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 116

CHAPTER VIII.

Schiller arrives at Weimar in 1787; his character; meets Goethe for the first time; settles as a professor at Jena; his marriage; Goethe calls upon him in 1790, and they talk about Kant’s philosophy; Schiller goes to Würtemberg; on his return asks Goethe to write for the _Horen_; Schiller spends a fortnight in Goethe’s house; their friendship; what it did for Schiller; and for Goethe; the “Xenien”; “Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre”; “Hermann und Dorothea”; “Alexis und Doris”; ballads; Goethe as a lyrical poet; “Die Propyläen”; “Winckelmann und sein Jahrhundert”; autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini; “Rameaus Neffe”; Schiller’s “Wallenstein” represented at Weimar; Schiller settles at Weimar; great period in history of Weimar; Goethe and the philosophical movement of the age; Goethe and the Romantic School; Madame de Staël; “Die Natürliche Tochter”; works at “Faust”; Death of Schiller; Goethe’s grief 134

CHAPTER IX.

The battle of Jena; Weimar plundered by the French; Goethe’s life saved through Christiane’s presence of mind; his helpfulness in a time of public trial; his formal marriage with Christiane; his son August; Johanna Schopenhauer; Bettina von Arnim; death of his mother in 1808; his interviews with Napoleon; new edition of Goethe’s writings; First Part of “Faust” published in 1808; change in his conception of the work as a whole; reception of the First Part by the public; “Die Wahlverwandtschaften”; “Aus Meinem Leben”; “West-Oestlicher Divan”; the War of Liberation; Goethe’s feeling about it; the Duke of Weimar is made a Grand Duke, and Goethe becomes First Minister of State in 1815; death of his wife on June 6, 1816 156