“Nothing can be compared to the new life that the discovery of another country provides for a thoughtful person. Although I am still the same I believe to have changed to the bones.”
—Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832)
In 38 days, i intend to board a plane and journey to the birthplace of the quote’s author and travel onward to the town Goethe spent the rest of his life. My accommodations are on the property that holds the remains of the great man and many of his friends and associates, including the woman with whom he corresponded for twelve years and whose voice I wish to hear more clearly.
With focused work and a great deal of luck, I hope to write enough of a proposal for an historical novel that will interest an agent when I return. In any case, I’m looking forward to the change Goethe promised.
How has travel changed your own life?
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@hakima saidHow has travel changed your own life?
“Nothing can be compared to the new life that the discovery of another country provides for a thoughtful person. Although I am still the same I believe to have changed to the bones.”
—Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832)
In 38 days, i intend to board a plane and journey to the birthplace of the quote’s author and travel onward to the town Goethe spent the rest of his life. M ...[text shortened]... ny case, I’m looking forward to the change Goethe promised.
How has travel changed your own life?
There have been two particular occasions:
The first was while standing on the battlefield at Asan Point, Guam. It was a few weeks after the battle's 40th Anniversary and I had the whole site to myself. As an irreverent youth, it was the first time in my life that I understood the delicate, finite nature of my existence.
The second was on a very cold morning after partying all night during Carnevale. I was all alone on the Piazza di San Marco in Venezia. The sun had barely risen. There I stood, in this historic place. Lost and freezing. I'd been on my way to find the "stazione" and practically stumbled onto the piazza. I cannot describe my specific emotion of that moment but to say it was profound and life-altering.
@hakima
I was born in the USA, studied in the UK, and every semester break visited some foreign city (Athens, Dublin, Paris, Munich, Berlin, Amsterdam, ...). When my studies were finished, I stayed in Europe. I’m still here.
Bravo on your reading Goethe. When I read the maxims of la Rochefoucauld, I see an image of mankind as he often is but not yet all that he could be; something incomplete, staggering yet haughty. When I read the maxims of Goethe, I see an image much more nearly complete, graceful and confident, yet confidently humbled. One could almost think they were referring to two different species, or the same species separated by ten thousand years.
Now, a quote from Goethe himself: “ Some questions cannot be given simple answers, but some minds cannot be given complex ones; therein lies a difficulty.”
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@moonbus saidThanks for the prompting. I regret that I have been ignorant of Goethe's philosophies during my lifetime. He sounds like someone I should read more about. 🙂
@hakima
I was born in the USA, studied in the UK, and every semester break visited some foreign city (Athens, Dublin, Paris, Munich, Berlin, Amsterdam, ...). When my studies were finished, I stayed in Europe. I’m still here.
Bravo on your reading Goethe. When I read the maxims of la Rochefoucauld, I see an image of mankind as he often is but not yet all that he could b ...[text shortened]... ot be given simple answers, but some minds cannot be given complex ones; therein lies a difficulty.”
@Shallow-Blue
Perhaps if you knew more about him, you would revise your opinion.
https://www.iep.utm.edu/goethe/
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@moonbus saidI'm sorry, but no. For one, that source - as do most Humanities critics - take his "theory of colours" seriously. Nobody who knows the slightest bit about science still does so, and pretending that Goethe was a genius or even anything more than a wannabe philosopher is a sure mark of an Englightenment pseudo-scientist. It's harsh, I know, but sometimes you just have to knock the pretenders down to what they're really worth - and Goethe was worth more than Schiller as a playwright, but less than him as a poet, and less than just about anyone as a scientist, philosopher, or thinker-in-general.
@Shallow-Blue
Perhaps if you knew more about him, you would revise your opinion.
https://www.iep.utm.edu/goethe/
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The post that was quoted here has been removedGood God woman. This thread is about Goethe.
Stop injecting every potentially interesting thread with your three primary distraction devices.
Now go Google Goethe, formulate an opinion and return with something interesting to say regarding him. Sheeesh!
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The post that was quoted here has been removedWhat? Are you thinking that you're being clever again?
Look moron, Moonbus was making a comparison. You know what a comparison is, don't you?
Please stop the annoying interruptions. It would be nice to have normal conversation without your petty compulsion to show that you're the smartest person on every subject in every forum.
You're not the most educated or stable personality here, but I'm certain that you can adjust your tone to suit. Please do so.
@shallow-blue saidEvery thinker is entitled to make mistakes. Lamarck made mistakes, too, but no one denies him the title of "scientist" on that account.
I'm sorry, but no. For one, that source - as do most Humanities critics - take his "theory of colours" seriously. Nobody who knows the slightest bit about science still does so, and pretending that Goethe was a genius or even anything more than a wannabe philosopher is a sure mark of an Englightenment pseudo-scientist. It's harsh, I know, but sometimes you just have to k ...[text shortened]... n him as a poet, and less than just about anyone as a scientist, philosopher, or thinker-in-general.
Goethe's work on colors starts from the premise that physics alone does not account for all the phenomena we associate with color, but that subjects' perceptions of them are necessarily part of what constitutes color. This is not a silly idea, though Goethe did not get all the details right. (Similarly, sweet and bitter can't be fully explained by chemistry alone, without reference to how people taste -- otherwise everyone would respond identically to the same chemical stimuli, which they don't.)
Goethe completed a degree in law, though he chose not to practise.
He engaged in civic activities and was responsible for overseeing a mining operation, a grand duke's finance ministry, war and roads commission, the local theater, and the construction of a park.
He did work in biology, botany, pharmacology, and anatomy. He is credited with having discovered and identified the intermaxillary bone — it's in your mouth.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-for-the-history-of-science/article/goethe-and-the-intermaxillary-bone/FF8BB73A33FD0D0C6F0B9891BDE4F538
This discovery was not trivial; prior to Goethe's discovery of this bone, it was thought that only apes and other lower mammals had this bone but that humans did not. Goethe's discovery firmly put humans in an evolutionary line with apes, and therefore constitutes a significant contribution to scientific knowledge about evolution.
Such a broad range of interests and accomplishments qualify Goethe as a polymath, despite the failure of his theory of colors to convince physicists of its relevance.