  | CHAPTER I. | | PAGE | | Goethe born, August 28, 1749; his grandfather and grandmother; his father, Johann Kaspar Goethe; his mother; his sister Cornelia; a child of an imaginative temperament; his grandmother’s last Christmas gift; his father’s house rebuilt; his knowledge of Frankfort; the Council-house; education; Klopstock’s “Messiah”; folk-books; the Seven Years’ War; Count Thorane and Goethe; lessons interrupted and renewed; early religious ideas; his first love; in 1765 leaves Frankfort to study at the university of Leipsic | 11 | | CHAPTER II. | | Goethe at Leipsic; nominal studies at the university; dejection, and recovery of his usual good spirits; his love for Annette SchÖnkopf; forms many friendships; takes lessons in art from Oeser and Stock; goes to Dresden to study the picture gallery; reads Dodd’s “Beauties of Shakespeare”; influenced by Wieland, Lessing, and Winckelmann; writes “Die Laune des Verliebten” and “Die Mitschuldigen”; early lyrics; illness; partial recovery; returns to Frankfort in August, 1768; renewed illness; influenced by FrÄulein von Klettenberg; sees General Paoli; Annette SchÖnkopf married; in April, 1770, goes to Strasburg to attend the university; feels at home in Strasburg; Salzmann; Jung Stilling; sees Marie Antoinette; impressed by antiquities at Neiderbronn; meets Herder; Herder’s character; the movement of thought in Europe; Herder’s influence on Goethe; Goethe and Frederika Brion; returns to Frankfort in August, 1771; his poetic genius awakened by love | 24 | | CHAPTER III. | | Goethe takes the oath as an advocate and citizen of Frankfort; holds a Shakespeare festival; reads the autobiography of Goetz von Berlichingen; writes the drama, “Geschichte Gottfriedens von Berlichingen”; his friendship with Merck; writes criticism for the “Frankfurter Gelehrten Anzeigen”; the “Wanderers Sturmlied” and the “Wanderer”; in May, 1772, goes to practise at the imperial chamber at Wetzlar; his love for Charlotte Buff; saves himself by flight from Wetzlar; visits Frau von Laroche; returns to Frankfort in September, 1772; recasts his drama about Goetz von Berlichingen; defects and great qualities of “Goetz”; “Goetz” published in summer of 1773; enthusiastically received; Goethe’s depression, and its causes; Maximiliane Brentano; origin of “Die Leiden des jungen Werthers”; the story of “Werther”; its relation to the dominant mood of the age, and to Goethe’s own experience; character of Lotte and Albert; style of “Werther”; descriptions of nature; profound impression produced by the book; its effect on the mind of Lotte’s husband; Nicolai’s parody of “Werther,” and Goethe’s response; “Clavigo”; “Stella”; “Erwin und Elmire,” and “Claudine von Villa Bella”; “GÖtter, Helden, and Wieland”; poetic fragments | 47 | | CHAPTER IV. | | Goethe begins to write “Faust”; the work in its earliest form; the character of Faust; the story of Gretchen; Mephistopheles; Goethe expresses in the original “Faust” his own mood and one of the moods of his age; his study of Spinoza’s “Ethics”; Lavater; Basedow; Johanna Fahlmer; his friendship with Frederick Jacobi; the Counts Stolberg; Goethe’s engagement with Lili SchÖnemann; the engagement broken off; poems occasioned by his love for Lili; meets the Hereditary Prince of Weimar; the Prince becomes Duke; Goethe invited to Weimar; arrives there on November 7, 1775; a new home | 72 | | CHAPTER V. | | Weimar; Goethe’s relations to the Duke, the Duchess, and the Duchess Dowager; Wieland; Herder settles at Weimar; the Duke proposes that Goethe shall enter the public service; opposition of Goethe’s father; Goethe becomes a member of the Privy Council; his friendship with Frau von Stein; Corona SchrÖter; his self-discipline; his public duties; the earnestness with which he discharges them; change of manner as well as of character; visits Switzerland, and sees Frederika Brion and Lili on the way; death of his father in 1782; is made “Geheimerath” and President of the Chamber of Finance; ennobled; visits the Harz Mountains; devotes himself to the study of science; discovers the intermaxillary bone in the human jaw; his doctrine of types in organic nature; “Iphigenie” in prose; change in the methods of his art as a dramatist; “Wilhelm Meister” begun; “Torquato Tasso”; minor plays and poems; the literary movement in Germany; longing for Italy; starts for Italy in September, 1786; edition of his collected writings | 86 | | CHAPTER VI. | | Delight in Italy; the “Italienische Reise”; journey to Rome; arrives in Rome, October 29, 1786; attempts to think himself back into the Rome of ancient times; his study of ancient art; the art of the Renascence; St. Peter’s; friends in Rome; thinks of becoming an artist; re-writes “Iphigenie” in verse; visits Naples; Sicily; second residence in Rome; completes “Egmont”; works at “Faust”; leaves Rome on April 21, 1788, and arrives at Weimar on June 18th | 106 | | CHAPTER VII. | | Benefit derived from his sojourn in Italy; relieved of most of his ministerial duties; change in his relations to Frau von Stein; his informal marriage with Christiane Vulpius; character of Christiane; relations with Frau von Stein broken off; “RÖmische Elegien”; his new ideal in dramatic art; “Egmont”; “Iphigenie”; “Torquato Tasso”; “Faust: A Fragment,” published in 1790; his discovery of the metamorphosis of plants; visits Venice in 1790; his son August; his discovery of the true constitution of the skull; his opposition to Newton’s theory of colours; becomes director of the Weimar Court Theatre; receives from the Duke the house in which he spends the rest of his life; the outbreak of the French Revolution; Goethe’s position with regard to it; “Gross-Cophta”; “Die Aufgeregten”; accompanies the Duke during the campaign in Champagne; “Reineke Fuchs”; joins the Duke before Mainz; returns to Weimar |
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