ABSTRACT
The origin represents a compelling formal problem in the work of the young Goethe. The tension between everyday reality and its mythical transformation, a tension that characterises the semantics of the entire text, makes itself felt, for this coach driver, heading, one can assume, towards Frankfurt on an autumn day, bears the name Kronos. Two structures characterize the symbolism of 'An Schwager Kronos': on the one hand, the model of competition with the God Apollo; on the other hand, the constellation of the three moments. The ocular and vital semantics of time from 'An Schwager Kronos' and the natural-familial semantics of procreation of 'Der Wandrer' prove to be functional equivalents. The premise of 'An Schwager Kronos', according to which speed is an intensification of life, belongs among the fundamental components of Goethe's self-understanding. The poetic production of the young Goethe must be viewed as process of forming and reforming, articulates certain insistent imaginary complexes in variously contoured configurations of meaning.
