WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.799 Imagine a figure so colossal, so central to cultural 00:00:04.799 --> 00:00:09.580 history, that he's basically the sun around which 00:00:09.580 --> 00:00:13.019 an entire century of intellectual life revolved. 00:00:13.019 --> 00:00:15.099 That's a great way to put it. We're talking about 00:00:15.099 --> 00:00:17.359 someone who wasn't just a writer. I mean, sure, 00:00:17.539 --> 00:00:19.800 he wrote the book that arguably created the concept 00:00:19.800 --> 00:00:21.820 of the modern bestseller, and he wrote the drama 00:00:21.820 --> 00:00:24.280 that defines a whole nation. But if you stop 00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:28.769 there, you are missing... Like 80 % of the picture. 00:00:28.929 --> 00:00:30.890 It really is a classic tip of the iceberg case, 00:00:30.969 --> 00:00:32.590 isn't it? Because usually when we think of these 00:00:32.590 --> 00:00:34.850 literary giants, we think of them, you know, 00:00:34.850 --> 00:00:36.969 locked away in a room with a quill and ink, sort 00:00:36.969 --> 00:00:39.409 of isolated from the world. Right. We don't picture 00:00:39.409 --> 00:00:42.270 them dissecting elephant skulls or managing the 00:00:42.270 --> 00:00:44.729 reopening of silver mines or commanding troops 00:00:44.729 --> 00:00:47.149 during an invasion. Exactly. And that is the 00:00:47.149 --> 00:00:49.130 journey we're going on today. We are looking 00:00:49.130 --> 00:00:52.609 at a man who was so impressive that when Napoleon, 00:00:52.869 --> 00:00:54.549 and this is Napoleon at the height of his power, 00:00:54.609 --> 00:00:57.119 the master of Europe. When Napoleon met him, 00:00:57.200 --> 00:01:00.320 he was completely starstruck. Utterly. He just 00:01:00.320 --> 00:01:03.039 looked at him and said, vous êtes un homme. Which 00:01:03.039 --> 00:01:06.120 means, you are a man. Yeah, but coming from Napoleon, 00:01:06.239 --> 00:01:08.019 that was the ultimate compliment. It wasn't just, 00:01:08.040 --> 00:01:11.019 you're a man. It was, you are a complete human 00:01:11.019 --> 00:01:15.379 being. The full package. Today on the Deep Dive, 00:01:15.379 --> 00:01:18.260 we're tackling the life, the science. Yes, the 00:01:18.260 --> 00:01:20.480 science and the chaotic loves of Johann Wolfgang 00:01:20.480 --> 00:01:22.700 von Goethe. And we've got a massive stack of 00:01:22.700 --> 00:01:24.519 notes here we're pulling from biographical records, 00:01:24.780 --> 00:01:27.040 historical accounts of his interactions with 00:01:27.040 --> 00:01:30.519 people like Beethoven and Napoleon, and deep 00:01:30.519 --> 00:01:33.299 summaries of his scientific work. Things like 00:01:33.299 --> 00:01:36.000 his theory of colors and metamorphosis of plants. 00:01:36.299 --> 00:01:38.120 And our mission here is really to understand 00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:40.739 how one person can effectively embody an entire 00:01:40.739 --> 00:01:43.420 cultural shift. The transition from the age of 00:01:43.420 --> 00:01:46.400 reason to romanticism. He's often called the 00:01:46.400 --> 00:01:48.579 German Shakespeare, but I think by the end you'll 00:01:48.579 --> 00:01:50.900 see that label is almost too limiting. Oh, absolutely. 00:01:51.040 --> 00:01:54.500 He was a polymath in the truest, most complete 00:01:54.500 --> 00:01:56.799 sense of the word. A polymath who also happened 00:01:56.799 --> 00:02:00.280 to be a bit of a rock star in his 20s. So let's 00:02:00.280 --> 00:02:02.019 unpack this. We've got a roadmap for the discussion. 00:02:02.180 --> 00:02:04.480 We're going to start with his early years and 00:02:04.480 --> 00:02:07.560 the absolute scandal that was The Sorrows of 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:09.360 Young Werther. The book that made him famous 00:02:09.360 --> 00:02:11.599 overnight. Then we're going to pivot to the part 00:02:11.599 --> 00:02:15.280 that surprises most people. His career as a statesman 00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:19.099 and kind of bizarrely. scientist which is where 00:02:19.099 --> 00:02:21.599 things get really fascinating because he actually 00:02:21.599 --> 00:02:23.780 claimed he was more proud of his color theory 00:02:23.780 --> 00:02:26.520 than all of his poetry combined which sounds 00:02:26.520 --> 00:02:29.500 completely insane but we will get to why he thought 00:02:29.500 --> 00:02:31.699 that then we'll look at his time in Italy his 00:02:31.699 --> 00:02:34.699 legendary friendship with Schiller and the wild 00:02:34.699 --> 00:02:37.400 personal life involving his mistress turned wife 00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:41.080 and some very rude French soldiers. The Spoon 00:02:41.080 --> 00:02:43.539 Guards, a great story. And finally, we'll wrap 00:02:43.539 --> 00:02:47.099 up with his legacy, his masterpiece Faust, and 00:02:47.099 --> 00:02:49.180 the myths surrounding his death. It is a lot 00:02:49.180 --> 00:02:51.060 of ground to cover, but every piece connects. 00:02:51.300 --> 00:02:53.560 It forms a picture of a man who just refused 00:02:53.560 --> 00:02:56.289 to be categorized. So let's jump in at the beginning. 00:02:56.370 --> 00:03:00.229 Frankfurt, 1749. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is 00:03:00.229 --> 00:03:02.909 born into what we would call a pretty comfortable 00:03:02.909 --> 00:03:05.930 setup. Very comfortable. His father, Johann Caspar 00:03:05.930 --> 00:03:08.530 Goethe, was an imperial counselor. He'd inherited 00:03:08.530 --> 00:03:11.650 a huge fortune, lived in a large house, but he 00:03:11.650 --> 00:03:13.370 was also a man with some thwarted ambitions. 