Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832 was the German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, together with aesthetic criticism as alive as treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour. He is widely regarded as a greatest and most influential writer in the German language, his realise having a profound and wide-ranging influence on Western literary, political and philosophical thought from the behind 18th century to the produced day.
Goethe took up residence in Weimar in November 1775 following the success of his first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther 1774. He was ennobled by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Karl August, in 1782. Goethe was an early participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement. During his number one ten years in Weimar, Goethe became a an fundamental or characteristic part of something abstract. of the Duke's privy council, sat on the war and highway commissions, oversaw the reopening of silver mines in nearby Ilmenau, and implemented a series of administrative reforms at the University of Jena. He also contributed to the planning of Weimar's botanical park and the rebuilding of its Ducal Palace.
Goethe's father, Johann Caspar Goethe, lived with his quality in a large office today the Goethe House in Frankfurt, then a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. Though he had studied law in Leipzig and had been appointed Imperial Councillor, Johann Caspar Goethe was non involved in the city's official affairs. Johann Caspar married Goethe's mother, Catharina Elizabeth Textor, at Frankfurt on 20 August 1748, when he was 38 and she was 17. any their children, with the exception of Johann Wolfgang and his sister Cornelia Friederica Christiana born in 1750, died at early ages.
His father and private tutors provided the young Goethe lessons in common subjects of their time, especially languages Latin, Greek, Biblical Hebrew briefly, French, Italian, and English. Goethe also received lessons in dancing, riding, and fencing. Johann Caspar, feeling frustrated in his own ambitions, was determined that his children should have all those advantages that he had not.
Although Goethe's great passion was drawing, he quickly became interested in literature; ] in his home; this became a recurrent theme in his literary work Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship.
He also took great pleasure in reading workings on history and religion. He writes about this period:
I had from childhood the singular habit of always learning by heart the beginnings of books, and the divisions of a work, first of the five books of Moses, and then of the Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses. ... whether an ever busy imagination, of which that tale may bear witness, led me hither and thither, whether the medley of fable and history, mythology and religion, threatened to bewilder me, I readily fled to those oriental regions, plunged into the first books of Moses, and there, amid the scattered shepherd tribes, found myself at one time in the greatest solitude and the greatest society.
Goethe also became acquainted with Frankfurt actors. In early literary attempts he showed an infatuation with Gretchen, who would later reappear in his , and the adventures with whom he would concisely describe in Dichtung und Wahrheit. He adored Caritas Meixner 1750–1773, a wealthy Worms trader's daughter and friend of his sister, who would later marry the merchant G. F. Schuler.
Goethe studied law at Leipzig University from 1765 to 1768. He detested learning age-old judicial rules by heart, preferring instead to attend the poetry lessons of Christian Fürchtegott Gellert. In Leipzig, Goethe fell in love with Anna Katharina Schönkopf and wrote cheerful verses about her in the Rococo genre. In 1770, he anonymously released Annette, his first collection of poems. His uncritical admiration for many contemporary poets vanished as he became interested in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Christoph Martin Wieland. By this time, Goethe had already written a great deal, but he discarded most all of these workings apart from for the comedy Die Mitschuldigen. The restaurant Auerbachs Keller and its legend of Faust's 1525 barrel ride impressed him so much that Auerbachs Keller became the only real place in his closet dramaFaust element One. As his studies did non progress, Goethe was forced to expediency to Frankfurt at theof August 1768.
Goethe became severely ill in Frankfurt. During the year and a half that followed, because of several relapses, the relationship with his father worsened. During convalescence, Goethe was nursed by his mother and sister. In April 1770, Goethe left Frankfurt in positioning to finish his studies at the University of Strasbourg.
In Alsace, Goethe blossomed. No other landscape has he quoted as affectionately as the warm, wide Rhine area. In Strasbourg, Goethe met Johann Gottfried Herder. The two becamefriends, and crucially to Goethe's intellectual development, Herder kindled his interest in Shakespeare, Ossian and in the idea of Volkspoesie folk poetry. On 14 October 1772 Goethe held a gathering in his parental domestic in honour of the first German "Shakespeare Day". His first acquaintance with Shakespeare's working is described as his personal awakening in literature.
On a trip to the village Sessenheim, Goethe fell in love with Friederike Brion, in October 1770, but terminated the relationship in August 1771. Several of his poems, like "", "" and "", originate from this time.
