The thing that really turns me off regarding Goethe is that he is very verbose in his plays. Probably because he wants to show off his artistry, thereby displaying his Kunstwille/ artistic will. Once I sat down to watch an unshortened performance of Faust II and after just a few minutes into Helen's unabbreviated lamentations about Menelaus' intentions, I wished that he would kill her immediately.
In contrast I once attended an unshortened performance of Hamlet, that lasted from 5pm until almost 11 pm including two intervals. And I was as alert at the end as at the beginning and everything just fell in place.
In Shakespeare everything flows quite naturally, whereas in Goethe one also senses the enormous endeavour, his artistic will.
I wonder if being too verbose in order to be not misunderstood is a German trait.
A year ago I had a discussion about a book, "Er ist wieder da", featuring a resurrected Adolf Hitler - btw a wonderful satire that is so good that it scared me. My disputant, who did not like it at all, was complaining about the fact that it had to be Hitler who came back to comment on present-day Germany and not somebody like Immanuel Kant. I retorted that if somebody ventured to copy Kant's style it could never be a satire and people would grow pretty tired reading his style. His view that even Kant must take a breath every once a while, I could not share. Maybe there's the rub, some people never seem to breathe at all ;).
Only applies to Shakespeare ;)!
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