Read Elective Affinities Online
Authors: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1790
Goethe embarks on a second journey to Italy. Writes
Venezianische Epigramme
(
Venetian Epigrams
).
1791
7 May
: Opening of the Weimar court theatre.
Beiträge zur Optik
(
Contributions to Optics
) is published.
1794
June
: Invited by Schiller to contribute to the journal
Die Horen.
Beginning of their friendship. Frequent mutual visits in Jena and Weimar.
November
: Friedrich Hölderlin visits Goethe in Weimar.
Finishes
Wilhelm Meister
, books 1 to 3.
Reineke Fuchs in zwölf Gesängen
(
Reynard the Fox, twelve songs
) is published.
1795
Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten
(
Conversations of German Emigrants
) and
Römische Elegien
are published in
Die Horen.
1796
Finishes
Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre
(
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship
). The
Xenien
are published in joint authorship with Schiller in the
Musenalmanach für das Jahr
1797.
1797
Five ballads, including
Der Zauberlehrling
(
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
), are published in Schiller’s
Musenalmanach für 1798.
1798
Goethe supports the appointment of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling as Professor of Philosophy at Jena. Works on
Zur Farbenlehre
(
On Colour Theory
). Continuous work on
Faust.
October
: First edition of
Propyläen
, a journal for the arts.
1799
Schiller moves from Jena to Weimar.
1801
Goethe seriously ill with facial erysipelas.
1803
2 April
: Première of
Die natürliche Tochter
(
The Natural Daughter
) in Weimar.
Autumn
: Goethe founds the
Jenaische Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung
, a literary journal.
September
: Employs Friedrich Wilhelm Riemer as his secretary and private tutor for his son August.
Christmas
: Madame de Staël and Benjamin Constant visit Goethe.
1804
January/February
: Frequent meetings with Madame de Staël.
13 September
: Goethe is elevated to the post of
Wirklicher Geheimer Rat
, which entitles him to be addressed ‘his excellency’.
22 September
: Staging of a reworked version of
Götz von Berlichingen.
1805
1 May
: Last encounter with Schiller, who dies on 9 May.
10 August
: Commemoration ceremony for Schiller in Bad Lauchstädt.
1806
July–August
: Goethe visits the Karlsbad spa, as he frequently will in the following years.
14 October
: Napoleon’s troops beat the Prussians in the battles of Jena and Auerstedt. The victorious French army plunders the city of Weimar. Christiane Vulpius manages to protect Goethe’s house from drunken looting soldiers.
19 October
: Christiane and Goethe get married.
Finishes
Faust, Erster Teil
(part one).
1807
16 February
: Première of
Torquato Tasso
in Weimar.
23 April
: Bettina von Armin visits Goethe, whom she ardently admires.
17 May
: Writes the first chapter of
Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre
(
Wilhelm Meister’s Travels
).
End of the year
: Infatuated with Minchen Herzlieb, the foster daughter of the Jena publishing family Frommann. She and other love interests inspire him to write several sonnets, including ‘Das Mädchen spricht’ (‘The Girl Speaks’), ‘Freundliches Begegnen’ (‘Friendly Encounter’), ‘Mächtiges Überraschen’ (‘Momentous Intervention’).
1808
13 September
: Death of Goethe’s mother.
2 October
: First encounter and conversation with Napoleon in Erfurt.
6 October
: Goethe and Wieland have a conversation with Napoleon during a ball at the court of Weimar.
1809
October
: First sketches for the autobiography
Dichtung und Wahrheit
(
Poetry and Truth
).
Die Wahlverwandtschaften
(
Elective Affinities
) is published.
1810
Zur Farbenlehre
is published.
1811
September
: Stay of Bettina von Arnim, neé Brentano, and her husband Achim in Weimar. Goethe temporarily breaks
off all contact with Bettina after she has a fierce argument with his wife Christiane.
October
: The first part of
Dichtung und Wahrheit
is published.
1812
1
February
: Première of Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet
in an adaptation by Goethe.
Dichtung und Wahrheit
, part two, is published.
1813
20 January
: Wieland thes. In his honour, Goethe gives the speech ‘Zu brüderlichem Andenken Wielands’ (‘In Brotherly Memory of Wieland’) on 25 January.
Writes the poem ‘Gefunden’ (‘Found by Chance’) and gives it to Christiane to mark the twenty-fifth year of their relationship. He continuously works on
Dichtung und Wahrheit
and starts working on the
Italienische Reise
(
The Italian Journey
).
1814
31
March
: Napoleon is overthrown.
June
: Goethe reads the
Divan
by the Persian poet Hafis in the translation by Joseph von Hammer and starts to write his
West-östlicher Divan
(
East-West Divan
). The poems are inspired by his relationship with Marianne von Willemer, whom he met while travelling in the Rhein-Main Area. Some of the poems have been attributed to her.
1815
12
December
: Appointed Minister of State (
Staatsminister
) and, jointly with Christian Gottlob von Voigt, oversees the State institutions for science and the arts.
Further work on the
Divan.
