German · 1749–1832
Goethe dominated German letters for sixty years and became the paradigm of the universal genius. His early novel The Sorrows of Young Werther sparked a continental craze and defined Romantic sensibility; his sixty-year work on Faust produced Germany's greatest drama and one of world literature's defining works. He served as chief minister of the Duchy of Weimar, directed its theater, conducted scientific research on color and plant morphology, and corresponded with virtually every significant European intellectual. Napoleon summoned him for conversation; Beethoven dedicated music to him. He embodied the ideal of Bildung—self-cultivation through culture—that shaped German education.