WorkJohann Wolfgang von Goethe

Tagebücher [Diaries / Journals]

Tagebücher [Diaries / Journals] (begun 1775, published posthumously) Inferred

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) · begun 1775, published posthumously

InferredFuller labels the section 'Extract from Goethe's journal' with year 1779. This is Goethe's diary / Tagebücher. The aphorisms on pp. 12–13 are also attributed to Goethe by name. Fuller labels the section explicitly 'Extract from Goethe's journal' with year 1779. She then transcribes a lengthy passage (pp. 11–12) reflecting Goethe's retrospective view of youth's confusion and impulsiveness.

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Notebooks • Manuscripts

Selected engagements, in chronological order.

Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this work is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

When Fuller engaged with this work

No datable encounters with von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang have been catalogued yet.

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Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.

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Notebook 1842

p11

excerpted · quoted · readManuscript page

“Extract from Goethe's journal, / 1779. / Cleaning up my house, I looked through / my papers, and burnt all the old / shells. — New times, new cases.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Notebook 1842." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (90); Box 6.

Inferred Fuller labels the section 'Extract from Goethe's journal' with year 1779. This is Goethe's diary / Tagebücher. The aphorisms on pp. 12–13 are also attributed to Goethe by name. Fuller labels the section explicitly 'Extract from Goethe's journal' with year 1779. She then transcribes a lengthy passage (pp. 11–12) reflecting Goethe's retrospective view of youth's confusion and impulsiveness.

The aphorisms on pp. 12–13 are also attributed to Goethe by name. On p. 13 she quotes two attributed aphorisms: (1) the German 'Man muss schreiben wie man lebt, / zuerst um sein selbst willen...' ('One must write as one lives, first for one's own sake, and then one also exists for kindred beings') — attributed 'Goethe'; and (2) in both English translation and German original, the maxim: 'We learn only from those books which we are not able to judge. The author of a book which we could judge must learn of us.' — attributed 'Goethe.' The German text of the second aphorism follows: 'Denn eigentlich lernen wir nur / von Büchern, die wir nicht beurtheilen / können...' Goethe's Tagebücher were published as part of the Weimar edition of his complete works (Sophienausgabe, 1887 onward), but were circulated in manuscript and excerpts earlier; Fuller may have read them in a German edition or through intermediary sources.

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On Goethe

p1–p2

excerpted · analyzed · readManuscript page

“It was written three or four years after 'he too knew for an instant the feelings of a bridegroom' / thirty years of age / 1779.”

Fuller, Margaret. "On Goethe." Boston Public Library Archives & Special Collections; MS Am. 1450; Box: 2, Folder: 119.

Inferred She presents a translated passage from what a later pencil annotation calls 'Translation from a Private Journal & Goethe.' The passage — dated internally to 1779 (age 30), describing Goethe burning old papers, reflecting on youth, and praying for clarity — matches the character and content of Goethe's private diary (Tagebuch) entries from January 1779, written shortly after his 30th birthday. Author is explicit (named in pencil annotations and in Fuller's subsequent reflection); title is inferred as the Tagebuch.