00:03:13.710 --> 00:03:16.069 He hadn't quite achieved the public status he 00:03:16.069 --> 00:03:19.620 wanted. Ah, I know this dynamic. He poured all 00:03:19.620 --> 00:03:21.419 of that energy into his children, especially 00:03:21.419 --> 00:03:24.120 his son. The classic, I didn't make it so you 00:03:24.120 --> 00:03:27.319 will thing? Precisely. And the education young 00:03:27.319 --> 00:03:30.520 Gotha received was, well, it was intense. He 00:03:30.520 --> 00:03:32.539 had private tutors for everything. We're not 00:03:32.539 --> 00:03:34.240 just talking about one or two languages. We're 00:03:34.240 --> 00:03:38.680 talking Latin, Greek, French, Italian, English, 00:03:38.840 --> 00:03:42.460 and even biblical Hebrew. Just a casual six languages 00:03:42.460 --> 00:03:45.289 before you're an adult. No big deal. And it wasn't 00:03:45.289 --> 00:03:47.530 just book learning. He took lessons in dancing, 00:03:47.750 --> 00:03:50.689 writing, and fencing. His father was meticulously 00:03:50.689 --> 00:03:53.229 building a gentleman. A perfect product of the 00:03:53.229 --> 00:03:55.169 Enlightenment. But there's this interesting little 00:03:55.169 --> 00:03:57.509 detail about his family tree that often gets 00:03:57.509 --> 00:04:00.669 overlooked. On his mother's side, the text mentions 00:04:00.669 --> 00:04:02.990 he descended from the Solden family. Oh, I saw 00:04:02.990 --> 00:04:05.090 this in the notes. This is the Oriental ancestor 00:04:05.090 --> 00:04:07.610 theory. Right. There have been these claims, 00:04:07.750 --> 00:04:11.090 or family legends, that his maternal grandmother's 00:04:11.090 --> 00:04:14.550 lineage goes back to a Turkish officer. a man 00:04:14.550 --> 00:04:17.870 named Sadak Sele Zoltan. And the story goes he 00:04:17.870 --> 00:04:20.089 was captured during the Crusades. Sometime in 00:04:20.089 --> 00:04:22.889 that era, yes. Captured, brought to Germany, 00:04:23.050 --> 00:04:25.689 baptized, and eventually integrated into the 00:04:25.689 --> 00:04:28.490 nobility. So the great prince of German poets 00:04:28.490 --> 00:04:31.050 might have had roots reaching back to the Middle 00:04:31.050 --> 00:04:33.860 East. That's fascinating. It's a really compelling 00:04:33.860 --> 00:04:36.720 possibility, and it may be shed some light on 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:39.939 why later in life, Goethe showed such a profound 00:04:39.939 --> 00:04:42.699 interest in the East and in Islam, which we'll 00:04:42.699 --> 00:04:45.540 definitely touch on. But as a kid, his imagination 00:04:45.540 --> 00:04:48.060 was fired up by something much closer to home. 00:04:48.560 --> 00:04:51.339 Puppet shows. The French occupation, right? Yes. 00:04:51.439 --> 00:04:53.819 During the Seven Years' War, French soldiers 00:04:53.819 --> 00:04:56.339 actually occupied Frankfurt and were billeted 00:04:56.339 --> 00:04:58.560 in the Goethe family home. Right, in his house. 00:04:58.839 --> 00:05:01.120 And they put on these puppet shows, and young 00:05:01.120 --> 00:05:04.660 Johann was just... Mesmerized. It seems trivial, 00:05:04.779 --> 00:05:07.459 but this obsession with theater, with the mechanics 00:05:07.459 --> 00:05:09.560 of storytelling, it seems to have started right 00:05:09.560 --> 00:05:11.379 there. And it clearly stuck with him because 00:05:11.379 --> 00:05:13.800 that whole puppet theater theme shows up years 00:05:13.800 --> 00:05:17.220 later in his huge novel, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. 00:05:17.339 --> 00:05:20.100 But despite this obvious artistic spark, his 00:05:20.100 --> 00:05:22.500 dad says, no, you're going to be a lawyer. Of 00:05:22.500 --> 00:05:25.120 course. So off he goes to Leipzig University 00:05:25.120 --> 00:05:30.290 in 1765, and he... absolutely hated it. He detested 00:05:30.290 --> 00:05:32.910 memorizing the rules. I feel like that's a pretty 00:05:32.910 --> 00:05:35.230 common theme with geniuses. They hate the rote 00:05:35.230 --> 00:05:37.550 memorization part of education. He couldn't stand 00:05:37.550 --> 00:05:39.529 it. He preferred attending poetry lectures, but 00:05:39.529 --> 00:05:42.250 even then he was critical. He fell in love. He 00:05:42.250 --> 00:05:45.290 wrote some cheerful Coco style verses, but he 00:05:45.290 --> 00:05:47.629 was basically just avoiding his actual studies. 00:05:47.790 --> 00:05:50.290 And then he gets sick. And this isn't just a 00:05:50.290 --> 00:05:53.110 bad cold. The sources describe a major health 00:05:53.110 --> 00:05:56.269 crisis. A hemorrhage. A very serious one. He 00:05:56.269 --> 00:05:58.189 has to move back home to Frankfurt and he spends 00:05:58.189 --> 00:06:01.129 about a year and a half just recovering. And 00:06:01.129 --> 00:06:03.290 this seems like a real turning point. A huge 00:06:03.290 --> 00:06:05.769 one. He's stuck in bed being nursed by his mother 00:06:05.769 --> 00:06:07.889 and his sister, Cornelia, who he was very close 00:06:07.889 --> 00:06:10.550 to. And he just reads. He dives into alchemy, 00:06:10.629 --> 00:06:14.350 religion, mysticism. It's this intensely introspective 00:06:14.350 --> 00:06:16.550 period that really deepens his thinking. So when 00:06:16.550 --> 00:06:18.670 he finally recovers and goes to Strasbourg to 00:06:18.670 --> 00:06:21.110 finish his law degree. He's a different person. 00:06:21.189 --> 00:06:23.509 He is. And that's where he meets Johann Gottfried 00:06:23.509 --> 00:06:25.569 Herder. Which is a crucial meeting. Absolutely 00:06:25.569 --> 00:06:27.870 crucial. Herder is the one who really introduces 00:06:27.870 --> 00:06:29.730 him to Shakespeare. And you have to understand 00:06:29.730 --> 00:06:32.629 at this time in Germany, French culture was the 00:06:32.629 --> 00:06:35.170 gold standard. It was the dominant high status 00:06:35.170 --> 00:06:38.629 model. Herder and Goethe started looking at Shakespeare 00:06:38.629 --> 00:06:42.689 and at German folk poetry, Volksbose, as something 00:06:42.689 --> 00:06:45.529 more authentic, more raw and powerful. And this 00:06:45.529 --> 00:06:47.879 is the birth. of the Sturm und Drang movement. 00:06:48.120 --> 00:06:51.100 Storm and stress. It sounds like a teenage emo 00:06:51.100 --> 00:06:53.519 band, but it was a serious literary movement. 00:06:53.779 --> 00:06:56.439 It was. It was a full -blown reaction against 00:06:56.439 --> 00:06:59.060 the dry rationalism of the Enlightenment. It 00:06:59.060 --> 00:07:02.540 was all about high emotion, individualism, breaking 00:07:02.540 --> 00:07:06.360 the rules, subjectivity, and Goethe, almost overnight, 00:07:06.560 --> 00:07:08.939 becomes the poster child for it. And nothing 00:07:08.939 --> 00:07:11.199 screams high emotion like the book that made 00:07:11.199 --> 00:07:13.699 him a superstar, The Sorrows of Jungwerther. 