Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Goethe returned to Weimar in 1788 to face difficulties. He found opposition to his new literary principles, and enmity from Frau von Stein because of his loss of interest in her. He antagonized court circles by taking to live with him a young girl, Christiane Vulpius, who in 1789 bore him a son. He might have abandoned Weimar but for two interests: the directorship of the ducal theater, in which he served from 1791 to 1813; and renewed absorption in scientific studies, for which he had the facilities at Weimar. Previously, in 1784, he had made the discovery, by methods which foreshadowed the science of comparative morphology, that the human jawbone contained traces of a structure similar to the intermaxillary bone in other mammals. In 1790 he wrote Versuch, die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklären (Essay on the Metamorphosis of Plants), which further developed his ideas on comparative morphology and to some extent foreshadowed Darwin’s ideas on organic evolution. Goethe was also the author of a treatise on optics, Beiträge zur Optik (Contribution to Optics, 2 parts, 1791 and 1792).

Goethe’s absorption in scientific work eclipsed for the time being his interest in literature. This interest was revived through his friendship with Friedrich von Schiller, one of the greatest of German dramatists and, after Goethe, the foremost figure of the German classical period. The association, which lasted from 1794 to Schiller’s death in 1805, was of the utmost importance to Goethe; Schiller’s criticism and suggestions stimulated him to new creative endeavor. The chief products were Goethe’s contributions to Schiller’s periodical Die Horen, which included Roman Elegies (1795; trans. 1876); the novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1795-1796, trans. 1824), which became a model for subsequent German fiction; and the epic idyll in verse Hermann and Dorothea (1798; trans. 1801). Schiller also encouraged Goethe to resume work on Faust, the first part of which was published in 1808.

The period from 1805 to his death in Weimar, March 22, 1832, was for Goethe one of considerable productivity. In 1806 he married Christiane Vulpius. The upheavals of the French Revolution and the succeeding campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars did not seriously interrupt his literary and scientific work. In politics Goethe was conservative. He did not oppose the War of Liberation (1813-15) waged by the German states against Napoleon, but remained aloof from the patriotic efforts to unite the various parts of Germany into one nation; he advocated instead the maintenance of small principalities ruled by benevolent despots. Among his writings between 1805 and 1832 the most renowned are the novels Die Wahlverwandtschaften (Elective Affinities, 1809) and Wilhelm Meister’s Travels (1821, revised 1829; trans. 1827); an account of his Italian trip, Goethe’s Travels in Italy (1816; trans. 1892); The Autobiography of Goethe (4 volumes, 1811-33; trans. 1846); a collection of superb lyrics Westeasterly Divan (1819; trans. 1877); and the second part of his dramatic poem Faust (published posthumously, 1832).

Faust was the crowning achievement of Goethe’s long life. The work is one of the masterpieces of German and of world literature. It is not merely a new rendition of the well-known legend of the medieval scholar-magician Johann Faust, but an allegory of human life in all its ramifications. In style and in point of view, it reflects the impressive range of Goethe’s development from the rebellious days of the Sturm und Drang period to the calm classicism and realistic wisdom of his mature years. Its emphasis on the right and power of the individual to inquire freely into affairs both human and divine, and to work out his own destiny, accounts for its universal reputation as the first great work of literature in the spirit of modern individualism.

See also German Literature.