The towering figure of German literature, Goethe was poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, and statesman. Faust — his lifetime project completed at 82 — dramatised the modern human condition as an unquenchable striving for knowledge and experience. The Sorrows of Young Werther made him famous across Europe and sparked a craze for Romantic melancholy. Napoleon reportedly read Werther seven times.

• Nationality: DE
• Roles: writer, philosopher