GMST 100. Topics in German Studies III: Goethe and the Advent of Modernity

In his long lifetime (1749-1832), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe experienced many epoch-changing political and cultural events. He was forty years old when the French Revolution began and he participated in the Prusso-Austrian campaign against revolutionary France. The subsequent Napoleonic Wars brought French troops to Weimar in the aftermath of the Prussian defeat. By the time Goethe met Napoleon in 1808, he had been a hugely famous author across all of Europe for over three decades (after the publication of The Sorrows of Young Werther in 1774). Associated with various literary movements (Storm and Stress, Weimar Classicism), Goethe nevertheless resists easy literary classification, especially the generic hybridity of his later works (Faust I and II, Die Wahlverwandschaften).

Always acutely aware of technological, economic, and social changes, Goethe experienced the rise of industrialization and modern capitalism and the political transition of the old hierarchical feudal system to the emergence of a more fluid capitalist society based on bourgeois values.

In our seminar, we follow Goethe’s personal and artistic trajectory by engaging in some of his most influential and famous works, including Götz von Berlichingen, Die Leiden des jungen Werther, Iphigenie auf Tauris, Wilhelm Meister’s Lehrjahre, Faust I and II, Unterhaltungen Deutscher Ausgewanderter, and Die Wahlverwandschaften.
The course can be taken for 1 or 2 credits. 
Humanities.
2 credits.
Eligible for CPLT
Spring 2027. Werlen.
Catalog chapter: Modern Languages and Literatures: German Studies  
Department website: https://www.swarthmore.edu/german-studies

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