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⇱ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Author of The Sorrows of Young Werther)

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Born
in Frankfurt am Main, Germany
August 28, 1749

Died
March 22, 1832

Genre

Influences


A master of poetry, drama, and the novel, German writer and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe spent 50 years on his two-part dramatic poem Faust , published in 1808 and 1832, also conducted scientific research in various fields, notably botany, and held several governmental positions.

George Eliot called him "Germany's greatest man of letters... and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Works span the fields of literature, theology, and humanism.
People laud this magnum opus as one of the peaks of world literature. Other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther .

With this key figure of German literature, th A master of poetry, drama, and the novel, German writer and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe spent 50 years on his two-part dramatic poem Faust , published in 1808 and 1832, also conducted scientific research in various fields, notably botany, and held several governmental positions.

George Eliot called him "Germany's greatest man of letters... and the last true polymath to walk the earth." Works span the fields of literature, theology, and humanism.
People laud this magnum opus as one of the peaks of world literature. Other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther .

With this key figure of German literature, the movement of Weimar classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries coincided with Enlightenment, sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang, and Romanticism. The author of the scientific text Theory of Colours , he influenced Darwin with his focus on plant morphology. He also long served as the privy councilor ("Geheimrat") of the duchy of Weimar.

Goethe took great interest in the literatures of England, France, Italy, classical Greece, Persia, and Arabia and originated the concept of Weltliteratur ("world literature"). Despite his major, virtually immeasurable influence on German philosophy especially on the generation of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, he expressly and decidedly refrained from practicing philosophy in the rarefied sense.

Influence spread across Europe, and for the next century, his works inspired much music, drama, poetry and philosophy. Many persons consider Goethe the most important writer in the German language and one of the most important thinkers in western culture as well. Early in his career, however, he wondered about painting, perhaps his true vocation; late in his life, he expressed the expectation that people ultimately would remember his work in optics.
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Average rating: 3.75 · 375,585 ratings · 22,906 reviews · 13,380 distinct works • Similar authors
👁 The Sorrows of Young Werther
3.70 avg rating — 158,230 ratings — published 1774 — 2701 editions
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👁 Faust, First Part
3.83 avg rating — 86,916 ratings — published 1808 — 845 editions
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👁 Faust
3.89 avg rating — 51,625 ratings — published 1808 — 117 editions
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👁 Elective Affinities
3.68 avg rating — 14,023 ratings — published 1809 — 538 editions
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👁 Faust, Part Two
by
(Translator)

3.65 avg rating — 8,862 ratings — published 1832 — 361 editions
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👁 Iphigenie auf Tauris
3.17 avg rating — 8,878 ratings — published 1786 — 253 editions
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👁 Wilhelm Meister's Apprentic...
3.77 avg rating — 3,536 ratings — published 1795 — 167 editions
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👁 Fausto / Werther
3.93 avg rating — 2,957 ratings — 3 editions
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👁 Faust: Parts I & II
by
(Illustrator),
(Translator)

3.81 avg rating — 2,592 ratings — published 1832 — 645 editions
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👁 Italian Journey
by
(Translator),
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3.81 avg rating — 2,104 ratings — published 1816 — 303 editions
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More books by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe…
Quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)
“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

“If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Polls

November 2014 Old School Classic Poll

Which book would you like to read for our November 2014 Old School Classic Group Read?

  27 votes, 20.1%

1842, Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, 464 pages
  24 votes, 17.9%

1872, Middlemarch by George Eliot, 904 pages
  14 votes, 10.4%

1896, The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells, 157 pages
  12 votes, 9.0%

  12 votes, 9.0%

  10 votes, 7.5%

  9 votes, 6.7%

  9 votes, 6.7%

  7 votes, 5.2%

1833, Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac, 200 pages
  3 votes, 2.2%

  3 votes, 2.2%

  2 votes, 1.5%

  1 vote, 0.7%

1834, Père Goriot by Honoré de Balzac, 370 pages
  1 vote, 0.7%

  0 votes, 0.0%

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