Goethe’s Weltanschauung

Abstract

Until fairly recently it was a general assumption throughout the Western world that educated men of every nation, language, and class shared a common tradition based upon the heritage of classical antiquity. Latin, the universal language of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, remained the focus of education as well as the language of learned discourse until well into the eighteenth century. James Boswell could still avoid being arrested for espionage in Germany in 1764 by explaining himself in Latin; but except for such an anachronistic "adventure (as Boswell called it), the classics had already surrendered their influence outside the classroom to the Babel of modern languages and literatures. The peace and unity of the Christian Middle Ages, Novalis lamented nostalgically in 1799, had degenerated into European diversity and conflict.

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