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Goethe was Germany's great poet, and late in life his friends asked him to explain how he became the man he was. This book is his answer, and it is complete here in all twenty books. He tells of his Frankfurt childhood, his student days, the young women he loved, and the first books that made him famous. He calls it Truth and Poetry, because memory tells truth in a poet's way.
This autobiography began with a request. Goethe's friends had collected twelve volumes of his poems and found much that was known, much unknown, and much forgotten, all seemingly from different men. They asked him to set the works in order, explain the occasions behind them, and show the life and feeling from which each came. Goethe agreed, and found the task growing as memories called up more memories.
The result runs to twenty books, and this edition holds all twenty, complete. The early books give his Frankfurt childhood, the French occupation of the city, his studies, and Gretchen. Then come Leipzig and illness, Strasbourg and Herder, the love for Frederica, Wetzlar and Charlotte, and the young fame of Goetz von Berlichingen and Werther. Later books bring new friendships, travel in Switzerland, and work on Egmont.
Goethe calls the whole thing Truth and Poetry, and his preface explains the mixture. A life, he says, must show a man in relation to his time, shaped by it and shaping it in return. He even notes that someone born ten years earlier or later would have become a different person. That honesty about memory makes the story feel alive.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe called his autobiography Truth and Poetry: From My Own Life, a title that warns readers that memory and art are mixed here. This edition is complete in all twenty books. It begins with his birth at Frankfurt on 28 August 1749, follows his childhood, studies at Leipzig and Strasbourg, first loves, early writings including Werther, and closes with his departure for Weimar, the turning point of his life.
The title page of this text is specific. The Autobiography of Goethe: Truth and Poetry, From My Own Life, translated from the German by John Oxenford, Books One to Twenty, Revised Edition, London, George Bell and Sons, 1897. The translation is credited in this edition's records to Oxenford and A. J. W. Morrison together. The scope is the headline: complete in all twenty books, not a partial life.
An Advertisement explains that the first ten books had already appeared in America, but that the American version was found not sufficiently faithful, so a new translation was undertaken, while borrowing successful renderings from its predecessor. It also defends the title Truth and Poetry as the nearest rendering of Wahrheit und Dichtung. Goethe's preface then prints the friend's letter that prompted the work, asking for his poems explained by the life behind them.
The contents divide the twenty books into four parts, from Frankfurt childhood, the French occupation, and Gretchen, through Leipzig, Strasbourg, and Frederica, to Wetzlar, Werther, Switzerland, and the twentieth book: Kraus, daemonic influence, Heidelberg, and departure for Weimar. The life stops there, at the threshold of Weimar, and within that span it is complete. Read the ending as a doorway, not a summary of the whole life.
Edition: Translated by John Oxenford and A. J. W. Morrison; revised edition (George Bell, 1897). All twenty books of Truth and Poetry. Text: Project Gutenberg ebook 52654.
The first chapter
Before the following translation was commenced, the first Ten Books had already appeared in America. It was the intention of the Publisher to reprint these without alteration, but on comparing them with the original, it was perceived that the American version was not sufficiently faithful, and therefore the present was undertaken. The Translator, however, is bound to acknowledge, that he found many successful renderings in the work of his predecessor, and these he has engrafted without hesitation.
The title "Truth and Poetry" is adopted in common with the American translation, as the nearest rendering of Wahrheit und Dichtung. The "Prose and Poetry of my Life" would, perhaps, convey to the English reader the exact meaning of the Author, although not literally his words.
Source: Project Gutenberg. Published 1811-1833. Author died 1832. The translation shelved is the revised edition of 1897. Public domain worldwide. Share this book: WhatsApp
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