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[Contents.] [Index] [Bibliography] Some typographical errors have been corrected. (etext transcriber's note) |
“Great Writers.”
EDITED BY
PROFESSOR ERIC S. ROBERTSON, M.A.
LIFE
OF
JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE
BY
JAMES SIME
———
LONDON
WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE
NEW YORK: THOMAS WHITTAKER
TORONTO: W. J. GAGE & CO.
1888
(All rights reserved.)
CONTENTS.
| [CHAPTER I.] | |
|---|---|
| PAGE | |
| Goethe born, August 28, 1749; his grandfather and grandmother;his father, Johann Kaspar Goethe; his mother;his sister Cornelia; a child of an imaginative temperament;his grandmother’s last Christmas gift; his father’s houserebuilt; his knowledge of Frankfort; the Council-house;education; Klopstock’s “Messiah”; folk-books; the SevenYears’ War; Count Thorane and Goethe; lessons interruptedand renewed; early religious ideas; his first love;in 1765 leaves Frankfort to study at the university ofLeipsic | [11] |
| [CHAPTER II.] | |
| Goethe at Leipsic; nominal studies at the university; dejection,and recovery of his usual good spirits; his love forAnnette Schönkopf; forms many friendships; takes lessonsin art from Oeser and Stock; goes to Dresden to studythe picture gallery; reads Dodd’s “Beauties of Shakespeare”;influenced by Wieland, Lessing, and Winckelmann;writes “Die Laune des Verliebten” and “DieMitschuldigen”; early lyrics; illness; partial recovery;returns to Frankfort in August, 1768; renewed illness;influenced by Fräulein von Klettenberg; sees GeneralPaoli; Annette Schönkopf married; in April, 1770, goesto Strasburg to attend the university; feels at home inStrasburg; Salzmann; Jung Stilling; sees Marie Antoinette;impressed by antiquities at Neiderbronn; meetsHerder; Herder’s character; the movement of thought inEurope; Herder’s influence on Goethe; Goethe andFrederika Brion; returns to Frankfort in August, 1771;his poetic genius awakened by love | [24] |
| [CHAPTER III.] | |
| Goethe takes the oath as an advocate and citizen of Frankfort;holds a Shakespeare festival; reads the autobiography ofGoetz von Berlichingen; writes the drama, “GeschichteGottfriedens von Berlichingen”; his friendship with Merck;writes criticism for the “Frankfurter Gelehrten Anzeigen”;the “Wanderers Sturmlied” and the “Wanderer”; inMay, 1772, goes to practise at the imperial chamber atWetzlar; his love for Charlotte Buff; saves himself byflight from Wetzlar; visits Frau von Laroche; returns toFrankfort in September, 1772; recasts his drama aboutGoetz von Berlichingen; defects and great qualities of“Goetz”; “Goetz” published in summer of 1773; enthusiasticallyreceived; Goethe’s depression, and its causes;Maximiliane Brentano; origin of “Die Leiden des jungenWerthers”; the story of “Werther”; its relation to thedominant mood of the age, and to Goethe’s own experience;character of Lotte and Albert; style of “Werther”;descriptions of nature; profound impression produced bythe book; its effect on the mind of Lotte’s husband;Nicolai’s parody of “Werther,” and Goethe’s response;“Clavigo”; “Stella”; “Erwin und Elmire,” and“Claudine von Villa Bella”; “Götter, Helden, andWieland”; poetic fragments | [47] |
| [CHAPTER IV.] | |
| Goethe begins to write “Faust”; the work in its earliest form;the character of Faust; the story of Gretchen; Mephistopheles;Goethe expresses in the original “Faust” hisown mood and one of the moods of his age; his study ofSpinoza’s “Ethics”; Lavater; Basedow; Johanna Fahlmer;his friendship with Frederick Jacobi; the CountsStolberg; Goethe’s engagement with Lili Schönemann;the engagement broken off; poems occasioned by his lovefor Lili; meets the Hereditary Prince of Weimar; thePrince becomes Duke; Goethe invited to Weimar; arrivesthere on November 7, 1775; a new home | [72] |
| [CHAPTER V.] | |
| Weimar; Goethe’s relations to the Duke, the Duchess, and theDuchess Dowager; Wieland; Herder settles at Weimar;the Duke proposes that Goethe shall enter the publicservice; opposition of Goethe’s father; Goethe becomes amember of the Privy Council; his friendship with Frauvon Stein; Corona Schröter; his self-discipline; his publicduties; the earnestness with which he discharges them;change of manner as well as of character; visits Switzerland,and sees Frederika Brion and Lili on the way; deathof his father in 1782; is made “Geheimerath” and Presidentof the Chamber of Finance; ennobled; visits theHarz Mountains; devotes himself to the study of science;discovers the intermaxillary bone in the human jaw; hisdoctrine of types in organic nature; “Iphigenie” in prose;change in the methods of his art as a dramatist; “WilhelmMeister” begun; “Torquato Tasso”; minor plays andpoems; the literary movement in Germany; longing forItaly; starts for Italy in September, 1786; edition of hiscollected writings | [86] |
