Draws us on high.

Although Goethe does not introduce the eternal feminine until the last two lines of the play, he
prepared for its appearance at the outset. "Equally pertinent in this regard," writes J. M. van der
Laan, "are Gretchen and Helen, who alternate with each other from start to finish and ultimately
combine with others to constitute the Eternal-Feminine"[4] At the beginning of Part I, Act IV,
Faust glimpses in the passing clouds "a godlike female form" in which he discerns Juno, Leda,
Aurora, Helen and Gretchen. This "lovely form" does not dissolve, but rises into the aether,
drawing, Faust says, "the best of my soul forth with itself"—rather as the eternal feminine does in
the last line of the play. Also embodiments of the eternal feminine are four other women who
appear with the redeemed Gretchen at the end of Part II, Act V: Magna Peccatrix (the "great
sinner" who anointed Jesus), Mulier Samaritana (the Samaritan woman at the well), Maria
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Aegytiaca (Mary of Egypt), and Mater Gloriosa (Mary, mother of Jesus). Then there are Galatea,
who appears in Part II, Act II as a surrogate for Aphrodite; the Graces Aglaia (representing beauty),
Hegemone (representing generosity), and Euphrosyne (representing joy), who feature briefly in
Part II, Act I; and even the uncanny Mothers, whom Faust visits in Part II, Act I to conjure up
Helen.[5] Sophia, the biblical personification of divine wisdom, does not appear per se in Faust, but
she is subtly present in Helen, not to mention the other women; her attributes (Wisdom 7:23–26)
recall those of the female figures manifested in the clouds; and she is alluded to in Goethe's
repeated references to eternal light (cf. Wisdom 7:26).[6] Significantly, the women who contribute
to the eternal feminine often appear in groups, and at times one of them calls up the image of
another. In Helen there are hints of Gretchen (in the cloud scene) and Sophia; Galatea appears as
an Aphrodite figure. The eternal feminine is a communal affair, a sisterhood.

However, not all the female figures who appear in the play contribute to the eternal feminine. As
van der Laan notes, "Lieschen, who gossips about the misfortunes of Barbara, pregnant out of
wedlock, does not possess the qualities later to be associated with the Eternal-Feminine. These
qualities are also lacking in the witches of the Walpurgis Night. Only a select number of the play's
many feminine figures contribute something of themselves to the construction of the ideality
Goethe finally reveals at the end of the play.[7]

The subversive side of Goethe's eternal feminine is highlighted by Nietzsche scholar Carol Diethe,
who observes that Goethe, like Nietzsche in a rather different way later, used the concept to
challenge the "blinkered bourgeois morality" of nineteenth-century Germany: "In Goethe's case,
that morality ought to have put the child murderess Gretchen beyond the pale: at the end of Faust I
(1808), she is not just a fallen woman but a felon, which is precisely why Goethe places her in the
redemptive role, forcing his wealthy Weimar theater audience to show tolerance, willy-nilly."[8]

A host of female figures—van der Laan mentions fifteen, not counting the Mothers—contribute
something of themselves and their various symbolic possibilities to the eternal feminine.[7] The
range of connotations is extraordinarily diverse. While the eternal feminine symbolizes such
qualities as beauty, love, mercy, and grace, it "also personifies the transcendent realm of ultimate
being, of divine wisdom and creative power which forever exceeds human reach, but at the same
time ever draws us into itself."[9] Goethe's "Eternal Feminine," writes the Korean-American
philosopher T. K. Seung, "is the supreme cosmic power for the governance of the world."[10] The
"feminine principle", which "operates in every human heart", is "a cosmic principle."[11] Citing the
opinion of Goethe scholar Hans Arens that "the Eternal-Feminine is not simply to be equated with
love. Rather, it is the eternal or divine which reveals itself in the feminine," van der Laan
concludes: "As the symbolic representation of divine wisdom and creative power, the Eternal-
Feminine can never be grasped or possessed. Beyond all human reach and comprehension, the
eternal and divine always draws Faust and humanity onward toward itself."[12]

It is to be noted that the Goethean concept of the eternal feminine is an ideal for both men and
women, to the same degree, if not in the same way. This is shown in the use of common-gendered
terms like "humanity" (as in the last quote above), "people"[12] or "us" to refer to those whom it
draws upward and on. In Goethe's own words, "The eternal-feminine draws us on high." As he
realized, encompassing the range of human experience requires transcending the traditional stuff
of patriarchy, as it tends to efface the feminine.[13] His introduction in his magnum opus of the
eternal feminine is an attempt to redress this imbalance and achieve a more comprehensive vision.
In T. K. Seung's words, "the noble forms of the Eternal Feminine"—symbolized in the play by the
"godlike female form" in the clouds in which Faust discerns Juno, Leda, Aurora, Helen and
Gretchen—"are Goethe's transcendent forms, which stand above all positive norms and which
enable us to transcend the narrow perspective of our individual self. This power of transcendence is
provided by the Eternal Feminine."[14]

