Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Goethe wrote the novel that made a generation of young men dress alike and some kill themselves (Werther), the drama that gave modernity its bargain-with-the-devil myth (Faust), a colour theory that fought Newton, and comparative morphology that anticipated evolutionary thinking. He administered a duchy while doing it.

• Wrote Faust across sixty years, the central work of German literature
• Launched the Sturm und Drang movement with The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774)
• Discovered the human intermaxillary bone, evidence of common descent with animals
• Developed the concept of morphology and a theory of colour perception still used by artists and psychologists

The Goethe-Institut runs cultural and language centres in around 98 countries, making him Germany's principal instrument of soft power. 'Faustian bargain' is a working term in ethics of technology, AI and climate policy. Wilhelm Meister invented the Bildungsroman, the template for coming-of-age narrative from Jane Eyre to Harry Potter. His colour theory shaped Turner's painting and phenomenological psychology.

Goethe lived with Christiane Vulpius for eighteen years before marrying her; of five children only August survived infancy.