Talk:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Leibniz's profound influence on Goethe not mentioned at all

Leibniz had a profound influence on Goethe yet is not mentioned at all. He isn't even listed in the upper right under influences. Can someone please add this?

Here are some possible places to begin:
-The Literary Encyclopedia lists Leibniz as having the greatest influence on Schiller and Goethe here: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2683
-This journal article also makes the case http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-7937(197407)69%3A3%3C706%3AGATST%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E
-This book except talks about Goethe's acceptance of animal consciousness being germinated from Leibniz's writings: http://books.google.com/books?id=i1mXs6qrRDcC&pg=PA180&lpg=PA180&dq=goethe+leibniz&source=web&ots=TTfKxbxsv9&sig=d824qYnZOcq_8dpQnDxj7vKrwQU#PPA180,M1
-And finally, this paper (Available at http://www.theosophical.ca/ReligionOfGoethe.htm ) has this quote:

Goethe was influenced by Leibniz' monadology, of which reincarnation is nothing but a logical consequence. This influence is especially clear in the following sayings to Falk [Vogel loc cit page 134]

Some of these monads . . . . are so small, so insignificant, that they qualify themselves at best for a subordinate service and existence. Others, however, are very strong and powerful. The latter, therefore, are wont to draw everything approaching them into their circle. Only the latter I would call souls, properly speaking. Death is the setting free of the subordinate monads by the higher one and the separation from each other of the single ones. There is no question of annihilation; but to be stopped on the way by a powerful and at the same time vile monad and to be subordinated to it, this danger has no doubt something inimical in it and the fear thereof I, for my part, could not quite remove by the way of a mere contemplation of nature.

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Koran

Why is there such a prominent section on his study of the Koran? Ever since 9/11, there has been a fear of and, in some cases, a sympathy for, Islam. All of my life, I had heard very little of that religion. Now it is an important issue that Goethe once studied the Koran. Unless the article also has sections about his study of other religions, the Koran section should be deleted.Lestrade 16:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

I'm inclined to agree with you. I think the section should be watched for undue growth/exposure and sentences like: "Goethe's positive attitude towards Islam goes far beyond anyone in Germany before." I don't know that such a statement could easily be backed up or purported as fact. -xiliquiern^Talk 22:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

The fact that Goethe was interested in Muslim poetry was well-known before 2001. In fact, my recollection is that he did so primarily because the Schlegels of the Romantic school, had already began researching Sanskrit literature, and he decided to go a different route. There is some material here that I've never heard of, but it is cited. and "Goethe's positive attitude towards Islam goes far beyond anyone in Germany before." seems self-evident to me. You can put a {{fact}} tag on it if you think otherwise. The only other religion that I know of his comments on was Christianity, and they are not at all positive. — goethean ॐ 16:28, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I would like to hear from people other than the above two posters, who have posted some clearly bigoted statements on Islam, why there is absolutely no mention of Goethe's study/knowledge of Islamic literature and his Diwan, or poem written in the Muslim Sufi tradition. Mentioning such aspects of him would at least contribute to an understanding of how far reaching his knowledge was ie, of "Eastern" culture. No one should be suggesting that he had become a Muslim, which was not established. This missing dimension seems politically motivated, and is part of the reason I am becoming increasingly skeptical of Wikipedia.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.168.216.81 (talk • contribs)

Goethe may have been a Muslim. This site claims he was one. See here: http://www.backtoislam.com/?p=70#more-70

Goethe a Muslim? Rubbish! The 'Back to Islam' site contains blatantly falsified quotations with illiterate English renderings. I will continue to delete the Quranic references because they are lies put out by Muslim fanatics.MontanaMax 10:57, 30 June 2007 (UTC)MontanaMax

You can'delete facts because they don't suit your beliefs. It is well known that Goethe was an admirer of Persian literature, and in particular Hafiz, in whose inspiration, he wrote a Divan. Goethe: "In his poetry Hafiz has inscribed undeniable truth indelibly ... Hafiz has no peer!". He also often refers to Islamic concepts. I direct you to, for example, the poem called reunion, in which he uses Allah with God interchangeably.

Goethe was a Freemason. As such he was free to interweave Muslim and other flavors of spirituality and wisdom together with the rosicruscian and other esoteric wisdom traditions he found appealing or interesting. In his work, especially the Wilhelm meister books and to some degree Faust he readily explored masonic themes. In this he was not unusual: Mozart wrote a masonically themed opera and many, many late 18th and early 19th century writers referenced the craft and its associated mysteries in their work. --CRATYLUS22 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.116.22.51 (talk) 04:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

having an intresset for islam doesn't make you a Muslim —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.164.239.45 (talk) 18:15, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

German muslim regard Goethe as muslim. He had appearently converted to Islam before he died. Read the following from Goethe's published letters
"Der Dichter (Goethe) ... lehnt den Verdacht nicht ab, daß er selbst ein Muselmann (Muslim in Persian, Turkic and Paleo-Balkan languages) sei. (WA I, 41, 86)"
"Weiter kann ich nichts sagen, als daß ich hier mich im Islam zu halten suche. (WA IV, 33, 123)"
"Oberhaupt der Geschöpfe - Muhammed." (WA I, 6, 482)" --85.108.240.214 (talk) 14:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Are there two different English pages on Goethe?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goethe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_Goethe

Sure seems to be. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.177.12.41 (talk) 23:10, 12 January 2007 (UTC).

