The Sorrows of Young Werther

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, dramatist, novelist, theorist, humanist, scientist, painter, and polymath. His most enduring work, the two-part dramatic poem Faust, is considered one of the peaks of world literature. Goethe’s other well-known literary works include his numerous poems, the bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, the epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther and the semi-autobiographical novel Elective Affinities. Goethe 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. The author of Faust and Theory of Colours, he influenced Darwin with his focus on plant morphology. Goethe’s influence spread across Europe, and for the next century his works were a primary source of inspiration in music, drama, poetry, and philosophy.