The Autobiography of Goethe (Annotated)
Enriched Edition. Truth and Poetry: From My Own LifeBy Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Length32h 19m
About this audiobook
The Autobiography of Goethe, better known as Poetry and Truth, is less a factual memoir than a cultivated act of self-interpretation. Reconstructing Goethe's childhood in Frankfurt, his education, youthful loves, legal studies, and early literary formation, the work blends anecdote, reflection, and aesthetic theory. Its prose is lucid, ceremonious, and philosophically alert, placing private experience within the broader intellectual climate of the Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, and emerging German classicism. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), poet, dramatist, novelist, scientist, and statesman, wrote from the vantage point of a long public life and extraordinary cultural authority. His encounters with law, religion, natural science, theatre, and European literature all inform the autobiography. The book also responds to his own fame, shaping the origins of the author of Werther and Faust into a coherent narrative of artistic vocation. This is an essential work for readers interested in literary self-fashioning, German intellectual history, and the making of modern authorship. It rewards patience with psychological subtlety and historical breadth, offering not merely Goethe's life, but his theory of how a life becomes literature.
This enriched edition has been carefully crafted to add value to your reading experience.
- A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes.
- The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists.
- A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing.
- A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings.
- Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life.
- Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance.
- Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
Audiobook details
GenreBiography and Memoir
Length32 hrs 19 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateDec 12, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Introduction
11The Autobiography of Goethe (pt. 7)
2Introduction
12The Autobiography of Goethe (pt. 8)
3Synopsis
13The Autobiography of Goethe (pt. 9)
4Historical Context
14The Autobiography of Goethe (pt. 10)
5The Autobiography of Goethe (pt. 1)
15The Autobiography of Goethe (pt. 11)
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6The Autobiography of Goethe (pt. 2)
16The Autobiography of Goethe (pt. 12)
7The Autobiography of Goethe (pt. 3)
17The Autobiography of Goethe (pt. 13)
8The Autobiography of Goethe (pt. 4)
18Analysis
9The Autobiography of Goethe (pt. 5)
19Reflection
10The Autobiography of Goethe (pt. 6)
20Memorable Quotes
Herz-Sammelband zum FestJohann Wolfgang von Goethe, Stendhal, Gustave Flaubert, Charles Dickens, Stefan Zweig, Eufemia von Adlersfeld-Ballestrem, William Shakespeare, Charlotte Brontë, Anne Brontë, Emily Brontë, Victor Hugo, Jane Austen, Guy de Maupassant, Walter Scott, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Alexandre Dumas, Rudyard Kipling, George Sand, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Eugenie Marlitt, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Leo Tolstoi, Wilhelmine Heimburg, Gottfried von Straßburg, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Sophie von La Roche, Hedwig Courths-Mahler684h 58m$1 · $0.00
Iphigenia in TaurisJohann Wolfgang von Goethe1h 38m$2 · $0.00
Das große Buch vom WeihnachtsmannJohann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johanna Spyri, Theodor Storm, Rainer Maria Rilke, Charles Dickens, Hermann Löns, Heinrich Heine, Theodor Fontane, Karl May, Oscar Wilde, Eduard Mörike, Eufemia von Adlersfeld-Ballestrem, Peter Rosegger, Charlotte Brontë, Victor Hugo, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jane Austen, O. Henry, G. K. Chesterton, Hans Christian Andersen, Joseph von Eichendorff, Joachim Ringelnatz, Wilhelmine Heimburg, Kurt Tucholsky, Luise Büchner, Brüder Grimm, Victor Blüthgen, Anna Ritter, Hedwig Courths-Mahler, E.T.A. Hoffman, Frances Hodgson Burnett)508h 56m$1 · $0.00
The Ultimate Summer ReadJohann Wolfgang von Goethe, Stendhal, Jules Verne, Gustave Flaubert, Lewis Carroll, Theodor Storm, Henrik Ibsen, Charles Dickens, Plato, Honoré de Balzac, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rabindranath Tagore, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Walt Whitman, Niccolò Machiavelli, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, Giovanni Boccaccio, Confucius, George MacDonald, Bram Stoker, Charlotte Brontë, Anne Brontë, Emily Brontë, Henry David Thoreau, Jack London, Henry James, Louisa May Alcott, Victor Hugo, Arthur Conan Doyle, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Joseph Conrad, Jane Austen, Herman Melville, George Eliot, Laurence Sterne, Thomas Hardy, Jonathan Swift, Edith Wharton, Benito Pérez Galdós, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Alexandre