00:07:13.949 --> 00:07:16.829 Published in 1774, he was only 24 years old. 00:07:16.910 --> 00:07:18.610 Okay, for anyone listening who hasn't read it, 00:07:18.670 --> 00:07:20.730 give us the quick rundown. What is Werther all 00:07:20.730 --> 00:07:23.019 about? It's an epistolary novel, which means 00:07:23.019 --> 00:07:25.379 it's written as a series of letters. The protagonist, 00:07:25.639 --> 00:07:28.120 Werther, is this very sensitive, very artistic 00:07:28.120 --> 00:07:30.620 young man who falls desperately in love with 00:07:30.620 --> 00:07:33.040 a woman named Lotte. The problem is? The problem 00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:35.899 is, Lotte is already engaged to a very decent, 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:38.360 very steady, but kind of boring guy named Albert. 00:07:38.540 --> 00:07:40.980 Of course. And Werther just can't handle the 00:07:40.980 --> 00:07:44.160 intensity of his unrequited feelings. He spirals 00:07:44.160 --> 00:07:47.000 into this deep depression, and eventually he 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:49.439 commits suicide by shooting himself. It sounds 00:07:49.439 --> 00:07:51.819 incredibly dark, but the source material is clear 00:07:51.819 --> 00:07:54.079 on this. Yeah. This was arguably the world's 00:07:54.079 --> 00:07:57.579 first bestseller. It wasn't just popular. It 00:07:57.579 --> 00:08:00.300 was a phenomenon. It was a contagion. And what 00:08:00.300 --> 00:08:02.480 makes it so potent is that it was deeply semi 00:08:02.480 --> 00:08:04.759 -autobiographical. This was based on his own 00:08:04.759 --> 00:08:07.980 life. Very much so. Goethe really did fall for 00:08:07.980 --> 00:08:10.160 a woman named Charlotte Buff, who was engaged 00:08:10.160 --> 00:08:13.000 to another man, Johann Christian Kessner. And 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:15.300 around that same time, a friend of Goethe's, 00:08:15.300 --> 00:08:18.439 a young man named Carl Wilhelm Jerusalem, actually 00:08:18.439 --> 00:08:20.959 did kill himself over an unrequited love. So 00:08:20.959 --> 00:08:23.360 Goethe takes his own feelings, his own heartbreak, 00:08:23.519 --> 00:08:26.019 mixes them with his friend's very real tragedy, 00:08:26.180 --> 00:08:29.259 and pours it all into this book. He famously 00:08:29.259 --> 00:08:32.279 said he shot his hero to save himself. Exactly. 00:08:32.460 --> 00:08:35.879 For him, writing it was cathartic. He purged 00:08:35.879 --> 00:08:38.679 those suicidal feelings onto the page. But for 00:08:38.679 --> 00:08:40.740 the rest of Europe, it had the opposite effect. 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:43.600 This became known as the Werther effect. People 00:08:43.600 --> 00:08:45.259 started dressing like him, right? The Werther 00:08:45.259 --> 00:08:48.679 costume. Yes. All across Europe, young men started 00:08:48.679 --> 00:08:51.519 wearing a blue tailcoat with a yellow vest and 00:08:51.519 --> 00:08:54.700 trousers. It became the uniform of the suffering 00:08:54.700 --> 00:08:57.200 romantic soul. But it got darker than just a 00:08:57.200 --> 00:09:00.340 fashion trend. Oh, much darker. There was a documented 00:09:00.340 --> 00:09:03.809 spike. in copycat suicides. People were found 00:09:03.809 --> 00:09:05.929 dead with copies of the book in their pockets. 00:09:06.169 --> 00:09:07.990 It was so controversial that it was banned in 00:09:07.990 --> 00:09:10.529 several places like Leipzig and Denmark. I mean, 00:09:10.549 --> 00:09:14.059 that is wild. A book. Having that kind of direct 00:09:14.059 --> 00:09:17.419 physical impact on society, it was seen as glorifying 00:09:17.419 --> 00:09:20.539 suicide. It was. The novel ends with a funeral 00:09:20.539 --> 00:09:23.159 that no clergyman attended, which was just shocking 00:09:23.159 --> 00:09:25.179 for the time. It challenged the religious and 00:09:25.179 --> 00:09:27.799 social order. And it made Goethe, at age 24, 00:09:28.100 --> 00:09:30.039 instantly one of the most famous men in Europe. 00:09:30.240 --> 00:09:32.960 Napoleon read it seven times. Seven times. He 00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:34.879 carried it with him on his campaign in Egypt. 00:09:35.100 --> 00:09:37.759 But here is the kicker. Goethe made almost no 00:09:37.759 --> 00:09:40.179 money from it. Because copyright laws were basically 00:09:40.179 --> 00:09:42.320 non -existent. Right. There were pirate editions 00:09:42.320 --> 00:09:45.399 everywhere. He had all the fame, but almost none 00:09:45.399 --> 00:09:48.279 of the fortune. But that fame was enough to get 00:09:48.279 --> 00:09:50.460 him an invitation that would change his life 00:09:50.460 --> 00:09:54.100 forever. Enter the Duke. Duke Carl August of 00:09:54.100 --> 00:09:57.000 Sachs -Weimar -Eisenach. He was just 18 years 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:00.320 old, a young, enlightened ruler, and he invited 00:10:00.320 --> 00:10:02.700 the famous author of Werther to his court in 00:10:02.700 --> 00:10:06.440 Weimar in 1775. And Goethe basically never leaves. 00:10:06.620 --> 00:10:08.940 He stays there for the rest of his life. But 00:10:08.940 --> 00:10:10.980 this is where the story pivots from tortured 00:10:10.980 --> 00:10:13.460 artist to something completely different. You'd 00:10:13.460 --> 00:10:15.299 expect him to just sit around writing poems for 00:10:15.299 --> 00:10:18.480 the Duke, but he gets a job. A real job. Several 00:10:18.480 --> 00:10:20.919 jobs, actually. This is the statesman phase, 00:10:21.039 --> 00:10:22.919 and it's kind of baffling. Goethe wasn't just 00:10:22.919 --> 00:10:25.500 a court decoration. He was made a member of the 00:10:25.500 --> 00:10:27.840 Duke's Privy Council. He was put in charge of 00:10:27.840 --> 00:10:30.220 the War Commission. He was tasked with reopening 00:10:30.220 --> 00:10:33.379 the silver mines in Ilmenau. He was even in charge 00:10:33.379 --> 00:10:36.159 of road building. Wait, road building? The guy 00:10:36.159 --> 00:10:38.320 who wrote the most emotional, heart -wrenching 00:10:38.320 --> 00:10:41.860 novel of the century is now deciding where the 00:10:41.860 --> 00:10:44.539 pavement goes. And taking it very, very seriously. 