German poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, essayist, critic, biographer, memoirist, and librettist.

Goethe is considered Germany's greatest writer and a genius of the highest order. He distinguished himself as a scientist, artist, musician, philosopher, theater director, and court administrator. Excelling in various genres and literary styles, Goethe was a shaping force in the major German literary movements of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. His first novel, Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (1774; The Sorrows of Young Werther), epitomizes the Sturm und Drang, or storm and stress, movement, and his dramas Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787; Iphigenia in Tauris) and Torquato Tasso (1790), as well as the poetry collection Römische Elegien (1795; Goethe's Roman Elegies), exemplify the neoclassical approach to literature. His drama Faust is considered one of the greatest works of nineteenth-century Romanticism. Faust is ranked beside the masterpieces...