关键词: 德国思想史, 歌德, 《玉娇梨》

Abstract: This article, through his understanding of Chinese novels represented by Yu Jiao Li, attempts to examine Goethe's thinking on human ideals in his later years. Goethe's spirit changed for three times in all his life, and after the 1810s, due to the death of Schiller, he entered the third stage of sublimation of his thoughts, which was greatly inspired by Chinese culture, but the essence of this cultural relationship remains to be further investigated. For Chinese culture especially Chinese novels, Goethe has been far from the comprehensive cognition. But interestingly, the track of the history of cultural exchange precisely lies in the “processing” and “referral” of intermediaries (such as missionaries, translators, and sinologists), which makes it not only possible for the intellectual elites in the cultural field of the country to have access to the latest “cultural resources”, but also makes “accelerant” and “creation” possible. Although Goethe's own continuous learning is the most fundamental to the development of his thought, the “key enlightenment” from outside should not be ignored. Thus, the examination of this case based on reading history not only involves the history of literature, communication, and culture, but also rises to the high-level state of the history of thought, that is, the thinking about human ideals triggered by Chinese novels, which also predicts the beginning of Goethe's “world literature” thought in a sense.

Key words: intellectual history in Germany, Goethe, Yu Jiao Li