Introduction

Goethe is the centre of German literature, in more than one sense. Obviously there is the sheer stature of his poetic achievement: in volume, range, quality and organic development it established a norm that is unlikely ever to be fulfilled again. Later writers have acknowledged this with varying degrees of admiration or ruefulness. Hofmannsthal put it most succinctly when he said that German literature had Goethe and rudimentary beginnings — ‘Goethe und Ansätze’.