Rarely in any nation's history has posterity been bestowing upon a (non-royal) individual the honor of naming an era after him. The designation "The Age of Goethe" (1770-1832) is such an exception. For during that time German culture reached a golden age with the genius of Goethe at its center, interpreter of the universe and the individual, torn between reason and passion, knowledge and belief. In the field of literature the movements of Storm and Stress (Sturm und Drang), Classicism (Klassik), and Romanticism (Romantik) unfolded with brilliant fellow writers and poets, folklorists and philologists such as Lessing, Herder, Wieland, Schiller, Kleist, the Schlegel Bros., Hölderlin, Novalis, Tieck, Brentano, Eichendorf, Hoffmann, and the Grimm Bros. - but only Goethe, forever developing, spanned all three of these movements. And there was interaction with the philosophers of German Idealism: Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. Simultaneously, German music reached its new heights of "Klassik" with Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, followed by the "Romantiker" Schubert, Weber, Mendelssohn, and Schumann.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe was born on 28 Aug. 1749 into a patrician family in Frankfurt/Main. His education there embraced many areas and foreign languages. He studied law at Leipzig and later in Strassburg, where under J.G. Herder's influence he discovered the beauty of Gothic architecture, folk poetry, Homer and Shakespeare. Falling in love with Friederike Brion gave us some of the most beautiful love poems.
But farewell it was as he took up his legal carrier in Frankfurt and Wetzlar, only to fall in love again, this time with Charlotte Buff - who had already been spoken for. The poetic transfiguration of this love episode, the epistolary novel "Young Werther's Sorrows" was an immediate international success. Goethe's own dissolved engagement is mirrored in "Lili Lieder" and the play "Stella." Numerous and powerful "Sturm und Drang" poems fill the period before he accepted young Prince Carl August's invitation to the court at Weimar in 1775. Goethe was not only the friend and quasi educator of the prince, but assumed administrative responsibilities for the Duchy of Sachsen-Weimar as well, from inspecting its mines to presiding over the finance chambers.
His growing interest in the natural sciences led to an essay on "Granite" and the discovery of the intermaxillary bone.
By 1786 his overextension and the inner conflict from a long love affair with Charlotte von Stein, the wife of the duke's chief equerry, made Italy the perfect place for healing and exploring new horizons. Here he embraced classical antiquity with the ideals of "noble simplicity and quiet grandeur," quite a leap from his "Sturm und Drang" years. He returned to Weimar with the dramas of "Iphigenie" and "Egmont," and the unfinished "Tasso" and "Faust." Limiting his administrative roles to the arts and sciences, and the creation of a national theater, he spent time on optics and the "Theory of Colors." But a new friendship with the poet, dramatist and historian Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) rekindled his literary output, such as the completion of "Faust I," the incomparable quintessence of western man. They cooperated in their respective journals, produced Germany's finest ballads, and challenged each other to ever greater heights. The monumental "Faust II" did not appear until the year of Goethe's death.
Goethe's poetry, his dramas, novels, essays, art criticism and autobiographical volumes have found the admiration of generations. This is corroborated by the Goethe bibliography which is larger than that of any other writer. Among the translators of Goethe into English we find names such as Thomas and Jane Carlyle, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, Percy Shelley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edward McDowell, J.F.L Raschen, and Edwin H. Zeydel, my unforgettable teacher. By 1912, there existed 2,660 musical compositions for works by Goethe. Franz Schubert excelled with his Goethe Lieder, so did Schumann, Mendelssohn, Hugo Wolf and Richard Strauss and many others. Beethoven composed the opera "Egmont," Charles Gounod the popular "Margaretha," Hector Berlioz the dramatic legend "La Damnation de Faust," Franz Liszt wrote four "Mephisto Waltzes," and Paul Dukas an orchestral scherzo, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."
Goethe's legacy will continue to be with us: "Noble let man be / Helpful and good." "Who so with fervent will strives on / At last can find redemption." "What your forebears have bequeathed upon you / Earn it anew to make it truly your own."
Though he never came to America in person, he admired the new Republic:
| To the United States America, you're better off Than our continent that's old. At tumbled-down castles you scoff, You lack basalt, I'm told. Within, nothing daunts you In times rife with life, No memory haunts you Nor vain, idle strife. |
Den Vereinigten Staaten Amerika, du hast es besser Als unser Kontinent, das alte, Hast keine verfallene Schloesser Und keine Basalte. Dich stoert nicht im Innern Zu lebendiger Zeit Unnuetzes Erinnern Und vergeblicher Streit. |
Eberhard Reichmann
Max Kade German-American Center
Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ. Indianapolis
https://liberalarts.iupui.edu/maxkade/ /
Weimar is going all out for the celebration of the 250th birthday of its most famous citizen, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, born in Frankfurt/Main, 28 Aug. 1749. The Thüringer town of some 60,000, dating back to 945 A.D., was designated "Europe's City of Culture 1999". Its normal stream of visitors of 1.5 million is expected to, at least, double in 1999.
From the late 18th to the beginning of the 19th century, the presence of the great poets and writers Goethe, Schiller, Herder and Wieland made Weimar the center of German cultural life, referred to as the "Weimarer Klassik".
In our century, history was made there when, in 1919, the constitution of the first German democracy, the Weimar Republic (1919-1933), was drawn up. In the same year, the distinguished arts and crafts center "Bauhaus" was founded by Walter Gropius; in 1925 it was moved to Dessau and later to Berlin, where it was shut down by the NS regime, forcing some of its brilliant members into American exile.
Located in the former GDR, Weimar will also be looking back on ten years of German reunification.
The cultural traveler can expect a great number of historic places, among them the Goethe Haus (with the Goethe National Museum), the Schiller Haus (with Schiller Museum), the Liszt Museum, the Nietzsche Archiv, the Park an der Ilm with Goethe's Gartenhaus, the Cranach Haus, the National Theater, the 18th century palaces: Rotes Schloss, Gelbes Schloss, Neues Schloss, Schloss Belvedere and Schloss Tiefurt. And there are academies for music and architecture, state archives, libraries and art collections.
A huge program of events has been drawn up, including concerts with conductors Zubin Meta and Daniel Barenboim, plays, exhibits, workshops, modern and classical art. Fifty events are dedicated exclusively to Goethe. Things agreeably pleasant, but also provocative events. Only 10 km away from Weimar stand the remains of the Buchenwald concentration camp where some 56,000 people found their death. Weimar will also acknowledge this dark chapter in its history.
For the genealogist's historical geography: By 1254 Weimar had town status; in 1547 it became the capital of the Duchy of Sachsen-Weimar (since 1815 Grand Duchy Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach).
Ruth Reichmann
Max Kade German-American Center
Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ. Indianapolis
https://liberalarts.iupui.edu/maxkade/ /