Hermann and Dorothea (Dodo Press)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a German writer. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, literature, theology, humanism, and science. His Magnum Opus, lauded as one of the peaks of world literature, is the two-part dramatic poem Faust: A Tragedy. He was one of the key figures of German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; this movement coincides with Enlightenment, Sentimentality (Empfindsamkeit), Sturm und Drang, and Romanticism. His scientific text Theory of Colours influenced Darwin with its focus on plant morphology. His influence on German philosophy is virtually immeasurable, having major impact especially on the generation of Hegel and Schelling, although Goethe himself expressly and decidedly refrained from practicing philosophy in the rarefied sense. His other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther.