Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (Frankfurt/Main, 1749-1832, Weimar), who was elevated to the nobility as J. W. von Goethe in 1782, was born into a patrician household. On the mother's side the grandparents, Textor by name, were an old-established and influential family; the father, Johann Caspar Goethe, was well-to-do, though not of ancient Frankfurt descent. The Goethes lived in a large and comfortable house in the Hirschgasse (see Goethe-Haus). Johann Caspar was a man of artistic interests, serious nature, and limited imaginative capacity. Katharina Elisabeth, Goethe's mother, known later as Frau Aja, was in contrast lively, perceptive, and full of fantasy. Their respective influences were humorously summed up by Goethe in the lines:
Vom Vater hab ich die Statur,
Des Lebens ernstes Führen;
Vom Mütterchen die Frohnatur
Und Lust zum Fabulieren.
Wolfgang Goethe was educated at home. In 1759 the family life was disturbed by French occupation and billeting, but the boy derived artistic stimulus and understanding from painters working for the French commander, who lived in the Goethes' house. In 1762 Goethe was sent to Leipzig University, where he neglected his studies, acquired fashionable manners, educated his taste in painting, fell in love (with
Käthchen Schönkopf), and learned to write elegant erotic poetry. The short pastoral play
Die Laune des Verliebten also dates from this time. Goethe fell seriously ill in 1768 and had to return to Frankfurt, where for a time his life was despaired of. During this illness he was influenced by a devout friend of his mother's,
Susanna von Klettenberg, who is recalled in Bk. 6 of
Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre; he also made alchemical studies which were to have a bearing on
Faust. The play
Die Mitschuldigen, which in spirit belongs to the Leipzig years, was written down in this period of recuperation and reflection in Frankfurt.
In March 1770 Goethe arrived in Strasburg in order to complete his university studies in law. The eighteen months which he spent there represent a period of rapid development of his mind and unfolding of his talent.
J. G. Herder, who spent the autumn in Strasburg, opened Goethe's eyes to new sources of poetry in folk-song, and this new valuation of simplicity and spontaneity coincided with an idyllic love affair with
Friederike Brion, daughter of the pastor of Sesenheim. ‘
Mailied’ and ‘
Willkommen und Abschied’, two poems in the new manner, springing from the heart, are both related to his love for Friederike. In the autumn of 1771 Goethe, having completed his studies, returned to Frankfurt, breaking off his relationship with Friederike; he worked for a time in his father's legal practice. Influenced by Herder's appreciation of Shakespeare's genius (see
Zum Schäkespears Tag) he wrote at speed a pseudo-Shakespearian tragedy,
Geschichte Gottfriedens von Berlichingen. This, however, was so ill received by Herder that Goethe put it aside, revising it two years later, and publishing it in 1773 as
Götz von Berlichingen mit der eisernen Hand. In the spring of 1772 his father sent him to Wetzlar to gain experience of the
Reichskammergericht; he did little work, but fell desperately in love with Charlotte
Buff, who was betrothed to another. In September Goethe tore himself away and returned to Frankfurt, still tormented by his love. He resolved his anguish at last in 1774 in
Die Leiden des jungen Werthers, the sensationally successful novel of the hypersensitive outsider, for whom the world has no place.
In Frankfurt he became the centre of the group who formed the inner circle of the
Sturm und Drang,
F. M. Klinger,
J. M. R. Lenz,
H. L. Wagner, and
F. (Maler) Müller. He wrote stormy poetry in free rhythms (see
Freie Rhythmen), such as ‘
Wanderers Sturmlied’, ‘
Prometheus’, and ‘
An Schwager Kronos’, drafted the scenes of a Faust play, now called
Urfaust, and composed brilliant and highspirited satires such as
Götter, Helden und Wieland (in prose), and
Satyros (in verse). He wrote the domestic tragedy (see
Bürgerliches Trauerspiel)
Clavigo in a week in 1774, and
Stella, the play of a man between two women, in 1775. In the summer of 1775 he began
Egmont, and all the time he wrote poems of notable originality and beauty, such as ‘
Neue Liebe, neues Leben’ and ‘
Herbstgefühl’. Goethe also wrote about this time
Erwin und Elmira and
Claudine von Villa Bella, light plays with music (see
Singspiel), of which he was to produce three more in the years 1779-82 (see
Jery und Bätely and
Fischerin, Die).