No, Goethe is, appropriately, a redirect to this article. — goethean ॐ 23:20, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Goethe and Beer

on the label of Kostritzer Schwarzbier it states "even Goethe appreciated the traditional Kostritzer Black Beer." I've heard elsewhere that he survived a month on nothing but this beer. Does anyone know if there is any textual basis to these claims?

Hi there, I have seen a publication in Beck Verlag (ISBN 3406558720), in which one of the questions answered is about Goethe and beer. However I was not able to order it yet, for that matter read it, but if you have any knowledge of the german language you can probably easily find out on your own by ordering this book.

Page move + intro cleanup

I’ve checked Britannica (1911), Britannica (2002), Columbia encyclopedia (2005), World Encyclopedia (1980), Encarta (2006), Biography.com (2007), Eric Weisstein’s World of Scientific Biography (2007), the Quotations Page, as well as a Google search for Goethe and Wikipedia is the only source that leaves out the “von” in his name title. As such, I plan to request a page move to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe shortly. Moreover, the definitive sentence of Goethe needs to be concise, i.e., as compared to other references, we need to pick the top four (or so) words that define him. Then describe more following the main sentence. Certainly the word “polymath” is not a main definer. I'll do a "start" cleaning based on the above sources. --Sadi Carnot 16:40, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I temporarily fixed "von" part, which was added to his name in 1782, in the article; but we still need a page move. --Sadi Carnot 17:06, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems that in ’06, the page was moved with the following explanation:

• (cur) (last) 19:33, 20 August 2006 User:€pa (Talk | contribs) (moved Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to Johann Wolfgang Goethe: This is the birthname. Later titles ("von") do not belong into the lemma.)

Wikipedia, however, uses the most common name as would be the case via the nine sources cited above. Hermann von Helmholtz is a good example. I will now request a page reverse. --Sadi Carnot 13:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can see, you don't need admin intervention to reverse the page move, you can do it simply by being BOLD. All the same, I should wait a few more days to let people comment before you actually do it: seven days discussion would seem to be a minimum for an article such as this one. If you have any problems, drop me a message (I probably won't be on Wikipedia this weekend, which gives you some delay). Also, please don't forget to do the incoming redirects (10–15 at a quick look), not that you would foget of course ;) Cheers, and keep up the good work! Physchim62 (talk) 12:03, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I just do it myself then. I just thought a page move to a redirect could only be done with sysop tools so that the related links stay true? Talk later: --Sadi Carnot 15:49, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm...there are a lot of intrawikilinks which need to be updated so that there are no double redirects. --HappyCamper 16:21, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

No doubt. I'll try to work on this after the move. --Sadi Carnot 15:54, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Unless the software has been updated in some way, moving over a redirect requires some magic buttons because the redirect needs to be deleted first before the move can proceed. Anyway, it's all yours! My apologies for the tardiness. --HappyCamper 19:44, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Good work HC. I found the Wikipedia:Request move page, I'll try to use that next time. Talk later: --Sadi Carnot 11:59, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Eroticism

Does anybody else besides me find the Eroticism section to be not NPOV? I was personally always raised with the fact that Goethe's works _did_ have erotic tones... but that this was not unsual for writers of his time (or any time, really). The article seems to insinuate that this is not really the case... and also seems to focus exclusively on homosexual overtones (I have always seen _both_ heterosexual and homosexual discussed in readings of Goethe). I think the whole business about Italian homosexuality during Goethe's time should either have a citation or a link to an article, this is the first I hear of it. Finally, the section seems to insinuate that the "uproar" was because people couldn't accept the fact that Goethe might've been a homosexual-- instead of, say, simply responding to the poor scholarship of the research work and disagreement with its conclusions. Any thoughts? -DWRZ 17:23, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Typical Wikipedia defmation. If we believe Wikipedia, all famous people were homosexual. Almost as bad as Hollywood and television in pushing the agenda in order to make homosexuality seem normal and commonplace.Lestrade (talk) 23:20, 17 August 2008 (UTC)Lestrade

Importance?

Yes ...

You can add that Nikola Tesla was inspired by a passage of his for concieving the rotating magnetic field. Something that lead to the alternator. J. D. Redding 12:50, 24 May 2007 (UTC) (ps., reminds me of connections by Burke ... )

Göthe?

