On August 28, 1749, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in Frankfurt am Main — and the world of literature has never quite recovered. Poet, playwright, novelist
, scientist, and statesman, he was the last true polymath of European letters: a writer whose output ran to more than 140 volumes and whose influence stretched from Darwin to Nietzsche, from Mozart to Thomas Mann. To mark the 277th anniversary of his birth — a date celebrated this year in Weimar with cultural events at the historic Goethe-Haus — we revisit the life and major achievements of one of world literature’s most indispensable voices. From the epistolary fever of The Sorrows of Young Werther and the philosophical grandeur of Faust to the founding Bildungsroman of Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and the enigmatic allegories of his shorter fiction, this is an invitation to meet — or rediscover — the writer George Eliot called “Germany’s greatest man of letters.” We also gather six of his most enduring quotes on life, art, trust, and the art of becoming. Continue reading Johann Wolfgang von Goethe