“When I go out by the gateway, taking the road I drove along that first time I picked up Lotte for the ball, how very different it all is! It is all over, all of it! There is not a hint of the world that once was, not one bulse-beat of those past emotions. I feel like a ghost returning to the burnt-out ruins of the castle he built in his prime as a prince, which he adorned with magnificent splendours and then, on his deathbed, but full of hope, left to his beloved son”

German polymath

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German polymath, and one of the central figures of German literature. He is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. Goethe worked as a poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His writing ranged from plays, poetry, and aesthetic criticism to treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour, and his influence extended across literature, politics, Christian thought, and philosophy in the Western world from the late 18th century onward.