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Goethe: His Life and Times
"The study of Goethe's life is a task that each generation must undertake anew." Thus writes Richard Friedenthal, author of this rich biography. Spanning eight momentous decades of war, revolution, and social upheaval, Goethe's life reveals itself as one of conflict and dynamic development, of inner contradiction and unceasing creativity.
As novelist, dramatist, and poet, Goethe produced epochal works of fiery romanticism, only later to dedicate himself to a classical ideal of purity and measure. His superb love lyrics immortalize a succession of ardent relationships; yet, in him too, was a strain of frigid egotism mingled with an Olympian detachment. The new introduction serves to place in perspective this outstanding work on the German master.
He was capable of tirelessly exploring the external world as physiologist, geologist, and botanist. He was equally capable of plunging to the depths of profound subjective analysis. A minister of state, a model of distinguished probity, Goethe nonetheless lived a life of passionate seeking, eternally questioning official values. Nothing perhaps better sums up this vast complexity than his lifelong work, Faust, the supreme dramatization of man's quest on earth.
As novelist, dramatist, and poet, Goethe produced epochal works of fiery romanticism, only later to dedicate himself to a classical ideal of purity and measure. His superb love lyrics immortalize a succession of ardent relationships; yet, in him too, was a strain of frigid egotism mingled with an Olympian detachment. The new introduction serves to place in perspective this outstanding work on the German master.
He was capable of tirelessly exploring the external world as physiologist, geologist, and botanist. He was equally capable of plunging to the depths of profound subjective analysis. A minister of state, a model of distinguished probity, Goethe nonetheless lived a life of passionate seeking, eternally questioning official values. Nothing perhaps better sums up this vast complexity than his lifelong work, Faust, the supreme dramatization of man's quest on earth.
564 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1963
About the author
Richard Friedenthal
54 books2 followersBiographer and author. Born in 1896, and worked in publishing before emigrating to Britain in 1938. Worked for the BBC and as London editor of Neue Rundschau.
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July 18, 2018“What! Have I reached the age of eighty merely to think the same things all the time? On the contrary I do my utmost to think something different, something new, everyday, so that I don't become boring. If one is not to stagnate, one must be constantly changing, regenerating oneself, growing young again” (p473)
Goethe's words at age eighty indicate one of the difficulties faced by his biographers. The grand old man of German letters had a long life whose tone was not consistency but reinvention.
Friedenthal was a professional biographer rather than a literary scholar, given that Goethe was in addition to being a novelist, poet, playwright was also engaged in scientific controversies and experimentation as well as spending long periods of his life in active government service in Weimar (interspersed with lengthy periods of less or inactive government service) this lack of specialisation on Friedenthal's part may be an advantage as much as a disadvantage.
In line with this there is an attempt to cover everything within the scope of a five hundred page book (it seems to have shrunk in translation - a painful process that occurs sometimes, I haver the feeling that money is involved) and unsurprisingly this attempt is as much a failure as it is a success. A success in that Friedenthal produced a book that reads as a comprehensive life, a failure in that coverage is sketchy. Ongoing relationships have to be passed over rapidly, literary works which were returned to, a life which was consciously reinterpreted and presented to the public (notably in Dichtung und Wahrheit which had plenty of poetry but not much truth) can only be dealt with in passing before moving on to the next topic, rather like cantering through a museum or art gallery while a guide jogs ahead shouting out that we have just passed something really worth stopping and looking at.
The chronological approach doesn't suit the reinvention and the duration of his interests, but Friendenthal resists the possibility of moving over to thematic chapters. Overall I find Sigrid Damm's treatment in [Goethes Letzte Reise], which focuses in on just a few days towards the close of Goethe's life, moving out from those few days to discuss other topics like the Marienbad Elegies or his relationship with his son August, all the more impressive and pleasing after completing Friedenthal's traditional attempt at a universal account of a complex life.
However there is still plenty to enjoy in this book in which one sees Goethe for ever in the process of becoming. It turns out that Goethe never paid his long term secretary Eckermann, who instead had to live off occasional gifts of money and by borrowing money from his fiancée (not that she had much money herself), nevertheless, he managed to build up a substantial collection of (very much alive) birds of prey which he kept in his lodging house .
Naturally Goethe in the course of his life was in contact with writers across Europe, outliving his own literary influence when he shifted away from Romanticism towards Classicism . The ongoing reception of his work created networks of inspiration - a partial translation of Faust (the complete work was only to appear in print after Goethe's death) was one of the works read aloud to Shelley and co in 1814 before they decided to write their own horror stories, including Frankenstein. Jumping genres, Goethe's Faust, reinvented in a mixed prose and poetry translation into French also went on to inspire Berlioz who adapted the work into his Damnation of Faust.
