J. W. von Goethe (1749 - 1832) |
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (26. August 1749 - 22. March 1832) was a German writer,
politician, humanist, scientist, and philosopher. As a writer, Goethe was one of
the paramount figures of German literature and European Romanticism during and
around the 18th and 19th century. Goethe was the author of Faust and Theory
of Colours and inspired Darwin with his independent discovery of the human
premaxilla jaw bones.
Life of Goethe
Goethe was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
His father was a man of means and position, and he personally supervised the early
education of his son. The young Goethe studied at the universities of Leipzig and
Strasbourg, and in 1772 entered upon the practice of law at Wetzlar.
At the invitation
of Karl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, he went in 1775 to live in Weimar, where he held
a succession of political offices, becoming the Duke's chief adviser. From 1786 to
1788 he traveled in Italy, and directed the ducal theater at Weimar. He took part
in the Napoleonic wars against France, and in the following began a friendship with
Friedrich Schiller, which lasted till the latter's death in 1805.
In 1806 he married
Christiane Vulpius. As of 1820 he was on friendly terms with Kaspar Maria von
Sternberg. From about 1794 he devoted himself chiefly to literature, and after a
life of extraordinary productiveness died in Weimar.
Literature and other works
The most important of Goethe's works produced before he went to Weimar were his
tragedy Götz von Berlichingen (1773), which was the first work to bring him fame,
and The Sorrows of Young Werther, a novel which gained enormous popularity.
During the years at Weimar before he met
Schiller he began Wilhelm Meister, wrote the dramas Iphigenie, Egmont, and
Torquato Tasso, and his Reineke Fuchs. To the period of his friendship with
Schiller belong the continuation of Wilhelm Meister, the beautiful idyl of
Hermann and Dorothea, and the Roman Elegies.
In the last period, between Schiller's
death, in 1805, and his own, appeared Faust, Elective Affinities, his autobiographical
Dichtung und Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth), his Italian Journey, much scientific work,
and a series of treatises on German art.
Goethe's Historical Importance
Painting of Goethe in Italy |
It is difficult to overstate the importance of Goethe on the 19th century in this era.
In many respects, he was the originator of - or at least the first to cogently express
- many ideas which would, in time, become familiar.
Goethe produced volumes of poetry,
essays, criticism, and scientific work, including a theory of optics and early work on
evolution and linguistics. He was fascinated by minerals and early mineralogy (the
mineral goethite is named for him). As a philosopher and writer he is one of the key
figures in the transition from the Enlightenment to Romanticism.
Goethe's influence was dramatic because he understood that there was a transition in
European sensibilities, an increasing focus on sense, on the indescribeable and the
emotional. This is not to say that he was emotionalist or excessive; quite the
contrary: he preached restraint and felt that excess was a disease.
Influence on other thinkers
"There is
nothing worse than imagination without taste." He argued that law developed out
of the depth of a people's culture and their connectedness to the land they live
on, and therefore rational laws could not be imposed effectively from above: an
interpretation that placed him in direct opposition to those who attempted to form
"enlightened" monarchies based on "rational" laws, for example Joseph II of Austria
or, later, Napoleon as emperor of France.
The older Goethe |
This change would, in time, become the basis for 19th century thought - organic
rather than geometrical, evolving rather than created, and based on sensibility
and intuition, rather than on imposed order. This makes him, along with Adam Smith,
Thomas Jefferson, Ludwig van Beethoven a figure in both worlds.
On one hand, devoted
to the sense of taste, order and finely crafted detail which is the hallmark of the
artistic sense of the Age of Reason and the neo-classical period of architecture, and
on the other, seeking a personal, intuitive and personalized form of expression and
polity, and believing firmly in self-regulating and organic systems.
Philosophers
such as Ralph Waldo Emerson would take up many of the same ideas in the 1800's.
His ideas on evolution would frame the question which Darwin and Wallace would
approach within the scientific paradigm.
Banknote displaying Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
|
