Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
German poet and playwright of the drama Faust, widely seen as his language's most influential writer Show bio
Bio
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe studied law in Leipzig but preferred a poet's lectures to memorizing rules. He was struck by a local inn's legend of a man named Faust riding a barrel. Goethe discovered Shakespeare while studying in Strasbourg, and the plays became his literary awakening.
He lasted only months as a lawyer, rebuked for pushing his first cases too hard. Goethe settled in Weimar after the success of his first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther.
He left remarks that others gathered into books, among them Conversations with Goethe. Goethe set a scene of Faust, his most celebrated drama, in that same Leipzig inn.