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

Fiction, Poetry, Science

Influences

Friedrich Schiller, Emanuel Swedenborg, Immanuel Kant, Gotthold Ephrai ...more

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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 · 349,755 ratings · 19,953 reviews · 12,376 distinct works 鈥� Similar authors

	The Sorrows of Young Werther 3.69 avg rating — 145,836 ratings — published 1774 — 166 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Faust, First Part 3.86 avg rating — 129,827 ratings — published 1808 — 3434 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Elective Affinities 3.69 avg rating — 12,919 ratings — published 1809 — 29 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Faust, Part Two by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, David Luke (Translator) 3.66 avg rating — 8,024 ratings — published 1832 — 104 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Iphigenie auf Tauris 3.16 avg rating — 8,191 ratings — published 1786 — 649 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship 3.76 avg rating — 3,369 ratings — published 1795 — 353 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Fausto / Werther 3.93 avg rating — 2,739 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Faust: Parts I & II by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Eug猫ne Delacroix (Illustrator), A. Kline (Translator) 3.82 avg rating — 2,276 ratings — published 1832 — 35 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Italian Journey by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, W.H. Auden (Translator), Elizabeth Wolff Mayer (Translator) 3.83 avg rating — 1,902 ratings — published 1816 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	G枚tz von Berlichingen 3.27 avg rating — 1,982 ratings — published 1773 — 211 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe…

Series by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Goethes Faust (2 books)
by

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,

David Luke (Translator)

3.85 avg rating — 140,115 ratings

Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (3 books)
by

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

3.47 avg rating — 153 ratings

Quotes by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (?)

“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

tags: art, good-life, music, poetry, self-improvement

4341 likes

“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

tags: inspiration

3904 likes

“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

tags: art, beauty, music, wonder

2448 likes

See all Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's quotes »

Polls

September 2015 Old School Classic Poll

1857, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, 329 pages

32 votes, 21.3%

1869, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, 394 pages

25 votes, 16.7%

1831, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo, 614 pages

23 votes, 15.3%

-850, The Odyssey by Homer, 560 pages

19 votes, 12.7%

1852, Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, 432 pages

15 votes, 10.0%

1853, Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell, 432 pages

9 votes, 6.0%

1887, The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy, 464 pages

7 votes, 4.7%

1833, Eug茅nie Grandet by Honor茅 de Balzac, 200 pages

7 votes, 4.7%

1880, Heidi by Johanna Spyri, 352 pages

7 votes, 4.7%

1882, Atlantis: The Antideluvian World by Ignatius L. Donnelly, 528 pages

3 votes, 2.0%

1795, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 396 pages

3 votes, 2.0%

150 total votes

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