The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily

In 1794, Goethe and Schiller were engaged in a correspondence concerning the connection of the human soul with the world of the senses on one hand and with the suprasensory on the other. While Schiller approached the question in a philosophical way, Goethe embodied his thoughts in a fantasy entitled The Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. In his fantasy, Lily represents the ideal world of the suprasensory that is separated from the Green Snake, or the sensory, by a river. The goal is to build a bridge across the river that will connect the sensory and the suprasensory realms, and thereby establish a new, conscious spiritual awareness. The other characters in the fairy tale - the Ferryman, the Old Woman, the Youth, the Will-o'-Wisps, and the Old Man with the Lamp represent various aspects of the soul working together to accomplish this mighty task.