Who is Goethe?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is a significant German literary figure of the modern age. He was born in the middle of the 18th century and was a prolific writer producing novels, poems, and plays as well as directing theatre. He is best known for his two-part tragic poetic drama, Faust, which he began in his early twenties and finally completed sixty years later just before his death.
The young Goethe was given lessons in common subjects of that time by his father and private tutors, especially in languages: Latin, Greek, French, Italian, English, and Hebrew. Although Goethe’s great passion was drawing, he quickly became interested in literature. He had a devotion to theatre as well, and was greatly fascinated by puppet shows that were annually arranged in his home. Goethe also took great pleasure in reading works on history and religion.
Goethe went on to study law for a time at Leipzig University but detested learning age-old judicial rules by heart, preferring instead to attend poetry lessons. While studying, he fell in love and wrote cheerful verses and shortly thereafter anonymously released Annette, his first collection of poems. He finished his legal studies at the University of Strasbourg following a convalescence. There he met a new close friend who kindled his interest in Shakespeare and folk poetry. Goethe held a gathering in his home in honour of the first German “Shakespeare Day”. This first acquaintance with Shakespeare’s works is described as Goethe’s personal awakening in literature.
After graduating with his academic degree in Frankfurt, he established a small legal practice. However, his ambition to make jurisprudence progressively more humane and his inexperience led him to proceed too vigorously. This prematurely terminated his career as a lawyer after only a few months. Goethe then pursued literary plans again and reworked a biography of a noble highwayman into a colourful drama which brought him worldwide fame. As a result, he was invited to the court of a grand duke in Weimar, Karl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Aisenach, where he remained for the rest of his life. He held a succession of offices including superintendent of the ducal library, and was the Duke’s friend, confidante, and chief advisor. Eventually he became prime minister and principal representative of the Duchy for which he was ennobled by “von” in his name. Goethe participated as head of the war commission in recruiting mercenaries into the Prussian and British military during the American Revolution.
His father’s example was a major motivation for Goethe to take a similar “pilgrimage” to Italy and Sicily. This journey was of great significance in his aesthetic and philosophical development meeting artists and for the first time Greek (as opposed to Roman) architecture.
Goethe took part in the battle against revolutionary France and later, at the turn of the century, his town was invaded by Napoleon’s army. The least disciplined soldiers of the French army occupied Goethe’s house one night, drinking and creating a great uproar.
In his seventies, Goethe was introduced to the then 12-year-old Felix Mendelssohn whom he compared with Mozart (having met him years before). Mendelssohn was invited to meet Goethe on several later occasions, and set a number Goethe’s poems to music. Goethe’s words inspired others, like Beethoven (who idolized him) and Schubert as well.
Goethe’s Faust inspired operas and oratorio’s by Schumann, Berlioz, Gounod, and others, as well as symphonic works by Liszt, Wagner, and Mahler. Faust became the ur-myth (“ur” refers to ‘ancient’ or ‘original’) of many 19th century figures. A facet of the plot, that of selling one’s soul to darkness in exchange 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. This poetic work served as a model for an entire movement in German poetry.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is widely quoted and has entered everyday German usage. 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”, “Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must”, are often paraphrased.
His literary work has attracted the greatest amount of interest, however, Goethe was also keenly involved in the natural sciences. He studied anatomical issues. He also had the largest private collection of minerals in all of Europe. By the time of his death, he had collected 17,800 rock samples. Novalis, a geologist and mining engineer, expressed the opinion that Goethe was the first physicist of his time. Furthermore, he independently discovered the human intermaxillary bone, also known as “Goethe’s bone and was the first to prove its existence in all mammals. The elephant’s skull that led Goethe to this discovery, and was subsequently named the Goethe Elephant, still exists and is displayed in the Ottoneum in Kassel, Germany. The Goethe barometer was popularized using a principle established by Toricelli. And he considered the Theory of Colours (1810) his most important work. During his Italian journey, Goethe formulated a theory of plant metamorphosis in which the archetypal form of the plant is to be found in the leaf. Part of his botanical theories were based on his garden in Weimar.
Goethe was a free thinker and had a great effect on the nineteenth century. In many respects, he was the originator of many ideas which later became widespread. He embodied many of the contending strands in art over the next century. He rewrote the formal rules of German poetry. His poetry was set to music by almost every major Austrian and German composer and his influence would spread to French drama and opera as well. He was a cultural force: Napoleon read Sorrows of Young Werther seven times and ranked them among his favourites. In Victorian England, Goethe exerted a profound influence on George Eliot. Nikola Tesla was heavily influenced by Goethe’s Faust, his favourite poem, and actually memorized the entire text. It was while reciting a certain verse that he was struck with the epiphany that would lead to the idea of the rotating magnetic field and ultimately, alternating current. Goethe was devoted to a sense of taste, order, and finely crafted detail which is the hallmark of the Age of Reason. On the other hand, he sought a personal, intuitive, and personalized form of expression through literature.