00:10:44.879 --> 00:10:47.600 For a few years, he was effectively the prime 00:10:47.600 --> 00:10:49.399 minister and the chancellor of the Exchequer. 00:10:49.500 --> 00:10:51.379 He was running the day -to -day administration 00:10:51.379 --> 00:10:54.210 of the entire duchy. Budgets, infrastructure, 00:10:54.789 --> 00:10:58.769 military affairs. He was in the thick of it. 00:10:58.909 --> 00:11:01.009 That's just a completely different skill set. 00:11:01.169 --> 00:11:04.049 It is. But there is a darker side to this administrative 00:11:04.049 --> 00:11:05.830 work, isn't there? The notes mention something 00:11:05.830 --> 00:11:08.350 about mercenaries. Yes. And this is a controversial 00:11:08.350 --> 00:11:11.049 point raised by the author Daniel Wilson. He 00:11:11.049 --> 00:11:13.549 claims that as head of the War Commission. Goethe 00:11:13.549 --> 00:11:16.269 was involved in negotiating the forced sale of 00:11:16.269 --> 00:11:19.549 vagabonds, criminals, and political dissidents 00:11:19.549 --> 00:11:21.570 to the British military. To fight in the American 00:11:21.570 --> 00:11:24.110 Revolution. Exactly. The British needed bodies 00:11:24.110 --> 00:11:26.529 to fight the American colonists, and many German 00:11:26.529 --> 00:11:28.710 princes were selling their subjects as mercenaries 00:11:28.710 --> 00:11:31.029 to fill that need. It was a source of income 00:11:31.029 --> 00:11:34.169 for the state. So if this is true, it puts Goethe 00:11:34.169 --> 00:11:37.309 in a position of treating human beings as, well, 00:11:37.389 --> 00:11:40.350 as commodities, which sits very uneasily with 00:11:40.350 --> 00:11:42.879 his reputation as a great humanist. It's a heavy 00:11:42.879 --> 00:11:44.460 contradiction. But I guess that's part of the 00:11:44.460 --> 00:11:47.080 complexity of the man. He wasn't just an observer 00:11:47.080 --> 00:11:50.440 of life. He was a full participant in the machinery 00:11:50.440 --> 00:11:52.820 of the state with all its moral compromises. 00:11:52.980 --> 00:11:55.340 And speaking of observation, while he's running 00:11:55.340 --> 00:11:57.419 the state, he starts doing something else that 00:11:57.419 --> 00:12:00.480 baffled his contemporaries. He starts doing hard 00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:02.600 science. And we are just talking about a casual 00:12:02.600 --> 00:12:05.899 hobby. He was obsessed. He was. And this is the 00:12:05.899 --> 00:12:08.019 part of the deep dive that is just so fascinating. 00:12:08.759 --> 00:12:11.720 Goethe famously told his secretary, Eckermann, 00:12:11.860 --> 00:12:15.220 that he took no pride in his poetry. He said, 00:12:15.379 --> 00:12:18.019 and I'm paraphrasing here, excellent poets have 00:12:18.019 --> 00:12:20.720 lived at the same time as me, but that in my 00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:23.559 century, I'm the only person who knows the truth 00:12:23.559 --> 00:12:26.159 in the difficult science of colors. Of that, 00:12:26.179 --> 00:12:29.360 I am not a little proud. That is a massive claim. 00:12:29.559 --> 00:12:31.580 I'm the only one in the entire century who gets 00:12:31.580 --> 00:12:33.519 it. So what was his beef with the science of 00:12:33.519 --> 00:12:35.779 color? Well, his main opponent was Isaac Newton. 00:12:35.980 --> 00:12:40.179 So he's taking on Newton. Very bold. Newton, 00:12:40.460 --> 00:12:42.919 as we all know, had demonstrated with his prism 00:12:42.919 --> 00:12:45.320 that white light is composed of all the colors 00:12:45.320 --> 00:12:47.759 of the spectrum. It's an analytic, mathematical 00:12:47.759 --> 00:12:52.580 view of light. Goethe hated that. Why? What was 00:12:52.580 --> 00:12:55.220 his objection? Goethe felt that by reducing color 00:12:55.220 --> 00:12:57.759 to numbers and angles, mathematics killed the 00:12:57.759 --> 00:13:00.669 phenomenon itself. He believed color wasn't something 00:13:00.669 --> 00:13:03.049 hidden in light, but that it arose from the dynamic 00:13:03.049 --> 00:13:05.889 interplay of light and darkness. Light and darkness. 00:13:06.009 --> 00:13:08.669 Yes. He said color emerges when light and dark 00:13:08.669 --> 00:13:12.090 interact through a turbid medium. So for Goethe, 00:13:12.190 --> 00:13:14.330 yellow is what happens when you see light through 00:13:14.330 --> 00:13:16.570 a slightly darkened medium, like the atmosphere 00:13:16.570 --> 00:13:19.309 at sunrise. Blue is what happens when you see 00:13:19.309 --> 00:13:21.429 darkness through a light -filled medium, like 00:13:21.429 --> 00:13:24.529 the sky during the day. So scientifically. By 00:13:24.529 --> 00:13:26.669 modern physics standards. By the standards of 00:13:26.669 --> 00:13:28.710 physics, Newton was right and Goethe was wrong. 00:13:28.789 --> 00:13:31.669 The math works. But, and this is a huge, but 00:13:31.669 --> 00:13:33.610 Goethe wasn't really doing physics. He was doing 00:13:33.610 --> 00:13:35.789 phenomenology. He was studying the physiological 00:13:35.789 --> 00:13:38.950 experience of color. How the human eye perceives 00:13:38.950 --> 00:13:42.149 it. Exactly. He described things like colored 00:13:42.149 --> 00:13:44.870 shadows and after images with incredible precision. 