Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749–1832), German poet, novelist, and playwright. His monumental work ranges from correspondence and poems to 14 volumes of scientific studies and is crowned by Faust (part I, 1808; part II, 1833), written in stages during 60 years, in which he synthesized his life and art in a poetic and philosophical statement of the search for complete experience and knowledge. Among his best-known novels are The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) and The Apprenticeship of Wilhelm Meister (1795–96).