Dumas, Rudyard Kipling, William Dean Howells, Kalidasa, Kenneth Grahame, Marcel Proust, Washington Irving, Juan Valera, Willa Cather, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Homer, Gaston Leroux, Charles Baudelaire, William Makepeace Thackeray, Voltaire, Kate Chopin, Apuleius, John Milton, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Frederick Douglass, Laozi, John Keats, James Joyce, Ann Ward Radcliffe, Kahlil Gibran, Kakuzo Okakura, Soseki Natsume, Princess Der Ling, L. Frank Baum, H. G. Wells, W. B. Yeats, J. M. Barrie, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, L. M. Montgomery, C. S. Lewis, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, H. P. Lovecraft, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Marcus Aurelius, Friedrich Nietzsche, Lewis Wallace, Ivan Turgenev, Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol, Sir Walter Scott, George Bernard Shaw, Miguel de Cervantes, Mary Shelley, Cao Xueqin, Emile Zola, Válmíki, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, P. B. Shelley, Elizabeth von Arnim, Herman Hesse, Dante, Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Sun Tzu, Inazo Nitobé, George Weedon Grossmith, Willkie Collins1991h 2m$1 · $0.00
Goethe und Werther: Briefe Goethe's, meistens aus seiner JugendzeitJohann Wolfgang von Goethe6h 31m$2 · $0.00
100 Obras Maestras de la Literatura UniversalJohann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gustave Flaubert, Franz Kafka, Lewis Carroll, Sigmund Freud, Henrik Ibsen, Charles Dickens, Honoré de Balzac, Mark Twain, Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio, Bram Stoker, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Jack London, Henry James, Louisa May Alcott, Victor Hugo, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joseph Conrad, Jane Austen, José Rizal, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Herman Melville, Jonathan Swift, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Benito Pérez Galdós, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Daniel Defoe, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Virginia Woolf, Washington Irving, Juan Valera, Horacio Quiroga, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Baudelaire, Wilkie Collins, William Makepeace Thackeray, Voltaire, Apuleius, Leopoldo Alas, John Milton, José Martí, Lope de Vega, Emilio Salgari, Francisco de Quevedo, Rubén Darío, Antonio Machado, José Zorrilla, Tirso de Molina, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Fernando de Rojas, L. Frank Baum, H. G. Wells, J. M. Barrie, H. Rider Haggard, H. P. Lovecraft, Seneca, Hans Christian Andersen, Friedrich Nietzsche, Mary Shelley, Baltasar Gracián, Sófocles, Sun Tzu, Fiódor Dostoyevski, Antón Chéjov, León Tolstoi, Tomás Moro, San Agustín, Nikolái Gógol, Julio Verne, Homero, Platón, Alejandro Dumas, Aristóteles, Hermanos Grimm, Jorge Isaacs, Ignacio de Loyola, Nicolás Maquiavelo, Miguel Cervantes, Teresa de Jesús, Alejandro Dumas hijo, Mijaíl Bakunin, Miguel De Unamuno, Duque de Rivas, Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, Federico García Lorca, Gibrán Jalil Gibrán1139h 2m$1 · $0.00
90 Masterpieces of World Literature (Vol.II)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Stendhal, Jules Verne, Gustave Flaubert, Theodor Storm, Henrik Ibsen, Charles Dickens, Honoré de Balzac, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rabindranath Tagore, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Robert Louis Stevenson, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, John Buchan, Confucius, George MacDonald, Bram Stoker, Henry James, Victor Hugo, Joseph Conrad, Jane Austen, Walter Scott, Laurence Sterne, Thomas Hardy, Jonathan Swift, Edith Wharton, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Sinclair Lewis, Anthony Trollope, Alexandre Dumas, William Dean Howells, Kalidasa, Virginia Woolf, William Walker Atkinson, Kenneth Grahame, Washington Irving, Willa Cather, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Homer, Gaston Leroux, Wilkie Collins, Ford Madox Ford, Benjamin Franklin, Kate Chopin, John Milton, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edgar Wallace, Kurt Vonnegut, Laozi, Ann Ward Radcliffe, Kakuzo Okakura, H. G. Wells, W. B. Yeats, J. M. Barrie, G. K. Chesterton, Jerome K. Jerome, W. Somerset Maugham, E. M. Forster, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Friedrich Nietzsche, Lewis Wallace, Nikolai Leskov, Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol, George Bernard Shaw, Cao Xueqin, Emile Zola, Válmíki, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, P. B. Shelley, Elizabeth von Arnim, Dante, Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Émile Coué, George Weedon Grossmith, D.H. Lawrence, Machiavelli1194h 50m$1 · $0.00
Torquato TassoJohann Wolfgang von Goethe4h 26m$1 · $0.00
Goethes Briefe an Auguste zu StolbergJohann Wolfgang von Goethe, Gräfin zu Augusta Louise Stolberg-Stolberg1h 1m$1 · $0.00