00:13:45.149 --> 00:13:48.389 Things Newton's theory completely ignored. His 00:13:48.389 --> 00:13:50.909 work on the psychological effects of color, how 00:13:50.909 --> 00:13:54.110 red feels agitating and blue feels calming, was 00:13:54.110 --> 00:13:56.809 groundbreaking. It anticipated later theories 00:13:56.809 --> 00:13:59.690 and deeply influenced painters like J .M .W. 00:13:59.750 --> 00:14:02.009 Turner and philosophers like Wittgenstein. So 00:14:02.009 --> 00:14:04.549 he was wrong about the physics, but right about 00:14:04.549 --> 00:14:07.740 the perception. In a nutshell, yes. But his scientific 00:14:07.740 --> 00:14:10.440 contributions didn't stop at light. He was also 00:14:10.440 --> 00:14:13.620 a pioneer in biology. The Goethe bone. The intermaxillary 00:14:13.620 --> 00:14:16.580 bone. In the 18th century, a key argument for 00:14:16.580 --> 00:14:18.980 human exceptionalism was that humans lacked this 00:14:18.980 --> 00:14:21.919 specific bone in the upper jaw, the intermaxillary 00:14:21.919 --> 00:14:24.679 bone, which almost all other mammals had. It 00:14:24.679 --> 00:14:27.240 was seen as a key anatomical difference distinguishing 00:14:27.240 --> 00:14:29.299 us from animals. A physical sign of our special 00:14:29.299 --> 00:14:32.059 status. Right. But Goethe didn't buy it. He was 00:14:32.059 --> 00:14:34.600 a great comparative anatomist. He compared human 00:14:34.600 --> 00:14:37.039 skulls, including a fetal skull, with an elephant 00:14:37.039 --> 00:14:40.220 skull and other mammals. And in 1784, he found 00:14:40.220 --> 00:14:43.460 it. He found the bone in humans. He did. It's 00:14:43.460 --> 00:14:45.960 just that in humans, it fuses with the jawbone 00:14:45.960 --> 00:14:48.419 very early in development, making it hard to 00:14:48.419 --> 00:14:51.080 see. By proving we have the same bone structure, 00:14:51.419 --> 00:14:54.340 he was providing powerful evidence for what we 00:14:54.340 --> 00:14:57.200 now call homology, the idea that different species 00:14:57.200 --> 00:15:00.600 share a common anatomical blueprint. That sounds 00:15:00.600 --> 00:15:03.340 suspiciously like a step towards evolution. It 00:15:03.340 --> 00:15:05.980 was a huge step. He didn't have the concept of 00:15:05.980 --> 00:15:08.200 natural selection like Darwin would later, but 00:15:08.200 --> 00:15:10.970 he absolutely saw nature as f***. fluid, dynamic, 00:15:11.289 --> 00:15:13.809 and transforming. This connects directly to his 00:15:13.809 --> 00:15:15.990 botany work. He wrote a whole treatise called 00:15:15.990 --> 00:15:18.169 The Metamorphosis of Plants. What was the big 00:15:18.169 --> 00:15:21.220 idea there? The big idea was... allicis blatt. 00:15:21.299 --> 00:15:23.759 All is leaf. All is leaf. Even the flower, yes. 00:15:24.039 --> 00:15:26.320 He argued that all the different parts of a plant, 00:15:26.399 --> 00:15:28.799 the petals, the stamens, the sepals, are just 00:15:28.799 --> 00:15:31.480 modified leaves. They're all variations on the 00:15:31.480 --> 00:15:33.860 same underlying form. That's actually really 00:15:33.860 --> 00:15:35.720 beautiful. It's a scientific theory that sounds 00:15:35.720 --> 00:15:38.220 like a poem. It is poetic science. He called 00:15:38.220 --> 00:15:41.139 it morphology. He was searching for the archetype. 00:15:41.389 --> 00:15:43.929 the earthlands, or the primal plant from which 00:15:43.929 --> 00:15:46.490 all other plants could be derived. He believed 00:15:46.490 --> 00:15:48.629 if you looked closely enough, you could see the 00:15:48.629 --> 00:15:51.789 unity in all of nature's variety. It's amazing 00:15:51.789 --> 00:15:54.769 he had time for all this while basically running 00:15:54.769 --> 00:15:57.470 a country and writing novels. But I guess the 00:15:57.470 --> 00:16:00.230 pressure eventually got to him because in 1786, 00:16:00.509 --> 00:16:03.399 he pulls a disappearing act. the Italian journey. 00:16:03.679 --> 00:16:06.360 He had been in Weimar for 10 years, working constantly 00:16:06.360 --> 00:16:09.419 in administration. He felt he was drying up artistically. 00:16:09.500 --> 00:16:12.799 He was creatively burnt out. So without telling 00:16:12.799 --> 00:16:15.929 almost anyone, he only told the Duke. Not even 00:16:15.929 --> 00:16:18.730 his close platonic companion, Charlotte von Stein. 00:16:18.889 --> 00:16:21.529 He just leaves. He ghosted. Essentially. He slips 00:16:21.529 --> 00:16:23.730 out of town before dawn and travels to Italy 00:16:23.730 --> 00:16:26.909 under a pseudonym. He goes to Rome, Naples, and 00:16:26.909 --> 00:16:29.129 Sicily. And he has that famous quote about Sicily. 00:16:29.210 --> 00:16:31.389 To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily 00:16:31.389 --> 00:16:34.299 is to not have seen Italy at all. Right, because 00:16:34.299 --> 00:16:37.139 in Sicily, he saw the Greek roots of Western 00:16:37.139 --> 00:16:41.240 culture, the temples, the art. This trip completely 00:16:41.240 --> 00:16:44.120 changed him. He went from the emotional storm 00:16:44.120 --> 00:16:48.159 of verether to what we now call Weimar classicism. 00:16:48.460 --> 00:16:51.919 He became obsessed with classical ideals of order, 00:16:52.159 --> 00:16:55.580 balance, simplicity, and harmony. There's a bit 00:16:55.580 --> 00:16:57.360 of a mystery about this trip though, right? A 00:16:57.360 --> 00:17:00.159 gap in the records. There is. His journals have 00:17:00.159 --> 00:17:02.720 a significant documented gap during his time 00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:05.220 in Venice. Historians have speculated wildly 00:17:05.220 --> 00:17:07.779 about what he was up to. Secret love affairs? 00:17:08.200 --> 00:17:11.039 Maybe even some espionage for the Duke? But we 00:17:11.039 --> 00:17:13.019 just don't know for sure. I love a good historical 00:17:13.019 --> 00:17:15.380 mystery. But eventually he has to come back to 00:17:15.380 --> 00:17:18.240 the real world, back to Weimar. And when he returns, 00:17:18.400 --> 00:17:21.039 he starts what is probably the most important 00:17:21.039 --> 00:17:24.059 friendship of his life. Friedrich Schiller. Now, 00:17:24.079 --> 00:17:25.480 they didn't like each other at first, did they? 00:17:25.740 --> 00:17:28.000 Not at all. They were wary rivals. Schiller was 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:30.160 the new hotshot of the Sturm und Drang movement, 00:17:30.240 --> 00:17:32.700 a generation younger, and Goethe had kind of 00:17:32.700 --> 00:17:35.259 moved on to his more formal classicist phase. 00:17:35.500 --> 00:17:37.980 They saw each other as opposites. So what changed? 