| Summary: | The following project will examine the scientific, metaphysical, and aesthetic
themes connected to Goethe's vision of Natur during and surrounding the years of his
famed Italian Journey. Goethe's progressing conceptualization of the Urpflanze during
this period, as witnessed in his autobiographical Italienische Reise and the Versuch, die
Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklaren, will be of special concern because of its
pertinence to a number of vital natural scientific themes in Goethe's scientific work. I
will also trace the progression of these themes over time as seen in Goethe's related
theories of the intermaxillary bone and of the morphology of plant organs so as to
maintain that the Italian Journey may be seen as a period not only of literary
revitalization as commonly cited, but also of scientific progress in connection with
Goethe's deepening understanding of Natur as well as its inherent laws and archetypal
nature.
The first chapter will introduce the project's problem in detail as well as the
textual and critical obstructions associated with the project. I will maintain in Chapter II
that Goethe's biography during the 1780s shows a systematic progression in the
understanding of Natur in his scientific projects and in the Reise, which also helps to demonstrate that Goethe's Journey was a period during which Goethe was able to
develop, in greater detail than heretofore, his metaphysical vision of Natur. In Chapter
III, I will investigate the primary textual material on Goethe?s notion of the Urpflanze
within the Italienische Reise and its resulting extension in his 1790 study of plant
morphology, the Metamorphose der Pflanzen. Chapter IV will discuss the topic of the
Eins in Nature and anschauende Urteilskraft as detected in Goethe's scientific writings.
Chapter V will continue and conclude this argument by linking Richards' argument
regarding "Romantic biologists" to Goethe?s natural science during the time of the
Italian Journey, thus making a connection between Kunst and Natur in the Italienische
Reise and in Goethe's scientific projects during and surrounding the Journey.
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