Why is it Goethe, and not Göthe?

170.115.251.13 14:59, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

The spelling of names sometimes retains archaic, "non-standard" conventions. The pronunciation would be the same in either case, but that is how the Goethes spelled their name. It's a little bit like the English name "Taylor," which obviously comes from the occupation "tailor" but was crystallized into a different orthography.

Actually, Goethe did sign "Göthe" at times. People in his times cared less about the conventions of spelling than they do now. —Ebab 18:20, 13 September 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ebab (talk • contribs)

as a matter of fact, there WERE NO conventions of spelling at his time...--XMCHx (talk) 19:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

His grandfather Friedrich Georg was born a Göthe but later (1687) changed the spelling of his name to Goethe. Abundand information about his family may be found at Goethe Genealogie, especially Goethe-Heimat im Kyffhäuser-Schatten.--87.78.167.187 (talk) 10:25, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Goethe & Islam

It is interesting that this article does not explain the complex relationship between Goethe and the Islamic world. It does not once mention Goethe's sympathy for Islam, his love for Hafez' poetry, and even his obvious message that he rejected Christianity in favour of Islam:

Jesus fühlte rein und dachte

Nur den Einen Gott im Stillen;

Wer ihn selbst zum Gotte machte

Kränkte seinen heil'gen Willen.

Und so muß das Rechte scheinen

Was auch Mahomet gelungen;

Nur durch den Begriff des Einen

Hat er alle Welt bezwungen.

Und nun kommst du, hast ein Zeichen

Dran gehängt, das unter allen ...

Mir am schlechtesten will gefallen

Diese ganze moderne Narrheit

Magst du mir nach Schiras bringen!

Soll ich wohl, in seiner Starrheit,

Hölzchen quer auf Hölzchen singen?

(WA I, 6, 288 ff)

He continues with a much more powerful statement:

Mir willst du zum Gotte machen

Solch ein Jammerbild am Holze!?

It is very obvious that Goethe had left the teachings of Christianity in favour of Hafez' Islam and Sufism. He even began his later writings with the Arabic Shahada:

see picture

In his last poems, he propagated the Quranic teaching that Jesus was a prophet - the main difference between Islam and Christianity:

Ephesus gar manches Jahr schon,

Ehrt die Lehre des Propheten - Jesus. (Friede sei dem Guten!)

(WA I, 6, 269)

It is also very clear that Goethe wrote about the ISlam of Hafez, not the general Islam of the normal people.

The "dialogue between Hafez (14th century) and Goethe (19th century) is one of the most interesting themes. This "dialogue" continued with the poetry of Muhammad Iqbal.

Someone should add a few paragraphs about this.

--82.83.134.219 02:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the very interesting comment. However, any content about Goethe and Islam must be sourced to a secondary work. Original research is not allowed. — goethean ॐ 03:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, how about English translations for the rest of us? El_C 03:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Now the problem is that a lot of references and sources are primaly avaible in german. For example from Prof.Katharina Mommsen, who studied more then anyone else the relationship of goethe to islam. i am trying to give the english readers more transparency to this topic, but first i have to find some english sources. also, i will give you the english translation to the quotes of 82.83.134.219. greetings from germany.--The Benvolio 14:00, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Wahlverwandschaften (Elective Affinities) "semi-autobiographical"?

I think "semi-autobiographical" is much too strong a description of "Die Wahlverwandschaften". Many novels are inspired by certain real persons, events, and experiences of the author. But I have never heard anybody go remotely as far as to call Wahlverwandschaften "semi-autobiographical". —Ebab 17:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Goethe: A Romantic writer?

Can we really consider Geothe to be a romantic writer? He should be considered a pre-romantic, he is closely associated with Weimar Classicism and the Sturm und Drang movements, which paved the way for the Romantic movement, but cannot truly be considered part of the Romantic movement. Dadadali 21:12, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Measure of IQ

Could we remove the idiotic "estimated IQ" of Goethe, and its comparison with da Vinci's estimated IQ, in the introduction? Anybody feel me on this one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.56.197.79 (talk) 21:12, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I have removed it (again). — goethean ॐ 21:19, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I didn't see the original entry, but surely no one seriously doubts that he was a genius (any more than they would, say, Gauss, Newton and J S Mill, though they also lived before the days of psychometric testing). Meltingpot (talk) 21:25, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Repeated references

References 3 and 4 are equivalent to 6 and 7, which are equivalent to 11 and 12. I would correct this but haven't yet worked out how to make two citations point to the same reference. — metaprimer (talk) 19:31, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Atrocious Style

I realize this is wikipedia here, and we can't expect everything, but this aricle reads rather poorly and contains inaccuraces as well as misused words. Werther has little if anything in commeon with Hamlet, for example, and the suffix "esque" has limited respectable uses outside of humor. There is an inaccurate attribution to Hippocrates (Goethe did not invert the saying) and so forth. I've tried to clean up these and other inaccuracies, and will work to massage the style into tomething more worthy of Germany's greatest literary figure.