Cotta publishes
Goethe’s Werke
(
Goethe’s Works
) in twenty volumes.
1816
May
: Conversations with the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.
6
June
: Christiane von Goethe dies after a period of severe illness.
25
September
: Reunion with Charlotte Kestner, neé Buff, in Weimar. (Thomas Mann famously draws on this encounter in his 1939 novel
Lotte in Weimar.)
October
: The first part of
Italienische Reise
is published.
1817
Reads Immanuel Kant’s
Kritik der Urteilskraft
(
Critique of Judgement
).
17
June
: Goethe’s son August marries Ottilie von Pogwisch.
Second part of
Italienische Reise
is published.
1819
19
August
: Arthur Schopenhauer visits Goethe, who in the same year reads the philosopher’s main work
Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung
(
The World as Will and Representation
).
West-östlicher Divan
is published.
1820
Resumes the work on
Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre.
1823
February
: Suffers from a serious pericardium inflammation.
10
June
: First visit by Johann Peter Eckermann in Weimar.
Eckermann starts recording their conversations.
While taking a cure in Karlsbad and Marienbad, Goethe falls in love with the nineteen-year-old Ulrike von Levetzow. He proposes to her with the Grand Duke Carl August of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach acting as his messenger. Ulrike declines. On his way back to Weimar Goethe writes the
Marienbader Elegie
(
Marienbad Elegy
).
1824
2 October
: Meets with Heinrich Heine.
1826
29 September–3 October
: Grillparzer in Weimar, visiting Goethe. Work on
Faust II.
1827
6 January
: Death of Charlotte von Stein. Further work on
Faust.
Reads Chinese poetry and works on
Chinesisch-deutsche Jahres- und Tageszeiten
(
Sino-German Seasons and Hours
).
1828
July–September
: Leads a quiet life in Dornburg. Works on
Faust.
Publication of the
Italienische Reise
(all three parts).
1829
First stagings of
Faust. Der Tragödie erster Teil
in Braun schweig, Hannover, Dresden, Leipzig and Weimar, produced by August Klingemann. Goethe finishes the second version of
Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre. Chinesisch-deutsche Jahres- und Tageszeiten
is published in the
Berliner Musenal manarch für das Jahr 1830.
1830
26
October
: Goethe’s son August dies in Rome.
November
: Further work on
Dichtung und Wahrheit.
25
November
: Goethe suffers a haemorrhage.
1831
22
January
: Appoints Eckermann and Riemer as editors of his unpublished works.
27
August
: While hiking with his grandchildren Goethe rediscovers his poem ‘Ein Gleiches’ (‘Of a Kind’), which he had carved into the wooden walls of a hunting lodge in 1780.
October
: Finishes the fourth part of
Dichtung und Wahrheit.
1832
22 March
: Dies of heart failure.
FURTHER READING
Editions
English
Goethe: The Collected Works
, Suhrkamp Edition, ed. Victor Lange et al. (12 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1983–9; paperback edn, Princeton, 1994).
German
Goethes Werke: Herausgegeben im Auftrage der Groβherzogin Sophie von Sachsen
(4 sections, 143 vols., Weimar, 1887–1919; reprinted Munich, 1987–90).
(Weimarer Ausgabe)
Goethes Werke
, ed. Erich Trunz (14 vols., Hamburg, 1948–64; paperback edn, Munich, 1982).
(Hamburger Ausgabe)
Sämtliche Werke nach Epochen seines Schaffens
, ed. Karl Richter et al. (21 vols., Munich, 1985– ).
(Münchner Ausgabe)
Sämtliche Werke, Briefe, Tagebücher und Gespräche
, ed. Dieter Borchmeyer (40 vols., Frankfurt-am-Main, 1987–94).
(Frankfurter Ausgabe)
On Goethe’s Life and Work
Borchmeyer, Dieter,
Goethe: Der Zeitbürger
(Munich; Vienna 1999).
Boyle, Nicholas,
Goethe: The Poet and the Age.
Vol. 1:
The Poetry of Desire
(Oxford, 1991); Vol. 2:
Revolution and Renunciation, 1790–1803
(Oxford, 2000).
Conrady, Karl Otto,
Goethe: Leben und Werk
(Munich; Zurich, 1994).
Hinderer, Walter (ed.),
Goethe und das Zeitalter der Romantik
(Würtzburg, 2002).
Reed, Terence J.,
Goethe
(Oxford, 1984; new edn, Oxford, 1998).
Reed, Terence J., Martin Swales and Jeremy Adler,
Goethe at 250: London Symposium
(Munich, 2000).
Sharpe, Lesley (ed.),
The Cambridge Companion to Goethe
(Cambridge, 2002).
Swales, Martin and Erika Swales,
Reading Goethe: A Critical Introduction to the Literary Work
(Rochester, NY, 2002).
Williams, John R.,
The Life of Goethe: A Critical Biography
(Oxford, 1998).
On Elective Affinities
Adler, Jeremy,
‘Eine fast magische Anziehungskraft’: Goethes ‘Wahlverwandtschaften’ und die Chemie seiner Zeit
(Munich, 1987).