Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 Great Thinkers / Datebook: August 28

 

 

 

Brief biography of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, one of the greatest German great thinkers: writer, poet, playwright, philosopher.

 

 

 

 Goethe was one of the greatest German writers scientific theorists of all time. He was famous for such works as Faust, The Sorrows of Young Werther, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship.

Early Life of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born on August 28, 1749 in the German city of Frankfurt, to an influential family. He had a comfortable childhood. Educated at home, he was greatly influenced by his mother, an artistic and sensitive woman who encouraged his love of literature. When he was 16, Goethe went to Leipzig University. Two years later he began an unhappy love affair that inspired his first play, The Lover's Caprice.

The Sorrows of Young Werther

After a period of illness Goethe resumed his studies. He fell in love with a woman who was engaged to someone else. An attempt to express his anguish he wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther, a novel that made him famous throughout Europe and influenced the development of modern German literature.

"Sturm und Drung" Movement

Back in Frankfurt, the 24-year-old Goethe joined a group called Sturm und Drung ('Storm and Stress"), which wrote emotionally intense works that were part of the Romantic movement. A few years later Goethe accepted an appointment to the court of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. For the next ten years he wrote little but pursued his scientific and political work.

Goethe in Italy

Goethe might be the greatest poet of Germany, yet he also embraced Europe. He traveled to Italy, long regarded by him as the centre of culture. He returned a changed man and left his post to concentrate on writing. His masterpiece, Faust, which he began years earlier, was completed just before his death. An epic work, it shows Goethe's development, as well as that of European society.

Last Words on Goethe

Goethe admired Byron's Don Juan and especially loved the comic rhyme of the English language in it. His career as a writer and as a thinker spanned the end of Classicism and the beginning of Romanticism. His concerns transcended the individual's emotions, always questing for knowledge and faith in salvation. At the age of 82, Goethe died on March 22, 1832 in Weimar.

 

"Now slants the fiery god toward the west,

Hating away, but seeking in his round

New life afar: I long to join his quest,

On tireless wings uplifted from the ground."

Faust, Part One, Translation by Philip Wayne

 

Works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Lover's Caprice, 1767

The Sorrows of Young Werther, 1774

Clavigo, 1774

Stella, 1775

Iphigenia: A Tragedy, 1787

Egmont, 1787

Torquato Tasso, 1789

Roman Elegies, 1788-1790

Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, 1795-1796

Hermann and Dorothea, 1798

Faust, Part One, 1808, Part Two, 1832

Italian Journey, 1816-1817

Wilhelm Meister's Travels, 1821-1829

Poetry and Truth, 1811-1831

 

Image Credit:

Johann W. von Goethe. en.wikipedia.org/Commons. Public Domain

 

Resources:

Cambridge Guide to Literature in English by Ian Ousby (1993)

Larousse Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring (1994)

The A-Z of Great Writers by Tom Payne, Carlton, 1997

 

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