Goethe's Everything

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe dominated German literature for over sixty years. His novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) struck such a nerve that young men copied the hero's clothing — and, by many contemporary reports, his suicide. The frenzy became one of the earliest famous cases of a single book reshaping how readers dressed, felt, and behaved across Europe.

Faust sells his soul to Mephistopheles for unlimited experience and knowledge. The pursuit of experience carries a cost that may or may not be worth paying, and German literature returns to this question again and again — from Faust's bargain with the devil to Thomas Mann's artists who trade their health and souls for genius.