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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Followers (7,142)

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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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s books

Average rating: 3.75 · 379,009 ratings · 23,317 reviews · 13,406 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Sorrows of Young Werther 3.70 avg rating — 159,826 ratings — published 1774 — 585 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 3.83 avg rating — 87,412 ratings — published 1808 — 847 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 3.89 avg rating — 52,148 ratings — published 1808 — 14 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 3.68 avg rating — 14,134 ratings — published 1809 — 538 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 — 8,981 ratings — published 1832 — 361 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 3.17 avg rating — 8,946 ratings — published 1786 — 253 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 — 3,555 ratings — published 1795 — 356 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 — 2,997 ratings — 22 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, Eugène Delacroix (Illustrator), A. Kline (Translator) 3.81 avg rating — 2,626 ratings — published 1832 — 646 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) 3.81 avg rating — 2,120 ratings — published 1816 — 303 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

Goethe’s Faust (8 books)
by

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

3.84 avg rating — 153,532 ratings

Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten (1 book)
by

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,

Leif Ludwig Albertsen (Herausgeber)

3.53 avg rating — 1,015 ratings

Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (3 books)
by

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

3.46 avg rating — 169 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

4416 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

3965 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

2505 likes

See all Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's quotes »

Polls

What book would you like to read in August 2025?

Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham
(684 pages)

28 votes, 45.2%

The Laws, by Connie PalmenConnie Palmen
(208 pages)

19 votes, 30.6%

Elective Affinities, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
(272 pages)

15 votes, 24.2%

62 total votes

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