In 1775 Goethe fell in love with Lili
Schönemann, a patrician's daughter, to whom he became engaged; her personality charmed him, her social environment jarred on his unconventionality. In the summer he unsuccessfully sought escape from his love for her in a Swiss tour with young and over-enthusiastic friends, the Counts C. and F. L.
Stolberg. In September the engagement with Lili was broken off, and for a variety of reasons, including a certain impatience with his Sturm und Drang cronies, Goethe gladly accepted an invitation to visit the young Duke of Saxe-Weimar (see
Karl August). Though the first months at Weimar were boisterous ones (the 18-year-old Duke expected from his guest co-operation in pranks and wild-cat expeditions), Goethe rapidly developed—partly under the influence of the serene-tempered lady-in-waiting Frau
von Stein—into a mature and balanced man with a gift for administration. In June 1776 he was appointed to the Duke's cabinet, and in the following ten years he took on many of the tasks of government, and was in effect the Duke's right-hand man. Goethe himself paid tribute to the calming influence which Frau von Stein exerted upon him in the difficulties and harassments of these busy years. It is often said that his poetry suffered under the distractions of governmental work, and he himself frequently deplored the calls upon his time; nevertheless his output was not inconsiderable, and its quality was of the highest. Poems such as ‘
Harzreise im Winter’, ‘
An den Mond’, ‘
Gesang der Geister über den Wassern’, ‘
Wanderers Nachtlied’. (‘Der du von dem Himmel bist’, and see ‘
Über allen Gipfeln’), and some of the wonderful songs in
Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre were written in these Weimar years. Numerous poems and songs were set to music by composers ranging from
Mozart and F.
Schubert to Othmar
Schoeck. In 1779 Goethe began the first version of
Iphigenie auf Tauris; in the following year he started
Torquato Tasso (published in 1787 and 1790 respectively). In approximately eight years (from 1777) he completed the six substantial books of
Wilhelm Meisters Theatralische Sendung (unpublished in Goethe's lifetime). His interest had swung away from the tempestuous energy of the Sturm und Drang and was moving towards the discipline, serenity, and balance of classical art.
The combination of a weariness with administrative tasks and a desire to study classicism at its source prompted Goethe to plan a temporary absence from Weimar. In September 1786 he set out for Italy, where he spent nearly two years, during which he experienced a sense not only of relaxation but of renewal. Italy released the springs of writing.
Iphigenie auf Tauris was remodelled in verse,
Egmont (1788) and
Torquato Tasso (1790) completed. Two scenes of
Faust, which had lain idle for ten years, were conceived and written, and the work came to provisional publication as
Faust.
Ein Fragment (1790). The Italian journey enabled Goethe above all to make a complete reorientation, to find, as it seemed to him, in harmony and balance the full and complete expression of his personality.
Goethe returned to Weimar in 1788, and at once found himself at a distance from his former friends, who did not comprehend the change in him. The estrangement, which extended to Frau von Stein, was augmented when Goethe took into his house as his mistress Christiane Vulpius (see
Goethe, Christiane), a handsome young woman of lower rank. Goethe sought and obtained release from his administrative responsibilities, and devoted himself to antique and scientific studies, and to the organization of his own collections of
objets d'art and scientific specimens, which he substantially expanded as the years passed. In 1791 he nevertheless accepted appointment as director of the newly opened Weimar theatre, which he retained until 1817. The poetry of these years was almost exclusively classical, and principally in elegiac form. The elegy
Alexis und Dora was written in 1789, and in 1795 the once notorious
Römische Elegien, neo-classical erotic poems as tender as they are sensual, appeared in Schiller's
Die Horen.
Goethe's first published testimonies of his scientific interests,
Versuch, die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklären and
Beiträge zur Optik, appeared in 1790 and 1791 respectively. In 1790 he paid a second visit to Italy, going to Venice in connection with a visit of the Duchess
Anna Amalia, but the old magic of the south refused to rekindle on this semi-official occasion. To Goethe, in his dual absorption in the art of the ancient world and in science, the
French Revolution seemed a deplorable irrelevance, but he found himself involved in its consequences when he was required to accompany Duke Karl August on the invasion of France by imperial troops in the autumn of 1792; he was present at the siege of Mainz in the following year. His autobiographical accounts of these events,
Campagne in Frankreich. 1792 and
Die Belagerung von Mainz, were not written until 1820-1. Goethe's immediate response to affairs in France is incorporated in three comedies, which are among his weakest works:
Der Groß-Cophta (1791),
Der Bürgergeneral (1793), and the unfinished
Die Aufgeregten (1791, published 1817).