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Feminist Transcendentalism
The right to pursue self-culture (Bildung) regardless of sex, race, or social position was at the heart
of the project of nineteenth-century New England Transcendentalism.[15] "Self-culture," declared
Transcendentalist lecturer John Albee in 1885, "must be held up and measured on the Goethean
plan."[16] In her book Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845), feminist Transcendentalist
Margaret Fuller praised Goethe's portrayal of women in his writings: "He aims at a pure self-
subsistence, and free development of any powers with which they may be gifted by nature as much
for them as for men. They are units [individuals] addressed as souls. Accordingly, the meeting
between man and woman, as represented by him, is equal and noble."[17]

For Fuller, "man and woman... are the two halves of one thought.... I believe that the development
of the one cannot be effected without that of the other."[18] Furthermore, "male and female... are
perpetually passing into one another.... There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine
woman."[19] She expressed this idea in terms drawn from classical mythology: "Man partakes of
the feminine in the Apollo, woman of the masculine in the Minerva."[20] One of the most warlike of
the classical goddesses, Minerva embodied a fierce independence.[21] Fuller had no doubt that
women were thoroughly capable of being sea-captains or military leaders[22] and that there would
one day be "a female Newton".[19]

Fuller's tragically premature death means that for a considered reflection on the eternal feminine
from a feminist Transcendentalist perspective we must go to Ednah Dow Cheney, who in 1885 gave
a lecture at the Concord School of Philosophy on "Das Ewig-Weibliche". Goethe's lines on the
eternal feminine, she noted, come at the very end of his last and greatest work: "We may almost say
that they are the last important utterance of his mind, the climax of all his thought, all his
experience. They are the final summing up in his thought of human life."[23] She then asked why
Goethe, rather than using some "more general term" such as "Divine Humanity", found "his true
expression in 'Das Ewig-Weibliche'? Why does he use the word, which implies difference of sex,
and the eternally directing function of one aspect of the eternal thought, instead of employing a
phrase that would express the whole?"[24] Her answer was that Goethe wished to express "the
essential nature" of the power which he thus invoked: "It is not the feminine in its manifestation"—
i.e. actual female-sexed bodies[25]—"but in its original character"[26] This "original character" is
what she had called a little earlier "one aspect of the eternal thought". Ontologically, it is prior to
women, but it tends to "manifest" in them (rather than in men).

Cheney then attempts to define what this "aspect" is. She surveys Goethe's novels, poems, plays,
autobiographical writings, even his scientific works on botany and colour theory, and concludes
that it is relation. In Goethe's view, she writes, "It is for the truth of relation that we come into
mortal existence,—not to know ourselves, not to save ourselves, not to be ourselves except in
relation.... The relation of Man to Woman is typical of this great law.... Throughout the universe,
only relation is creative.... When Man and Woman see each other, they begin to apprehend the
Universe."[27] Mere identity—the self prior to relation—is "not complete". It "can only be perfected
by fitting itself to others, accepting the welfare of others as more its own than its own personality."
She quotes Goethe scholar Herman Grimm: "Goethe was persuaded that all phenomena stand in
mutual relation, and therefore nothing can be demonstrated by the study of isolated parts."[28] The
"highest human relation" is love. "Woman's misery, man's degradation, is the result of the broken
law of love."[29] Women know this better than men because they consider "things in their
relations".[30] That is why in "the great work in which Goethe sought to read the riddle of life,...
das Weibliche is the moving power".[31] "The "one simple thought" that runs all through Faust is
expressed "in the last grand verse". It is "that which enters into every faith, which underlies the
beautiful in art, the ideal in philosophy, the essence of morality, the meaning of life. It is the sense

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of the relation of the individual to the universal. We never think, never can think, of the feminine
alone. It is not what separates her from others, but what gives the power of union, which makes her
feminine, and so creative. And the masculine knows itself only in relation to the feminine. So it is
that the eternally feminine 'draws us by sweet leadings'[32] of beauty to love, to union, to new
creation."[33]

Later developments
The feminine principle is further articulated by Nietzsche within a continuity of life and death,
based in large part on his readings of ancient Greek literature, since in Greek culture both
childbirth and the care of the dead were managed by women.[34] Domesticity and the power to
redeem and serve as moral guardian were also components of the "eternal feminine".[35] The
virtues of women were inherently private, while those of men were public.[36]

Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar state that for Goethe, "woman" symbolized pure contemplation, in
contrast to masculine action.[37] If by "woman" they mean "the eternal feminine" (they are not the
same thing), their statement is incorrect. Contemplation is certainly one of the myriad qualities
symbolized in the eternal feminine, but so is agency,[38] that is, the capacity to act. They also note a
parallel to the eastern Daoist descriptions of Yin and Yang.[37] T. K. Seung observes that in Chinese
philosophy "Yin is the feminine principle; Yang is the masculine principle.... But Yin is the mother
of all things. The primacy of Yin over Yang is expressed by the phrase 'Yin and Yang.' The Chinese
never say 'Yang and Yin.' The ancient Chinese belief [is] that Yin is stronger than Yang."[39]

In music
The concluding lines of Goethe's Faust on the "eternal feminine" were set to music by Robert
Schumann in the last chorus of his Scenes from Goethe's Faust, by Franz Liszt at the end of the last
movement of his Faust Symphony, and by Gustav Mahler in the last chorus of his Eighth
Symphony.

