Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German poet, pantheist, novelist, and scientist, was born in Frankfurt am Main and died in Weimar. Goethe's literary genius disclosed itself early. He wrote numerous lyric poems, invariably inspired by love affairs, while still in his teens. University studies in Leipzig and Strasbourg were less important to his development than were his extracurricular interests: occult philosophy, astrology, and religious mysticism while in Leipzig; and his friendship with Herder at Strasbourg, a friendship that evoked Goethe's passion for William Shakespeare, nature, and German folk poetry. The historical drama Götz von Berlichingen, written while Goethe was a law student in Strasbourg, marks the start of his Sturm und Drang ("storm and stress") period. Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The sorrows of young Werther, 1774), written to purge himself of the despair engendered by his love for Charlotte...