Goethe’s aim was far more than to run away into anonymity or visit famous sites. He sketched ancient monuments in Rome, observed local customs in Verona, collected rock samples in Sicily and forged friendships amongst his bohemian fellow travellers. It was the beginning of a trip that lasted almost two years, and which not only rejuvenated his spirit but gave him a new direction in life. A few days after his birthday, without telling anybody of his plans, he jumped on a mail coach at three in the morning, with no servant and only two small bags, and fled south to Italy under an assumed name. And he was suffering from unrequited love for a married woman seven years his senior. He was bored with his job, having spent a decade as a top civil servant in the court of the Duke of Weimar. He had achieved fame as a novelist and dramatist in his early twenties, but now his literary work was floundering and almost everything he started he failed to finish. Goethe had just celebrated his thirty-seventh birthday and was facing a mid-life crisis. It began in the type of stormy emotional content we have come to associate with him, as an essay by Roman Krznaric describes: But Goethe’s own journey was not necessarily as luxurious and relaxing as those who followed him. Thanks partially to Goethe’s journey, such a trip became a necessary part of any cultured European’s upbringing during the period we study. Goethe summed up his own encounter with Italian culture in a work he called The Italian Journey, a writing of such influence that 200 years later it still drives tourism to Italy. You’ll see Italian images over and over in 19th century art. Ask yourself: is it a typical German landscape? Hardly… it is Italian, an important country for cultural figures throughout the period we study. Look at him here reclining in a background typical to paintings of the time. His writings are often credited with forming the modern German language itself, and yet his themes as a writer often dealt with very personal subjects - above all, emotion. He was so important to the cultural imagination of modern Germans that even today he is a household name. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a poet, playwright, author, teacher, philosopher, and many other things besides. That’s the German government’s most high-profile, worldwide institution of culture and language, offering an array of classes, performances, film screenings, and other cultural events (some of which will be worth attending this semester! Stay tuned.) So, if the Germans saw fit to name such a place after this man, he must be a pretty big deal, right? Right! If you’ve had time to tour the neighborhood of SCS headquarters, you might have noticed the Goethe Institut just two blocks away.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |