People like Goethe and Beethoven actually existed

It’s actually not only do-able but it’s the easiest way to live
>learn to think faggot

what? are you saying that anyone can become goethe if they work hard enough? if so, you're an idiot

ofc that's not what he's saying
only goethe could become goethe
fucking idiot, that doesn't even make sense

could anyone, through hard work, become like Bach?? don't be stupid! pic related idiots.

haha dummies!

Not just anyone can be the genius Goethe was.

>yfw

there are smarter people today, theyre just in some extremely specialized technical field doing something boring that you'll never hear about

Read Faust, it's good shit

>he convinced himself this was more natural
What an absolute psychopath

I wouldn't call Goethe genius, but I would say he was very talented at both artistic and scientific ventures which is quite rare.

Goethe said himself he wasn't as proud as of his poetical works as his scientific achievements. Which I understand, because while I think Faust is really fucking good I don't think it's a masterpiece like people say.

>Kant existed
>Hegel existed
>fucking Bach existed

>I wouldn't call Goethe genius
I would call you pretentious and ignorant

Yes, and if there was a Veeky Forums back then we'd hate them both.

Faust is a real good book imho

lately I find myself floored by how intelligent and creative some people can be or have been. maybe with age and realizing my own limitations I've gained a greater appreciation for what others have been able to do

it's somewhat depressing on an individual level but at the same time I'm just glad that humanity can achieve such heights at all.

>I wouldn't call Goethe genius
Do anglos actually believe this?

Goethe had an estimated 200+ IQ

Are you fucking retarded?

look it up brainlet

kys faggot

Why not? What constitutes a genius anyways? It's not like i'm calling him a retard, he's well above the average intelligence of a normal person, but in my opinion "Genius" is much more few and far in between. In my opinion genius involves doing something that is currently unfathomable at the time and seems almost beyond human. Something that without that person would probably haven't happened much later. Newton was a superhuman prodigy, I consider him a genius.

Humans are shit.

>What constitutes a genius anyways?
Being in the top 2% in terms of IQ is the definition

Then maybe there are way more geniuses than I want to acknowledge. I don't know, Goethe was pretty smart, but I guess he was intelligent in many different ways as opposed to being a specialist. I guess his natural intuition is legendary.

Seriously though, is it because I read Faust in english that it didn't live up to expectations? I really don't rank it close at all to something like Hamlet or Divine Comedy.

he died 100 years before IQ tests existed. i bet you feel pretty about yourself right about now huh guy?:)

Where's this inferiority complex 'anglos believe this' coming from? It seems kinda French but they usually dont know English well enough to post...

Not the same type of smart, though.

>estimated

I use it all the time and I live in New York it's just fun to roleplay

Dude just shut up. Nobody wants to hear about how you 'rank' anything, please go

>tested iq
>estimated iq

sounds legit lol

>estimated height 6'2
>mfw he was really 6'1

fucking manlet

>Hegel existed
Life can't always be good to us

Fucking kill yourself for thinking society is detached from nature. You must be Anglo because only an Anglo could think so soullessly about something.

The Sturm und Drang movement literally invented the term “genius”.

Not him but why are you so angry with him? He’s being pretty humle about it.

Did you not get the birds and bees? Bee put its stinger in the bird.

>that shitty attempt at irony
You must be American.

Cringe. It's so easy to spot an embittered German, you cunts make it too easy. It's amazing that you can act as if your country is anything but the most soul-sapped hole in all of Europe, you can tell by the way it desperately tries to promote a second-rate figure like Goethe to the level of Dante or Shakespeare kek.

>promote a second-rate figure like Goethe to the level of Dante

Or you could just get off the thread? Germans are such insufferably insecure cunts.
That is so far from what constitutes genius, it's about achievement not some arbitrary measurement of cognitive ability

t. Buzzfeed

Not bait. Goethe himself had a bust of Dante in his office, and then arrogantly told Eckermann that "dude you're just not ready to comprehend his work" in his usual irritating German manner.

