By the end of the 19th century, Goethe emerged as the most important author of German literature. He became a subject of cultural identification and a founding figure or legitimizing authority of the emerging humanities. Morphological methods can be linked to Goethe; the central concepts of life, form, and the organic are traced back to him. The figure of Goethe, who unites life and work, becomes a central topos in the history of ideas. This volume examines the discursive and epistemological significance of Goethe in the works of prominent authors such as Dilthey, Cassirer, Simmel, Spengler, Gundolf, Kommerell, Lukács, and Thomas Mann. It includes contributions from Nicolas Berg, Ulisse Dogà, Dorothee Gelhard, Eva Geulen, Claude Haas, Alexander Honold, Harun Maye, Jürgen Oelkers, Alexander Schwieren, Johannes Steizinger, Daniel Weidner, and Stefan.