person
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Goethe
German poet, novelist, and polymath (1749-1832), cited in Vengerovich 2's garbled list of 'Jewish' poets -- an error Platonov immediately catches, since Goethe was not Jewish.
Reading notes
- The Christmas Tree §31 Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German poet and polymath, invoked here as the era's supreme literary classic.
- To A. S. Suvorin, 15 May 1889. Sumy. §3 and in Goethe the poet got on splendidly side by
side with the natural scientist.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, invoked generically here as the proof case of a "genius" in whom poetry and natural science coexisted without conflict -- a reference to Goethe's own scientific work (e.g. in morphology and optics) alongside his poetry, not to any specific text. Previously established in this corpus via the Faust reference in.