Goethe
Name: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Achievements: Major influence on German thought and literature
Born: August 28, 1749; Frankfurt-am-Main
Died: March 22, 1832; Weimar (Aged 82)
Field & Discipline: Literature/Philosophy Poet/Philosopher/Scientist
Language: German
Father: Johann Caspar Goethe
Mother: Katherine Elisabeth Textor
Siblings: Seven, including Cornelia
Spouse: Christiane Vulpius
Children: Five, including Julius August Walther
Education: At home; University of Leipzig, Germany; University of Strasbourg, France.
Major Work:
"Die Leiden des jungen Werthers"
"Faust"
Life & Times:
While completing his studies in Strasbourg, France, Goethe came heavily under the influence of [influenced by] Herder,* the pioneer of German Romanticism.
At 22, he returned to Frankfurt to work in his father's legal practice and to try his hand at writing. Since Herder had introduced him to the work of Shakespeare, he wrote a play in the Shakespearean style ("Geschichte Gottfrieds von Berlichingen"), but when Herder was critical of it, he put it aside for two years.
In the meantime, his father sent him to Wetzlar to study the proceedings of government. It was here that he fell into a pattern that would last all his life: work little, and fall in love often. At the time, the object of his passion was Charlotte Buff, the fiancee of a colleague. But the relationship was short-lived, and Goethe returned to Frankfurt, where he revised his play, and published it in 1773 as "Gotz von Berlichingen mit der eisernen Hand.”
Considered an early Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) piece, it was about a genius at odds with society. (The Sturm und Drang movement rejected French neoclassicism and was the forerunner of German Romanticism.)
Goethe's lingering love for Charlotte Buff was purged in his first novel, "Die Leiden des jungen Werthers” (The Sorrows of Young Werther: 1774), about a highly sensitive young man who finds suicide the only solution to an unrequited love affair. The novel turned Goethe into a European celebrity almost overnight.
Following this came "Clavigo,” 1774, a domestic play he composed in a week. He wrote numerous poems in Freie Rhythmen (free rhythm). He also began to draft his play on Faust. In early 1775, he wrote another play: "Stella,” about a man caught between two women, and that summer began work on his play: "Egmont.” Around the same time, he wrote a number of plays with music, called Singspiel.
Now a celebrity, Goethe found himself at the center of a select group of writers, who formed the nucleus of the Sturm und Drang Movement. In 1775, he became engaged to Lili Schonemann, but the relationship soon ended.
He accepted an invitation to visit the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and in 1776, was appointed to the Duke's cabinet. During his stay, he wrote the poems "Harzreise im Winter,” "An den Mond,” "Gesang der Geister über den Wassern" as well as other poems and the beautiful songs of "Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre.” Many of his poems and songs were set to music by major composers including [poems set to music by] Mozart* and [poems set to music by] Schubert.*
He wrote the six books of his novel "Wilhelm Meisters Theatralische Sendung" over eight years, beginning in 1777, though the work remained undiscovered until 1910. He also began work on "Iphigenie auf Tauris" and "Torquato Tasso.”
Goethe also took an interest in science, studying botany and comparative anatomy and discovered the human intermaxillary bone. Through these years, he also worked in optics, and studied mining, architecture, economics, and horticulture.
Tiring of Weimar, Goethe traveled to Italy in 1786, where he stayed two years, studying classicism, travelling, and relaxing. He experienced a sense of renewal and threw himself into his writing. "Iphigenie auf Tauris" was rewritten in verse. "Torquato Tasso" and "Egmont" were finished, and after further work, "Faust.” "Ein Fragment" was published in 1790.
When he returned to Weimar in 1788, the transformation he had undergone while in Italy staggered his former friends and colleagues. He fell in love with Christiane Vulpius, a woman of lower social rank, and took her into his house. It was Vulpius's cool-headedness that saved Goethe from injury, if not death, when French soldiers, part of the invading force that took Weimar in 1806, broke into their house. Five days after this event, he married her.
In 1794, Goethe became close friends with [a pal of] Schiller*, with whom he carried on a correspondence on esthetics until Schiller's death in 1805. They held friendly competitions in ballad writing, which produced Goethe's contribution to the epic idyll genre: "Hermann and Dorothea,” in 1797.
Schiller staunchly supported Goethe's gradual move away from Romanticism toward Classicism, particularly since his own classical work was also being attacked by contemporary critics. Together in 1796, they brought out "Xenien,” satirical attacks on their critics, and in the following year published a collection of classical ballads. Goethe's purest classical work: "Achilleis, Die naturliche Tochter" was published in 1804, after which came "Pandora.”
In the final phase of his career, Goethe mastered the "bildungsroman,” a novel in which the hero develops into a mature human being after a number of false starts and misadventures. "Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre” (Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship), completed in 1795/96, and its sequel, "Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre,” (Wilhelm Meister's Travels), represented an advance in the nature and structure of the European novel.
Wilhelm Meister was admired by the German Romantics, but Goethe lost sympathy with them because of their support for the French Revolution. He also lost regard for the Romantic style, which he attempted to reform in 1809 in the novel Wahlverwandschaften (Elected Affinities"), and in 1819 in "Westostliche Divan,” poems inspired by a mistress, Marianne von Willemer, with whom the poet [shared mistress with] Brentano* also had had an affair.
Goethe wrote the first three volumes of his autobiography between 1811 and 1814, with the last volume appearing in 1832. Assisting him was Bettina Brentano (later: [admired by] Bettina von Arnim*), who had idolized him since childhood. Her brotherClemens, together with `another admirer of Goethe's, [admired by] Achim von Arnim*, composed a volume of German folksongs in 1806-08, which Goethe liked.
Goethe's masterpiece was his version of Christopher Marlowe's "Faust,” which he worked on most of his life. Begun in 1775, the first part was published in 1808. The second part, probably begun during the closing phases of writing the first part, was, at Goethe’s request, published only after he died. Goethe's Faust is more shocking than Marlowe's. Faust, tired of his student existence, makes a pact with the Devil, who in one evil adventure after another tries to bring Faust to total moral degeneracy. Faust is ultimately saved at his death by Divine grace.
During the last years of his life, a constant stream of admirers from all over the world visited Goethe at his home. He is buried in the ducal vault at Weimar, near Schiller.
Extra Connections:
Among many others he influenced [influenced] Schopenhauer*, [influenced] Felix Mendelssohn*, [influenced] Thackeray*, [influenced] Grimm*, [influenced] Berzelius*, [influenced] Baer*, [influenced] Fuseli*, [influenced] Emerson*, [influenced] Dobereiner* and[influenced] George Eliot*
He knew [knew] Lavater,* [knew] Schlegel*, [knew] Beethoven*, and [knew] Schelling*.
[attacked by] DuBois-Reymond* attacked his belief in [believer in] naturphilosophie*.
[published by] Cotta* published his essays.
Shared the views of [shared views of] d’Holbach*.
Disagreed with [disagreed with] Pestalozzi*.
He disliked [disliked] de Stael.* and [disliked] Kotzebue*
He met US Ambassador George [met] Bancroft*
Assessment: His creative influence on subsequent European writers and composers was overwhelming
Oneliner: J.W. Goethe, major European cultural figure
Bibliography:
- Friedenthal, Richard, Goethe, his life and times. Weidenfeld: London, 1993.