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In 1775 Goethe left Strassburg for [[Weimar]]. He would remain there until his death, 57 years later, in 1832. Goethe had been fiercely criticized by some of his closest friends for his early work — Herder in particular wrote a scathing review of "Werther" in which he accused his former friend of lacking self-control. In Weimar he would temporarily slow down his output and concentrate on honing his craft. He spent nearly 20 years before publishing ''Wihelm Meisters Lehrjahre'' ("Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship"). This publication was an important contribution to the [[bildungsroman]], and would signal the beginning of Goethe's maturity as a writer. While at Weimar, Goethe began to distance himself somewhat from the radical Romanticism of his youth, opting for a more "objective" style that drew heavily on his growing interests in science. The poems he wrote during this period were remarkable for their treatment of nature as more than a reservoir of spirit. The older Goethe began to see nature as a force in its own right, capable of inflicting harm as well giving hope, and like man himself, beautifully unpredictable.  
 
In 1775 Goethe left Strassburg for [[Weimar]]. He would remain there until his death, 57 years later, in 1832. Goethe had been fiercely criticized by some of his closest friends for his early work — Herder in particular wrote a scathing review of "Werther" in which he accused his former friend of lacking self-control. In Weimar he would temporarily slow down his output and concentrate on honing his craft. He spent nearly 20 years before publishing ''Wihelm Meisters Lehrjahre'' ("Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship"). This publication was an important contribution to the [[bildungsroman]], and would signal the beginning of Goethe's maturity as a writer. While at Weimar, Goethe began to distance himself somewhat from the radical Romanticism of his youth, opting for a more "objective" style that drew heavily on his growing interests in science. The poems he wrote during this period were remarkable for their treatment of nature as more than a reservoir of spirit. The older Goethe began to see nature as a force in its own right, capable of inflicting harm as well giving hope, and like man himself, beautifully unpredictable.  
  
In 1786, in the middle of this period of maturation, Goethe took his legendary journey to [[Italy]]. When he arrived there, he immediately threw aside his "Gothic follies" and embraced the art and sculpture of ancient Rome and Greece. [[Florence]] and many of the other most beautiful cities of Italy held almost no interest for him; he spent his time, almost obsessively, searching for the ancient temples and structures of the ancient world, ultimately finding [[Sicily]], which in his mind so closely resembled [[Homer]]'s Ithaca, to be the hearthstone of European art. While in Italy Goethe also began the first of his major scientific writings, putting forth a theory of plant growth that would influence botany for generations. Out of his Italian journey Goethe produced his ''Römische Elegien'' ("The Roman Elegies"), ''Torquato Tasso'', and the play ''Iphigene'', modeled on the ancient legend of [[Orestes]]. Goethe would return to Italy again in 1790, though this visit would prove disappointing; having dabbled in painting all of his life, Goethe would decide in Rome that he was no match for Italian painters and abandon the art altogether. The [[French Revolution]] had taken place a year before, and during these years Goethe looked on the ascendancy of [[Napoleon Bonaparte|Napoleon]] with increasing horror.  
+
In 1786, in the middle of this period of maturation, Goethe took his legendary journey to [[Italy]]. When he arrived there, he immediately threw aside his "Gothic follies" and embraced the art and sculpture of ancient Rome and Greece. [[Florence]] and many of the other most beautiful cities of Italy held almost no interest for him; he spent his time, almost obsessively, searching for the temples and structures of the ancient world, ultimately discovering [[Sicily]], which he regarded as the hearthstone of European art, so closely did it resemble his image of [[Homer]]'s Ithaca. While in Italy Goethe also began the first of his major scientific writings, developing a theory of plant growth that would influence botany for generations. Out of his Italian journey Goethe produced his ''Römische Elegien'' ("The Roman Elegies"), ''Torquato Tasso'', and the play ''Iphigene'', modeled on the ancient legend of [[Orestes]]. Goethe would return to Italy again in 1790, though this visit would prove disappointing; having dabbled in painting all of his life, Goethe would decide in Rome that he was no match for Italian painters and abandon the art altogether. The [[French Revolution]] began a year earlier, and during the subsequent years Goethe looked on the ascendancy of [[Napoleon Bonaparte|Napoleon]] with increasing horror.  
  