Goethe towards the end of his life said that “My work is that of a composite being, and it bears the name Goethe” (p524) and Friedenthal acknowledges the implications of this for the biographer in the postscript to his book: “It is this rich, full, varied life that is the subject of this book. Its description is a task that each generation must undertake anew. In his essay Shakespeare und kein Ende, Goethe points out that 'apparently nothing of value remains any longer to be said – and yet it is the characteristic of a great mind always once more to stimulate the mind'” (p.530).
Goethe's words at age eighty indicate one of the difficulties faced by his biographers. The grand old man of German letters had a long life whose tone was not consistency but reinvention.
Friedenthal was a professional biographer rather than a literary scholar, given that Goethe was in addition to being a novelist, poet, playwright was also engaged in scientific controversies and experimentation as well as spending long periods of his life in active government service in Weimar (interspersed with lengthy periods of less or inactive government service) this lack of specialisation on Friedenthal's part may be an advantage as much as a disadvantage.
In line with this there is an attempt to cover everything within the scope of a five hundred page book (it seems to have shrunk in translation - a painful process that occurs sometimes, I haver the feeling that money is involved) and unsurprisingly this attempt is as much a failure as it is a success. A success in that Friedenthal produced a book that reads as a comprehensive life, a failure in that coverage is sketchy. Ongoing relationships have to be passed over rapidly, literary works which were returned to, a life which was consciously reinterpreted and presented to the public (notably in Dichtung und Wahrheit which had plenty of poetry but not much truth) can only be dealt with in passing before moving on to the next topic, rather like cantering through a museum or art gallery while a guide jogs ahead shouting out that we have just passed something really worth stopping and looking at.
The chronological approach doesn't suit the reinvention and the duration of his interests, but Friendenthal resists the possibility of moving over to thematic chapters. Overall I find Sigrid Damm's treatment in [Goethes Letzte Reise], which focuses in on just a few days towards the close of Goethe's life, moving out from those few days to discuss other topics like the Marienbad Elegies or his relationship with his son August, all the more impressive and pleasing after completing Friedenthal's traditional attempt at a universal account of a complex life.
However there is still plenty to enjoy in this book in which one sees Goethe for ever in the process of becoming. It turns out that Goethe never paid his long term secretary Eckermann, who instead had to live off occasional gifts of money and by borrowing money from his fiancée (not that she had much money herself), nevertheless, he managed to build up a substantial collection of (very much alive) birds of prey which he kept in his lodging house .
Naturally Goethe in the course of his life was in contact with writers across Europe, outliving his own literary influence when he shifted away from Romanticism towards Classicism . The ongoing reception of his work created networks of inspiration - a partial translation of Faust (the complete work was only to appear in print after Goethe's death) was one of the works read aloud to Shelley and co in 1814 before they decided to write their own horror stories, including Frankenstein. Jumping genres, Goethe's Faust, reinvented in a mixed prose and poetry translation into French also went on to inspire Berlioz who adapted the work into his Damnation of Faust.
Goethe towards the end of his life said that “My work is that of a composite being, and it bears the name Goethe” (p524) and Friedenthal acknowledges the implications of this for the biographer in the postscript to his book: “It is this rich, full, varied life that is the subject of this book. Its description is a task that each generation must undertake anew. In his essay Shakespeare und kein Ende, Goethe points out that 'apparently nothing of value remains any longer to be said – and yet it is the characteristic of a great mind always once more to stimulate the mind'” (p.530).
October 26, 2019
Richard Friedenthal’s “Goethe: His Life and Times” is an unalloyed joy for any reader like me who has nine Goethe titles in his GR database. Friedenthal barely Goethe’s poetry. To enjoy this work one needs to be familiar with Goethe’s leading novels (“Werther”, “Wilhelm Meister 1”, “Wilhelm Meister 2”) and drama (“Faust 1”, “Faust 2”, “Tasso”, “Iphigenia in Tauris”).
Although, Friedenthal makes it very clear that he is a biographer not as a critic, he still managed to answer all the questions that I had about the works of Goethe that I read. In some cases (e.g. “Iphigenia”) Friedenthal convinced me that I had misunderstood the work. In other cases, his views concurred with mine. In both situations, I felt that I had come away with a better understanding of the various works.
