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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), born in Frankfurt, Germany,
into a well-to-do middle-class family, was arguably one of the
last Europeans to aspire to the Renaissance ideal of a multifaceted
social contributor excelling as a painter, educationalist, alchemist,
natural philosopher, critic, journalist, theater manager. Goethe
was a profoundly diverse person that achieved remarkable success
in nearly everything he did. His father, Johann Kaspar Goethe,
was a lawyer in northern Germany and prided himself in his stocked
library and well-furnished home. His mother, Katharine Elisabeth
Textor, was the daughter of a Frankfurt mayor and gave Goethe
many valuable opportunities in life.
Goethe was one of two children out of eight that survived birth in the family. The other, his sister Cornelia, he had a very positive relationship with growing up. His interest in theater was kindled at an early age by his grandmother's gift of a puppet theater. After the French occupation during the Seven Years' War and the coronation of Joseph II in Frankfurt, he became increasingly Renaissance in stark rebellion to what he saw as a medieval social decline. By 16, in October 1765, he was sent to formal study at the University of Leipzig. He wasn't particularly happy about attending the university, his father's alma mater, though it was considered a cultural center at the time. He would have preferred to attend the newly founded University of Gottingen because of his partiality to the English. He felt intellectually stifled at the university, where French influences in theater and literature still prevailed. The university did offer him many opportunities, however. He first began publishing poems and plays at the university, and was introduced to C. F. Gellert, whom he praised as a master of epistolary style. He learned to "use his eyes" and master his undertakings from reading greek philosophy, studying under C. M. Wieland. He was first introduced to Shakespeare when attending the University of Stasbourg under Johann Gottfried von Herder, where he received a degree in law. After graduating in 1771, Goethe practiced law for 4 years with his father and continued to publish works that brought him literary fame. In 1775, Karl Augustus invited Goethe to his court in Saxe-Weimar, where Goethe ultimately held a number of esteemed offices and spent the remainder of his life. While there, he wrote beautiful lyrics to Charlotte von Stein and resolved to develop his literary talents further. He withdrew from public life, married Christiane Vulpius, with whom he had lived many years before, and developed a close collaborative relationship with Friedrich Schiller. After attaining many important literary and scientific accomplishments, Goethe died at the age of 82, still living at Saxe-Weimar.
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| Goethe's Leipzig experience, though he initially saw it as intellectually
meaningless, had a considerable influence on his work. He wrote
many of his works in the Rococo style, which he studied while
at Leipzig. His works Das Leipzinger Liederbuch ("The Leipzig Song Book"), Das Buch Annette ("The Book Annette"), and Neue Lieder ("New Songs"), all products of his Leipzig experience, inspired
him to declare that all of his writings were mere "fragments of
a great confession." All of them were semi-autobiographical and
possessed none of the true passion that he so admired in his peers.
His Rococo style reappeared in Die Laune des Verliebten ("The Mood of the Beloved") and Die
Faust was an amalgamation of all of his philosophies, endeavors, and lifetime experiences. The work took him nearly sixty years and was not published until near his death. Part I begins as a mystery play with the celebrated prologue in Heaven, essentially a paraphrase of the first part of the Book of Job. The Lord, at Satan's challenge, gives him permission to make a test of the integrity of God's servant, Faust. Mephistopheles makes a bargain with the aged Faust. If Faust is granted one moment of complete contentment, he loses his soul. Faust regains his youth, and with Mephistopheles he travels about enjoying every form of earthly pleasure. He has a love affair with a simple girl, Margaret, whom he betrays and for whose downfall and death he is responsible. Mephistopheles thinks he will capture the soul of Margaret, but the purity of her betrayed love for Faust and her refusal to be rescued from death by Mephistopheles result in her savior. As the first part of the play ends, Faust has not yet found, in the world of desire and passion, that wonderful moment of existence to which he could really wish to cling.
Indeed, the statement that Goethe's many rejections by women and his desire to attain the passion he saw in the works of those he admired were recapped in most of his works holds true with Faust, as it does with many others. Other works influenced by his life experience include Egmont, published in 1788
Die Leiden Des Jungen Werthers ("The Sorrows of Young Werther"), one of the works that made him famous; published in 1774 Iphigenie auf Tauris ("Iphigena in Tauris"), published in 1787 Romishe Elegien ("Roman Elegies"), published in 1790 Torquato Tasso, published in 1790 Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre ("Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship"), published in 1796 Hermann und Dorothea ("Harman ja Dorothea"), published in 1797 Der Wahlverwandtschaften ("The Elective Affinities"), another famous work; published in 1809 Dichtun und Wahrheit ("Poetry and Truth"), his autobiography; published in 1811
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| The timeline given below is a comprehensive timeline of literary,
scientific, philosophical, political, and artistic events, primarily
in Europe during the lifetime of Johann von Goethe. All information
was acquired from sources four and five as given in the bibliography.
