ABSTRACT
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe returned home after only four months in Wetzlar. This period of disappointed love and poor career prospects was the start of the most productive time in his life. Goethe took up themes and subjects that would come to characterize his entire literary oeuvre, from the epistolary novel The Sufferings of Young Werther to the tragedy Faust. Goethe continued to be at the mercy of his varying moods, but he transformed these using his creative activities. Goethe received many invitations from Frankfurt society and was celebrated as a young genius. He was introduced to Lili Schonemann, the sixteen-year-old daughter of a banker, at the turn of the year from 1774 to 1775. "New Love, New Life", a poem that was composed during this period, reveals his anxious expectations and conflicting feelings. Goethe portrays the importance in "eternal love" of enduring pain and sadness.
