ABSTRACT
Only one year after Johann Wolfgang von Goethe composed the poem 'Wiederfinden' his implicit fear that the blissful time of poetic productivity might not last for long had become sad reality. In June 1816, his wife Christiane arguably the most important person in Goethe's life, died. With the inspiration once felt in the company of Marianne von Willemer no more than the distant memory of a different period in his life, Goethe now felt the need to bring things to an end. After twenty-five years, he stepped down as director of the Weimar theatre, and renounced his citizenship of Frankfurt, the place where he was born. As he resumed work on the Italienische Reise and the scientific journals, Goethe's autobiographical endeavour once again took up most of his energy. The West-östlicher Divan, which in November 1815 he had envisaged being able to finish by the end of 1816, remained unpublished until 1819.