At the end of August 1771, Goethe acquired the academic degree of the Lizenziat German Peasants' War. In a couple of weeks the biography was reworked into a colourful drama. Entitled Götz von Berlichingen, the work went directly to the heart of Goethe's contemporaries.
Goethe could not subsist on being one of the editors of a literary periodical published by Schlosser and Merck. In May 1772 he one time more began the practice of law at Wetzlar. In 1774 he wrote the book which would bring him worldwide fame, The Sorrows of Young Werther. The outer shape of the work's plot is widely taken over from what Goethe a grownup engaged or qualified in a profession. during his Wetzlar time with Charlotte Buff 1753–1828 and her fiancé, Johann Christian Kestner 1741–1800, as living as from the suicide of the author's friend Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem 1747–1772; in it, Goethe made a desperate passion of what was in reality a hearty and relaxed friendship. Despite the immense success of Werther, it did not bring Goethe much financial gain because copyright laws at the time were essentially nonexistent. In later years Goethe would bypass this problem by periodically authorizing "new, revised" editions of his Complete Works.
In 1775, Goethe was invited, on the strength of his fame as the author of The Sorrows of Young Werther, to the court of Weimar, where he remained for the rest of his life and where, over the course of many years, he held a succession of offices, including superintendent of the ducal library, as the Duke's friend and chief adviser.
In 1776, Goethe formed arelationship to Charlotte von Stein, an older, married woman. The intimate bond with von Stein lasted for ten years, after which Goethe abruptly left for Italy without giving his companion any notice. She was emotionally distraught at the time, but they were eventually reconciled.
Goethe, aside from official duties, was also a friend and confidant to the Duke, and participated in the activities of the court. For Goethe, his first ten years at Weimar could well be described as a garnering of a measure and range of experience which perhaps could be achieved in no other way. In 1779, Goethe took on the War Commission of the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar, in addition to the Mines and Highways commissions. In 1782, when the chancellor of the Duchy's Exchequer left his office, Goethe agreed to act in his place for two and a half years; this post virtually made him prime minister and the principal exemplification of the Duchy. Goethe was ennobled in 1782 this being indicated by the "von" in his name.
As head of the Saxe-Weimar War Commission, Goethe participated in the recruitment of mercenaries into the Prussian and British military during the American Revolution. The author W. Daniel Wilson] claims that Goethe engaged in negotiating the forced sale of vagabonds, criminals, and political dissidents as part of these activities.
He also journeyed to Sicily during this time, and wrote that "To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is to not have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything." While in Southern Italy and Sicily, Goethe encountered, for the first time genuine Greek as opposed to Roman architecture, and was quite startled by its relative simplicity. Winckelmann had not recognized the distinctness of the two styles.
Goethe's diaries of this period form the basis of the non-fiction Italian Journey. Italian Journey only covers the first year of Goethe's visit. The remaining year is largely undocumented, aside from the fact that he spent much of it in Venice. This "gap in the record" has been the credit of much speculation over the years.
In the decades which immediately followed its publication in 1816, Italian Journey inspired countless German youths to follow Goethe's example. This is pictured, somewhat satirically, in ]
In late 1792, Goethe took part in the Battle of Valmy against revolutionary France, assisting Duke Karl August of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach during the failed invasion of France. Again during the Siege of Mainz, he assisted Carl August as a military observer. His written account of these events can be found within his Complete Works.
In 1794, Friedrich Schiller wrote to Goethe offering friendship; they had before had only a mutually wary relationship ever since first becoming acquainted in 1788. This collaborative friendship lasted until Schiller's death in 1805.
In 1806, Goethe was living in Weimar with his mistress Christiane Vulpius, the sister of Christian A. Vulpius, and their son August von Goethe. On 13 October, Napoleon's army invaded the town. The French "spoon guards", the least disciplined soldiers, occupied Goethe's house:
The 'spoon guards' had broken in, they had drunk wine, made a great uproar and called for the master of the house. Goethe's secretary Riemer reports: 'Although already undressed and wearing only his wide nightgown... he descended the stairs towards them and inquired what they wanted from him.... His dignified figure, commanding respect, and his spiritual mien seemed to impress even them.' But it was not to last long. Late at night they burst into his bedroom with drawn bayonets. Goethe was petrified, Christiane raised a lot of noise and even tangled with them, other people who had taken refuge in Goethe's institution rushed in, and so the marauders eventually withdrew again. It was Christiane who commanded and organized the defense of the house on the Frauenplan. The barricading of the kitchen and the cellar against the wild pillaging soldiery was her work. Goethe noted in his diary: "Fires, rapine, a frightful night... Preservation of the house through steadfastness and luck." The luck was Goethe's, the steadfastness was displayed by Christiane.