Goethe's return home to Weimar was alleviated by his befriending the poet [[Friedrich Schiller]]. The two would become close friends and would work together for the coming decades in shaping Germany's literary future. The two, beginning in 1791, would collaborate to set in motion the movement known as German classicism. The classcists, in sharp opposition to the Romantics of the aging ''Sturm und Drang'', were interested in preserving the classic traditions of poetry and art. Goethe would contribute, again, what many consider to be the finest work of the movement with ''Hermann and Dorothea'', one of his most beloved works which, as he claimed, was an attempt to "produce a Greece from within," and was explicitly modeled on Homer's ''Odyssey'' though set in a German setting. Goethe, along with Schiller and the other classical German poets, would produce other works of such Hellenic inflection, though none except for a fragment of a longer work ''Achilleis'' would get far before Goethe would leave his interests in ancient Greece behind, preferring, once again, to connect with the German-ness of his own people. He would also begin, in 1805, publishing his long scientific work on optics entitled "Theory of Color" which would go on to have a great deal of influence on German philosophy, and the analytical philosopher [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]] in particular.  
+
Goethe's return home to Weimar was alleviated due to his befriending of the poet [[Friedrich Schiller]]. The two would become close friends, working together for the coming decades in shaping Germany's literary future. Beginning in 1791, the two would collaborate to set in motion the movement known as German classicism. The classicists, in sharp opposition to the Romantics of the now aging ''Sturm und Drang'', were interested in preserving the classic traditions of poetry and art. As he had for Romanticism in his early career, Goethe would again contribute what many consider to be the finest work of the movement, ''Hermann and Dorothea'', one of his most beloved works. This work, explicitly modeled on Homer's ''Odyssey'' but in a German setting, was an attempt, as Goethe put it, to "produce a Greece from within." Like Schiller and the other classical German poets, Goethe would produce other works of such Hellenic inflection, though none except for a fragment of a longer work ''Achilleis'' would get very far before Goethe would leave his interests in ancient Greece behind, preferring, once again, to connect with the German-ness of his own people. He would also, in 1805, begin publishing his long scientific work on optics entitled "Theory of Color," which would significantly influence German philosophy, particularly the analytical philosopher [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]].  
  
 
Goethe, who by this time was already an old and famous man, would turn his attention to composing his largest, most challenging, and most powerful masterpiece, the epic dramatic poem ''Faust''. Goethe realized that he was breaking with Schiller and with classicism in general by returning to a legend — namely, the German legend of Faustus which could trace its roots back to the [[Middle Ages]] — that was distinctly Germanic, though he would do with a rich understanding of the classical Greek and Roman traditions which Germany (and all of Europe) had inherited. Schiller referred to the work as Goethe's "barbarous composition", but nevertheless supported him, for the genius of the first volume of the work, published in 1808 as ''Faust, Erster Teil'' ("Faust, Part One") was immediately obvious. Here was one of the sharpest and most widely-ranging minds of the past two hundred years grappling with epic problems of philosophy and science, reason and faith in the midst of the greatest activity in the history of German literature and thought.  
 
Goethe, who by this time was already an old and famous man, would turn his attention to composing his largest, most challenging, and most powerful masterpiece, the epic dramatic poem ''Faust''. Goethe realized that he was breaking with Schiller and with classicism in general by returning to a legend — namely, the German legend of Faustus which could trace its roots back to the [[Middle Ages]] — that was distinctly Germanic, though he would do with a rich understanding of the classical Greek and Roman traditions which Germany (and all of Europe) had inherited. Schiller referred to the work as Goethe's "barbarous composition", but nevertheless supported him, for the genius of the first volume of the work, published in 1808 as ''Faust, Erster Teil'' ("Faust, Part One") was immediately obvious. Here was one of the sharpest and most widely-ranging minds of the past two hundred years grappling with epic problems of philosophy and science, reason and faith in the midst of the greatest activity in the history of German literature and thought.  

