Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was a poet, playwright, novelist, scientist and statesman, and the most influential writer in the German language. He studied law at Leipzig and Strasbourg, where Herder turned him toward Shakespeare, and led the Sturm und Drang movement. In 1774 his novel The Sorrows of Young Werther made him famous.

In 1775 the duke invited him to Weimar, where he sat on the privy council from 1776 and was ennobled in 1782, ran the Weimar theatre from 1791, and from 1794 worked with Schiller until his death in 1805.

In 1806 Napoleon’s soldiers quartered in his house; days later he married Christiane Vulpius, companion of eighteen years. Of their five children only August reached adulthood. The first part of Faust appeared in 1808 and his Theory of Colours in 1810. Goethe died at Weimar in 1832, perhaps saying ‘More light’, though the report is disputed.