Produced by David Garcia, Larry B. Harrison, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) “Great Writers.” EDITED BY PROFESSOR ERIC S. ROBERTSON, M.A. _LIFE OF GOETHE._ LIFE OF JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE BY JAMES SIME LONDON WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE NEW YORK: THOMAS WHITTAKER TORONTO: W. J. GAGE & CO. 1888 (_All rights reserved._) CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Goethe born, August 28, 1749; his grandfather and grandmother; his father, Johann Kaspar Goethe; his mother; his sister Cornelia; a child of an imaginative temperament; his grandmother’s last Christmas gift; his father’s house rebuilt; his knowledge of Frankfort; the Council-house; education; Klopstock’s “Messiah”; folk-books; the Seven Years’ War; Count Thorane and Goethe; lessons interrupted and renewed; early religious ideas; his first love; in 1765 leaves Frankfort to study at the university of Leipsic 11 CHAPTER II. Goethe at Leipsic; nominal studies at the university; dejection, and recovery of his usual good spirits; his love for Annette Schönkopf; forms many friendships; takes lessons in art from Oeser and Stock; goes to Dresden to study the picture gallery; reads Dodd’s “Beauties of Shakespeare”; influenced by Wieland, Lessing, and Winckelmann; writes “Die Laune des Verliebten” and “Die Mitschuldigen”; early lyrics; illness; partial recovery; returns to Frankfort in August, 1768; renewed illness; influenced by Fräulein von Klettenberg; sees General Paoli; Annette Schönkopf married; in April, 1770, goes to Strasburg to attend the university; feels at home in Strasburg; Salzmann; Jung Stilling; sees Marie Antoinette; impressed by antiquities at Neiderbronn; meets Herder; Herder’s character; the movement of thought in Europe; Herder’s influence on Goethe; Goethe and Frederika Brion; returns to Frankfort in August, 1771; his poetic genius awakened by love 24 CHAPTER III.