Revision as of 21:09, 27 May 2006

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

, IPA: /gøːtə/, born Johann Wolfgang Goethe (28 August 1749–22 March 1832) was a German polymath, a painter, novelist, dramatist, poet, humanist, scientist, philosopher, and even, for ten years, minister of state for the republic of Weimar. If Leonardo da Vinci was a "Renaissance man", Goethe was a prototypical "Enlightenment man." Like Coleridge in England, Goethe was not only a gifted poet and writer but also, and perhaps more immportantly, he was Germany's first public intellectual. Thanks to his long life and boundless intelligence, he remained Germany's principle liteary figure through a series of movements and upheavals in German literary history, beginning with the movement of German classicism in the late 18th century, continuing through the Enlightenment and the major period of German philosophy, and continuing into the Sturm und Drang Romanticism of the early 1800's. Goethe participated in all of these periods to varying degrees; in all of them, Goethe, more than any other author, was able to reach the masses of Germany with prose that was both beautiful and readily understandable.

Goethe's contributions to European literary life were immense throughout his career. His early novella, Der Leiden Junges Werthers, (The Sorrows of Young Werther) was so popular throughout Europe that for decades European men would commit suicide in imitation of the novella's tragic protagonist. In his late career, his masterpiece, the epic poem Faust, would become so fundamental to German literature that many Germans would rank Goethe as the "Shakespeare of Frankfurt." It is not an exaggeration to say that modern German literature begins with Goethe, and as a result, he is one of the most important figures in the tapestry of European literature.

Life

Goethe was born in Frankfurt am Main to a middle-class family. His father, Johann Kaspar Goethe, was a succesful lawyer who had acquired enough wealth to be financially independent; he traveled frequently to Italy, collected paintings, and was fond of books and intellectual rigor. His mother, Katherina Elisabeth, was the daughter of a local mayor. She introduced the young Goethe to many connections in upper German society which would later prove invaluable in his development. Goethe would often return to warm reflections of his early childhood in Frankfurt among the Bürgertum, the "farming stock" — Goethe's affectionate name for the simple people around whom he grew up. His memories of Frankfurt would affect much of his future attitudes, in particular his belief that the soul is made of conflicting impulses — the intellectual, and the pastoral — both of which he experienced first-hand in his early life amidst the fields.

In 1765 the young Goethe was sent off to study law at the University of Leipzig at the behest of his father. Goethe bitterly opposed the move. He wanted desperately to study classics at the newly-founded University of Göttingen. Goethe's father refused, but in the end it was to be for the best. Leipzig was — as Goethe would later call it himself — the "Paris of Germany". While there he would come into contact with countless minds of first rank, including the critic J.C. Gottsched, the (then wildly popular) poet C.F. Gellert, the novelist C.M. Wieland, the composer J.A. Hiller, and the archeologists A.F. Oeser and J.J. Winckelmann. Goethe visited Dresden, which Herder had called the "Florence of the North." The city was teeming with baroque art and sculpture, all of which flooded Goethe's impressions and set his imagination afire. During his Leipzig years Goethe began writing and publishing his first poems, which included the books Das Leipziger Leiderbuch ("The Leipzig Songbook"), Das Buch Annette ("The Book of Annette"), and Neue Leider ("New Songs"), none of which received very much recognition nor gave any hint of his great talent.

