Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German writer and statesman. His works include: four novels; epic and lyric poetry; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; and treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings by him have survived. He is considered the greatest German literary figure of the modern era.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is perhaps best known for The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), the first novel of the Sturm und Drang movement, and for Faust (Part I, 1808; Part II, 1832), a play about a man who sells his soul to the Devil that is sometimes considered Germany’s greatest contribution to world literature.
Early life
Goethe’s father, Johann Caspar Goethe, lived with his family in a large house (today the Goethe House) in Frankfurt, then an Imperial Free City of the Holy Roman Empire. Though he had studied law in Leipzig and had been appointed Imperial Councillor, he was not 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. All their children, with the exception of Johann Wolfgang and his sister, Cornelia Friederica Christiana, who was born in 1750, died at early ages.Goethe’s birthplace in Frankfurt (Großer Hirschgraben)
His father and private tutors gave Goethe lessons in all the common subjects of their time, especially languages (Latin, Greek, French, Italian, English and Hebrew). 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; Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and Homer were among his early favorites. He had a lively devotion to theater as well and was greatly fascinated by puppet shows that were annually arranged in his home; this is a recurrent theme in his literary work Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship.
He also took great pleasure in reading works 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’. … If an ever busy imagination, of which that tale may bear witness, led me hither and thither, if 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 once in the greatest solitude and the greatest society.
Goethe also became acquainted with Frankfurt actors. Among early literary attempts, he was infatuated with Gretchen, who would later reappear in his Faust 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.
Weimar
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 previously had only a mutually wary relationship ever since first becoming acquainted in 1788. This collaborative friendship lasted until Schiller’s death in 1805.Goethe, by Luise Seidler (Weimar 1811)
In 1806, Goethe was living in Weimar with his mistress Christiane Vulpius, the sister of Christian A. Vulpius, and their son Julius August Walter 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 house 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 service at the Jakobskirche in Weimar . They had already had several children together by this time, including their son, Julius August Walter von Goethe (1789–1830), whose wife, Ottilie von Pogwisch (1796–1872), cared for the elder Goethe until his death in 1832. August and Ottilie had three children: Walther, Freiherr von Goethe (1818–1885), Wolfgang, Freiherr von Goethe (1820–1883) and Alma von Goethe (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.»
Later life
After 1793, Goethe devoted his endeavours primarily to literature. By 1820, Goethe was on amiable terms with Kaspar Maria von Sternberg. In 1823, having recovered from a near fatal heart illness, the 74-year-old Goethe fell in love with the teenaged Ulrike von Levetzow whom he wanted to marry, but because of the opposition of her mother he never proposed. Their last meeting in Carlsbad on 5 September 1823 inspired him to the famous 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 Agata Szymanowska.
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 following 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 relation to the Mozart of that time that the cultivated talk of a grown-up person bears to the prattle of a child.»
Mendelssohn was invited to meet Goethe on several later occasions, and set a number of Goethe’s poems to music. His other compositions inspired by Goethe include the overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage (Op. 27, 1828), and the cantata Die erste Walpurgisnacht (The First Walpurgis Night, Op. 60, 1832).
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