Goethe: His Faustian Life
AN Wilson, Bloomsbury, £25

AFTER their detailed and in-depth research, biographers may well end up either loving or loathing their subject. There can be no doubt that AN Wilson has great affection for a man he believes a genius and one of the most remarkable figures in modern history, although the character the reader will meet is not one who emerges as altogether admirable.

Like most biographers, Wilson discovers the figure he is looking for. His study presents an “exquisite lyricist, passionate scientist, soulful lover, conservative statesman, [who was] also a wild man, obscene and out of control, foul mouthed, coarse and alcohol fuelled.”

It would not be unfair to suggest that “the prodigious size of the literary output” of this poet and novelist, playwright, scientist, philosopher and even psychologist, who has the kind of standing in Germany that Pushkin has in Russia or Shakespeare in England, is virtually unknown to British readers.

According to Wilson, his works and indeed his life (1749-1832), illustrated by a timeline, reflected the changing social and historical developments in his world: “The arrival of democracy as a political possibility in the United States; attempts to replicate this republican experiment in Europe; coming to terms with the growth and eventual dominance of the rising commercial class.”

From 1774 when he published The Sorrows Of Young Werther, whose popularity swept Europe with its romantic message of suicide as the answer to frustrated young love, to 1831 when he finally completed his masterpiece, Faust, his reputation grew. 

Wilson enthusiastically claims his final work “reveals us to ourselves, challenges and disturbs and consoles us, seeing, sometimes as if by magic, into the preoccupations of a generation which worries about the way in which the world is governed … how we respond to Nature; what we are doing to the planet; how the economy of the 19th century, the capitalist development of investment economics, paper money, fiscal borrowing, growing side by side with industry and the exploitation of the Earth for the purposes of human enrichment — these are all here in this dramatic poem.”

Incidentally, if the above does not encourage one to read Faust, the story of a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in return for absolute power, as Wilson readily admits is his purpose in writing his book, then surely nothing will.

Wilson sees Goethe’s life through the prism of Faust’s, as at times, it would appear, does Goethe himself. For most of his active life he worked as a councillor at the court of Carl August Duke of Saxe Weimar. Nevertheless, he managed to fit in an astounding range of interests in the various aspects of the scientific spirit of the Enlightenment.

Goethe believed that the materialist concept of Newtonian and Galilean physics “had imposed thinking on Nature” whereas “Goethean science is received from Nature.” He, however, was no dilettante, producing among other studies a convincing theory of colours that countered Newton’s. His “scientific study of Nature would be central to his existence, central to his philosophic journey, central to his poetry.”

Although most of what we know of Goethe’s life comes from Poetry And Truth, the autobiography written and carefully edited in old age with his assistant Johann Peter Eckermann, a kind of Boswell to Goethe’s Dr Johnson, the figure that emerged was as enigmatic as his dramatic creation, Faust.

Goethe, while never as amoral as Faust (who seduces the innocent Gretchen then leaves her to be executed for having killed their baby) had numerous platonic crushes on women of various ages in search of his “eternal feminine,” but escaped every time from commitment. “God preserve us from a serious bond,” he wrote.

Wilson sees his subject like an actor trying out various roles then moving on to the next part, treating his life as a work of art. His contemporaries, however, recognised a great man. Even Napoleon, whom he idolised, on meeting the author commented, “Voila un homme.” Indeed, Wilson’s book is peppered with the names of prominent men and women who met and fed Goethe’s literary creations.

One especially close and serious relationship was with Friedrich Shiller, considered by many to be the greatest German dramatist, was based on shared interests in poetry, drama, science and philosophy. This “fructiferous” friendship led to each having major influences on the other’s works.

Readers of this book may not find the stamina to engage with Faust, especially the second part, of which one puzzled critic asked: “What the f*** is going on?” They will however, be introduced not only to a fascinating character but to an interesting take on a revolutionary age, precursor to our time of turmoil and chaos.