An important new work of fiction,
Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten, was published in 1795, and in 1795-6 there appeared the definitive revised version of
Wilhelm Meister as the novel
Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre; concerned with the education of personality (see
Bildungsroman), it was to fascinate the next generation (see
Romantik).
Schiller lived in Weimar from 1787 to 1789, when he moved to Jena, but Goethe's relationship with him remained cool until 1794, when overtures by Schiller penetrated Goethe's reserve, and inaugurated a lasting intellectual friendship; it was based on their common classicism and on their conviction of the central function of art in human affairs. Goethe's classical poetry had on the whole repelled the public, but his idyllically treated epic poem
Hermann und Dorothea (1797) was favourably received. Both Goethe and Schiller felt a resistance in their contemporaries to their classical doctrines; in 1796 they carried the war into the hostile camp by publishing, in Schiller's
Musenalmanach, the
Xenien, satirical epigrams in which they ridiculed the opposition. The
Musenalmanach of the following year contained, as a positive sequel to the negative
Xenien, ballads by both authors; Goethe's contribution included ‘
Der Zauberlehrling’ and ‘
Die Braut von Korinth’. It was Schiller who, in 1797, succeeded in stimulating in Goethe a renewed interest in
Faust, which was to preoccupy him intermittently for the next nine years, and again at intervals in later life (Part One appeared in 1808, Part Two in 1832). A classicistic journal for the arts,
Die Propyläen, which Goethe launched in 1798, did not succeed, and ceased publication after two years. The next years saw Goethe's literary classicism in its most uncompromising form with such works as the unfinished epic
Achilleis,
Die natürliche Tochter (1804), the first play of an uncompleted trilogy, and the Festspiel
Pandora. The death of Schiller in 1805 coincided with the end of this classical phase.
When in 1806 war broke out between France and Prussia, the decisive battle was fought at Jena (see
Napoleonic Wars), and French soldiers, occupying Weimar, broke into Goethe's house. Goethe believed that Christiane saved his life from these marauders, and a few days later he had their long-standing liaison legitimized in marriage. His new marital state did not inhibit a powerful attraction to Wilhelmine (Minchen)
Herzlieb in the following year, which flowered for a few weeks before it was repressed. In 1809 appeared the subtle and problematical novel
Die Wahlverwandtschaften, treating the interrelations of two couples. It was in 1808 that Goethe's encounters with Napoleon took place at Erfurt and Weimar. He recognized a daemonic power more readily in Napoleon than in
Beethoven, whom he met without enthusiasm four years later. These years were largely spent in scientific work, and in writing his autobiography. His theory of light and colour, which ran counter to Newton's, was incorporated in
Zur Farbenlehre (1810). The first three volumes of the autobiography
Dichtung und Wahrheit (full title
Aus meinem Leben.
Dichtung und Wahrheit) appeared in 1811-14. The fourth and last volume was delayed until 1832 after Goethe's death. The whole autobiography covers the first twenty-six years of his life, ending with his removal to Weimar. His record of his Italian journey (
Italienische Reise) appeared in 1816-17.
As Napoleon's grasp on Europe relaxed, Goethe spent much time in Frankfurt, cultivating the friendship of a young married woman, Marianne
von Willemer, the most gifted and intelligent of the many women to whom he was attracted. His collection of pseudo-oriental poetry,
West-östlicher Divan (1819), is closely associated with her, and even contains several unacknowledged poems by her hand. The relaxed geniality of this volume is a symptom of Goethe's sense of renewal and serenity. In 1821 to 1823 he took his farewell of Wilhelm Meister with the first publication of the desultory novel
Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre oder Die Entsagenden. The summers of 1821 to 1823 he spent in Marienbad, and here his last passion flamed up, the object of which was a 17-year-old girl, Ulrike
von Levetzow. The pain of renunciation in which this attraction ended is expressed in the three poems of his
Trilogie der Leidenschaft. Among his last works was
Novelle (1828), which had its genesis thirty years earlier. Goethe's old age was spent in increasing loneliness; Christiane had predeceased him in 1816, Frau von Stein died in 1827, Duke Karl August in 1828, and Goethe's son August in 1830. Goethe worked away at the last volume of
Dichtung und Wahrheit and at
Faust Pt. II, which he completed not long before he died on 22 March 1832.
