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KENNETH S. CALHOON (ESSAY DATE MARCH 2001)

SOURCE: Calhoon, Kenneth S. "The Gothic Imaginary: Goethe in Strasbourg." Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 75, no. 1 (March 2001): 5-14.

In the following essay, Calhoon studies how Goethe's recorded early encounters with Gothic architecture informed his representations of fear and horror in his later works.

In the spring of 1771 Goethe, on the mend after a long illness, and aching to escape the sphere of his father's influence, rode the mail to Strasbourg, where he would convalesce further and read the law. Immediately upon alighting—so he reports in Dichtung und Wahrheit—he rushed to view at close range what had been visible for miles, namely the great thirteenth-century cathedral at the heart of town. His encounter with this medieval colossus is described dithyrambically in the essay Von...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Primary Sources
   1. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (Poem Date 1808)
4. General Commentary
   1. Kenneth S. Calhoon (Essay Date March 2001)
5. Title Commentary
   1. Faust
6. Further Reading

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