1749: Buffon - Histoire naturelle 1749: Fielding - Tom Jones 1751: Diderot - Encyclopedie 1751: Franklin - New Experiments and Observations on Electricity 1755: Lisbon earthquake 1755: Rousseau - Discourse on Inequality 1758: Quesnay - Tableau economique 1759: Kasper Wolff - demonstrates specialized organs develop out of unspecialized tissue 1759: Voltaire - Candide 1761: Rousseau - Hêloïse 1762: Rousseau - The Social Contract 1764: Beccaria - Essay on Crimes and Punishments 1764: Hargreaves invents spinning jenny 1764: Voltaire - Philosophical Dictionary 1765-69: Blackstone - Commentaries on the Laws of England 1766: Cavendish isolates hydrogen 1766: Turgot - Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth 1768: Cook's voyages to the Pacific 1769: Watt patents improved steam engine 1773: Pugachev leads peasant uprising 1774: Goethe - Sorrows of Young Werther 1774: Priestley - discovers oxygen 1775: American Revolution 1776: Gibbon - Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire (Vol. 1) 1776: Smith - The Wealth of Nations 1780: Luigi Galvani - observes connection between electricity and muscle movements 1781: Kant - Critique of Pure Reason 1783: 1st manned flight of hot air balloon 1785: James Hutton - Theory of Earth 1785: Schiller - Ode to Joy 1789: Antoine Lavoisier - Elements of Chemistry 1789: Bentham - Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation 1789: Blake - Songs of Innocence 1789: French Revolution 1790: Burke - Reflections on the Revolution in France 1791: Paine - The Rights of Man 1791: Sade - Justine 1792: Denmark prohibits slave trade 1792: Wollstonecraft - A Vindication of the Rights of Women 1793: Godwin - Enquiry Concerning Political Justice 1794: Fichte - Wissenschaftslehre 1796: Edward Jenner develops smallpox vaccine 1798: Malthus - Essay on the Principle of Population 1798: Wordsworth & Coleridge - Lyrical Ballads 1799: Start of Napoleonic Wars 1800: Alessandro Volta - produces 1st electric battery 1803: Say - Treatise on Political Economy 1804: Jacquard patents automatic loom 1804: Napoleon voted emperor 1806-22: Wars of South American Independence 1807: Great Britain prohibits slave trade 1807: Wordsworth - Ode, Intimations of Immortality 1808: Fourier - The Social Destiny of Man 1808: Goethe - Faust (Pt. 1) 1808: John Dalton - New System of Chemical Philosophy 1809: Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck - Zoological Philosophy 1811: Luddites attack mechanization 1813: Owen - New View of Society 1814-15: Congress of Vienna 1815: Napoleon defeated at Waterloo - end of Napoleonic Wars 1817: Ricardo - Principles of Political Economy and Taxation 1818: Shelley - Frankenstein 1819: Sismondi - Nouveaux Principes d'economie politique 1820: Hans Christian Oersted - Experiments on the effects of an electrical conflict on a magnetic needle 1821: Michael Faraday - demonstrates electrical energy can be continually converted into mechanical energy 1824: Combination Acts repealed in England 1825: Decembrist rising against Tsar Nicholas I 1827: Heine - Book of Songs 1828: Friedrich Wöhler - synthesizes organic compound in the lab 1829: Catholic Emancipation Act 1830: 1st passenger railway opens 1830: Charles Lyell - The Principles of Geology
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| Eiermann, Katharena. "Penetrating Goethe." Pleasures of the Mind. Home Page. 30 March 2001. <http://members.aol.com/KatharenaE/private/Pweek/Goethe/goethe.html>.
"Goethe Institute Frankfurt - City." Goethe Institute of Franfurt. Home Page. Goethe Institute of Frankfurt. 31 March 2001. <http://www.goethe.de/i/eniofra.htm>. "Maps and References for Germany." Embassy World.com. Home Page. 31 March 2001. <http://www.embassyworld.com/embassy/germany_map.htm>. Mickelsen, Carl. "Timeline - 18th Century Europe." Timelines of Europe. Home Page. 31 March 2001. <http://www.ets.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/Timelines/timeline18txt.htm>. Mickelsen, Carl. "Timeline - 19th Century Europe." Timelines of Europe. Home Page. 31 March 2001. <http://www.ets.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/Timelines/timeline19txt.htm>. "Johann Wolfgang von Goethe." AltFrankfurt.com. Home Page. AltFrankfurt.com. 31 March 2001. <http://www.altfrankfurt.com/Goethehaus1/Goethe.htm>. "Johann Wolfgang von Goethe." Arts, Poems, Music!. Home Page. Text from Encyclopedia Britannica. 29 March 2001. <http://www.bgg.atfreeweb.com/>.
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