00:17:38.259 --> 00:17:40.960 In 1794, they had a long conversation after a 00:17:40.960 --> 00:17:43.599 science lecture, of all things, and they realized 00:17:43.599 --> 00:17:46.920 their minds worked in perfect counterpoint. Goethe 00:17:46.920 --> 00:17:49.670 was intuitive and observational. Schiller was 00:17:49.670 --> 00:17:52.289 philosophical and abstract. Together, they were 00:17:52.289 --> 00:17:54.470 more than the sum of their parts. It was a true 00:17:54.470 --> 00:17:57.329 collaborative friendship. The best kind. Schiller 00:17:57.329 --> 00:17:59.970 was the one who really pushed Goethe to finish 00:17:59.970 --> 00:18:02.130 his major works. He'd say, you have to finish 00:18:02.130 --> 00:18:05.009 Faust. They critiqued each other's work constantly, 00:18:05.210 --> 00:18:07.730 relentlessly. They practically lived in each 00:18:07.730 --> 00:18:09.750 other's pockets intellectually for a decade. 00:18:10.380 --> 00:18:12.619 It's hard to imagine Goethe's later works without 00:18:12.619 --> 00:18:15.240 Schiller's prodding. Speaking of living arrangements, 00:18:15.500 --> 00:18:17.640 we really need to talk about Goethe's personal 00:18:17.640 --> 00:18:20.240 life back in Weimar, because while he's hanging 00:18:20.240 --> 00:18:22.099 out with Schiller and writing these high -minded 00:18:22.099 --> 00:18:25.220 classical plays, his domestic situation was, 00:18:25.319 --> 00:18:29.890 uh... Scandalous for the time. Very. He was living 00:18:29.890 --> 00:18:32.630 openly with Christian Vulpius. She wasn't from 00:18:32.630 --> 00:18:34.990 the nobility or the educated class. She worked 00:18:34.990 --> 00:18:36.970 in a flower factory when they met. They weren't 00:18:36.970 --> 00:18:38.849 married. They lived together for years and had 00:18:38.849 --> 00:18:41.990 a son. And Weimar high society was not okay with 00:18:41.990 --> 00:18:44.450 this. Not at all. They looked down on her. They 00:18:44.450 --> 00:18:47.789 called her his fat half behind his back and considered 00:18:47.789 --> 00:18:51.069 her an uneducated drunk. They ostracized her. 00:18:51.230 --> 00:18:53.309 But she proves herself to be incredibly tough. 00:18:53.710 --> 00:18:58.329 Which brings us to 1806. The year is 1806. Napoleon's 00:18:58.329 --> 00:19:00.869 army has just crushed the Prussian forces at 00:19:00.869 --> 00:19:03.529 the Battle of Jena -Auerstedt. They invade and 00:19:03.529 --> 00:19:05.589 occupy Weimar. And this is where we get the story 00:19:05.589 --> 00:19:08.490 of the Spoon Guards. Right. These were undisciplined 00:19:08.490 --> 00:19:10.789 French soldiers, part of the Marauders, known 00:19:10.789 --> 00:19:13.009 as Spoon Guards, because they were looting everything 00:19:13.009 --> 00:19:16.029 they could, especially silverware. A few of them 00:19:16.029 --> 00:19:18.269 break into Goethe's house. They get into his 00:19:18.269 --> 00:19:20.930 wine cellar. They are drunk and aggressive. And 00:19:20.930 --> 00:19:23.190 they burst into his bedroom with bayonets drawn. 00:19:23.579 --> 00:19:26.299 Goethe was petrified. I mean, he's a 57 -year 00:19:26.299 --> 00:19:29.539 -old intellectual, not a fighter. But Christiane, 00:19:29.539 --> 00:19:32.140 she physically throws herself between him and 00:19:32.140 --> 00:19:34.740 the soldiers. She argues with them, stands up 00:19:34.740 --> 00:19:37.160 to them, and organizes the servants to barricade 00:19:37.160 --> 00:19:39.720 the kitchen and cellar. She effectively saves 00:19:39.720 --> 00:19:42.640 Goethe's life. That is a real ride -or -die partner 00:19:42.640 --> 00:19:44.920 right there. Absolutely, and Goethe recognized 00:19:44.920 --> 00:19:48.400 it. Just days later, after 18 years of living 00:19:48.400 --> 00:19:50.900 together in sin, he takes her to a church and 00:19:50.900 --> 00:19:53.539 marries her. He legitimized their relationship 00:19:53.539 --> 00:19:56.420 primarily, it seems, to ensure her security and 00:19:56.420 --> 00:19:59.299 legal standing after that terrifying night. It's 00:19:59.299 --> 00:20:01.359 an incredible story. And speaking of the French 00:20:01.359 --> 00:20:03.559 invasion, this leads us to the meeting with Napoleon 00:20:03.559 --> 00:20:06.819 himself in 1808. This was at the Congress of 00:20:06.819 --> 00:20:09.720 Erfurt. Napoleon, the emperor, summons Goethe. 00:20:09.940 --> 00:20:12.440 Now, just picture this scene. Napoleon is the 00:20:12.440 --> 00:20:14.599 most powerful man on the planet. He's conquering 00:20:14.599 --> 00:20:17.319 kingdoms. But when he meets Goethe, he's the 00:20:17.319 --> 00:20:19.240 fanboy. Because he'd read Werther seven times. 00:20:19.240 --> 00:20:21.539 Yes. He apparently carried it with him on his 00:20:21.539 --> 00:20:23.880 campaigns. They talk about literature and politics. 00:20:24.160 --> 00:20:26.740 And that's when Napoleon looks him over and delivers 00:20:26.740 --> 00:20:30.220 that famous line, Vous êtes un homme. You are 00:20:30.220 --> 00:20:33.700 a man. He even awarded Goethe the Legion of Honor. 00:20:34.220 --> 00:20:35.859 This must have put Goethe in a really tricky 00:20:35.859 --> 00:20:38.099 spot, didn't it? Because at this time, German 00:20:38.099 --> 00:20:40.140 nationalism is really starting to bubble up. 00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:43.140 There's this intense hatred for the French occupiers. 00:20:43.240 --> 00:20:45.940 Right. And people wanted Goethe, as the nation's 00:20:45.940 --> 00:20:48.980 greatest writer, to write patriotic, anti -French 00:20:48.980 --> 00:20:51.960 hate poetry. And he refused. Completely refused. 00:20:52.319 --> 00:20:55.839 He considered himself a supranationalist, a citizen 00:20:55.839 --> 00:20:58.680 of the world. He told Eckermann, how could I 00:20:58.680 --> 00:21:01.569 write songs of hatred when I felt no hate? He 00:21:01.569 --> 00:21:03.789 valued civilization and culture above national 00:21:03.789 --> 00:21:06.630 borders. He said you can't hate a nation like 00:21:06.630 --> 00:21:08.869 France that is among the most cultivated in the 00:21:08.869 --> 00:21:11.450 world and to which he owed so much of his own 00:21:11.450 --> 00:21:14.329 culture. That is a very modern, very cosmopolitan 00:21:14.329 --> 00:21:16.890 perspective. But it probably did make him popular 00:21:16.890 --> 00:21:18.970 with the German nationalists at the time. No, 00:21:19.009 --> 00:21:21.910 it certainly didn't. But Goethe was always playing 00:21:21.910 --> 00:21:24.710 the long game. And the longest game of all was 00:21:24.710 --> 00:21:27.450 Faust. The masterpiece. It was his life's work, 00:21:27.569 --> 00:21:29.710 literally. He started writing the first version, 00:21:29.829 --> 00:21:33.569 the Urfaust. in his early 20s, around 1773. He 00:21:33.569 --> 00:21:36.430 published part one in 1808, and he didn't seal 00:21:36.430 --> 00:21:39.150 the manuscript for part two until 1832, just 00:21:39.150 --> 00:21:41.690 before he died. He worked on it on and off for 00:21:41.690 --> 00:21:44.170 60 years. Most people know the basic concept. 