Conversations with Goethe: In the Last Years of His Life (Penguin Classics)

This newly published translation of Eckermann’s Conversations with Goethe is an interesting text, but essential reading only for those particularly interested in the nineteenth century.At seven hundred pages plus there is certainly room for a lot of conversations. You hear all about the preoccupations of the early 1800s: Napoleon, Lord Byron and Walter Scott. You hear about Goethe’s quixotic effort to refute Newton’s (ultimately correct) theory of optics. You also hear about Goethe’s philosophy of art and ethics; romantic theories that continue to be influential.Goethe states that every work of art is an expression of the inner essence of the artist. Thus, only a sufficiently beautiful soul can compose great works. Keep in mind, however, that Goethe’s morals are far from Victorian and Goethe’s beautiful soul was wide enough to include Lord Byron.He was also a startlingly unorthodox Christian for his day. He took the now contemporary stance that the divine is so unimaginably above the human that efforts to establish a creed of beliefs were mere attempts to define the ineffable. But tied to this was his idea that science couldn’t conquer fields like human origins, geology and astronomy. He thought these fields were, like theology, above the human ken and could lead to much nonsense.What you get is a fallible, but authentic representative of the early Romantic era. You wouldn’t know it from Eckermann, however, who makes the work an exercise in hagiography. It comes across as rather exaggerated for someone who was far from a saint.But, if you love Goethe and want an English translation of these reminisces, you’ll enjoy this work. As I said, it’s similarly interesting reading for 19th century enthusiasts. Others can pass unless they want what amounts to an immersion in this era in German culture.

Nietzsche's favourite book in German, no less