German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath
1749 CE
to 1832 CE
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) is a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath.
He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature.
His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science.
His Faust has been called one of the greatest dramatic works of modern European literature.
His other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther.
Goethe is one of the key figures of German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; this movement coincides with Enlightenment, Sentimentalism (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang and Romanticism.
The author of the scientific text Theory of Colors, his influential ideas on plant and animal morphology and homology are extended and developed by 19th century naturalists including Charles Darwin.
He also serves at length as the Privy Councilor of the duchy of Saxe-Weimar.
In politics Goethe is conservative.
At the time of the French Revolution, he thinks the enthusiasm of the students and professors to be a perversion of their energy and remains skeptical of the ability of the masses to govern.
Goethe's influence spreads across Europe, and for the next century his works are a major source of inspiration in music, drama, poetry and philosophy.
Late in his life, he expresses the expectation that he would ultimately be remembered above all for his work on color.
