THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT ALSO TO LOOK AT KIP FENN, A MAJOR NOVEL ABOUT THE 21st CENTURY
- freely available on this site
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang ___ 1749-1832
___ German ___ civilservant, writer
BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Goethe was born in Frankfurt to
a lawyer and the mayor's daughter, and was educated in Leipzig and Strasbourg.
By 1771, he had returned to Frankfurt and was working as a lawyer. His first
novel, 'The Sorrows of Young Werther', was published in 1774. The following
year, he made a trip to Switzerland, and then went to work in Weimar for
Duke Charles Augustus. Over the years, he was given various administrative
duties, ranging from finance to roads and from military matters to mining
issues. Occasionally he gave readings to the Duke and guests. Goethe was
an inveterate inquirer, studying widely, not least human biology (he discovered
the human inter-maxillary bone) and philosophy. The duke ennobled Goethe,
and eventually released him from day-to-day governmental duties (although
he remained at the centre of Weimar's cultural life) allowing him to focus
on writing. In the mid-1780s, Goethe travelled to Italy, and, in 1789, he
began a relationship with Christiane Vulpius (although, scandalously, they
did not marry until 1806, after she had borne him a son). From the 1790s
Goethe wrote widely on arts and literature, especially in his own journal
'Propyläen', and he developed a firm friendship with Friedrich Schiller.
His most famous poem, 'Faust', an epic drama, was published in two parts,
the first in 1808, and the second after his death. His other major works,
include the novel 'Elective Affinities' and 'The Apprenticeship of Wilhelm
Meister.'
One
biography link
DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1786-1788 ___ literary travel art
nature science Italy
WEB TEXT LINKS
etext
in German
etext in German
about
flight to Italy
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Goethe
and Schiller Archives
SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Flight to Italy, Diary and
Selected Letters
May 2005
THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
Please
email if you have any corrections, additions or comments. |
IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS:
1) The first line of basic information
may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different
names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or
uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown,
or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British'
a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was
compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts
were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if
they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates
and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with
caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are
only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies.
4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges,
and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising.
I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some
variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited
myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their
original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the
titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries. |