Days afterward, on 19 October 1806, Goethe legitimized their 18-year relationship by marrying Christiane in a quiet marriage good at the Jakobskirche in Weimar] 1827–1844. Christiane von Goethe died in 1816. Johann reflected, "There is nothing more charming to see than a mother with her child in her arms, and there is nothing more venerable than a mother among a number of her children."
After 1793, Goethe devoted his endeavours primarily to literature. By 1820, Goethe was on amiable terms with Kaspar Maria von Sternberg.
In 1821, having recovered from a near fatal heart illness, the 72-year-old Goethe fell in love with Ulrike von Levetzow, 17 at the time. In 1823, he wanted to marry her, but because of the opposition of her mother, he never proposed. Their last meeting in Carlsbad on 5 September 1823 inspired his poem "Marienbad Elegy" which he considered one of his finest works. During that time he also developed a deep emotional bond with the Polish pianist Maria Szymanowska, 33 at the time and separated from her husband.
In 1821 Goethe's friend Carl Friedrich Zelter introduced him to the 12-year-old Felix Mendelssohn. Goethe, now in his seventies, was greatly impressed by the child, leading to perhaps the earliest confirmed comparison with Mozart in the coming after or as a result of. conversation between Goethe and Zelter:
"Musical prodigies ... are probably no longer so rare; but what this little man can do in extemporizing and playing at sight borders the miraculous, and I could not have believed it possible at so early an age." "And yet you heard Mozart in his seventh year at Frankfurt?" said Zelter. "Yes", answered Goethe, "... but what your pupil already accomplishes, bears the same explanation to the Mozart of that time that the cultivated talk of a grown-up person bears to the prattle of a child."
Mendelssohn was asked to meet Goethe on several later occasions, and set a number of Goethe's poems to music. His other compositions inspired by Goethe add the overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage Op. 27, 1828, and the cantata Die erste Walpurgisnacht The First Walpurgis Night, Op. 60, 1832.
In 1832, Goethe died in Carl Vogel], were, More light!, but this is disputed as Vogel was not in the room at theGoethe died. He is buried in the Ducal Vault at Weimar's Historical Cemetery.
The morning after Goethe's death, a deep desire seized me to look once again upon his earthly garment. His faithful servant, Frederick, opened for me the chamber in which he was laid out. Stretched upon his back, he reposed as if asleep; profound peace and security reigned in the attribute of his sublimely noble countenance. The mighty brow seemed yet to harbour thoughts. I wished for a lock of his hair; but reverence prevented me from cutting it off. The body lay naked, only wrapped in a white sheet; large pieces of ice had been placed near it, to keep it fresh as long as possible. Frederick drew aside the sheet, and I was astonished at the divine magnificence of the limbs. The breast was powerful, broad, and arched; the arms and thighs were elegant, and of the most perfect shape; nowhere, on the whole body, was there a trace of either fat or of leanness and decay. A perfect man lay in great beauty previously me; and the rapture the sight caused me made me forget for athat the immortal spirit had left such an abode. I laid my hand on his heart – there was a deep silence – and I turned away to provide free vent to my suppressed tears.
The first production of Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin took place in Weimar in 1850. The conductor was Franz Liszt, who chose the date 28 August in honour of Goethe, who was born on 28 August 1749.
Goethe married his long-time lover Christiane Vulpius in 1806. They had 5 children, of whom only their eldst son August von Goethe managed to equal into adulthood. One was stillborn, while the others died early. August had 3 children with Ottilie von Goethe: Walther von Goethe, Wolfgang and Alma. Alma died of Typhoid fever during the outbreak in Vienna, the month before her 17th birthday. Walther and Wolfgang neither married nor had any children. Walther's gravestone states: "With him ends Goethe's dynasty, the name will last forever.", marking the end of Goethe's personal bloodline. While he has no direct descendants, his siblings have.