| [CHAPTER VI.] | |
| Delight in Italy; the “Italienische Reise”; journey to Rome;arrives in Rome, October 29, 1786; attempts to thinkhimself back into the Rome of ancient times; his study ofancient art; the art of the Renascence; St. Peter’s;friends in Rome; thinks of becoming an artist; re-writes“Iphigenie” in verse; visits Naples; Sicily; second residencein Rome; completes “Egmont”; works at “Faust”;leaves Rome on April 21, 1788, and arrives at Weimar onJune 18th | [106] |
| [CHAPTER VII.] | |
| Benefit derived from his sojourn in Italy; relieved of most ofhis ministerial duties; change in his relations to Frau vonStein; his informal marriage with Christiane Vulpius;character of Christiane; relations with Frau von Steinbroken off; “Römische Elegien”; his new ideal in dramaticart; “Egmont”; “Iphigenie”; “Torquato Tasso”;“Faust: A Fragment,” published in 1790; his discoveryof the metamorphosis of plants; visits Venice in 1790;his son August; his discovery of the true constitution ofthe skull; his opposition to Newton’s theory of colours;becomes director of the Weimar Court Theatre; receivesfrom the Duke the house in which he spends the rest ofhis life; the outbreak of the French Revolution; Goethe’sposition with regard to it; “Gross-Cophta”; “DieAufgeregten”; accompanies the Duke during the campaignin Champagne; “Reineke Fuchs”; joins the Duke beforeMainz; returns to Weimar | [116] |
| [CHAPTER VIII.] | |
| Schiller arrives at Weimar in 1787; his character; meetsGoethe for the first time; settles as a professor at Jena;his marriage; Goethe calls upon him in 1790, and theytalk about Kant’s philosophy; Schiller goes to Würtemberg;on his return asks Goethe to write for the Horen;Schiller spends a fortnight in Goethe’s house; their friendship;what it did for Schiller; and for Goethe; the“Xenien”; “Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre”; “Hermannund Dorothea”; “Alexis und Doris”; ballads; Goetheas a lyrical poet; “Die Propyläen”; “Winckelmannund sein Jahrhundert”; autobiography of BenvenutoCellini; “Rameaus Neffe”; Schiller’s “Wallenstein”represented at Weimar; Schiller settles at Weimar; greatperiod in history of Weimar; Goethe and the philosophicalmovement of the age; Goethe and the Romantic School;Madame de Staël; “Die Natürliche Tochter”; works at“Faust”; Death of Schiller; Goethe’s grief | [134] |
| [CHAPTER IX.] | |
| The battle of Jena; Weimar plundered by the French;Goethe’s life saved through Christiane’s presence of mind;his helpfulness in a time of public trial; his formal marriagewith Christiane; his son August; Johanna Schopenhauer;Bettina von Arnim; death of his mother in 1808; hisinterviews with Napoleon; new edition of Goethe’swritings; First Part of “Faust” published in 1808; changein his conception of the work as a whole; reception of theFirst Part by the public; “Die Wahlverwandtschaften”;“Aus Meinem Leben”; “West-Oestlicher Divan”; theWar of Liberation; Goethe’s feeling about it; the Dukeof Weimar is made a Grand Duke, and Goethe becomesFirst Minister of State in 1815; death of his wife on June6, 1816 | [156] |
| [CHAPTER X.] | |
| Marriage of August Goethe with Ottilie von Pogwisch; Goethegives up the directorate of the Weimar Theatre; WilhelmineHerzlieb; Marianne von Willemer; Ulrica vonLevezow; celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of theGrand Duke’s accession; and of the fiftieth anniversary ofGoethe’s arrival at Weimar; death of the Grand Duke,1828; of the Grand Duchess, 1830; of Goethe’s sonAugust, 1830; Eckermann; his “Conversations withGoethe”; Heine visits Goethe; gift from English admirers;Goethe’s feeling as to social problems; “WilhelmMeisters Wanderjahre”; “Kunst und Alterthum”; hisletters, and the character they reveal; the Second Part of“Faust”; his death, March 22, 1832; general view ofhis work. | [170] |
| [INDEX]:[A],[B],[C],[D],[E],[F],[G],[H],[I],[J],[K],[L],[M],[N],[O],[P],[R],[S],[T],[V],[W],[X]. | [189] |
| [BIBLIOGRAPHY] | [i] |
NOTE.
THE best sources of information about Goethe are his own works and letters. It would be ungrateful, however, not to acknowledge the service which has been rendered to students of his character and genius by various German scholars. Among the writers whose researches I myself have found helpful, I may name Heinrich Düntzer, Herman Grimm, Karl Biedermann, and Erich Schmidt.