"affinity" Ethical Dimension Of The Problem

The novel Elective Affinities was published in 1809, it was the third novel right after The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) and The learning age of William Maistre (1795/96) .It was born in the old age of Goethe whose thought has already been very mature. From the formation of this novel, Elective Affinities was the last novel of Goethe of which the formation was complete, judging from the classical signification. All in all, it is a work that can not be ignored.In the novel Elective Affinities, taking the opportunity of marriage and love, the aged Goethe did a fearless experiment on the social relationship among people, the process and the results all showed that the function of the mysterious nature to human beings can never be understood and handled. However, Elective Affinities didn't talked about the problems of marriages, love and family ethics, but talked about the limited problems of humanity and human life, and tried to show his own answer. Through using the means of artistic expression, including, metaphor, symbolization, irony, the novel showed the two basic sides of humanity, that is reason and sensibility, a series of problems of how to cause the conflict, whether it can be balanced, and how to solve the problem of social morals and human nature in the process of balance.The Elective Affinities's opening recognition of humanity dilemma and the abundant life experience of Goethe's make it the classical works of Germany literature. But in that Goethe took a different point of view of ethic in the book, it caused a big dispute and was criticized by most readers. Nowadays, though the comment of Elective Affinities tends to be affirmative, but its ideology connotation is still headlines. This text tries to find out the real theme of Elective Affinities, based on the previous foundation of the research and its inner ethic dimension, so it can help us to know better about the Goethe's thought in his old age.