Conversations with Goethe is a collection of discussions between Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, one of the most influential figures in Western literature, and his close friend and confidant, Johann Peter Eckermann. Spanning the last nine years of Goethe's life, these conversations offer a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a literary giant, covering topics ranging from art and literature to science, politics, and personal experiences. Through Eckermann's meticulous recordings, readers gain access to Goethe's profound insights, witty observations, and philosophical musings, providing a unique and intimate portrait of one of the greatest minds in history.

German poet, dramatist, novelist, translator, scientist, and musician, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was the last universal genius of the West and a master of world literature, the author of The Sorrows of Young Werther, Wilhelm Meister, and Faust. Nowhere else can one encounter a more penetrating, many-sided, and personal Goethe than in the extraordinary Conversations (1836) by Johann Peter Eckermann (1792–1854), a German author and scholar as well as Goethe's friend, archivist, and editor. Although only thirty-one when first meeting the seventy-four-year-old literary giant, Eckermann quickly devoted himself to assisting Goethe during his last nine years while never failing to record their far-ranging discourse. Here are Goethe's thoughts on Byron, Carlyle, Delacroix, Hegel, Shakespeare, and Voltaire, as well as his views on art, architecture, astronomy, the Bible, Chinese literature, criticism, dreams, ethics, freedom, genius, imagination, immortality, love, mind over body, sculpture, and much more. Eckermann's Conversations—comparable to Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson—allows Goethe to engage the reader in a voice as distinct as it is entrancing.

This two-volume English edition of Eckermann's and Soret's recollections, published in 1850, helped to reawaken interest in Goethe.

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A witty introduction to the mind of Goethe, in a new translation for the first time in 150 years A Penguin Classic By the end of the nineteenth century, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was the world's most celebrated poet, novelist, critic and thinker. Today his name is echoed as that of a "great man" alongside Plato, Montaigne and Shakespeare. This book covers the last nine years of his life, partially spent having conversations with the young Johann Eckermann, who was thirty-one to Goethe's seventy-four, and who dedicated this time to recording Goethe's thoughts, ideas, observations and witticisms. The result is Conversations with Goethe, the most direct glimpse into the Great Man's mind, revealing a gentler, more human side to him, as well as his thoughts on art, science, poetry, philosophy and the minutiae of life. Conversations of Goethe is an incredibly important and enjoyable document of "the last universal genius of the West." It is often compared to Boswell's Life of Johnson for its enjoyability and importance.