Goethe took suddenly ill three years into his stay at Leipzig in 1768. He was rushed home and, upon his recovery, was advised by his father to resume his studies as Strassburg. This would prove to be the major turning point in Goethe's career. While he was recovering Goethe began his first readings into mysticism and the occult, interests which were to preoccupy him for the rest of his life and which would find their ultimate form in his masterpiece, Faust. More importantly, at Strassburg Goethe encountered a very different kind of Germany. Strassburg at this time was a German fortress-city lying right in the heart of a French-controlled province; quite unlike cosmopolitan Leipzig, the people of Strassburg were decidedly and even aggressively Germanic. It was at Strassburg that Goethe's taste in art and architecture moved away from the Roccoco and towards the Gothic.

More significantly, it was in Strassburg that Goethe first met the poet Johann Gottfried Herder. Herder would influence Goethe towards what was then the newest movement in German literature — the Sturm und Drang — literally, "Storm and Stress." Closely related to the English Romanticism of such poets as Byron, Shelley, and Coleridge among others, the Sturm und Drang movement was concerned with wild and even fantastic emotion, the contemplation of nature and spirit, and an almost mystic interest in "primitive" literature, particularly Homer, the Psalms, and the (forged) ancient poetry of Ossian. During this time Goethe wrote some of his most moving lyric poetry, including what is perhaps his most popular love-song, Wilkommen und Abscheid ("Welcome and Farewell") written for one of the many milkmaids whom Goethe, throughout his life, would unsuccesfully woo.

During his time in Strassburg Goethe began to write plays. Goethe was an avid reader of Shakespeare, and he wished to bring the same energy of Shakespeare's words into the German language. He produced what is considered by many to be the first major work of the Sturm und Drang movement, the tragedy Götz von Berlichingen. Goethe quickly followed this up, in 1774, with the novella which many believe brought Sturm und Drang and German Romanticism into the foreground of European literature, Die Lieden Junges Werthers ("The Sorrows of Young Werther.) The book was immediately popular, making Goethe, who since finishing his education at Strassburg had been employed at least ostensibly as a lawyer, an instant literary celebrity.

In 1775 Goethe left Strassburg for Weimar. He would remain there until his death, 57 years later, in 1832. Goethe had been fiercely criticized by some of his closest friends for his early work — Herder in particular wrote a scathing review of "Werther" in which he accused his former friend of lacking self-control. In Weimar he would temporarily slow down his output and concentrate on honing his craft. He spent nearly 20 years before publishing Wihelm Meisters Lehrjahre ("Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship"). This publication was an important contribution to the bildungsroman, and would signal the beginning of Goethe's maturity as a writer. While at Weimar, Goethe began to distance himself somewhat from the radical Romanticism of his youth, opting for a more "objective" style that drew heavily on his growing interests in science. The poems he wrote during this period were remarkable for their treatment of nature as more than a reservoir of spirit. The older Goethe began to see nature as a force in its own right, capable of inflicting harm as well giving hope, and like man himself, beautifully unpredictable.

In 1786, in the middle of this period of maturation, Goethe took his legendary journey to Italy. When he arrived there, he immediately threw aside his "Gothic follies" and embraced the art and sculpture of ancient Rome and Greece. Florence and many of the other most beautiful cities of Italy held almost no interest for him; he spent his time, almost obsessively, searching for the temples and structures of the ancient world, ultimately discovering Sicily, which he regarded as the hearthstone of European art, so closely did it resemble his image of Homer's Ithaca. While in Italy Goethe also began the first of his major scientific writings, developing a theory of plant growth that would influence botany for generations. Out of his Italian journey Goethe produced his Römische Elegien ("The Roman Elegies"), Torquato Tasso, and the play Iphigene, modeled on the ancient legend of Orestes. Goethe would return to Italy again in 1790, though this visit would prove disappointing; having dabbled in painting all of his life, Goethe would decide in Rome that he was no match for Italian painters and abandon the art altogether. The French Revolution began a year earlier, and during the subsequent years Goethe looked on the ascendancy of Napoleon with increasing horror.

