 Nature's
Open Secret : Introductions to Goethe's Scientific Writings by
Rudolf Steiner, John Barnes (Translator), Mado Spiegler (Translator)
Rudolf Steiner was originally known as an interpreter
of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. At the age of twenty-one, Steiner was
asked to be the editor of Goethe's scientific writings for a new
collection of Goethe's complete works. It was by thoroughly assimilating
and appropriating Goethe's way of thinking that Steiner began his own
training in epistemology and spiritual science.
Natural science had created a powerful tool for
understanding the inorganic world, but failed to comprehend the
phenomenon of life. Goethe discovered how thinking could be applied to
organic nature, and he understood that this experience requires not
rational concepts but a whole new way of perceiving. Steiner develops
Goethe's theory of knowledge in remarkable ways, and we see here the
seeds of all that flowered into Steiner's spiritual science. Also
included is an essay on participatory science by John Michael Barnes
RUDOLF STEINER (1861-1925) became a respected and
well-published scientific, literary, and philosophical scholar,
particularly known for his work on Goethe's scientific writings. At the
beginning of the twentieth century, he began to develop his earlier
philosophical principles into an approach to methodical research of
psychological and spiritual phenomena. His multifaceted genius has led
to innovative and holistic approaches in medicine, philosophy, religion,
education (Waldorf schools), special education (the Camphill movement),
economics, agriculture (biodynamics), science, architecture, and the
arts (drama, speech and eurythmy). In 1924 he founded the General
Anthroposophical Society, which has branches throughout the world.
 Click
here to learn more about this book
 Goethe's Faust by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.
The best translation of Faust available, this volume provides the original German text and its English counterpart on facing pages. Walter Kaufmann's translation conveys the poetic beauty and rhythm as well as the complex depth of Goethe's language. Includes Part One and selections from Part Two.
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here to learn more about this book |
Goethe:
Works (Archived)
Site maintained by Gonçalo L.
Fonseca. Find several of Goethe's works in both German and English. Includes a bibliography.
Site Includes:
- The
Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)
- Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (1796) - Selection
(1)
- Faust:
Part One (1808)
- The
Elective Affinities (1810)
- Wilhelm Meister's Wanderings (1822) - Selections (1),
- Poetry and Truth (1811) - Selection (1)
- Reynard
the Fox
- Novelle
- Selected
Poems
- Faust:
Part Two (1833)
In English Translation:
- Bibliography
of Goethe
- Egmont
(1788) (Anna Sanwick transl.)
- The
Soothsayings of Bakis (1798)
- Faust: Parts One
and Two (1808, 1832) (Madison Priest transl., incomplete) -
Copy (2),
(3),
(4).
- Faust:
Part One (1808) (Anna Sanwick transl.)
- The
Poems of Goethe (Edgar Alfred Bowring transl.)
- The
Diary (1810)
- Divan
of West and East (1814-18)
- Selected
Poems
- Roman
Elegies I-VIII.
- On
Byron's Manfred, 1820.
- Goethe
on the Art of Life
- Goethe
on Renunciation
Also: Works
in German
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Adam McLean explores the potential presence of Hermetic themes and meanings in the classic German parable.
Excerpt:
The alchemy in Goethe’s Faust is central to its dramatic
conception, and is not merely added for effect. For Goethe’s working
of the Faust story differs from other dramas based on the archetypal
legend of a conjuror who sells his soul to the devil, sealing his pact
with a drop of blood, ultimately to suffer the fires of Hell, in that
Goethe reveals through his drama various transformational processes
working in the human soul, personified in Faust. Goethe struggles to
weave the personal inner journey of Faust towards some enlightenment,
together with the collective social forces that are undergoing
transformation through the historical process, so here Faust is also a
representative of Northern European humanity striving for evolution from
the limitations and strictures of the 16th century Reformation to the
new aspirations of humanity that Goethe saw developing during the 18th
century Enlightenment era.
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