Johann Wolfgang von Goethe[a] (28 August 1749 â€" 22 March 1832) was a
German writer and statesman. His works include: four novels; epic and
lyric poetry; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography;
literary and aesthetic criticism; and treatises on botany, anatomy,
and colour. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments,
more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings by him have
survived. He is considered the greatest German literary figure of the
modern era.[3]A literary celebrity by the age of 25, Goethe was
ennobled by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Karl August, in 1782 after taking
up residence in Weimar in November 1775 following the success of his
first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774). He was an early
participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement. During his first
ten years in Weimar, Goethe became a member of the Duke's privy
council, sat on the war and highway commissions, oversaw the reopening
of silver mines in nearby Ilmenau, and implemented a series of
administrative reforms at the University of Jena. He also contributed
to the planning of Weimar's botanical park and the rebuilding of its
Ducal Palace.[4][b]Goethe's first major scientific work, the
Metamorphosis of Plants, was published after he returned from a 1788
tour of Italy. In 1791 he was made managing director of the theatre at
Weimar, and in 1794 he began a friendship with the dramatist,
historian, and philosopher Friedrich Schiller, whose plays he
premiered until Schiller's death in 1805. During this period Goethe
published his second novel, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship; the
verse epic Hermann and Dorothea, and, in 1808, the first part of his
most celebrated drama, Faust. His conversations and various shared
undertakings throughout the 1790s with Schiller, Johann Gottlieb
Fichte, Johann Gottfried Herder, Alexander von Humboldt, Wilhelm von
Humboldt, and August and Friedrich Schlegel have come to be
collectively termed Weimar Classicism.
German writer and statesman. His works include: four novels; epic and
lyric poetry; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography;
literary and aesthetic criticism; and treatises on botany, anatomy,
and colour. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments,
more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings by him have
survived. He is considered the greatest German literary figure of the
modern era.[3]A literary celebrity by the age of 25, Goethe was
ennobled by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Karl August, in 1782 after taking
up residence in Weimar in November 1775 following the success of his
first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774). He was an early
participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement. During his first
ten years in Weimar, Goethe became a member of the Duke's privy
council, sat on the war and highway commissions, oversaw the reopening
of silver mines in nearby Ilmenau, and implemented a series of
administrative reforms at the University of Jena. He also contributed
to the planning of Weimar's botanical park and the rebuilding of its
Ducal Palace.[4][b]Goethe's first major scientific work, the
Metamorphosis of Plants, was published after he returned from a 1788
tour of Italy. In 1791 he was made managing director of the theatre at
Weimar, and in 1794 he began a friendship with the dramatist,
historian, and philosopher Friedrich Schiller, whose plays he
premiered until Schiller's death in 1805. During this period Goethe
published his second novel, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship; the
verse epic Hermann and Dorothea, and, in 1808, the first part of his
most celebrated drama, Faust. His conversations and various shared
undertakings throughout the 1790s with Schiller, Johann Gottlieb
Fichte, Johann Gottfried Herder, Alexander von Humboldt, Wilhelm von
Humboldt, and August and Friedrich Schlegel have come to be
collectively termed Weimar Classicism.
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