What We Are Reading Today: Goethe: A Life in Ideas by Matthew Bell

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was a poet, a novelist, a scientist and an essayist on a dizzying range of topics. 
In the 19th century, he was widely regarded as one of the most important thinkers of modern Europe. In this important and ambitious work, Matthew Bell offers a wide-ranging intellectual biography of Goethe, tracing the evolution of his thought and reassessing its value.
Bell examines the full spectrum of Goethe’s writing, from his most well-known works, including the dramatic poem “Faust” and the novels “Wilhelm Meister” and “The Sorrows of Young Werther,” to lesser-known essays and reviews.
Throughout, Bell draws on Goethe’s letters and diaries, most of which are still only available in German, embedding Goethe’s thought in his lived experience and in the cultural and intellectual life of Europe from the 1750s to the 1830s.