Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born on the 28th of August 1749 in a large house on Großer Hirschgraben in Frankfurt. His father, Johann Caspar Goethe, had studied law in Leipzig and worked as an Imperial Councillor. The family fortune came from his grandfather who moved from Thuringia to Frankfurt in 1687. Goethe received lessons in Latin, Greek, French, Italian, and English from private tutors. He also learned dancing, riding, and fencing. His great passion was drawing, but he quickly became interested in literature. Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and Homer were among his early favorites. He adored Caritas Meixner, a wealthy merchant's daughter who later married G.F. Schuler. In early literary attempts, Goethe showed an infatuation with Gretchen, who would later reappear in his Faust.
Goethe took up residence in Weimar in 1775 following the success of his first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther. He joined a thriving intellectual and cultural environment under the patronage of Duchess Anna Amalia. Karl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, invited him to court when he turned eighteen in 1775. Goethe formed a close relationship with Charlotte von Stein in 1776 that lasted for ten years. He became a member of the Duke's privy council from 1776 to 1785. During this period, he sat on the war and highway commissions. He oversaw the reopening of silver mines in nearby Ilmenau. Goethe implemented administrative reforms at the University of Jena. He contributed to the planning of Weimar's botanical park and the rebuilding of its Ducal Palace. In 1782, he was ennobled by Karl August, hence the particle "von" in his name. That same year, he moved into what would be his primary residence in Weimar for the next fifty years.
Goethe traveled to the Italian peninsula and Sicily from 1786 to 1788. His father had made a similar journey, and his example was a major motivating factor for Goethe to make the trip. During the course of his trip, Goethe met and befriended the artists Angelica Kauffman and Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein. He encountered notable characters like Lady Hamilton and Alessandro Cagliostro. While in Southern Italy and Sicily, Goethe encountered genuine Greek architecture for the first time. He wrote that seeing Sicily was essential to truly seeing Italy. Goethe's diaries of this period form the basis of the non-fiction work Italian Journey. 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 source 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.
The short epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther was published in 1774 and gained him enormous fame as a writer. It recounts an unhappy romantic infatuation that ends in suicide. Goethe admitted that he shot his hero to save himself. The next work, his epic closet drama Faust, was completed in stages. The first part was published in 1808 and created a sensation. Goethe finished Faust Part Two in the year of his death, and the work was published posthumously later that year. During the years at Weimar before he met Schiller in 1794, he began Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. To the period of his friendship with Schiller belong the conception of Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years. He also wrote Hermann and Dorothea, the Roman Elegies, and the verse drama The Natural Daughter. In the last period between Schiller's death in 1805 and his own, appeared Elective Affinities and the West-Eastern Diwan.
Goethe was keenly involved in studies of natural science alongside his literary work. He wrote several works on morphology and colour theory. By the time of his death, he had collected 17,800 rock samples for geology. His focus on morphology influenced nineteenth-century naturalists. Goethe independently discovered the human intermaxillary bone in 1784 using an elephant's skull lent to him by Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring. This bone is now known as Goethe's bone. During his Italian journey, Goethe formulated a theory of plant metamorphosis. In 1790, he published Metamorphosis of Plants. In 1810, Goethe published Theory of Colours which he considered his most important work. He contentiously characterized colour as arising from the dynamic interplay of light and darkness. Although his aesthetic approach failed to meet modern scientific standards, his empirical observations were largely accurate. He was the first to systematically study the physiological effects of colour.
In 1806, Goethe was living in Weimar with his mistress Christiane Vulpius. They had already had several children together including their son Julius August Walter von Goethe born in 1789. On the 13th of October 1806, Napoleon's army invaded the town. Days afterward, on the 19th of October 1806, Goethe legitimized their eighteen-year relationship by marrying Christiane in a quiet marriage service at the Jakobskirche in Weimar. Christiane died in 1816. Goethe had five children with Christiane Vulpius but only their eldest son August survived into adulthood. One child was stillborn while the others died early. Through his son August and daughter-in-law Ottilie, Johann had three grandchildren: Walther, Wolfgang and Alma. Walther and Wolfgang neither married nor had any children. Walther's gravestone states that with him ends Goethe's dynasty though the name will last forever. In 1821, having recovered from a near fatal heart illness, the seventy-two-year-old Goethe fell in love with Ulrike von Levetzow who was seventeen at the time.
Goethe died in Weimar on the 22nd of March 1832 of apparent heart failure. He is buried in the Ducal Vault at Weimar's Historical Cemetery. The last words of Goethe are usually abridged as More light. In a letter written to Leopold Casper in 1932, Albert Einstein wrote that he admired Goethe as a poet without peer. Goethe produced volumes of poetry, essays, criticism, a theory of colours and early work on evolution. His non-fiction writings spurred the development of many thinkers including Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Arthur Schopenhauer. Along with Schiller, he was one of the leading figures of Weimar Classicism. During his first meeting with Napoleon in 1808, the latter famously remarked You are a man. Goethe came away from the meeting deeply impressed with Napoleon's enlightened intellect. The public university in Frankfurt am Main was named after Goethe. The Federal Republic of Germany's cultural institution, the Goethe-Institut, is named after him. The literary estate of Goethe in the Goethe and Schiller Archives was inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of
the World international register in 2001.
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Common questions
When and where was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe born?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born on the 28th of August 1749 in a large house on Großer Hirschgraben in Frankfurt. His father, Johann Caspar Goethe, had studied law in Leipzig and worked as an Imperial Councillor.
What major life events occurred for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe during his time in Weimar from 1775 to 1785?
Goethe took up residence in Weimar in 1775 following the success of his first novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. He became a member of the Duke's privy council from 1776 to 1785 while sitting on the war and highway commissions and overseeing the reopening of silver mines in nearby Ilmenau.
Why did Johann Wolfgang von Goethe travel to Italy between 1786 and 1788?
Goethe traveled to the Italian peninsula and Sicily from 1786 to 1788 because his father had made a similar journey and his example served as a major motivating factor for the trip. During this period he encountered genuine Greek architecture for the first time and wrote that seeing Sicily was essential to truly seeing Italy.
How many children did Johann Wolfgang von Goethe have with Christiane Vulpius and which one survived into adulthood?
Goethe had five children with Christiane Vulpius but only their eldest son August survived into adulthood. One child was stillborn while the others died early before reaching maturity.
When did Johann Wolfgang von Goethe die and where is he buried?
Goethe died in Weimar on the 22nd of March 1832 of apparent heart failure. He is buried in the Ducal Vault at Weimar's Historical Cemetery.