Goethe's return home to Weimar was alleviated due to his befriending of the poet Friedrich Schiller. The two would become close friends, working together for the coming decades in shaping Germany's literary future. Beginning in 1791, the two would collaborate to set in motion the movement known as German classicism. The classicists, in sharp opposition to the Romantics of the now aging Sturm und Drang, were interested in preserving the classic traditions of poetry and art. As he had for Romanticism in his early career, Goethe would again contribute what many consider to be the finest work of the movement, Hermann and Dorothea, one of his most beloved works. This work, explicitly modeled on Homer's Odyssey but in a German setting, was an attempt, as Goethe put it, to "produce a Greece from within." Like Schiller and the other classical German poets, Goethe would produce other works of such Hellenic inflection, though none except for a fragment of a longer work Achilleis would get very far before Goethe would leave his interests in ancient Greece behind, preferring, once again, to connect with the German-ness of his own people. He would also, in 1805, begin publishing his long scientific work on optics entitled "Theory of Color," which would significantly influence German philosophy, particularly the analytical philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Goethe, who by this time was already an old and famous man, would turn his attention to composing his largest, most challenging, and most powerful masterpiece, the epic dramatic poem Faust. Goethe realized that he was breaking with Schiller and with classicism in general by returning to a legend — namely, the German legend of Faustus which could trace its roots back to the Middle Ages — that was distinctly Germanic, though he would do with a rich understanding of the classical Greek and Roman traditions which Germany (and all of Europe) had inherited. Schiller referred to the work as Goethe's "barbarous composition", but nevertheless supported him, for the genius of the first volume of the work, published in 1808 as Faust, Erster Teil ("Faust, Part One") was immediately obvious. Here was one of the sharpest and most widely-ranging minds of the past two hundred years grappling with epic problems of philosophy and science, reason and faith in the midst of the greatest activity in the history of German literature and thought.

In 1805 Schiller died, and Goethe came into contact with new school of German Romantics (distinct from the Sturm und Drang movement of nearly a half-century earlier) who, in the absence of his old friend, heartened him greatly. Schlegl in particular, who celebrated Greece as the pinnacle of world culture, was a kindred soul to the aging poet. Their youthful interest in the literature of foreign lands inspired Goethe to develop his concept of Weltliteratur "world-literture" which would become a goal for the rest of his life. He continued his work on Faust in earnest. By now means, however, was Goethe slowing down despite his scrupulous concentration on the composition of his epic. During the 1810's and '20's he continued to publish novels, including a continuation of his Wilhelm Meister series, Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre ("Wilhelm Meister's Travels") which would become immensely popular, and in which Goethe famously wrote Amerika, du hast es besser! ("America, you're better off!") As a minister elected to public office in Weimar, Goethe would also attract hundreds of pilgrims who would come to hear him speak and ask questions of Germany's great sage.

Months before his death, in 1832, Goethe would finish the second part of Faust. Thereafter, exhausted, he passed away at the age of 83, having left his indelible mark not only on Germany, but on the world.

Works

The most important of Goethe's works produced before he went to Weimar was his tragedy Götz von Berlichingen (1773), which was the first work to bring him fame, and the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), which gained him enormous popularity as a writer in the Sturm und Drang movement. During the years at Weimar before he met Schiller he began Wilhelm Meister, wrote the dramas Iphigenie auf Tauris-meaning Iphigenia in Tauris, Egmont, Torquato Tasso, and Reineke Fuchs.

To the period of his friendship with Schiller belong the continuation of Wilhelm Meister, the idyll of Hermann and Dorothea, and the Roman Elegies. In the last period, between Schiller's death, in 1805, and his own, appeared Faust, Elective Affinities, his pseudo-autobiographical Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit (From my Life: Poetry and Truth), his Italian Journey, much scientific work, and a series of treatises on German art. His writings were immediately influential in literary and artistic circles.