Goethe dominated German writing for more than a century after his death. Only after WW2 was German literature really able to break with the form and tone that Goethe pioneered. His influence can not be understated.
Without Goethe, there is no Mann, no Kafka, no Fontane and so on.

>Goethe himself had a bust of Dante in his office
>this settles who was the ""greatest""
The absolute state of underage /int/ards. As idiotic as it is to ""r8 the gr8s"", it's even more so to compare a quintessential polymath with pure poet. If you're looking for a preteen edginess contest then why are you on a board without flags?

That's all very well, but so what? German Lit was a relatively isolated cultural landscape (Carlyle had to spend an entire career trying to import it into England), unlike French of English lit at the time so it was only really an internal influence on Germany itself. As for the quality of the works, I only know English and Italian but I never saw why Faust was such a masterpiece. An interesting work that in a lot of ways marks the beginnings of what me might now call modernity in Europe, but I don't think Goethe is in anyway comparable to the other "greats."

What an incredible contribution you've made. I've got no interest in "r8ing tha gr8s", I just can't resist arguing with arrogant Germans about their inflated sense of cultural worth, that's all. The bust trivia is just a throwaway comment, did you want a 12-page academic comparison of the poetical works of Dante and Goethe? Fuck off.

>I've got no interest in "r8ing tha gr8s", I just can't resist doing it
Wew.
>arrogant Germans about their inflated sense of cultural worth
Were you molested by a German or something? Nobody cares either way.
>did you want a 12-page academic comparison
Nice strawmanship. I expected any kind of rational argument, so far it's nothing but autistic ramblings about Germans and "i didn't like Faust that much".

Have you read his Poetry?

>Napoleon actually had a little talk with Goethe

>Goethe to the level of Dante
>the most prolific polymath out there only surpassed by da vinci to the level of christfag fanfiction writer
really making me think over here, anglotard

>Wew
How is disagreeing with the importance assigned to a specific literary figure equivalent to ranking the greats? It's just about influence really.
>Nobody cares either way
You mean apart from everyone else in this thread? This entire thread is just German patriotism, ctrl + F for "Anglo" if you need it proven. But thanks for this nugget of wisdom anyway.
>Nice strawmanship
No, you wagged your finger get at me for comparing a "polymath with a pure poet" for some reason, even though that polymathery included poetry. Is it unfair to compare Goethe with Fontane because the latter was a "pure novelist"?

Napoleon was a pleb, his favorite novel was Werther.

Napoleon was little nerd. Staying in his room all alone reading about Caesar instead of playing with the other boys at the military academy.

He also wrote a Werther fanfic that sucked.

>He also wrote a Werther fanfic that sucked.
Where can I read this?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clisson_et_Eugénie

Aww, I was hoping for a literal fanfiction.

>This entire thread is just German patriotism
You don't have to be German to not be a stereotypical ignorant Anglo barely able to recognize that reality doesn't conform to his perverse self-centered worldview. There's a reason for the whole "Anglo" meme here and you're a part of it.
>Is it unfair to compare Goethe with Fontane because the latter was a "pure novelist"?
Entirely. Especially when you're specifically stating that it's about influence. It's like arguing that Leibniz or Godel were "inferior" and less influential to Frege or Spinoza, because the latter's philosophical body of work is larger and more comprehensive.

>you're a part of it
I'm not even an anglo, but you've brilliantly demonstrated the "anglo boogeyman" performance of many Europeans on this site. Well done.
>...latter's philosophical body of work is larger and more comprehensive.
I think you've made the complete opposite of the point you were meaning to make here. But anyway, if we are looking at poetry we need to assess the poems, it isn't necessary to then factor in that they also made an enormous prose output. Separate the work from the man.
I don't think this is going anywhere, let's let this thread die. It was crap right from the start.

