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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German poet, novelist, playwright, and natural philosopher, the greatest figure of the German Romantic period and of German literature as a whole.
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. . . Penetrating . . .Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Once one knows what really matters, one ceases to be voluble. And what does really matter? That is easy: thinking and doing, doing and thinking---and these are the sum of all wisdom...Both must move ever onward in life, to and fro, like breathing in and breathing out. Whoever makes it a rule to test action by thought, thought by action, cannot falter, and if he does, will soon find his way back to the right road.
died March 22, 1832, Weimar, Saxe-Weimar |
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, born Aug. 28, 1749, Frankfurt, Germany, died March 22, 1832, Weimar, Saxe-Weimar. One of the giants of world literature, Goethe was perhaps the last European to attempt the mastery and many-sidedness of the great Renaissance personalities: critic, journalist, painter, theatre manager, statesman, educationalist, natural philosopher. The bulk and diversity of Goethe's output is in itself phenomenal: Goethe's writings on science alone fill about 14 volumes. In the lyric vein Goethe displayed a command of a unique variety of theme and style; in fiction he ranged from fairy tales, which have proved a quarry for psychoanalysts, through the poetic concentration of his shorter novels and Novellen (novellas) to the “open,” symbolic form of Wilhelm Meister; in the theatre, from historical, political, or psychological plays in prose through blank-verse drama to his Faust, one of the masterpieces of modern literature. Goethe achieved in his 82 years a wisdom often termed Olympian, even inhuman; yet almost to the end he retained a willingness to let himself be shaken to his foundations by love or sorrow. Goethe disciplined himself to a routine that might armour him against chaos; yet he never lost the power of producing magical short lyrics in which the mystery of living, loving, and thinking was distilled into sheer transparency. |
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