From My Life: Poetry and Truth, Parts 1-3

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Thomas P. Saine (Editor), Jeffrey L. Sammons (Editor)

Covering the period from his birth in 1749 to his departure for Weimar in 1775, in Poetry and Truth Goethe recalls his childhood and youth as the son of well-to-do, middle-class parents, his education and literary awakening, early loves, and the creation and reception of works from his Sturm und Drang years, such as The Sorrows of Young Werther, Goetz von Berlichingen, and Urfaust. Not merely an account of Goethe's own life, this book also explores the influences on his early years--friends, mentors, famous personages of his time, intellectual movements, cities, and historical events--to draw a lifelike picture of his time.

Genres: Classics, German Literature, Biography, 18th Century, Autobiography, Poetry, Literature

513 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1831

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Naia Pard]

Dacă citești și Cântecul și Hronicul vârstelor va fi greu să nu observi similitudinile pe care le au între ele, mai ales începutul și sfârșitul care par lucrate pe aceași matrice.
Goethe e cald în vorbă, chiar dacă mesajul e unul dur, nu știu cât de mult se păstrează în traducere(a lui Tudor Vianu) atmosfera originală intenționată în germana în care a fost scrisă, dar tonul se aseamănă cu cel din Suferințele tânărului Werther, iar asta fiind singura mea expertiză în materie, las judecata celor mai pricepuți.

[James Klagge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of a slog. I'm afraid I read Goethe mostly for the light it might throw on Wittgenstein, who read him.
I usually enjoy reading autobiographies, but this was not too enlightening. He has a lot to say about the places he went and the people he met, but they are all pretty obscure. The editor's footnotes are helpful, but mostly to remind us that they are all obscure.
Goethe does relate a number of incidents that were presumably formative in his development, but they are not all that insightful. Part Three ends with what seems to be him about to be married.
Some interesting passages include:
-Discussions of philosophy (pp. 171, 208, 364, 459)
-Discussions of poetry (pp. 69, 200, 331, 364)
-Biblical translation and interpretation (pp. 366, 377)
-Professors and college students (pp. 190. 192)
-Changing one's mind (p. 196).
It is impressive how wide-ranging his interests and abilities are.