Another work belonging chiefly to this period is “Aus Meinem Leben. Dichtung und Wahrheit” (“From My Life. Poetry and Truth”), the first two parts of which appeared in 1811, the third in 1814. The fourth he did not finish until 1831. The narrative brings the story of Goethe’s life down to the time when he quitted Frankfort for Weimar. His object was to describe the influences under which his character both as a man and as a writer was formed. Hence the stress he lays on his relations to Gretchen, Annette, Frederika, and Lili. To have omitted these figures from his picture, or to have sketched them only slightly, would have been to convey a wholly wrong impression of the conditions under which his peculiar powers were developed. The style in which the story is told is light, pliant, and graceful, and it has an especially delicate charm in the passages relating to the maidens whom he has loved. Some details of the narrative are incorrect, but that his reminiscences are substantially accurate we know from the fact that they accord in the main with his early works and letters. Goethe’s intellectual relations even in youth were so far-reaching that “Dichtung und Wahrheit” is much more than a record of his personal experience. It contains a full and most vivid account of all the great currents of thought and feeling in Germany during an important transitional period in the history of her literature. During the time when he was writing his autobiography, Goethe studied with much interest Von Hammer’s translation of the Persian poet Hafiz. This led to the production of the “West-Oestlicher Divan” (“West-Eastern Divan”). The work was not published until 1819, but the greater part of it was written in 1815. It consists of several series of short poems, and is remarkable chiefly for the deep practical wisdom of many of its verses, for the variety and perfection of its metres, and for the splendour of its diction. The “West-Oestlicher Divan” became a source of inspiration to several poets of the new generation--among others, to Rückert, Platen, and Bodenstedt.