A Short Introduction to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

by Frederic Henry Hedge

Pre-eminent among the poets of the modern world stands Goethe, chief of his own generation, challenging comparison with the greatest of all time. His literary activity embraces a span of nigh seventy years in a life of more than fourscore, beginning, significantly enough, with a poem on "Christ's Descent into Hell" (his earliest extant composition), and ending with Faust's--that is, Man's--ascent into heaven. The rank of a writer--his spiritual import to human kind--may be inferred from the number and worth of the writings of which he has furnished the topic and occasion. "When kings build," says Schiller, speaking of Kant's commentators, "the draymen have plenty to do." Dante and Shakspeare have created whole libraries through the interest inspired by their writings. The Goethe-literature, so-called,--though scarce fifty years have elapsed since the poet's death,--already numbers its hundreds of volumes.

47 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 19, 2014

About the author

Frederic Henry Hedge was a Unitarian minister, a Transcendentalist, and one of the foremost scholars of German literature in the United States.