GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von. – Poet, b. at Frankfurt on the Main 28 Aug. 1749, d. at Weimar 22 Mar. 1832. He owed his early education to the lively and loving intelligence of his mother (Frau Rath), who softened the severity of his father, a doctor of law and imperial councillor. He studied at Leipzig and then at Strasbourg, where he completed his legal studies and where he met Herder, who revealed to his inquiring spirit and thirst for knowledge a wider world in which, alongside the problems of nature and enthusiasm for art, room was found for the problems of history. Under the warmth of Herder’s revelatory words, for whom he felt unconditional admiration, the plans for his first true play, *Götz von Berlichingen*, took shape, just as circumstances in life led him to conceive *Werther*, whose success immediately crossed the borders of Germany. A fitting culmination of his early activity is provided by other dramatic works and a group of lyrics, now graceful, now stirred by strong passion, now impetuous.
In 1775 G. moved to Weimar, to the court of Prince Charles Augustus, where he attended to the affairs of the small state, was showered with honours, and lived for many years in affectionate familiarity with Herder, Schiller, and Wieland, until his death. His stay in Weimar was interrupted only in 1786, when the poet went to Italy, where, in two visits, he spent almost two years and where he poured his whole heart into our cities, sated his eyes with our natural and artistic beauties, and where his poetic genius matured.
The fruit of this sojourn was, years later, the *Italienische Reise* and the *Römische Elegien*, and, to a large extent, the completeness and new form of his major dramas, such as *Tasso* and *Iphigenie auf Tauris*, steeped in classical spirit, similar to the gentle idyll in epic lines, *Hermann und Dorothea*, one of the brightest gems in his poetic crown. Meanwhile, to the long series of lyrics, of exquisite craftsmanship, he added two novels, *Wilhelm Meister*, in two parts, rich in splendid pages and unforgettable scenes, and *Die Wahlverwandtschaften*, and the dramatic poem *Faust*, which is not only considered his masterpiece but one of the most elevated works that honour human thought.
The life and poetry of G. are marked by an inexhaustible yearning for the highest, which in itself contradicts the common and erroneous opinion of an Olympian G., untroubled above all the storms of life. Until his last years he retained, rather, the Faustian longing to ascend, in a ceaseless struggle of self-overcoming and self-perfection. Yet between the titanism of the young G. and the Faustianism of the mature man there is a difference, and it is that between a *Streben* driven by impulses and reactions and an activism founded on a new conception of life; two positions that are expressed in the damnation of Prometheus and the salvation of Faust. Similarly, while the young G. rushes to catastrophe in the drama of Margaret, the man, now wise, even thinks of a transcendent catharsis; just as the angry invective of Prometheus, hurled against Jupiter, is followed by the humble act of contrition of the sage who recognizes the impossibility of man’s measuring himself against the gods.
But what, for G., is the limit of human activity? To limit this activity, which gives possession of things, a priori is impossible. Creative activity stretches and dilates to infinity, and G. thus translates this absence of limit: “If I work tirelessly until the end, nature is obliged to assign me another form of existence where that activity is no longer sufficient for my spirit.” The inspirational idea of the *Faust* of the *Sturm und Drang* thus continues to unfold and dominate even in the second *Faust*, and from it coherently springs the faith in the transmigration of souls: “our monad,” the old man said to Eckermann, “must pass from activity to activity to preserve itself, and, assuming another nature, will not lack occupation in the eternal rounds of time.” Thus G., with his sleepless activity, places himself within the very flow of life. But whence does he draw this faith in the eternity of human existence, which is also his faith in the eternal? Genial intuitions had disclosed to him the mystery of profound laws of nature. Strong in such achievements, he affirms limitless possibilities of conquest for the spirit as well. He believes that, just as in nature the higher monad ascends by availing itself of the lower, so too man avails himself, to rise, of the natural forces he has come to know; and, just as nature, working tirelessly, is ultimately obliged to assign itself another form of life, so the same thing happens for the spirit in its limitless possibility of conquest, inasmuch as the evolution of the life of nature and that of the spirit are governed by the same laws.
But for G., above all, action is the source of knowledge and the foundation of living in a manner suited and proportioned to each individual. We cannot know ourselves unless and until we are active: here is another fundamental thought that will become for him a rule of life. And when he affirms that every action, directed toward knowledge, is in itself moral—that is, that between the individual who performs such activity and the community to which he belongs there exists and can exist no contradiction whatsoever—or again, that “the sum of individual activities, provided they are directed toward this same end, leads to a universal harmony,” it is clear that he intends to express thoughts of ideal content, which presuppose in human beings, always, a good nature and also the possibility, in each person, of progressive improvement, so long as he follows the impulse and voice of his own nature. This conviction is so deeply rooted in his thought that, with greater detachment from reality, it leads him to transfer his ideal into the metaphysical realm, to make it an immutable truth inherent in the very life of the cosmos.
“No essence,” he affirms, “can be reduced to nothing. No epoch, no power is capable of shattering the form that wills itself.” It is the destiny of Faust, whose yearning for knowledge transforms his life into a struggle and whose activity leads to salvation. G. thus completes the vision of the Romantics by giving a moral seal to their inexhaustible thirst for knowledge and for going ever further. Yet since Goethean thought also aims to encompass a moral value, one cannot help but shudder at the grim words of Mephistopheles, whispered into Faust’s ear as he is tempted to destroy, without pity, the peaceful dwelling and even the happy life of two innocent old people, Philemon and Baucis. And the dread that the devil’s word might be accepted as a norm for individual or communal life.
Certainly, not even when he came into direct contact with the Latin world, rejoicing in feeling “his eyes and mind cleared of the last northern mists,” did G. fully grasp the awareness that human creative activity can never equal that of nature, God’s creature, and of God Himself. Without accepting this dualistic conception, he continued to regard the divine as the supreme end of human becoming and thus pursued the mirage of transforming becoming into being—a mirage in which one may see the deepest tragedy of German thought.
On the other hand, his own intellectual development had led him to the knowledge of life’s most secret mysteries, and from this knowledge his spirit at last found satisfaction, contributing to the creation of that inner equilibrium and harmony which are precisely the most evident qualities of his personality: an equilibrium and harmony he ardently desired for all humanity. A desire for human brotherhood inspired his apostolate aimed at intimate and broad collaboration in the fields of science and culture; and the very dream of a Weltliteratur has its deepest roots in this feeling of human solidarity that hastens the peoples, breaking down all barriers that divide and so often make them enemies.