Goethe: The Poet and the Age

The long-awaited third and fourth volumes of Nicholas Boyle's magisterial biography Goethe: The Poet and the Age cover the period of the Napoleonic Empire in Germany, relatively neglected by literary scholars as years national humiliation. Yet these years saw the publication by Goethe of the major works of his maturity by which his European reputation was established in the nineteenth century and beyond: Faust: Part One, the Theory of Colour, the mysterious novel Elective Affinities, and the three volumes of his autobiography, Poetry and Truth. Neglect of the political and personal context in which these works were written has led to serious misunderstandings which these volumes aim to remedy. Volume III brings to life the turbulent years from 1803 to 1809 which saw the extension of Napoleon's rule to Germany and his establishment of the 'continental system' to blockade British commerce. Vivid accounts are given of Prussia's disastrous defeat at Jena in 1806 and the traumatic occupation of Weimar; of Napoleon's Congress of Erfurt in 1808; and of Weimar's bloody participation in his campaigns in the Tirol and Austria. The direct consequences for Goethe include his sudden marriage to his long-term mistress, Christiana Vulpius, his nervous breakdown after the defeat at Jena (reflected in his drawings and the polemical sections of Theory of Colour), his gradual reconciliation with the Napoleonic settlement and Napoleon's courtship of him at Erfurt, his long working vacations amid the glittering society at the Bohemian spas, and the inspiration for Elective Affinities, of which a radically new interpretation is proposed. Among the many figures whose intellectual and personal relationship with Goethe is depicted are: Schiller, whose death haunted him throughout this period; Hegel, whose Phenomenology is shown to owe much to Goethe; the Romantic dramatist, Zacharias Werner; Silvie von Ziegesar and Bettina Brentano with whom he was linked in sentimental affairs; and his son, August, with whom his relationship gradually matured.