Friedenthal presents a very unflattering portrait of Goethe the man. Goethe spent his entire life in flirtations and was consistently insincere. He was an unfaithful lover and a dreadful father. He took advantage of his patrons and abused his secretaries. He was delusional believing that his “Zur Farbenlehre” (Theory of Colours) had overthrown Newton’s optics and came to regard Newton as a personal enemy.
Friedenthal is perhaps at his best in describing the lifestyles of the artists and aristocrats that lived in the small German principalities that existed at the time of French Revolution and which survive until Bismarck’s unification of Germany. Goethe was the personal favorite of Karl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. A skilful hanger-on, Goethe occupied a serious of highly paid posts in the administration of Karl August with-out ever doing much work or undertaking any project of significance. Friedenthal’s descriptions of the benign incompetence with which Karl August military waged war and his courtiers administered his duchy
Goethe indeed enjoyed to the full Talleyrand’s “sweetness of life” that existed before the revolution. He had no understanding of the conditions of the urban masses that overthrew the Ancien Régime and instinctively disliked them. He firmly believed that human progress would come from artists and scientists working under aristocratic patronage. He saw nothing positive coming from either the middle classes. He died less than two years after the July Revolution of 1830 that overthrew the Restoration government of Charles X in dreadful fear that the demise of the old aristocratic order was imminent.
In the final chapter of Friedenthal’s book he answered the biggest question that I had had about Goethe at the beginning. I had first met Goethe through the lieder of Schubert and had read nine novels and plays hoping to find the same Goethe but never succeeding. In Friedenthal’s view, the Goethe in Schubert’s compositions was a creation of Schubert and that Goethe would have disliked Schubert’s lieder for being “far too difficult and full-bodied” (p 517). On a personal note, it is time for me to stop reading Goethe and to simply play my CDs.
Although, Friedenthal makes it very clear that he is a biographer not as a critic, he still managed to answer all the questions that I had about the works of Goethe that I read. In some cases (e.g. “Iphigenia”) Friedenthal convinced me that I had misunderstood the work. In other cases, his views concurred with mine. In both situations, I felt that I had come away with a better understanding of the various works.
Friedenthal presents a very unflattering portrait of Goethe the man. Goethe spent his entire life in flirtations and was consistently insincere. He was an unfaithful lover and a dreadful father. He took advantage of his patrons and abused his secretaries. He was delusional believing that his “Zur Farbenlehre” (Theory of Colours) had overthrown Newton’s optics and came to regard Newton as a personal enemy.
Friedenthal is perhaps at his best in describing the lifestyles of the artists and aristocrats that lived in the small German principalities that existed at the time of French Revolution and which survive until Bismarck’s unification of Germany. Goethe was the personal favorite of Karl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. A skilful hanger-on, Goethe occupied a serious of highly paid posts in the administration of Karl August with-out ever doing much work or undertaking any project of significance. Friedenthal’s descriptions of the benign incompetence with which Karl August military waged war and his courtiers administered his duchy
Goethe indeed enjoyed to the full Talleyrand’s “sweetness of life” that existed before the revolution. He had no understanding of the conditions of the urban masses that overthrew the Ancien Régime and instinctively disliked them. He firmly believed that human progress would come from artists and scientists working under aristocratic patronage. He saw nothing positive coming from either the middle classes. He died less than two years after the July Revolution of 1830 that overthrew the Restoration government of Charles X in dreadful fear that the demise of the old aristocratic order was imminent.
In the final chapter of Friedenthal’s book he answered the biggest question that I had had about Goethe at the beginning. I had first met Goethe through the lieder of Schubert and had read nine novels and plays hoping to find the same Goethe but never succeeding. In Friedenthal’s view, the Goethe in Schubert’s compositions was a creation of Schubert and that Goethe would have disliked Schubert’s lieder for being “far too difficult and full-bodied” (p 517). On a personal note, it is time for me to stop reading Goethe and to simply play my CDs.
April 19, 2018
Auch 50 Jahre nach ihrem Erscheinen ist die Goethe Biographie von Richard Friedenthal immer noch ein beliebtes Standardwerk - zu Recht! Das liegt nicht so sehr an (damals) neuen Erkenntnissen, sondern vielmehr daran, dass Friedenthal angenehm und einfühlsam schreibt und Bemüht ist, sich nicht zu sehr in philologischen Details zu verlieren, sondern vielmehr den zeithistorischen und gesellschaftlichen Kontext zu beleuchten. So lag für mich der wirkliche Mehrwert gerade nicht im biographischen, sondern in der Wertung und Interpretation. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist dieses Werk insbesondere für den Goethekenner geeignet. Wer sich nicht dazu zählt sollte ggf. ein anderes Werk wählen, da der Autor die Kenntnis aller wesentlichen Werke voraussetzt und sich nicht mit Inhaltsangaben aufhält und die bekannteren Figuren der "Goethezeit" nicht vorstellt, sondern als bekannt voraussetzt. Auch der massive Umfang dieses Werkes (in meiner Ausgabe rund 750 Seiten in mikroskopisch kleiner Schrift - in einer angenehmer zu lesenden Ausgabe sicherlich das doppelte) sollte nicht schrecken, da das Werk durchgehen interessant ist und Interesse am weiteren Lesen weckt.
