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Joseph Karl Stieler, 1828, Bayerische Staatsgemaeldesammlungen - Neue Pinakothek Munich (WAF 1048), Public Domain (artist died 1858) · Wikimedia Commons, 'Goethe (Stieler 1828).jpg' -- Joseph Karl Stieler, oil on canvas 1828 (Neue Pinakothek Munich, inventory WAF 1048), painted from sittings with Goethe in Weimar; original Commons file 1972 x 2432 pixels, downscaled once to 973 x 1200 (never upscaled). · Public Domain
writer · Early Modern
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
1749–1832
Known For
literarycultural
Not yet included in personality matching — the documented evidence doesn't yet cover enough of the personality model. Everything else on this page is fully available.
Trait Constellation
Key Achievements
He worked on Faust for more than 60 years, revising and returning to it until its second part reached its last acts in 1831.
His early works, including Götz von Berlichingen and The Sorrows of Young Werther, were immensely popular.
From 1794 he worked in close partnership with Friedrich Schiller on journals, almanacs and epigrams, and he directed the Weimar court theatre.
Moments That Reveal Them
In 1823 he told Eckermann that for twenty years he had known that Newton and the mathematicians were wrong about colour and that he alone among millions knew the truth, and he went on defending his theory for the rest of his life.
This is consistent with a willingness to hold a position against nearly the whole scientific establishment of his day, in a case where later physicists judged him wrong. Independent Thinking
In 1831 he had the whole manuscript of Faust's second part stitched together, with white paper standing in for the missing fourth act, so that what was finished would draw him on to complete the rest.
This is consistent with finishing a very long work by returning to it in stages and arranging the work so it pulls him forward. Persistence
Turning Points
After Schiller's letter of 23 August 1794 describing his mind, Goethe replied that he regarded those days as an epoch in his life, and the two began a close working partnership on journals, almanacs and poems.
This is consistent with a writer who, from this point, sought out a close peer to work with instead of working mainly alone. Collaboration
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Sources
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Q5879) -- verified live via the Wikidata API (2026-10-10): English label 'Johann Wolfgang von Goethe', description 'German writer, artist, natural scientist and politician (1749-1832)', born 28 August 1749, died 22 March 1832, citizenship Germany, Korean label present. Orientation only; not used as support for any row.
- Johann Peter Eckermann, 'Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret', translated by John Oxenford (revised edition, George Bell and Sons, London, 1883), Internet Archive scan -- CONTEMPORARY WITNESS, Goethe's secretary and devoted younger friend from 1823 to 1832, with entries by the Genevan scholar Frederic Soret; admiring and shaped by Eckermann's own editing, and much of it is Goethe speaking about himself. Used only for dated, concrete statements and scenes (the colour-theory conversations of 1823-26, the 'collective being' remarks of 1832, the sealed 'Helena' packet of 1827, the stitched Faust manuscript of 1831, the yearly rereading of Moliere). Read those entries in full from the scan text; the rest of the three volumes was skimmed, not read.
- L. Dora Schmitz (translator), 'Correspondence between Schiller and Goethe, from 1794 to 1805', volume I covering 1794-1797 (George Bell and Sons, London, 1877), Internet Archive scan -- PEER witness: letters between the two writers, including Schiller's letter of 23 August 1794 describing Goethe's way of thinking, Goethe's reply of 27 August 1794, the 1795-96 exchanges on the epigram collection (Xenien) and the periodical Horen, and the June 1797 letters on resuming Faust. Candid in places but friendly and mutually admiring, and the OCR text is partly corrupted; only passages that read clearly were used. Volume II (1798-1805) was not opened.
- George Henry Lewes, 'The Life and Works of Goethe' (first published 1855; Everyman's Library edition, J. M. Dent, London, 1908), Internet Archive scan -- INDEPENDENT Victorian biography written from German sources, openly critical on Goethe's impatience, his unfinished works and his colour theory, and including Edward Devrient's and Chancellor von Muller's accounts of his theatre direction. Dated by modern standards. Read the chapters on his early temperament, the intermaxillary bone, the poet as a man of science and the theatrical manager, plus the passages on Werther and the fragments; the political chapters and the later narrative were not read.
- Robert P. Crease, 'Fight over light', Physics World (IOP Publishing), 16 April 2015 -- modern opinion piece by a philosopher of physics on Goethe's Theory of Colours (1810), his scientific collecting, instruments and treatises, and why physicists rejected the attack on Newton while artists and philosophers took it up. Independent and critical of the colour theory's physics; the page's last paragraph is behind registration and was not read. Read in full to that point.
- University of Wurzburg news item, 'Digital Edition of Goethe's Faust', 24 October 2018 -- announcement of the historical-critical Faust edition by Frankfurter Goethe-Haus, the Goethe and Schiller Archive in Weimar and Wurzburg, stating that Goethe worked on Faust for over 60 years and that over 2,000 manuscript pages and more than 1,500 testimonies to its creation survive. Scholarly institutional source for the length of the work history only. Read in full.
- Bayerische Staatsgemaeldesammlungen, Neue Pinakothek Munich, collection record for Joseph Karl Stieler, 'Johann Wolfgang von Goethe', 1828, oil on canvas 78 x 63.8 cm, inventory WAF 1048 -- museum page used to check the portrait's rights notice (see portrait record). Not used for any scoring.