Orpheus In Tampa

I was deeply moved as a highschool boy in Michigan by Goethe's enchanting The New Melasina. I was probably the only HS boy in the Midwest in the 50s to read it, and the two Wilhelm Meister novels, and Goethe's Conversations with Eckermann. The less popular of the Meister novels,the Travel Year, burned itself indelibly into my unconscious. How do I know this? Its imprint reveals itself in Orpheus, a daemonic work, which emerged finished from my unconscious in two weeks. This should be evident from its psychic energy. I think of Kandinsky's mot that art generates spiritual atmoshere. I invite comparison with Gatsby, which took 4 years to write. Compare the elegance of the prose and lyricism. Like Gatsby, Orpheus goes from the lyrical to brutal Naturalism-from poetic desriptions of seascapes and opulent interiors to the floosy getting her nose flattened for mouthing off. Orpheus is not a social novel about relationships. It is an adventure novel. Today it would be called a thriller, perhaps a romantic thriller.