The span of Goethe's eighty-two years covers a critical period in the development of the modern world. The Bastille was stormed when he was 39 and three years later his sense of historical awareness led him to say to his companions at Valmy: ‘Von hier und heute geht eine neue Epoche der Weltgeschichte aus und Ihr könnt sagen, Ihr seid dabei gewesen’. Rooted in the old world, he met the new with dispassionate understanding. He was a man of remarkable range. Fiery, energetic, and impatient in youth, he grew into a shrewd, resourceful, and tenacious administrator, and stylized himself in old age into a remote oracular figure of Olympian stature. Best known as a man of letters, he nevertheless also had a distinct talent for drawing, was interested in acting, and became a successful theatre director. His knowledge of antique art was comprehensive and profound. In science he concerned himself with biology, both in detail and in general evolutionary concepts, with optics, and with mineralogy. His practical pursuits extended to mining, economics, architecture, horticulture; and landscape gardening. He is sometimes referred to as the last universal man. And he has the distinction of being perhaps the most fully documented creative artist.
For a man who is universally regarded as a writer of the first rank, Goethe's
œuvre is surprisingly fragmented. Its diversity is remarkable, both in style (ranging from Sturm und Drang subjectivism to the conscious harmony of classicism) and in form, which includes lyric, epic, and ballad poetry, drama, novels, shorter tales, and autobiographical works. Many of these writings are imperfect, either fragments or works which seem to have a flaw of development, a fracture or rift. Perfection is only achieved in his lyric poetry and in a handful of works chiefly written in his classical period (
Iphigenie auf Tauris,
Hermann und Dorothea, and perhaps also the novel
Die Wahlverwandtschaften). Fragmentariness is, however, in Goethe's work no defect; it is the essence of his literary genius. He himself said: ‘Alle meine Werke sind Bruchstücke einer großen Konfession’. It is the immediacy of Goethe's works which is their special characteristic. They reflect facets of an extraordinarily rich, multiple, Protean personality, in all its changing moods and varied experiences. Not surprisingly, Goethe is one of the most original and powerful German lyric poets, but the immense panorama of
Faust, reflecting the developing vision of a lifetime, with its comedy and tragedy, pathos, wit, and satire, is a work of inexhaustible ambiguity and magical poetry.
Following the custom of his age, Goethe from time to time published collected editions of his works. These comprise
Schriften (8 vols., 1787-90),
Neue Schriften (7 vols., 1792-1800),
Werke (13 vols., 1806-10, the first to be produced by J. F.
Cotta), and
Werke (20 vols., 1815-19, expanded to 26 vols., 1820-2). The definitive edition begun in Goethe's lifetime is
Goethes Werke.
Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand (60 vols., 1827-42, see
Ausgabe letzter Hand).
The comprehensive
Weimarer Ausgabe, also called
Sophienausgabe after its patroness, the Grand Duchess Sophie of Saxe-Weimar, appeared in 143 volumes (1887-1920). Other notable editions include the
Jubiläums-Ausgabe (ed. E. von der Hellen, 41 vols., 1902-12), the Propyläen-Ausgabe (49 vols., 1909-32, chronological), the Hamburger Ausgabe (ed. E. Trunz, 14 vols. with Sachregister, 1948-64, widely used because of its critical apparatus), the
Ausgabe der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1952 ff., and the (Artemis) Gedenkausgabe der Werke, Briefe und Gespräche. 28. August 1949 (27 vols., incl. 3 suppl. vols.), ed. E. Beutler, 1948-71; the Berliner Ausgabe (23 vols., incl. 1 suppl. vol.), ed. S. Seidel, appeared 1960-78, Sämtliche Werke nach Epochen seines Schaffens. Münchner Ausgabe, ed. K. Richter et al., 1985 ff.,
Sämtliche Werke. Briefe, Tagebücher und Gespräche, Frankfurter Ausgabe, 1988 ff.,
Die Schriften zur Naturwissenschaft. Leopoldina-Ausgabe (22 vols.), ed. G. Schmid, W. Troll, L. Wolf, from 1957 D. Kuhn
et al., Weimar 1947-77.
Selections of Goethe's letters include
Goethe-Briefe (ed. P. Stein, 8 vols., 1924) and 4 vols. supplementary to the Hamburger Ausgabe, ed. K. R. Mandelkow, 1962-6, Goethe und Cotta. Briefwechsel 1797-1832 (3 vols. in 4), ed. D. Kuhn, 1979-83, Goethe und Schiller (3 vols.), ed. S. Seidel, 1984. An edition in translation,
Goethe's Collected Works (12 vols.), by V. Lange
et al. appeared 1985 ff.
See also
Eckermann, J. P. and
Goethe-Gesellschaft.