February 20, 2019
dull as far as bios go but sufficient
January 29, 2021
Dnf at around 100 pages in. Just kind of dull, which surprised me. Spends too much time on each new place or transition & the language really didn't have any flow, either. The information seems accurate enough, but I'd recommend looking elsewhere for a more readable work about Goethe.
October 21, 2018
Solid enough biography at times, but hampered by parts bafflingly translated from the original.
June 9, 2016
Friedenthal does a solid job of explaining the impact Goethe had on 19th century culture and beyond. His research includes numerous quotes from Goethe’s diaries and other sources, showing his diverse interests in literature, art, science, government, and human affairs.
I particularly enjoyed how much of the book put Goethe’s movements in the context of his time. He lived during eight decades of wars in Europe, revolutions, and much social upheaval. In spite of all the conflict and ever-changing social situations, Goethe remained ever-creative.
Although Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) became a literary celebrity by the age of 25, he also contributed major scientific works to the world. This aspect of his life was of particular interest to me and it formed the basis of one of my “innovator of the month” write-ups included in my monthly newsletter, “A World Perspective.”
In 1788, Goethe published a short, colorfully illustrated book, The Metamorphosis of Plants. He was inspired by the diversity of flora he found on a journey to Italy and searched to find a unity of form in diverse structures. He came to see in the leaf the essence of the plant’s metamorphosis—“the true Proteus who can hide or reveal himself in all vegetal forms”—encompassing its root, stem leaves, the calyx and corolla, and pistil and stamens.
He followed up on this with a foreshadowing of the process of evolution, when he wrote in 1831, in the Story of My Botanical Studies: “The ever-changing display of plant forms, which I have followed for so many years . . . have been given . . . a felicitous mobility and plasticity that allows them to grow and adapt themselves to many different conditions in many different places.”
Goethe contributed to the field of morphology (later called homology). Referred to as “analogie” by botanist Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, homology was used by investigators such as Charles Darwin, in support of his ideas of common descent and the laws of variation in species. Goethe, by studying an elephant’s skull, led him to discover the human intermaxillary bone in 1784, which other researchers, using different methods, had identified several years earlier. However, Goethe was the first to prove its peculiarity to all mammals. The elephant's skull that led him to this discovery, now named the “Goethe Elephant,” is displayed at the Ottoneum in Kassel, Germany.
As Goethe’s biographer, Richard Friedenthal, wrote, “The old theological picture of the world was dethroned and man given his place within the framework of natural evolution, a step in which Goethe, as a natural scientist, played a part.” In terms of the bigger picture for the emerging field of science, Friedenthal adds, “New branches of science were discovered, leading to ever-increasing intensity of specialization and refinement, while Goethe, the last of the old order, still attempted to combine in his own person the whole realm of science and research.”
Along those lines, Goethe investigated color theory. In 1810, he published Theory of Colours, where he characterized color as being produced through a turbid medium by the interplay of light and darkness. Goethe’s theory was adopted by the art world, most notably J.M.W. Turner, once his Theory of Colours was translated into English in 1840. He was the first investigator to systematically study the physiological effects of color. Goethe’s observations on the effect of opposed colors led him to a symmetric arrangement of his color wheel. Friedenthal comments, “[Goethe’s] qualities of doubting and questioning, his tendency to regard darkness as the necessary counterpart to light, all the antithesis out of which the synthesis that is Goethe is composed.”
This universal man, one of the last in Western civilization, popularized the Goethe barometer, based on a principle established by Torricelli. He was interested in meteorology and as such studied barometric pressure. He argued that barometric levels vary with altitude, but also across different geographic zones.
He studied geology and at the time of his death, he possessed Europe’s largest private collection of minerals. Goethe had collected 17,800 rock samples.
Goethe's influence was dramatic because he understood that there was an increasing focus on sense, the indescribable, and the emotional in the 18th century. He wrote, “There is nothing worse than imagination without taste.” He was a pioneer in blending artistry with scientific research. And religion came with this duality of art and science. Goethe said, “He who possesses science and art has religion as well – he who does not possess these two, let him have religion.”
