84: Eckermann’s Conversations with Goethe

The Nietzsche Podcast

Nietzsche said of this work that it was “the best German book”. For the last nine years of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s life, Johann Peter Eckermann journaled about their conversations together. Goethe was a celebrity at the time, and destined to be remembered as perhaps the greatest writer of the German language, certainly of the 19th century. Eckermann, on the other hand, was a farmboy with a talent for copying - whether it was the artwork of Ramberg or the poetic style of Korner. When he met Goethe, who was in his seventies at the time, the young Eckermann looked up to him as the greatest of poets, and wanted nothing more than to record all of his wonderful memories with Goethe. In this work we find no narrative arc or rigorous structure, but simply a series of thoughts and feelings. It is a portrait of Goethe rather than a story about him, and offers a fascinating view into a different time and place.