I.

Introduction

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749-1832), German poet, dramatist, novelist, and scientist. Goethe's poetry expresses a modern view of humanity's relationship to nature, history, and society; his plays and novels reflect a profound understanding of human individuality. Goethe's importance can be judged by the influence of his critical writings, his vast correspondence, and his poetry, dramas, and novels upon the writers of his own time and upon the literary movements which he inaugurated and of which he was the chief figure. According to the 19th-century English critic Matthew Arnold, Goethe must be considered not only “the manifest centre of German literature” but one of the most versatile figures in all world literature.

Goethe was born on August 28, 1749, in Frankfurt am Main, the son of a government official. From 1765 to 1768 he studied law at Leipzig; there he first developed an interest in literature and painting and became acquainted with the dramatic works of his contemporaries Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Their influence and his own attachment to the daughter of a wine merchant at whose tavern he dined are reflected in his earliest poetry and in his first dramatic works. These early plays included a one-act comedy in verse, Die Laune des Verliebten (The Lover's Caprice, 1767), and a tragedy in verse, Die Mitschuldigen (The Fellow-Culprits, 1768). Goethe's health broke down in Leipzig and he returned to Frankfurt, where, during his convalescence, he studied occult philosophy, astrology, and alchemy. Through the influence of a friend of his mother, Susanne Katharina von Klettenberg, who was a member of the Lutheran reform movement known as Pietism, Goethe gained some insight into religious mysticism. From 1770 to 1771 he was in Strasbourg to continue his study of law; in addition, he took up the study of music, art, anatomy, and chemistry.