Safranski - Goethe: Life As a Work of Art

BOOKS BY RDIGER SAFRANSKI

Romanticism: A German Affair

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Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography

Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil

Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy

The translation of this work was funded by Geisteswissenschaften
InternationalTranslation Funding for Work in the Humanities and
Social Sciences from Germany, a joint initiative of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation,
the German Federal Foreign Office, the collecting society VG WORT, and
the Brsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels
(German Publishers & Booksellers Association).

Copyright 2013 by Carl Hanser Verlag Mchen
Translation copyright 2017 by David Dollenmayer

Originally published in German as Goethe: Kunstwerk des Lebens: Biographie

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THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE PRINTED EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

Names: Safranski, Rdiger, author. | Dollenmayer, David B., translator.
Title: Goethe : life as a work of art / Rudiger Safranski ; translated by
David Dollenmayer.
Other titles: Goethe: Kunstwerk des Lebens. English
Description: New York : Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2017. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017008798 | ISBN 9780871404909 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 17491832. | Authors,
German18th centuryBiography. | Authors, German19th
centuryBiography.
Classification: LCC PT2051 .S2413 2017 | DDC 831/.6 [B]dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017008798

ISBN 978-0-87140-491-6 (e-book)

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As always,
for Gisela Maria

CONTENTS

A Difficult Birth with Fortunate Consequences Family Ties
Between a Pedant and a Cheerful Nature Goethes Sister
The Child of a Free Imperial City Practice in Writing
The Rhymester and the First Gretchen Affair
Self-Confidence Shaken An Emergency Postponed
Finding Poetry in the Everyday

Living Large in Leipzig The Great Men of Yesterday
The Ktchen Affair Preliminary Studies for an Epistolary
Novel Behrisch Therapy for Jealousy: The Lovers
Spleen Practical Exercises in Art
Dresden Disappearing in the Image Breakdown

The Aftermath of Leipzig Partners in Guilt Illness
Approaches to Religion Attempt at Piety Two Mentors:
Langer and Susanna von Klettenberg
No Consciousness of Sin The Pious Magician The Sickroom
as Laboratory The Search for Chemical Revelation

Piety and Ktchen Recede Strasbourg Exhilaration
The Spirit of the Place Strasbourg Cathedral as a Test
of Courage On German Architecture.
Salzmann Lers The Influential Encounter with Herder
New Values: Life, Creative Power, Individuality, Expression
Playing Cards with Herder

Jung-Stilling The Aperu, or Sudden Inspiration
The Psychology of Awakening and Creativity
Friederike and the Romance Novel in Sesenheim Not On to
Paris The Shakespeare Speech The Diminished
Doctorate Leaving Strasbourg

The Lawyer Litigation as an Exercise and Prelude to Gtz von
Berlichingen Gtz as a Wild West Hero The Law of the
Fist. The Sovereign Individual versus Modernity
Sticking to It, Thanks to His Sister The Author Helps
Himself First Reactions

Goethes Busy Idleness Poetry without a Profession
Johann Georg Schlosser The Infanticide Trial and the Gretchen
Tragedy in Faust Johann Heinrich Merck
Among the Darmstadt Sentimentalists The Wayfarer
The Reviewer Goethes Early Aesthetics
A Summer Love in Wetzlar

A Portrait of the Young Goethe Correspondence with the
Kestners Jerusalems Suicide Gtz Is Published Becoming
a Star Exhilaration Prometheus Poet or Prophet?
Muhammad Satirical Campaigns against False Prophets

Making poetic use of Ones Own Life Paths to Werther
Personal matters The Weariness of Living Werthers Love
and the Fate of Imagination What Is Missing When We Are
Absent from Ourselves Werthers Impact

Cornelias Misfortune Clavigo, the Faithless One
Lavater and Basedow Prophets right and prophets left, the
Worlds child in between A Summer Cruise down the
Rhine Celebration of Friendship Friedrich Heinrich
Jacobi An Invitation to Weimar Lili and Auguste, an
Amorous House of Mirrors Two Different Speeds
Journey to Switzerland Weimar, an Escape of Sorts

Complications at Court The Wieland Affair
Charlotte von Stein Wild Antics at First
Klopstock Rebuffed Herder Receives the Call

My writing has become subordinated to life
Genius Doesnt Protect You from Being a Dilettante
Against the Literati The Disastrous Case of Lenz

More Sturm und Drang Visitors: Klinger and Kaufmann
Goethes Wards A Lesson in Behavior Pegasus and Red
Tape Wilhelm Meisters Theatrical Mission: Dictated, Not
scribbled down December 1777: Winter Journey in the Harz
and a Trial by Ordeal

A Farce on the Sublime: The Triumph of Sentimentalism
Christel Lassbergs Suicide A Political Mission
Weimars Self-Assertion and the League of Princes In Berlin
Govern! The Blended and the Pure Conscripting Soldiers
and Iphigenia The Temple Precincts of Art

The Idea of Purity Goethes Tao The Crucifixion of
Woldemar Jacobi Insulted The Second Journey to
Switzerland Friederike and Lili: Two Wrongs Righted
The Beautiful Branconi and Confusion: Peace lies over all the
peaks Goethe and Lavater: Religion on Trial

Peace and Granite Reconciliation with Jacobi
Reading Spinoza Spinoza, Lessing, Jacobi, and the
Prometheus poem: tinder for an explosion Naturalism and
Idealism: Opposing or Merging Jacobis Philosophy of Religion
and Goethes Nature Study The Intermaxillary Bone
Reconciliation with Herder

Should He Stay in Weimar? Difficulties of a Double Existence
The Origins of Tasso Ineffectual Offices Crisis
The Complete Works: A Graveyard of Fragments? Goethe
Wants to Change His Life The Escape to Italy as a Test of
Self The Risks Departure in Secret

The Italian Journey: No Forwarding Address Beginning to
Relax Palladio Im studying more than enjoying
myself Rome Iphigenia Completed Among the
Artists Moritz Naples and Sicily The Enchantment of the
Phaiakians Second Sojourn in Rome
Egmont Completed Faustina Farewell to Rome

Return to Weimar Charlotte von Stein and Christiane
Vulpius Erotica Roman Elegies
Meeting Schiller Moritz and a New Concept of Arts