In addition to his literary work, Goethe also contributed significant work to the sciences. In biology, his theory of plant metamorphosis stipulated that all plant formation stems from a modification of the leaf; during his Italian journey (1786-1788), in July of 1787, he writes as the first indication of this idea:

Furthermore I must confess to you that I have nearly discovered the secret of plant generation and structure, and that it is the simplest thing imaginable.... Namely it had become apparent to me that in the plant organ which we ordinarily call the leaf a true Proteaus is concealed, who can hide and reveal himself in all sorts of configurations. From top to bottom a plant is all leaf, united so inseparably with the future bud that one cannot be imagined without the other.

Suhrkamp ed., vol 6; trans. Robert R Heitner, Italian Journey

He is credited with the discovery of the intermaxillary bone in humans, during 1784; however, Broussonet (1779) and Vicq d'Azyr (1780) had identified the same structure several years earlier.[1]

Although it was never well received by scientists, especially by those who stringently held on to Newtonian methodology, against which Goethe set out, Goethe considered his Theory of Colors to be his most important work. Although much of his position within this field is often blurred by misconceptions among both his detractors and eulogizers,[2] Goethe characterized color not as light but standing between a polarity of darkness and light—with color arising from their dynamic interplay, though this is not to say he disagreed with its characterization as wavelengths conceived by Newton. More adequately, he noted that which he attempted to recast on the science of color:

...they maintained that shade is a part of light. It sounds absurd when I express it; but so it is: for they said that colors, which are shadow and the result of shade, are light itself, or, which amounts to the same thing, are the beams of light, broken now in one way, now in another.[3]

In the twentieth century, Goethe's Theory of Colors influenced the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's Remarks on Colour, Werner Heisenberg and Max Planck have indicated the accuracy and suggestiveness of many of Goethe's scientific statements, and it has had a tremendous impact in other fields.[2]

Key works

Goethe and Schiller in Weimar.

The following list of key works may give a sense of the scope of the impact his work had on his and our time.

The short epistolary novel, Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, or The Sorrows of Young Werther, published in 1774, recounts an unhappy love affair that ends in suicide. Goethe admitted that he "shot his hero to save himself". The novel remains in print in dozens of languages and is frequently referred to in the context of a young hero, who becomes disillusioned with society and by his irreconcilable love for a young woman. The fact that it ended with the protagonist's suicide and funeral—a funeral which "no clergyman attended"—made the book deeply controversial upon its (anonymous) publication, for it seemed to condone suicide. One would have expected a clergyman to attend the funeral service and condemn an act considered to be sinful by Christian doctrine. Epistolary novels were common during this time, letter-writing being people's primary mode of communication. What set Goethe's book apart from other such novels was its expression of unbridled longing for a joy beyond possibility, its sense of defiant rebellion against authority, and, above all, its predominant subjectivity—qualities that pointed the way toward the Romantic movement.

The next work, his epic closet drama Faust, was to be completed in stages, and only published in its entirety after his death. The first part was published in 1808 and created a sensation. The first operatic version, by Spohr, appeared in 1814, and was subsequently the inspiration for operas by Gounod, Boito, and Busoni, as well as symphonies by Liszt and Mahler. Faust became the ur-myth of many figures in the 19th century. Later, a facet of its plot, e.g., of selling one's soul to the devil for power over the physical world, took on increasing literary importance and became a view of the victory of technology and of industrialism, along with its dubious human expenses. On occassion, the play is still staged in Germany and other parts around the world.

Goethe's poetic work served as a model for an entire movement in German poetry termed Innerlichkeit ("introversion") and represented by, for example, Heine. Goethe's words inspired a number of compositions by, among others, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Berlioz, and Wolf. Perhaps the single most influential piece is "Mignon's Song" which opens with one of the most famous lines in German poetry, an allusion to Italy: "Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn?" ("Do you know the land where the lemons bloom?").

He is also widely quoted. Epigrams such as "Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him", "Divide and rule, a sound motto; unite and lead, a better one", and "Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must", are still in usage or are paraphrased. Lines from Faust, such as "Das also war des Pudels Kern", "Das ist der Weisheit letzter Schluss", or "Grau ist alle Theorie" have entered everyday German usage. Although a doubtful success of Goethe in this field, the famous line from the drama Götz von Berlichingen ("Er kann mich im Arsche lecken": "He can lick my arse") has become a vulgar idiom in many languages, and shows Goethe's deep cultural impact extending across social, national, and linguistic borders. It may be taken as another measure of Goethe's fame that other well-known quotations, such as Hippocrates' "Art is long, life is short", which is also found in his Wilhelm Meister, is usually forgotten to be originally associated with Hippocrates.

Historical importance

It is very difficult to overstate the importance of Goethe on the 19th century. In many respects, he was the originator of—or at least the first to cogently express—many ideas which would later become familiar to the modern age. Goethe produced volumes of poetry, essays, criticism, and scientific work, including a theory of optics and early work on evolution and linguistics. He was fascinated by minerals and early mineralogy (the mineral goethite is named for him). His non-fiction writings, most of which are philosophic and aphoristic in nature, spurred on the development of many philosophers, such as G.W.F. Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Rudolf Steiner, and others, and of various literary movements, such as Romanticism. He embodied many of the contending strands in art over the next century: his work could be lushly emotional, and rigorously formal, brief and epigrammatic, and epic. He would argue that classicism was the means to controlling art, and that sentimentalisation was a sickness, even as he penned poetry rich in memorable images, and rewrote the formal rules of German poetry.

His poetry was set to music by almost every major German composer from Mozart to Mahler, and his influence would spread to French drama and opera as well. Beethoven declared that a "Faust" Symphony would be the greatest thing for Art. Liszt and Mahler both created symphonies in whole or in large part inspired by this seminal work which would give the 19th century one of its most paradigmatic figures: Doctor Faustus. The Faust tragedy, written in two parts published decades apart, would stand as his most characteristic and famous artistic creation.

Goethe was also a cultural force, and by researching folk traditions, he created many of the norms for celebrating Christmas, and argued that the organic nature of the land moulded the people and their customs—an argument that has recurred ever since, including recently in the work of Jared Diamond. He argued that laws could not be created by pure rationalism, since geography and history shaped habits and patterns. This stood in sharp contrast to the prevailing Enlightenment view that reason was sufficient to create well-ordered societies and good laws.

Influence

Goethe's influence was dramatic because he understood that there was a transition in European sensibilities, an increasing focus on sense, the indescribable, and the emotional. This is not to say that he was emotionalistic or excessive; on the contrary, he lauded personal restraint and felt that excess was a disease: "There is nothing worse than imagination without taste". He argued in his scientific works that a "formative impulse", which he said is operative in every organism, causes an organism to form itself according to its own distinct laws, and therefore rational laws or fiats could not be imposed at all from a higher, transcendent sphere; this placed him in direct opposition to those who attempted to form "enlightened" monarchies based on "rational" laws by, for example, Joseph II of Austria or, the subsequent emperor of France, Napoleon. A quotation from his Scientific Studies will suffice:

We conceive of the individual animal as a small world, existing for its own sake, by its own means. Every creature is its own reason to be. All its parts have a direct effect on one another, a relationship to one another, thereby constantly renewing the circle of life; thus we are justified in considering every animal physiologically perfect. Viewed from within, no part of the animal is a useless or arbitrary product of the formative impulse (as so often thought). Externally, some parts may seem useless because the inner coherence of the animal nature has given them this form without regard to outer circumstance. Thus...[not] the question, What are they for? but rather, Where do they come from?