>Putting Bach, Hegel and Kant in the same category

Germanophiles should kill themselves

>I'm not even an anglo
Doesn't matter. It's a characteristic of attitude and character, not actual nationality itself.
>if we are looking at poetry we need to assess the poems, it isn't necessary to then factor in that they also made an enormous prose output
And where did you get from that we're looking at poetry or arguing poetical merits only? Nobody mentioned or made this distinction. It's literally just you who decided for no reason to constrain the discussion solely to this sphere and then went on to autistically rant about ze germins.
>I don't think this is going anywhere, let's let this thread die.
A.k.a. "I noticed my random goalpost setting retardation, so it's time to move on". Stop giving in to your edgelord knee-jerking impulses and try to contribute instead.

>I never saw why Faust was such a masterpiece.
t. read a shitty prose translation

t. shriveled dick anglocuck

youtube.com/watch?v=Ie52xH8V2L4

im a rennysance man

>It's a characteristic of attitude and character
>Dude its a frame of mind ;)
Hahahah wtf are you on about? Its an explicitly cultural term you posturing retard.
>where did you get from that we're looking at poetry or arguing poetical merits only?
From the fact that we were arguing about Goethe in comparison to Dante (A POET), which is what got you all hot and bothered in the first place. I didn't set those boundaries, you did. I know its a long thread, but do try and keep up.
>A.k.a. "I noticed my random goalpost setting retardation, so it's time to move on"
Your last gasp of bullshit shows very well why this thread ought to die. Its just become an argument about semantics and what we did or didn't say earlier on. Now fuck off you smug, useless poseur. You couldn't contribute to a thread if your dull little life depended on it.

>Confining music, or art in general, to national identity
Time to grow up

>Goethe in comparison to Dante
>I didn't set those boundaries
Kek. Is this not your post, contrarian faggot?
>Its just become an argument about semantics and what we did or didn't say earlier on
It was absolutely clear to everyone ITT that OP meant to discuss genius at large providing a polymath and a composer as example. Semantics began when you, the autismal faggot, decided we should discuss your personal poetical preferences instead.
>Now fuck off you smug, useless poseur. You couldn't contribute to a thread if your dull little life depended on it.
Excellent irony. Now shush, pastanigger.

the greatest dutch poem painter who has ever lived, you illiterate fuck

this shit is even worse in math where it's easier to quantify the power gap between great minds and people who work hard

depressing stuff tbqh I try not to think about it

Was Abel a great mind or hard worker? What about Gauss? Euler?

Shh. Don't confuse a Veeky Forums brainlet who masturbates to Grothendieck and Galois.

what's your point lads I'm sensing hostility here

math is one of the most depressingly humbling subjects with a very stark iq wall

Actually I was just curious, I don't know very much about math.

Carl Friedrich Gauss

I estimate your IQ 60-70

...

This threads amazing, its all tumblr identity politics with Lit.

>Goethe was great because he was smart

Nietzsche called Goethe closest to the Übermensch for a reason

Thats a good post even though youre being a dick:D Great is a far better word than genius, which has now been appropriated by soccer moms in their pride that little Jimmy done a jigsaw

Even if you disagree with Goethe being one of the greats of poetry, philosophy, science and education (all of which I believe he was), he is undoubtedly still a contender for being the greatest novelist of all time.

Of course I agree he was great. I just don't think his greatness lies in his smartness (whatever that is).
Intuitive grasp of timeless truths and understanding of beauty are much more important and rare than the autistic analytical 'smarts' this user
appreciates

>muh fee-fees are mur impurtant than your stupid smarts

I estimate you to be a faggot

Beethoven was far greater an artist than Goethe. Beethoven is on the level of Shakespeare and Michelangelo as one of the greatest creative minds the world has ever known.

>self inserts are good books now
Please. I could not read this book without seeing the enormous ego Goethe has for himself. In fact all of his novels are secretly about him.
If you think that self inserts make for great novels then perhaps you should read David Foster Wallace

kek

is this not true of any Representation though? We've only ever seen things through our own eyes