Goethe: Life as a Work of Art

Renowned biographer Safranski (Romanticism: A German Affair) offers a learned and arguably definitive account of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832). His life of the celebrated author and statesman abounds with stormy love affairs and illustrious friendships, but Safranski minimizes court gossip and personal foibles to focus on Goethe’s ideas and thoughts. Goethe was a charismatic polymath who weathered several life-threatening illnesses, and was a leading figure in Weimar politics; Safranski calls him a “bureaucratic draft horse and a poetic Pegasus.” After his immensely successful first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, was published when he was 25, Goethe dominated Europe’s literary culture. His early triumph stoked in him a lifelong sense of his own genius. Goethe intersected with his era’s leading figures, including Mozart, Voltaire, Schiller, and the brash, brilliant Schopenhauer, the student who would be master. After a life-changing journey to Italy, Goethe embraced classical ideals of order that he never abandoned. His interest in the natural sciences and pull toward pantheism, meanwhile, led him to be skeptical of monotheism. His “life as a work of art” culminated in the play Faust, the ultimate tale of worldly ambition. Safranski’s lyrical style, many speculative passages, and abundant details will daunt some casual readers. Scholars will welcome this intellectual biography, richly embellished by primary sources and aided by the strong Dollenmayer translation.[em] (May) [/em]