Red Thread

Abstract

Pursuing the sources for the Red Thread, chapter 17 presents a literature of high and low wit. Bringing out the double perspective of land and sea, the literature exposes breaches in a society beginning at home. The chapter explores the marine terms of a threaded rope and its strategic adaptation by Goethe most of all. How and why did Goethe turn something foreign and commonplace into a divine or poetic thread for life, thought, and art: invisible and unbroken? What bearing has the twist of the thread in the making of personal relationships, family tapestries, and a nation’s bonding? We know why the thread must be red (as the color of all colors). But why a thread (Faden) and not a line, a yarn, or a fiber?