In popular culture
In Wide is the Gate, the fourth novel of the "Lanny Budd" series by Upton Sinclair, Lanny says to
Gertrud Schultz, "What Goethe calls das ewig weibliche is seldom out of my consciousness; I don’t
think it is ever entirely out of any man’s consciousness."

See also
Cult of Domesticity
Erich Neumann (psychologist)
Gender role
Ideal womanhood
Yamato nadeshiko
New Woman
Separate Spheres
The Angel in the House
Thealogy

References
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1. Susan Abraham, "Justice as the Mark of Catholic Feminist Ecclesiology," in Frontiers in

Catholic Feminist Theology: Shoulder to Shoulder (Fortress Press, 2009), p. 207.
2. Frances Nesbitt Oppel, Nietzsche On Gender: Beyond Man And Woman, pp. 6–7, 16–17, 22
et passim.
3. Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the
Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (Yale University Press, 2nd ed. 2000, originally
published 1979), p. 23.
4. J. M. van der Laan, "The Enigmatic Eternal-Feminine", in Goethe's Faust and Cultural Memory:
Comparatist Interfaces, edited by Lorna Fitzsimmons (Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: Lehigh
University Press, 2012), p. 37.
5. van der Laan, "The Enigmatic Eternal-Feminine", pp. 37–40.
6. van der Laan, "The Enigmatic Eternal-Feminine", pp. 40–43.
7. van der Laan, "The Enigmatic Eternal-Feminine", p. 39.
8. Carol Diethe, "Eternal Feminine/Womanly", Historical Dictionary of Nietzscheanism, 2nd ed.
(Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2007), p. 80.
9. van der Laan, "The Enigmatic Eternal-Feminine", p. 43.
10. T. K. Seung, Goethe, Nietzsche, and Wagner: Their Spinozan Epics of Love and Power
(Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2006), p. 124.
11. Seung, Goethe, Nietzsche, and Wagner, p. 146.
12. van der Laan, "The Enigmatic Eternal-Feminine", p. 44.
13. Adrian Del Caro, "Margarete-Ariadne: Faust's Labyrinth", in Goethe Yearbook, Vol. XVIII, ed.
Daniel Purdy (Rochester, NY: Camden Press, 2011), p. 236.
14. Seung, Goethe, Nietzsche, and Wagner, pp. 158–159.
15. Tiffany K. Wayne, Woman Thinking: Feminism and Transcendentalism in Nineteenth-Century
America (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2005), pp. 3, 46.
16. John Albee, "Goethe's Self-Culture", in The Life and Genius of Goethe, edited by F. B. Sanborn
(Boston: Ticknor and Company, 1886), p. 39.
17. Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Greeley & McElrath, 1845), p.
115.
18. Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, p. vi.
19. Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, p. 103.
20. Fuller. Woman in the Nineteenth Century, p. 104.
21. Jeffrey Steele, ed., "Introduction" to The Essential Margaret Fuller (New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 1992), p. xxxv.
22. Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, p. 159.
23. Ednah Dow Cheney, "Das Ewig-Weibliche", in The Life and Genius of Goethe, edited by F. B.
Sanborn (Boston: Ticknor and Company, 1886), p. 219.
24. Cheney, "Das Ewig-Weibliche", p. 222.
25. Wayne, Woman Thinking, p. 121.
26. Cheney, "Das Ewig-Weibliche", pp. 222–223.
27. Cheney, "Das Ewig-Weibliche", p. 227.
28. Cheney, "Das Ewig-Weibliche", p, 228.
29. Cheney, "Das Ewig-Weibliche", p. 244.
30. Cheney, "Das Ewig-Weibliche", p. 245.
31. Cheney, "Das Ewig-Weibliche", p. 243.
32. Robert Hawker, The Poor Man's Evening Portion, 4th ed. (London: T. Hamilton, 1819), p. 21.
33. Cheney, "Das Ewig-Weibliche", pp. 247–248.
34. Oppel, Nietzsche On Gender, p. 4.
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35. Oppel, Nietzsche On Gender, p. 4.

36. Oppel, Nietzsche On Gender, p. 7.
37. Gilbert and Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic, p. 21.
38. Ellis Dye, "Figurations of the Feminine in Goethe's Faust", in A Companion to Goethe's Faust
Parts I and II, ed. Paul Bishop (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2001), p. 107.
39. Seung, Goethe, Nietzsche, and Wagner, p. 129.

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