Goethe and the Science of the Enlightenment

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2000

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the great poet and dramatist, famous for Faust, for The Sorrows of Young Werther, for Storm und Drang and for being a colossus in German literature. Born in the middle of the eighteenth century he lived through the first third of the nineteenth. He wrote lyric and epic verse, literary criticism, prose fiction, translations from 28 languages, he was a politician as well and was hailed by Napoleon as the boundless measure of man; but for much of his time, often to the exclusion of everything else, Goethe was a scientist. That was also part of this late flowering Renaissance man. Some say he paved the way for Darwin, some say he pre-dated the chaos theory, that he foreshadowed Gaia. In an age of romantic giants he was certainly a titan. He gave us the term morphology and sometimes he is even credited with inventing biology itself. How important were Goethe’s discoveries, and where does he really stand in the history of science? With Nicholas Boyle, Reader in German Literary and Intellectual History, Magdalene College, Cambridge, and biographer of Goethe; Simon Schaffer, Reader in the History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University and Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for downloading the in-artime podcast. For more details about in-artime and for our terms of use
0:05.4	Please go to bbc.co.uk forward slash radio 4. I hope you enjoy the program
0:12.1	Hello, Johann Wolfgang von Gerter the great poet and dramatist is famous for first
0:16.8	Policeros of Jungvörter for Storm und Drang and for being a colossus in German literature
0:22.2	Born in the middle of the 18th century he lived through the first third of the 19s
0:26.2	He wrote lyric and epic verse
0:28.2	Literacridicism prose fiction translations from 28 languages
0:32.6	He was a politician as well and was hailed by Napoleon as the boundless measure of man
0:37.6	But for much of his time often to the exclusion of everything else Gerter was a scientist
0:42.3	He gave us a term morphology and sometimes he's even credited with inventing biology itself
0:48.0	How important were Gerter's discoveries and where does he really stand in the history of science?
0:52.2	with me to examine Gerter's scientific legacy is Nicholas Boyle who's just published the second volume of his immense and scholarly
0:59.2	biography of Gerter
1:00.4	Tremendously well received called Gerter the poet and the age also with me Simon Schaffer reader in the history and
1:07.0	Philosophy of science that came with university
1:09.6	What drove him Nicholas Boyle to take up science?
1:13.5	Good to turn to science in his late youth one might say after he'd moved to Weimar
1:21.0	From his hometown of Frankfurt and initially his scientific interests related to his responsibilities in the Duchy of Weimar
1:30.8	He took up geology because he was responsible for the local mines
1:34.5	He took up botany because he had to look after the duke's park and plant it up with trees
1:40.0	He got interested in anatomy because he re-opened the duke all drawing institute and they started live drawing classes
1:47.8	So the initial interest was practical, but it became an obsession with him
	...

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