And please please please people, can we get rid of heavily, or use it 99% less and look for a better word? And largely? Largely isn't even a word. It's a joke from the original movie of "Star Wars." Those two and -esque. That would raise Wikipedia to a new level.

In response to the above: Largely is an adverb which is a synonym for "on the whole / mainly" It has a long history in the English language. The suffix "esque" comes to English, via Old French, from Latin. It's use is largely to make reference to similarities in style, particularly in literature and comedy. These words may be overly used, but they are quite acceptable. I haven't corrected the typos in the original message; I think they speak for themselves. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.41.24.197 (talk) 12:52, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

This article is a mess!

Someone should translate the German page for this topic - it's far superior. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.148.1.17 (talk) 21:39, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

--CRATYLUS22 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.42.143.168 (talk) 22:15, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Are we allowed to do that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.3.52.231 (talk) 08:31, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there anybody having a look at the German article? The German version has still to be improved but it may help you to improve the English article. -- German user:H.Albatros 12:18, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

To be honest, i feel a bit irritated because my sentence on Goethe`s passion for fruitcake has bee´n erased without further explanation. I thought that this biographical information could be of use. Just like the information that nobody in his time had traveled as far as Mozart could be useful in a Mozart-related article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.66.42.161 (talk) 17:32, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Goethes Wohnhaus and Goethes Gartenhaus

Is there anybody to translate der German articles de:Goethes Wohnhaus and de:Goethes Gartenhaus into English? -- German user:H.Albatros 12:18, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

how can you guys possibly neglect goethes obsession with fruitcake ? theres even a german nursery rhyme containing that important fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.179.16.88 (talk) 18:46, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Drowning in a sea of parentheses

From the article as it currently stands:

Goethe's father, Johann Caspar Goethe (Frankfurt-am-Main, Hessen, 29 July 1710 – Frankfurt-am-Main, Hessen, 25 May 1782), lived with his family in a large house in Frankfurt am Main, then an Imperial Free City of the Holy Roman Empire. Goethe's mother, Catharina Elisabeth Textor (Frankfurt-am-Main, Hessen, 19 February 1731 – Frankfurt-am-Main, Hessen, 15 September 1808), the daughter of the Mayor of Frankfurt Johann Wolfgang Textor (Frankfurt-am-Main, Hessen, 11 December 1693 – Frankfurt-am-Main, Hessen, 6 February 1771) and wife (married at Wetzlar, 2 February 1726) Anna Margaretha Lindheimer (Wetzlar, 23 July 1711 – Frankfurt-am-Main, Hessen, 18 April 1783, a descendant of Lucas Cranach the Elder and Henry III, Landgrave of Hesse-Marburg), married 38-year-old Johann Caspar when she was only 17 at Frankfurt am Main on 20 August 1748. All their children, except for Goethe and his sister, Cornelia Friederike Christiana, who was born in 1750, died at an early age.

Sorry, but that's completely unreadable. I don't need to know where so-and-so married so-and-so and I certainly don't need to be told that Frankfurt is in Hessen SIX times. I want to know who was related to whom and how. And that's just impossible when I keep having to look through two or three lines of dense text to find out where a parenthesis ends. PLEASE tidy this up -- and start by getting rid of all the placenames, ONE mention that they lived in Frankfurt would be sufficient. I'm not going to do it myself because I'm sure I'd end up getting the facts wrong -- it really looks to me like it's saying Anna Lindheimer was born in 1711 and married in 1748 at the age of 17, so something is clearly wrong there. 91.105.22.66 (talk) 01:19, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

minor nit-pick

the article states, that goethe died in 1832, in "weimar, germany", which is factually incorrect. weimar at the time was the capital city of the duchy of saxe-weimar-eisenach. "germany" as a nation-state did not exist until much later, 1871. i'd like to change that, any comments?--Nevrdull (talk) 14:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Good point. Go for it. RandomTool2 (talk) 15:25, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Not true that Italian Journey omits the second year; author may have meant that the second year is not based on G's journal (but on correspondence and later -- much later -- "retrospect"). Nor does the book omit the Venice visit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.38.15.228 (talk) 19:51, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Peerage or nobility?

The article is included in Category:German nobility, however, I wonder about the distinction betweem peerage and nobility. I see the title Freiherr mentioned for his children, so I added "peerage-work-group=yes" to the WPBiography template here on the talk page. But is it also relevant to the "Royalty and Nobility work group" of WikiProject Biography? __meco (talk) 18:11, 16 August 2008 (UTC)