His political and scientific activities, though dwarfed in the eyes of our generation by his artistic production, yet showed the adaptability of his talent in the most diverse directions, and helped to give him that balance of temper and breadth of vision in which he has been surpassed by no genius of the ancient or modern world. Rarely has a man of letters had so full and varied a life, or been capable of so many-sided a development. Though the foregoing enumeration contains but a selection front the titles of Goethe’s best known writings, it suffices to show the extraordinary fertility and versatility of his genius. During the years at Weimar before he knew Schiller he began “Wilhelm Meister,” wrote the dramas, “Iphigenie,” “Egmont,” and “Torquato Tasso,” and his “Reinecke Fuchs.” To the period of his friendship with Schiller belong the continuation of “Wilhelm Meister,” the beautiful idyl of “Hermann and Dorothea,” and the “Roman Elegies.” In the last period, between Schiller’s death in 1805 and his own, appeared “Faust,” “Elective Affinities,” his autobiographical “Dichtung und Wahrheit” (“Poetry and Truth”), his “Italian Journey,” much scientific work, and a series of treatises on German Art. The most important of Goethe’s works produced before he went to Weimar were his tragedy “Gotz von Berlichingen” (1773), which first brought him fame, and “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” a novel which obtained enormous popularity during the so-called “Sturm und Drang” period. From about 1794 he devoted himself chiefly to literature, and after a life of extraordinary productiveness died at Weimar, March 22, 1832.

He took part in the wars against France, 1792-3, and in the following year began his friendship with Schiller, which lasted till the latter’s death in 1805. From 1786 to 1788 he traveled in Italy, and from 179′ to 1817 directed the ducal theater at Weimar. At the invitation of Karl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, he went in 1775 to live in Weimar, where he held a succession of political offices, becoming the Duke’s chief adviser. The young Goethe studied at the universities of Leipsic and Strasburg, and in 1772 entered upon the practise of law at Wetzlar.

His father was a man of means and position, and he personally supervised the early education of his son.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE, the greatest of German men of letters, was born at Frank fort-on-the-Main, August 28, 1749.

Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe