Johann Wolfgang Goethe was born on August 28, 1749, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, one of the free cities of Germany. He died in Weimar, in Saxony, at the age of eighty-two, on March 22, 1832.
In any classification of the men of his time it is impossible to rank him, especially, among men of letters generally, or as a poet, or as a naturalist. He is especially what our time is fond of calling "an all-round man." But he differs from most men who are thus praised, because he is the acknowledged leader of the thought of the first half of the century. He does equally well all that he does. If in the year 1850 anyone had asked who was the first poet of the preceding half century, Goethe would have been named by almost all who answered. If you had asked who was the first man of letters, he would have been named by all. It was certain that his philosophy of human life affected the thought of the students and scholarly people of Europe and America more than that of any other author of his time. Indeed, to this hour, many an humble listener or reader receives suggestions, from the pulpit or the newspaper, of which he does not know the origin, but which are in truth born from some suggestion of Goethe.
It is natural to attempt to account for so remarkable a man, in a measure at least, by tracing back his genealogy. Goethe himself gave some attention to the study of his ancestry, and his biographers have worked at it faithfully. But their work gives no confirmation to the doctrines of heredity which are so well supported in other lives. His father, Johann Caspar Goethe, was a respectable member of the city government of Frankfort, with the title of imperial councillor. He had a craving for knowledge, a delight in communicating it, a love of order, and a certain stoicism, which appear in his son. But there is no ray of genius apparent in him. His father was a respectable tailor in the city of Frankfort, named Frederick. Frederick's father was a farrier or blacksmith in Thuringia, named Hans Christian Goethe. In neither of these ancestors is found any germ of the poet's genius.
On the other hand, the successful life of Wolfgang von Goethe is one more instance, in a large number afforded in the history of the last two centuries, which show that a good education under prosperous circumstances, with the appliances which tend to health of body, mind, and soul, is a very fortunate help to native genius, when native genius finds itself in such surroundings. In the imperial councillor's house his son had every comfort. He was surrounded by pictures books, medals, and other works of art. His reasonable wishes could all be gratified. And he knew none of the hardships which, if they are sometimes the stimulus of genius, more often make its penance.
To his mother he seems to have owed more of the qualities which have made him distinguished. He says himself that his love of story-telling came from her, and his happy disposition. She taught him how he could find the good which is in everyone, and her own habit was to leave people's vices to the God who made them. Much more than this, Goethe had at home the blessing, which cannot be overestimated, of the presence of a sister who shared in his tastes, who joined in his studies, and whom he loved with a passionate affection. He could pour out his enthusiasms to her; she poured out hers to him. So that both of them were blessed through their childhood in that greatest of blessings, a happy home.
He was a precocious boy, and his father and mother both observed his remarkable abilities. There was no lack of good teachers in Frankfort, and he was well trained in the classics in early life. He also studied Hebrew at the same time, having the advantage of the instruction of learned Jews who lived in Frankfort. There never was any question but that he should go to the university. His father's wish was that he should enter upon the career of what he would have called jurisprudence. With this view some of the younger Goethe's earlier studies were conducted. But, before he was old enough to take any very decided steps in the profession of law, his determination to follow a wider literary career became so evident that the plan of jurisprudence was eventually entirely abandoned.
When he was sixteen years old he went to Leipsic, and entered at the university there, in the month of October, 1765. The university was classed in the "Four Nations," as they were called—the Misnian, the Saxon, the Bavarian, and the Polish. Goethe was from Frankfort, and was classed as a Bavarian. His father left him wide freedom in the choice of subjects and teachers, and though he attended some lectures which bore on subjects of jurisprudence, he was more interested in the wider range of natural science and of general literature. It would seem that he learned more from the people around him in whose society he was intimately thrown than from his professors. He tried his hand in fine art, occupied himself in drawing, and even in engraving. Although the three years spent in Leipsic show but little which is remarkable in any scientific course of study, it is quite clear that he laid foundations here which were of use to him in all his future life. But at the end of three years his health was seriously affected. He was depressed in hypochondria, and was physically ill. He was "destitute of faith, yet terrified at scepticism," and he returned to his home in 1768, discouraged and physically broken down.
But a year and a half of the regularity of home life, quite different from his Bohemian courses at the university—a life inspired by his mother's and his sister's love—and a physical life sustained by a home diet which was so much better than a student's fare, wholly restored him, and in April, 1770, he went to the University of Strasburg, not far from Frankfort, now with the real purpose of studying jurisprudence. He was nearly twenty-one years old, in stature rather above the middle size, and because his presence was imposing he was generally spoken of as tall; but he was not really a tall man, but gave this impression by his erect carriage and because his bust was large. Long before he was celebrated, he was called an Apollo.
At Leipsic he had led the life of a boy. At Strasburg he knew men and entered on the interests of a man. Herder was there, whose reputation as a man of letters and a scholar, in after times, was to be in that great second class which would have been the first class but that there Goethe reigned alone. Herder was at Strasburg to undergo an operation for the benefit of his eyes. Goethe made his acquaintance, which ripened into friendship, and Herder's influence on the young Apollo was of the very best. Goethe remained in Strasburg from April, 1770, till August, 1771. He made the acquaintance of Frederike Brion, whose father was pastor of the little village of Sesenheim. Frederike was a fair, sweet girl of sixteen, and Goethe was for the time deeply interested in her; but she was to him little more than a child, and when he left Strasbourg she was soon forgotten. But she never forgot, and years after died unwedded. Goethe was now writing, with the versatility and the enthusiasm which marked all his literary work. Something or somebody acquainted him with the history of Goetz von Berlichingen, a name then little known, to which this young student has given its distinction.
We do not understand Goethe nor the enthusiasm with which Germany welcomed his earliest printed work, if we do not see how it was connected with the hatred of conventionalism and of mere authority, which in the German language was called Sturm und Drang.[11] In after life Goethe had none too much of enthusiasm for radical reformers. But as a young man, he breathed the atmosphere of his time. In the same way, in the year 1773, Schiller, a boy only fourteen years old, was writing verses which in 1778 he wrought into "The Robbers," appealing to all the enthusiasm for liberty in young Germany.