Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who lived to the age of eighty-two and wrote more than 130 volumes of poetry, plays, letters and science, is recognized as one of the giants of world literature. His writings ranged from fairy tales, to psychological novels, to political and historical novels, and something completely unique and different like Faust. Goethe was born shortly after the Pope's death, on August 28, 1749 in Frankfurt am Main, into a bourgeois family. Her mother had many connections because she was the mayor's daughter. Young Goethe was raised with a feeling of aristocracy. He had only two siblings out of a total of eight who survived. One was his sister Cornelia and the other was the first born. He began writing at a very young age and wrote extensively. As CP Magill points out, "his writings are of formidable quantity and diversity. He is the national poet of a very hard-working people and the amount of information about him is correspondingly enormous." His poetry is of many styles, ranging from the Renaissance to his time. At the age of sixteen he was sent to study law at a university, but he would have happily read classics at another university. After ten years, he was invited by Duke Karl August to come to Weimar (this city would be his current residence until his death on March 22, 1832). He was already a good lawyer and had written the novel Werther. His work in Weimar led him to observe the natural world around him and led him towards science. He would write fourteen more volumes on the subject. At that time, Weimar was an important city in Germany. CP Magill describes this era in the following passage: “Until the beginning of this century, Weimar remained a symbol of the best elements of German cultural tradition and a center of artistic activity. It was in his art schools, which Walter Gropius took over in 1919 and renamed Bauhaus, that the modern architectural movement began. Unfortunate political associations cling today around the name Weimar, leading pessimists to believe the futility of the exalted humanism that was engendered there in the 18th century. and remind the most optimists that ideals are so called because they are unattainable. "Footnote: Magill, CP, German Literature (Great Britain, Oxford University Press, 1974) 50.