Goethedenkmal auf dem Theaterplatz in Weimar ©Gregor Lengler

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A man of many talents

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a man of many talents. He studied law, was a poet, playwright, minister and ducal advisor. He devoted himself to the natural sciences, ran theatres and libraries, painted, drew and philosophised. He spoke six languages and was also an accomplished translator. Already famous during his lifetime, he made it difficult for his contemporaries to categorise him. Goethe was also a frequent traveller. Both in his adopted home of central Germany and beyond. As a result, you can meet him in many places in Lutherland. Here are a few suggestions for your personal search for traces.

The poet with a romantic soul

One of his first great works, ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’, already identifies Goethe as a romantic mind. The work was inspired by his own grief over an unfulfilled love. It was so powerful that impressionable young souls sought suicide en masse as a result of reading it. Less harmful to young people were his masterpieces inspired by nature, such as the poem ‘O’er all the hilltops (Wanderer’s Nightsong), which he wrote in 1780 on the Kickelhahn mountain near Ilmenau. The place where this happened was a little wooden cabin on a mountain peak with a fantastic view. The cabin is located directly on today's ‘Goethe Hiking Trail’ and a real insider tip for active nature lovers with a penchant for poetry. Goethe carved the poem into the wooden wall there. It has been translated into almost every language in the world and definitely hits the romantic heart.

O'er all the hilltops
Is quiet now,
In all the treetops
Hearest thou
Hardly a breath;
The birds are asleep in the trees:
Wait, soon like these
Thou too shalt rest.

(translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Kickelhahn mountain plateau near Ilmenau ©Dominik Ketz, Regionalverbund Thüringer Wald

The lord of the theatre stage

Goethe's dramas are usually ingenious, philosophical, profound and the terror of all teenage students who simply have other interests. His ‘Faust’ is a life-long oeuvre. He worked on it again and again from the age of 24 until he was 82. In their attempts to understand it, directors and audiences have been tirelessly fascinated by it for around 200 years.
But Goethe not only wrote for the stage, he was also the director of the Weimar Court Theatre for 26 years. During this time, the theatre rose from an aristocratic amateur spectacle to one of the leading German theatres. Goethe promoted the influence of authors on performance practice and formed a permanent, professional ensemble. The ensemble's regular summer venue was today's Goethe Theatre Bad Lauchstädt. It is still used today and is the only theatre from Goethe's time that has been preserved in its original state.

Deutsches Nationaltheater in Weimar ©Joachim Negwer, Thüringer Tourismus GmbH

The duke's civil servant

Goethe held numerous offices in the service of the Duke of Weimar. He was, for example, in charge of revitalising silver mining in Ilmenau and responsible for ‘road construction’. He restructured the state finances and reformed the military. He also travelled on diplomatic missions. For example, to nearby Erfurt, which used to be a domain of the Archbishop of Mainz. He was friends with Dalberg, the progressive governor of Mainz. Goethe occasionally attended the ‘assemblées’ at the governor's office, where various social classes, from princes to craftsmen, came together to enjoy music and entertainment. The governor’s residence was also the site of Goethe's historic meeting with Napoleon in October 1808.

A man of passions

Goethe's amorous entanglements ran through his entire life and often influenced his works. His admiration for the educated and urbane Charlotte von Stein is almost iconic. As many as 1770 letters, messages, notes and poems that he addressed to her have been preserved. The relationship was close and formative, but probably not ‘physical’ as is assumed today. Goethe liked to visit Charlotte at her summer residence Schloss Kochberg. He then married a woman of modest means, the milliner Christiane Vulpius. However, this was only after having ‘cohabited’ for years and the birth of a son. The Weimar court disapproved of the scandalous union, but Goethe liked ‘her cheerful, natural temperament’. It was only after lengthy battles that the two were allowed to move in together in the house on Frauenplan in Weimar, now the Goethe House museum.

The inquisitive researcher

Biology, mineralogy, anatomy and colour theory. There was hardly a scientific field that Goethe was not interested in. He was studying human sensory perception and the effect of colours, light and shadow. In botany, he was particularly fascinated by the gingko tree, whose origins can be traced back to prehistoric times. Goethe also travelled to the Harz Mountains to further his education in the fields of geology and mining. The impressions of its wild nature found their way into his literary works. One example is the Walpurgis scene on the Brocken peak in ‘Faust I’. Goethe also took a scientific approach to garden design. Whilst travelling to the gardens of the Anhalt princes in Wörlitz, he gathered knowledge for the design of the Ilm Park in Weimar.

Goethe and Luther

‘We cannot begin to realise what we owe to Luther and the Reformation in general,’ Goethe is reported to have once said. The poet, who had a Protestant upbringing, knew the texts of the Bible well. Luther's translation accompanied him throughout his life. He appreciated its language and liked to make use of its phrases and expressions. Nevertheless, Goethe was not a mouthpiece for Christian messages, but an inquisitive free spirit influenced by the Enlightenment and open to other world views and religions.