I am always interested in those ‘On this day..’ bits in the newspaper, which turn the reader’s mind this way and that according to the date. Today is the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech (1963); it is the anniversary of the death of St Augustine (430) and of the birth of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1749.
Goethe has always been a bit of a hero of mine, perhaps the most extraordinary polymath who ever lived. Many people know him for his Faust (his own take on a traditional tale, with Faust being redeemed at the end and raised up to Heaven, unlike in Marlowe’s) which was the inspiration for works by Schumann, Gounod, Liszt, Wagner and Mahler. But his literary works included novels, plays, romantic poetry, eroticism and much else. He was the leader of the Sturm und Drang movement, but later went to Italy to clear his head (as so many people do) and collaborated with Schiller in the Weimar Classicist Movement.
But Goethe was also a lawyer, statesman (he was effectively Prime Minister of Weimar), soldier (he fought at the battle of Valmy and the siege of Mainz), natural scientist (his work on plant morphology influenced Darwin, he was the first to prove that the intermaxillary bone existed in all mammals, the mineral goethite is named after him and his Theory of Colour, translated into English, influenced Turner’s painting), and heroic lover, it now appears, of both sexes.
He died aged 82, probably exhausted.
Goethe has always been a bit of a hero of mine, perhaps the most extraordinary polymath who ever lived. Many people know him for his Faust (his own take on a traditional tale, with Faust being redeemed at the end and raised up to Heaven, unlike in Marlowe’s) which was the inspiration for works by Schumann, Gounod, Liszt, Wagner and Mahler. But his literary works included novels, plays, romantic poetry, eroticism and much else. He was the leader of the Sturm und Drang movement, but later went to Italy to clear his head (as so many people do) and collaborated with Schiller in the Weimar Classicist Movement.
But Goethe was also a lawyer, statesman (he was effectively Prime Minister of Weimar), soldier (he fought at the battle of Valmy and the siege of Mainz), natural scientist (his work on plant morphology influenced Darwin, he was the first to prove that the intermaxillary bone existed in all mammals, the mineral goethite is named after him and his Theory of Colour, translated into English, influenced Turner’s painting), and heroic lover, it now appears, of both sexes.
He died aged 82, probably exhausted.
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