Already in the early days of his childhood he began doing exercises in Latin under the supervision of his father; evidence of this is also in our showcase: a sheet of paper on which the boy wrote his translations of some classical fables. When Goethe was about 16 years old, his father sent him to university to study law so that one day the son should attain what the father had been denied: a high office in the town council of Frankfurt.

At that time, the University of Leipzig had the most appreciated law faculty in Germany and Johann Kaspar Goethe saved no expense to send his son to Leipzig. The son, however, preferred to amuse himself with visits to the theatre and with writing poems rather than with his legal studies. Among the museum’s mementos of Goethe’s student years in Leipzig is his first book of original poetry in print, the Neue Lieder ( New Songs). The title page does not name the author of these songs but only their composer, Goethe’s friend Breitkopf. Our copy, however, is dedicated in Goethe’s own hand to his fellow student Langer, who was also Goethe’s confidant in his love to Käthchen Schönkopf, for whom he wrote most of the Neue Lieder. His letters to Käthchen and to her family, the manuscript of his translations of scenes from Corneilles’ Le Menteur ( The Liar) and etchings executed under the supervision of his art teacher Oeser are further proof that the young man did not exclusively concentrate on his academic qualifications. His intention was to acquire a broadly based education at the university; and men like Gottsched and Gellert contributed more to this than the professors of jurisprudence. Since Goethe remembers these two literary men so fondly in his autobiography, their portraits are included in our exhibition.