CSLC 114 Goethe and the Art of Living
Statesman, scientist, philosopher, poet, and in the words of Friedrich Nietzsche, “the last German before whom I felt reverence”, this course will examine the life and work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Widely regarded as the Shakespeare of German literature, Goethe’s status as the major influence on the course of not only 19th century German but European literature was long simply assumed. Yet for a figure of this stature Goethe seems to embody a contradiction. No one quite knows what he stands for. Is Goethe the young Romantic of his youth; the aristocrat and politician of his middle period and founder of the coming of age novel, in which, as Hegel put it, “the hero loses his horns”; or is he the mad scientist of his later works which he canonically etches into literary history in form of Faust? We will investigate these transformations and contradictions by asking how Goethe’s almost obsessive quest for unity and form can be reconciled with the turmoil, change and disruption so emblematic of his life and work. We will do so by reading the canonical novels and dramas from his early, middle, and late periods, while also spending time with his scientific writings and the most beautiful poetry the German language has to offer. In short, we will examine Goethe not just as an author, but as a practitioner of the art of living. What does It mean to be young, mature, grow old and die? To fashion a self out of the turbulence and change that dominated not only Goethe’s age, but our times as well? We will seek guidance in these questions by examining the interrelationships between Goethe’s life, work and the age that came to be known as the Goethezeit. Reading and discussion will be held in English.