Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer whose works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, humanism, and science. Goethe was a key figure in German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Goethe is the inventor of the concept of “world literature,” having taken great interest in the literatures of England, France, Italy, classical Greece, Persia, and Arabic literature. His influence on German philosophy is unparalleled and his influence has spread across Europe. Many of his works were a primary source of inspiration in music, drama, and poetry. Goethe is considered one of the most important thinkers in the Western culture and generally recognized as the most important writer in the German language.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German pronunciation: 28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a Germanwriter, artist, and politician. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and versedramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, and over 10,000 letters written by him are extant, as are nearly 3,000 drawings.
A literary celebrity by the age of 25, Goethe was ennobled by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, Carl August in 1782 after first taking up residence there in November of 1775 following the success of his first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther. He was an early participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement, named for a play by his childhood friend Friedrich Maximilian Klinger. During his first ten years in Weimar, Goethe served as a member of the Duke's privy council, sat on the war and highway commissions, oversaw the reopening of silver mines in nearby Ilmenau, and implemented a series of administrative reforms at the University of Jena. He also contributed to the planning of Weimar's botanical park and the rebuilding of its Ducal Palace, which in 1998 were together designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.[2]
After returning from a tour of Italy in 1788, Goethe published his first major work of a scientific nature, the Metamorphosis of Plants. In 1791 he was charged with managing the theatre at Weimar, and in 1794 he began a friendship with the dramatist, historian, and philosopherFriedrich Schiller, whose plays he premiered until Schiller's death in 1805. During this period Goethe published his second novel, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, the verse epic Hermann and Dorothea, and, in 1808, the first part of his most celebrated drama, Faust. His conversations and various common undertakings throughout the 1790s with Schiller, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Johann Gottfried Herder, Alexander von Humboldt, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and August and Friedrich Schlegel have, in later years, been collectively termed Weimar Classicism.
Arthur Schopenhauer cited Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship as one of the four greatest novels ever written[citation needed] and Ralph Waldo Emerson selected Goethe, along with Plato, Napoleon, and William Shakespeare, as one of six "representative men" in his work of the same name. Goethe's comments and observations form the basis of several biographical works, most notably Johann Peter Eckermann'sConversations with Goethe. There are frequent references to Goethe's various sayings and maxims throughout the course of Friedrich Nietzsche's work and there are numerous allusions to Goethe in the novels of Hermann Hesse and Thomas Mann. Goethe's poems were set to music throughout the nineteenth century by a number of composers, including Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Hugo Wolf, and Gustav Mahler.

Biography

Early life

Goethe's father, Johann Caspar Goethe (Frankfurt am Main, Hessen, 29 July 1710 – Frankfurt, 25 May 1782), lived with his family in a large house in Frankfurt, then an Imperial Free City of the Holy Roman Empire. Though he had studied law in Leipzig and had been appointed Imperial Councillor, he was not involved in the city's official affairs.[3] 38-year-old Johann Caspar married Goethe's mother, Catharina Elisabeth Goethe, the daughter of the Schultheiß (mayor) of Frankfurt Johann Wolfgang Textor (Frankfurt, 11 December 1693 – Frankfurt, 6 February 1771) and wife Anna Margaretha Lindheimer (Wetzlar, 23 July 1711 – Frankfurt, 18 April 1783, a descendant of Lucas Cranach the Elder and Henry III, Landgrave of Hesse-Marburg; married at Wetzlar, 2 February 1726), when she was 17 at Frankfurt on 20 August 1748.
All their children, except for Goethe and his sister, Cornelia Friederike Christiana, who was born in 1750, died at early ages.
The father and private tutors gave Goethe lessons in all the common subjects of their time, especially languages (Latin, Greek, French, Italian, English and Hebrew). Goethe also received lessons in dancing, riding and fencing. Johann Caspar, feeling frustrated in his own ambitions, was determined that his children should have all those advantages that he had not.[3]
Goethe had a persistent dislike of the Roman Catholic Church, characterizing its history as a "hotchpotch of fallacy and violence" (Mischmasch von Irrtum und Gewalt).[citation needed] His great passion was drawing. Goethe quickly became interested in literature; Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock and Homer were among his early favourites. He had a lively devotion to theatre as well and was greatly fascinated by puppet shows that were annually arranged in his home; a familiar theme in Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship.
He also took great pleasure in reading from the great works about history and religion. He writes about this period:
I had from childhood the singular habit of always learning by heart the beginnings of books, and the divisions of a work, first of the five books of Moses, and then of the 'Aeneid' and Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'. . . If an ever busy imagination, of which that tale may bear witness, led me hither and thither, if the medley of fable and history, mythology and religion, threatened to bewilder me, I readily fled to those oriental regions, plunged into the first books of Moses, and there, amid the scattered shepherd tribes, found myself at once in the greatest solitude and the greatest society.[4]
Early years in Weimar

In 1775, Goethe was invited, on the strength of his fame as the author of The Sorrows of Young Werther, to the court of Carl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, who would become Grand Duke in 1815. (The Duke at the time was 18 years of age, to Goethe's 26.) Goethe thus went to live in Weimar, where he remained for the rest of his life and where, over the course of many years, he held a succession of offices, becoming the Duke's chief adviser.
In 1776, Goethe formed a close relationship to Charlotte von Stein, an older, married woman. The intimate bond with Frau von Stein lasted for ten years, after which Goethe abruptly left for Italy without giving his companion any notice. She was emotionally distraught at the time, but they were eventually reconciled.[15]
Goethe, aside from official duties, was also a friend and confidant to the Duke, and participated fully in the activities of the court. For Goethe, his first ten years at Weimar could well be described as a garnering of a degree and range of experience which perhaps could be achieved in no other way. Goethe was ennobled in 1782 (this being indicated by the "von" in his name).

Wolfgang Goethe was educated at home. In 1759 the family life was disturbed by French occupation and billeting, but the boy derived artistic stimulus and understanding from painters working for the French commander, who lived in the Goethes' house. In 1762 Goethe was sent to Leipzig University, where he neglected his studies, acquired fashionable manners, educated his taste in painting, fell in love (with Käthchen Schönkopf), and learned to write elegant erotic poetry. The short pastoral play Die Laune des Verliebten also dates from this time. Goethe fell seriously ill in 1768 and had to return to Frankfurt, where for a time his life was despaired of. During this illness he was influenced by a devout friend of his mother's, Susanna von Klettenberg, who is recalled in Bk. 6 of Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre; he also made alchemical studies which were to have a bearing on Faust. The play Die Mitschuldigen, which in spirit belongs to the Leipzig years, was written down in this period of recuperation and reflection in Frankfurt.

نظرة في حياته

في عام 1759 وعندما كان جوته في العاشرة من عمره قام الفرنسيون باحتلال مدينة فرانكفورت، وقام أحد الضباط الفرنسيون باحتلال منزل عائلة جوته، مما ترك اثر بالغ في نفسيته، وفي سن السادسة عشر قام والده بإلحاقه بكلية الحقوق جامعة "ليبسك"، ولم تكن ميول جوته تتوافق كثيراً مع دراسة الحقوق فلم يحقق بها الكثير من النجاح فقد كان الأدب هو عشقه الأول، وعلى الرغم من ذلك أكمل دراسته بها.
وأثناء فترة دراسته بجامعة "ليبسك" جاءت أولى قصص الحب في حياة جوته فأحب فتاه عرفت باسم آنا كاترين شونكويف كانت ابنة رجل يمتلك حانة كان جوته يتردد عليها، وهناك رآها وهام بها حباً حتى انه ذكرها في العديد من قصائده الأدبية في هذه الفترة مطلقاً عليها اسم "آنيت"، ولكن لم تستمر قصة الحب هذه كثيراً فما كادت الفتاة تقابل حبه بحب مثله حتى أنصرف عنها.
وفي جامعة "ليبسك" نظم جوته العديد من القصائد والروايات الأدبية من أهمها المأساة الموسومة "بمزاج المحبين" والتي قام فيها بتوضيح الأسباب التي جعلته يترك محبوبته الأولى، ومأساة " الشركاء في الجريمة" والتي عرض فيها العادات السيئة التي كانت منتشرة في الأسر في ذلك الوقت بمدينة "ليبسك" وغيرها من باقي المدن الألمانية، وفي عام 1767م قام بنشر مجموعة من أشعاره بعنوان"آنيت" .
في عام 1768م عاد جوته إلى فرانكفورت تاركاً جامعة "ليبسك" قبل أن يتم دراسته بها نظراً لمحنة مرضية مر بها، حيث أصيب بنزيف حاد أضعفه نظراً لقيامه ببذل مجهود شاق في الدراسة، فلزم فراش المرض لفترة كبيرة، وأثناء فترة مرضه هذه قام بالإطلاع على كتب الفلسفة والسحر والتنجيم والكيمياء، وكان لإحدى صديقات والدته أثر كبير في نفسه فقد كانت سيدة متدينة، وجهت تفكير جوته نحو الروحانيات، فأصبح جوته بعد فترة من المتصوفين.

بعد أن أسترد جوته صحته قام والده بإرساله إلى جامعة "ستراسبورج" من أجل إكمال تعليمه في الحقوق، وعلى الرغم من أن مدينة ستراسبورج كانت تحت السيطرة الفرنسية إلا أنها كانت تتمتع بالصبغة الألمانية والتي تشبعت بها روح جوتة وانعكست على أعماله بعد ذلك.
كانت كل مرحلة في حياة جوته لها أثارها وإنجازاتها ففي أثناء تواجده في ستراسبورج قام بجمع المادة اللازمة لكتابة روايته "جوتس فون برليخنجن" هذه الرواية التي حققت الكثير من الضجة عند ظهورها نظراً لكونها خرجت عن الروح السائدة عند الأدباء في هذه الفترة والتي كان الأدب الفرنسي مسيطراً عليها، واعتبرت دائرة المعارف البريطانية رواية جوته بمثابة فتح جديد في عالم الأدب الألماني، وعلى الرغم من هذا رأي عدد من النقاد أن هذه الرواية لم ترتقي إلى مستوى روايات جوته الأخرى مثل "فاوست" و"ولهلم مايستر" وغيرها وان أهميتها تأتي من كونها قد أدخلت فكر وأسلوب جديد على الأدب الألماني السائد في هذه الفترة فقط.
حصل جوته على إجازته في القانون عام 1771م، وعاد مرة أخرى إلى مسقط رأسه ليمارس مهنة المحاماة، وبعد ذلك انتقل إلي "فتزلار" وهي مقر المحاكم الإمبراطورية ومحكمة الاستئناف العليا، وذلك حتى يقوم بالتمرن على أعمال المحاماة، وأثناء ذلك تعرف جوته على الكثير القضاة ورجال السلطة، وتوطدت صلته بهم.