The Epicurean sense of friendship in Goethe

Abstract

Friendship according to Epicurus is procured by wisdom. Furthermore friendship makes happiness possible. Wisdom, an inmortal good, leads the man to seek for friendship, a mortal good. As an inmortal virtue, Wisdom is an attribute of the Gods. But if Gods have no role in world´s leading, what a sense have them for the Epicureans? The sense of Emulation. Divinity is a role model. Through meditation is possible to live like a God among humans, suffering no restlessness neither awake nor in dreams.
Yet friendship involves risks. Even choosing it for the pleasure, we endure the greatest evils on account of friends. But these risks are worthy, because the potential damages are less undesirable than no friendship.
Goethe agrees with the Epicureans in the importance they attach to the experience of the moment. Goethe situates friendship between wisdom and happiness, but he only approves friendship if it intensifies the feeling of life, if the moments procured by it are reasonable and happy. Accordingly this article shows Goethe´s relationships with Lenz, Schiller, Charlotte von Stein and Christiane Vulpius, exemplified in fiction-characters like Mignon or Mephistopheles.