Goethe: Life as a Work of Art

The life of the last universal genius Rüdiger Safranski is reconstructed based on primary sources - works, letters, diaries, conversations, and testimonies of contemporaries, which makes Goethe's image in his biography unusually vivid: a young man from a good family,... a perpetually lovestruck student, he becomes the most popular author, secures a well-paid position, becomes passionate about the natural sciences, flees to Italy, lives with his beloved woman outside of marriage - and at the same time creates his unforgettable works. But that is not enough for him: he wants his very life to become a work of art. In his book, Safranski virtuously reconstructs Goethe's life, allowing us to feel like contemporaries of this man and understand how Goethe became who he became.