Suhrkamp ed., vol 12, p. 121; trans. Douglas Miller, Scientific Studies

This change would later become the basis for 19th century thought—organic rather than geometrical, evolving rather than created, and based on sensibility and intuition, rather than on imposed order, culminating in, as he said, a "living quality" wherein the subject and object are dissolved together in a poise of inquiry. Consequently, he embraced neither teleological nor deterministic views of growth within every organism. Instead, the world as a whole grows through continual, external, and internal strife. Moreover, he did not embrace the mechanistic views that contemporaneous science subsumed during his time, and therewith he denied rationality's superiority as the sole interpretation of reality. Furthermore, he declared that all knowledge is related to humanity through its functional value alone and that knowledge presupposes a perspectival quality. He also stated that the fundamental nature of the world is aesthetic.

His views make him, along with Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, and Ludwig van Beethoven, a figure in two worlds: on one hand, devoted to the sense of taste, order, and finely crafted detail, which is the hallmark of the artistic sense of the Age of Reason and the neo-classical period of architecture; on the other, seeking a personal, intuitive, and personalized form of expression and polity, firmly supporting the idea of self-regulating and organic systems. Thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson would take up many similar ideas in the 1800s. His ideas on evolution would frame the question which Darwin and Wallace would approach within the scientific paradigm.

Quotations

  • Venetian Epigram 67:
Much there is I can stand. Most things not easy to suffer
I bear with quiet resolve, just as a God commands it.
Only a few things I find as repugnant as snakes and poison,
These four: tobacco smoke, bedbugs and garlic and Christ.
  • "Should I not be proud, when for twenty years I have had to admit to myself that the great Newton and all the mathematicians and noble calculators along with him were involved in a decisive error with respect to the doctrine of color, and that I among millions was the only one who knew what was right in this great subject of nature?" (Conversations with Goethe, 30 December 1823)
  • "Mathematicians are [like] a sort of Frenchmen; if you talk to them, they translate it into their own language, and then it is immediately something quite different." (Conversations)
  • "More light", reportedly, Goethe's last words.
  • "Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do."
  • "Prettiest gem in the stone crown of the world...", describing Prague
  • A quotation that begins "Until one is committed...", widely misattributed to Goethe, is from William Hutchinson Murray.

Bibliography

Novels

  • 1774: The Sorrows of Young Werther
  • 1796: Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
  • 1809: Elective Affinities
  • 1821: Wilhelm Meister's Travels
  • 1811/33: Out of my Life: Poetry and Truth

Dramas

  • 1773: Götz von Berlichingen
  • 1787: Iphigenie auf Tauris (Iphigenia in Tauris)
  • 1788: Egmont
  • 1790: Torquato Tasso
  • 1808: Faust, Part 1
  • 1832: Faust, Part 2

Poems

  • 1773: Prometheus
  • 1782: Der Erlkönig (The Alder King)
  • 1790: Römische Elegien (Roman Elegies)
  • 1794: Reineke Fuchs
  • 1797: Der Zauberlehrling (The Sorcerer's Apprentice)
  • 1798: Hermann und Dorothea (Hermann and Dorothea)
  • 1813: Gefunden (Found)

Nonfiction

  • 1790: Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklären (The Metamorphosis of Plants), scientific text
  • 1810: Zur Farbenlehre (Theory of Colours), scientific text
  • 1817: Talambuhay ni tarzan (Italian journey)
  • 1832/33: Nachgelassene Schriften (Posthumous Works)
  • 1836: Gespräche mit Goethe (Conversations with Goethe)

Other works

  • 1786: Novella]]
  • 1798: Die Weissagungen des Bakis (The Soothsayings of Bakis)
  • 1798/01: Propyläen

Notes

Credits

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  1. [1]
  2. 2.0 2.1 R. H. Stephenson, Goethe's Conception of Knowledge and Science (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995)
  3. Conversations with Eckermann, entry: Jan. 4, 1824; trans. Wallace Wood