The Pursuit of Belief - Christian Classics CollectionJohann Wolfgang von Goethe, Martin Luther, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Dante Alighieri, Henry Van Dyke, David Hume, James Allen, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Andrew Murray, John Bunyan, Grace Livingston Hill, Thomas Paine, Voltaire, Lew Wallace, John Milton, Charles M. Sheldon, Ludwig Feuerbach, G. K. Chesterton, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas à Kempis, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Prentice Mulford, St. Teresa of Ávila, Florence Scovel Shinn, H. Emilie Cady, Gregory of Nyssa, Pope Gregory I, Athanasius of Alexandria, Basil the Great, John of Damascus, Brother Lawrence, Arthur Pink, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine1159h 56m$1 · $0.00
Letters from Switzerland and Travels in ItalyJohann Wolfgang von Goethe17h 24m$1 · $0.00
The Everlasting Masterpieces of World Literature in One EditionJohann Wolfgang von Goethe, Stendhal, Jules Verne, Gustave Flaubert, Lewis Carroll, Henrik Ibsen, Charles Dickens, Plato, Honoré de Balzac, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Rabindranath Tagore, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Walt Whitman, Niccolò Machiavelli, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, Giovanni Boccaccio, Confucius, George MacDonald, Bram Stoker, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Henry David Thoreau, Jack London, Henry James, Louisa May Alcott, Victor Hugo, Arthur Conan Doyle, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Joseph Conrad, Jane Austen, Herman Melville, George Eliot, Laurence Sterne, Thomas Hardy, Jonathan Swift, Edith Wharton, Benito Pérez Galdós, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Alexandre Dumas, Kalidasa, Kenneth Grahame, Marcel Proust, Willa Cather, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Homer, Gaston Leroux, Charles Baudelaire, Wilkie Collins, William Makepeace Thackeray, Voltaire, Kate Chopin, Apuleius, John Milton, Frederick Douglass, Laozi, John Keats, James Joyce, Ann Ward Radcliffe, Kahlil Gibran, Kakuzo Okakura, Soseki Natsume, Princess Der Ling, H. G. Wells, W. B. Yeats, J. M. Barrie, G. K. Chesterton, T. S. Eliot, L. M. Montgomery, C. S. Lewis, D. H. Lawrence, E. M. Forster, H. P. Lovecraft, Marcus Aurelius, Friedrich Nietzsche, Lewis Wallace, Ivan Turgenev, Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol, Sir Walter Scott, George Bernard Shaw, Miguel de Cervantes, Mary Shelley, Cao Xueqin, Emile Zola, Válmíki, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, P. B. Shelley, Elizabeth von Arnim, Herman Hesse, Dante, Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Sun Tzu, Inazo Nitobé, George Weedon Grossmith1712h 22m$1 · $0.00
Weihnachten mit der größten Liebesromane aller ZeitenJohann Wolfgang von Goethe, Stendhal, Gustave Flaubert, Charles Dickens, Stefan Zweig, Eufemia von Adlersfeld-Ballestrem, William Shakespeare, Charlotte Brontë, Anne Brontë, Emily Brontë, Victor Hugo, Jane Austen, Guy de Maupassant, Walter Scott, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Alexandre Dumas, Rudyard Kipling, George Sand, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Eugenie Marlitt, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Leo Tolstoi, Elisabeth Bürstenbinder, Wilhelmine Heimburg, Gottfried von Straßburg, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Sophie von La Roche, Hedwig Courths-Mahler687h 32m$2 · $0.00
Christian Collection: Scripture, History, Theology, Spirituality and FictionJohann Wolfgang von Goethe, Martin Luther, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Dante Alighieri, Henry Van Dyke, David Hume, James Allen, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Andrew Murray, John Bunyan, Grace Livingston Hill, Thomas Paine, Voltaire, Lew Wallace, John Milton, Charles M. Sheldon, Ludwig Feuerbach, G. K. Chesterton, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas à Kempis, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Charles Spurgeon, Prentice Mulford, St. Teresa of Ávila, Saint Augustine, Florence Scovel Shinn, H. Emilie Cady, Gregory of Nyssa, Pope Gregory I, Athanasius of Alexandria, John of Damascus, Brother Lawrence, Arthur Pink1159h 56m$1 · $0.00
Römische ElegienJohann Wolfgang von Goethe1h 30m$2 · $0.00
The Collected Works: 200+ Novels, Plays, Poems, Essays & AutobiographyJohann Wolfgang von Goethe194h 27m$1 · $0.00
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Die Laune des VerliebtenJohann Wolfgang von Goethe2h 9m$2 · $0.00
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Defying JihadEsther Ahmad8h 50m$20
Bad Fat Black GirlSesali Bowen6h 32m$24 · $0.00
Frederick Douglass: All 3 Memoirs in One VolumeFrederick Douglass42h 36m$1 · $0.00
Send MeMarty Skovlund, Joe Kent8h 10m$26 · $0.00
Ulysses S. Grant: Life of the Fearless General & Commander-in-Chief (Complete Edition - Volumes 1&2)Ulysses S. Grant30h 34m$2 · $0.00
Left for DeadEbony Canion5h 34m$17
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