His comprehensive literary pursuits inspired the engineering community too. Nikola Tesla, a Serbian electrical engineer loved Goethe’s poem, Faust. While reciting a certain verse one day, Tesla experienced a “Eureka!” moment that led to the idea of rotating magnetic fields and shortly thereafter, alternating current, commonly referred to as AC.
Goethe’s impact lives on.
I particularly enjoyed how much of the book put Goethe’s movements in the context of his time. He lived during eight decades of wars in Europe, revolutions, and much social upheaval. In spite of all the conflict and ever-changing social situations, Goethe remained ever-creative.
Although Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) became a literary celebrity by the age of 25, he also contributed major scientific works to the world. This aspect of his life was of particular interest to me and it formed the basis of one of my “innovator of the month” write-ups included in my monthly newsletter, “A World Perspective.”
In 1788, Goethe published a short, colorfully illustrated book, The Metamorphosis of Plants. He was inspired by the diversity of flora he found on a journey to Italy and searched to find a unity of form in diverse structures. He came to see in the leaf the essence of the plant’s metamorphosis—“the true Proteus who can hide or reveal himself in all vegetal forms”—encompassing its root, stem leaves, the calyx and corolla, and pistil and stamens.
He followed up on this with a foreshadowing of the process of evolution, when he wrote in 1831, in the Story of My Botanical Studies: “The ever-changing display of plant forms, which I have followed for so many years . . . have been given . . . a felicitous mobility and plasticity that allows them to grow and adapt themselves to many different conditions in many different places.”
Goethe contributed to the field of morphology (later called homology). Referred to as “analogie” by botanist Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, homology was used by investigators such as Charles Darwin, in support of his ideas of common descent and the laws of variation in species. Goethe, by studying an elephant’s skull, led him to discover the human intermaxillary bone in 1784, which other researchers, using different methods, had identified several years earlier. However, Goethe was the first to prove its peculiarity to all mammals. The elephant's skull that led him to this discovery, now named the “Goethe Elephant,” is displayed at the Ottoneum in Kassel, Germany.
As Goethe’s biographer, Richard Friedenthal, wrote, “The old theological picture of the world was dethroned and man given his place within the framework of natural evolution, a step in which Goethe, as a natural scientist, played a part.” In terms of the bigger picture for the emerging field of science, Friedenthal adds, “New branches of science were discovered, leading to ever-increasing intensity of specialization and refinement, while Goethe, the last of the old order, still attempted to combine in his own person the whole realm of science and research.”
Along those lines, Goethe investigated color theory. In 1810, he published Theory of Colours, where he characterized color as being produced through a turbid medium by the interplay of light and darkness. Goethe’s theory was adopted by the art world, most notably J.M.W. Turner, once his Theory of Colours was translated into English in 1840. He was the first investigator to systematically study the physiological effects of color. Goethe’s observations on the effect of opposed colors led him to a symmetric arrangement of his color wheel. Friedenthal comments, “[Goethe’s] qualities of doubting and questioning, his tendency to regard darkness as the necessary counterpart to light, all the antithesis out of which the synthesis that is Goethe is composed.”
This universal man, one of the last in Western civilization, popularized the Goethe barometer, based on a principle established by Torricelli. He was interested in meteorology and as such studied barometric pressure. He argued that barometric levels vary with altitude, but also across different geographic zones.
He studied geology and at the time of his death, he possessed Europe’s largest private collection of minerals. Goethe had collected 17,800 rock samples.
Goethe's influence was dramatic because he understood that there was an increasing focus on sense, the indescribable, and the emotional in the 18th century. He wrote, “There is nothing worse than imagination without taste.” He was a pioneer in blending artistry with scientific research. And religion came with this duality of art and science. Goethe said, “He who possesses science and art has religion as well – he who does not possess these two, let him have religion.”
His comprehensive literary pursuits inspired the engineering community too. Nikola Tesla, a Serbian electrical engineer loved Goethe’s poem, Faust. While reciting a certain verse one day, Tesla experienced a “Eureka!” moment that led to the idea of rotating magnetic fields and shortly thereafter, alternating current, commonly referred to as AC.
Goethe’s impact lives on.
January 8, 2011
Interesting and highly accurate description of a mastermind of german literature.
December 30, 2016
I can't compare this to other Goethe biographies, but I got a lot out of this. Having learned more about Goethe's life I am looking forward to rereading more of his works, as well as reading some that I missed before with more insight in 2017
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