00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:47.259 Faust sells his soul to the devil, Mephistopheles, 00:21:47.380 --> 00:21:49.880 for knowledge and power and worldly pleasure. 00:21:50.119 --> 00:21:52.000 But Goethe's version is much more nuanced than 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:54.960 that. It's a wager, not a simple sale. Faust 00:21:54.960 --> 00:21:57.339 says to the devil, essentially, if you can ever 00:21:57.339 --> 00:21:59.599 give me a moment of such pure satisfaction that 00:21:59.599 --> 00:22:01.920 I say to that moment, linger a while, you are 00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:04.940 so fair, then you can have my soul. So it's all 00:22:04.940 --> 00:22:06.859 about the striving. As long as he keeps striving 00:22:06.859 --> 00:22:09.680 and is never fully satisfied, he's safe. Exactly. 00:22:09.700 --> 00:22:13.160 A key line is, man errs as long as he strives. 00:22:20.369 --> 00:22:25.200 And? And? Randomly, a very specific scientific 00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:27.720 discovery by Nikola Tesla. This is one of my 00:22:27.720 --> 00:22:30.400 favorite connections in all of history. Tesla 00:22:30.400 --> 00:22:32.779 had memorized the entire text of Faust in the 00:22:32.779 --> 00:22:35.079 original German. He was walking through a park 00:22:35.079 --> 00:22:37.359 in Budapest, reciting the sunset speech from 00:22:37.359 --> 00:22:39.920 Faust, and suddenly, in a flash of insight, he 00:22:39.920 --> 00:22:42.720 visualized the rotating magnetic field. No way. 00:22:42.880 --> 00:22:45.759 Yes. That moment of reciting poetry led directly 00:22:45.759 --> 00:22:48.000 to the invention of the AC motor, which literally 00:22:48.000 --> 00:22:50.940 powers our modern world today. That is incredible. 00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:53.589 The power of poetry literally... leading to electric 00:22:53.589 --> 00:22:56.190 power. It just shows the interconnectedness of 00:22:56.190 --> 00:22:58.349 all knowledge, which is what Goethe's whole life 00:22:58.349 --> 00:23:01.269 is about. So we're moving into his later years 00:23:01.269 --> 00:23:04.190 now. He's a legend. He's an institution, the 00:23:04.190 --> 00:23:08.230 Olympian of Weimar. But he's still Goethe, which 00:23:08.230 --> 00:23:10.430 means he's still falling in love. And it gets 00:23:10.430 --> 00:23:13.710 a little uncomfortable here. In 1821, after surviving 00:23:13.710 --> 00:23:16.890 a serious heart illness, the 72 -year -old Goethe 00:23:16.890 --> 00:23:19.730 falls head over heels for a young woman named 00:23:19.730 --> 00:23:23.609 Ulrich von Levitzow. Who was? How old? 17. Yikes, 00:23:23.630 --> 00:23:26.569 yeah. That's a 55 -year age gap. It is, and he 00:23:26.569 --> 00:23:28.569 was serious. He actually wanted to marry her. 00:23:28.650 --> 00:23:31.250 He asked the Grand Duke to act as a go -between 00:23:31.250 --> 00:23:33.529 and make the proposal on his behalf. And your 00:23:33.529 --> 00:23:35.900 mother said... Absolutely not, I assume. Correct. 00:23:36.119 --> 00:23:38.859 Her mother politely but firmly declined. The 00:23:38.859 --> 00:23:41.160 marriage never happened. Goethe was completely 00:23:41.160 --> 00:23:43.960 crushed by the rejection. But being Goethe. Being 00:23:43.960 --> 00:23:45.859 Goethe, he channeled that heartbreak directly 00:23:45.859 --> 00:23:48.160 into art. On the carriage ride home, he wrote 00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:50.160 The Merry and Bad Elegy, which is considered 00:23:50.160 --> 00:23:52.940 one of his finest, most personal, and most tender 00:23:52.940 --> 00:23:56.279 poems. It's that classic tortured artist trope, 00:23:56.279 --> 00:23:59.759 again, even at 72. But he wasn't just chasing 00:23:59.759 --> 00:24:02.480 teenagers. He was also mentoring the next generation. 00:24:03.089 --> 00:24:06.289 He had a famous meeting with a young Felix Mendelssohn. 00:24:06.329 --> 00:24:09.549 Yes, the composer. Mendelssohn was an incredible 00:24:09.549 --> 00:24:12.500 prodigy, just 12 years old at the time. Now, 00:24:12.539 --> 00:24:15.180 Goethe had a unique basis for comparison because 00:24:15.180 --> 00:24:17.220 he had actually heard the seven -year -old Mozart 00:24:17.220 --> 00:24:20.440 play decades earlier. So he'd seen the two greatest 00:24:20.440 --> 00:24:22.839 child prodigies in music history. What did he 00:24:22.839 --> 00:24:25.720 say? He told his music advisor, Zelter, that 00:24:25.720 --> 00:24:28.400 while Mozart's playing was miraculous, Mendelssohn's 00:24:28.400 --> 00:24:30.720 improvisation bore the same relation to Mozart's 00:24:30.720 --> 00:24:33.099 as the cultivated talk of a grown -up person 00:24:33.099 --> 00:24:36.000 bears to the prattle of a child. Wow. He put 00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:38.420 Mendelssohn above Mozart. That is incredibly 00:24:38.420 --> 00:24:40.880 high praise. It shows that even in his old age, 00:24:40.880 --> 00:24:42.599 he was still engaging with the new generation 00:24:42.599 --> 00:24:45.240 of genius. He wasn't stuck in the past. Let's 00:24:45.240 --> 00:24:47.140 talk about his worldview in these later years. 00:24:47.240 --> 00:24:49.259 We talked about his possible ancestry and his 00:24:49.259 --> 00:24:51.700 interest in Islam earlier. Where did he ultimately 00:24:51.700 --> 00:24:55.039 land on religion? It's complex. He was born Lutheran, 00:24:55.039 --> 00:24:57.259 but his contemporaries often called him the Great 00:24:57.259 --> 00:25:00.359 Heathen. He really distanced himself from organized 00:25:00.359 --> 00:25:03.279 Christian theology. He once called church history 00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:06.099 a hodgepodge of mistakes and violence. But he 00:25:06.099 --> 00:25:09.359 wasn't an atheist. No, not at all. He seems to 00:25:09.359 --> 00:25:11.859 have been more of a pantheist or a free thinker. 00:25:11.960 --> 00:25:14.720 He believed in a divine presence in nature, very 00:25:14.720 --> 00:25:17.279 much in the vein of Spinoza. But he had some 00:25:17.279 --> 00:25:20.339 very specific dislikes. In one of his Venetian 00:25:20.339 --> 00:25:23.160 epigrams, he listed the four things he hated 00:25:23.160 --> 00:25:25.039 most in the world. I have the list here. It's 00:25:25.039 --> 00:25:32.740 fantastic. Number one, tobacco smoke. Two. Which 00:25:32.740 --> 00:25:35.359 is a pretty shocking thing to include on a list 00:25:35.359 --> 00:25:37.440 for a European intellectual in the 19th century. 00:25:37.740 --> 00:25:39.960 He explained that he disliked the cross as a 00:25:39.960 --> 00:25:41.880 symbol because he felt it obsessively focused 00:25:41.880 --> 00:25:44.220 on the suffering and death of Jesus rather than 00:25:44.220 --> 00:25:46.279 his life and teachings. And he continued to look 00:25:46.279 --> 00:25:49.750 east for inspiration. He did. He wrote The Westeastern 00:25:49.750 --> 00:25:52.250 Divan, a whole collection of poems inspired by 00:25:52.250 --> 00:25:55.789 the 14th century Persian poet Hafez. He was trying 00:25:55.789 --> 00:25:57.829 to create a dialogue between the Orient and the 00:25:57.829 --> 00:26:00.710 Occident. And even in his youth, he wrote a powerful 00:26:00.710 --> 00:26:04.369 poem called Muhammad's Gesang, or... muhammad's 00:26:04.369 --> 00:26:07.750 song which portrays the prophet as this elemental 00:26:07.750 --> 00:26:11.730 natural force just reinforces that citizen of 00:26:11.730 --> 00:26:14.250 the world vibe he cultivated he really was he 00:26:14.250 --> 00:26:17.309 saw value in all great cultures so we come to 00:26:17.309 --> 00:26:21.589 the end march 22nd 1832 githa dies of heart failure 00:26:21.589 --> 00:26:23.990 in weimar he's buried in the ducal vault right 00:26:23.990 --> 00:26:25.910 next to schiller yeah we have to address the 00:26:25.910 --> 00:26:29.549 famous last words More light. It's just perfect, 00:26:29.670 --> 00:26:30.970 right? The great thinker of the Enlightenment 00:26:30.970 --> 00:26:33.549 asking for more illumination as he fades into 00:26:33.549 --> 00:26:35.990 the dark. It's perfect symbolism, a perfect end 00:26:35.990 --> 00:26:38.349 to the story, but the reality is probably a little 00:26:38.349 --> 00:26:40.529 more mundane. Okay, ruin it for us. What really 00:26:40.529 --> 00:26:42.789 happened? Well, for one, the doctor who reported 00:26:42.789 --> 00:26:45.009 it, Carl Vogel, wasn't actually in the room when 00:26:45.009 --> 00:26:47.430 he died. Other accounts suggest he was just uncomfortable 00:26:47.430 --> 00:26:50.309 in the dim room. He might have actually said, 00:26:50.390 --> 00:26:52.569 open the second shutter so that more light comes 00:26:52.569 --> 00:26:54.910 in. So he literally just wanted someone to open 00:26:54.910 --> 00:26:58.779 the window. Probably. The historian Thomas Carlyle's 00:26:58.779 --> 00:27:01.380 version is even more blunt. Open the shutters 00:27:01.380 --> 00:27:03.799 so I can get more light. But in the end, does 00:27:03.799 --> 00:27:06.460 it really matter? The myth captured the essential 00:27:06.460 --> 00:27:08.960 truth of his life's work. That's a great point. 00:27:09.180 --> 00:27:11.559 He was a man who spent his entire life fighting 00:27:11.559 --> 00:27:14.819 against darkness and obscurity. He spent his 00:27:14.819 --> 00:27:17.319 life trying to shed light on everything, from 00:27:17.319 --> 00:27:19.880 the bones in our face to the colors of the rainbow 00:27:19.880 --> 00:27:22.700 to the deepest corners of the human soul. So 00:27:22.700 --> 00:27:25.599 his legacy is undeniable. Ralph Waldo Emerson 00:27:25.599 --> 00:27:28.599 listed him as one of just six representative 00:27:28.599 --> 00:27:31.480 men of all humanity, right up there with Plato 00:27:31.480 --> 00:27:33.859 and Shakespeare. And today we have the Goethe 00:27:33.859 --> 00:27:36.279 -Institut promoting German culture all over the 00:27:36.279 --> 00:27:38.880 world. His influence runs through Hegel, through 00:27:38.880 --> 00:27:41.140 Jung, through whole schools of philosophy and 00:27:41.140 --> 00:27:43.640 science. He really does bridge the gap. He's 00:27:43.640 --> 00:27:46.119 the link between the age of reason and the age 00:27:46.119 --> 00:27:49.259 of romanticism. After all of this, what does 00:27:49.259 --> 00:27:51.079 it all mean for us? What's the final thought 00:27:51.079 --> 00:27:53.119 here? I think the most provocative takeaway from 00:27:53.119 --> 00:27:56.000 Goethe comes from a line in Faust. Action is 00:27:56.000 --> 00:27:58.200 the beginning of everything. Goethe didn't just 00:27:58.200 --> 00:28:01.299 think, he did. He didn't stay in his lane. Exactly. 00:28:01.500 --> 00:28:04.690 We live in an age of hyper -specialization. You're 00:28:04.690 --> 00:28:07.690 a coder or you're a writer or you're a financial 00:28:07.690 --> 00:28:10.750 analyst. Goethe would have rejected that completely. 00:28:11.250 --> 00:28:13.890 He was a poet who needed to understand granite. 00:28:13.950 --> 00:28:16.589 He was a lover who needed to understand tax administration. 00:28:16.829 --> 00:28:19.650 He believed it was all connected. So here's the 00:28:19.650 --> 00:28:22.210 question for you, the listener. If the man who 00:28:22.210 --> 00:28:24.150 wrote the greatest drama in the German language 00:28:24.150 --> 00:28:27.569 also spent months staring at rock samples and 00:28:27.569 --> 00:28:30.269 elephant skulls just to find the truth, what 00:28:30.269 --> 00:28:33.289 connections are we missing in our own lives by 00:28:33.289 --> 00:28:35.829 categorizing things too strictly? What could 00:28:35.829 --> 00:28:37.430 you discover if you just stepped out of your 00:28:37.430 --> 00:28:40.009 designated lane? Something to think about. Thanks 00:28:40.009 --> 00:28:41.990 for diving deep with us on Johann Wolfgang von 00:28:41.990 --> 00:28:43.890 Goethe. It's been a pleasure. Until next time.