Yale will host an exhibit of rare documents and an international conference this month to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), who has been called the "Shakespeare" of the German language.

The exhibit, "Goethe the Scientist," will be on view Oct. 8-Dec. 2 at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, corner of Wall and High streets. The conference, "Goethe and Modern Culture," will take place Oct. 8-10 in the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St.

"Goethe the Scientist"

Although Goethe is best known for his literary works -- most notably "Faust," "The Sorrows of Young Werther," "Wilhelm Meister" and countless poems -- he also had a little-remembered career as a scientist, according to Christa Sammons, curator of the collection of German literature at the Beinecke, who organized the library's exhibit.

"Goethe did scientific experiments throughout his life," says Sammons, noting that only a small part of Goethe's scientific writing was published during his lifetime. Although scholars have long known of Goethe's scientific pursuits, they have disputed the meaning and value of his findings and theories based on those empirical studies, she explains.

"The exhibit gives an interesting perspective on the ways Goethe's scientific thinking was similar to and different from what was going on contemporaneously in Europe," Sammons says.

Sammons gathered together prints, letters and illustrated books by Goethe and many of his contemporaries for the exhibit.

Many of the books, illustrations, charts and treatises that will be on display came to Yale through the efforts of William A. Speck. A pharmacist by profession, Speck was a passionate collector of anything associated with Goethe. By 1913, the year Speck came to Yale as curator of its growing German collection, he had amassed the largest private Goethe library outside of Germany. By 1928, the year of his death, the Speck Collection had grown threefold.

The exhibition will highlight Goethe's five areas of scientific research: comparative osteology, the study of bones of different species; botany; optics; geology; and meteorology. Few of Goethe's theories ever entered into mainstream scientific thought, explains Sammons -- the one exception being his discovery of the intermaxillary bone of the upper jaw in humans. The existence of this bone, Goethe rightly surmised, demonstrated humans' kinship to other animal species. Goethe also coined the term "morphology" to describe the study of structure or form.

Despite some other strides in the fields of meteorology and optics (his theories of the physiology of color perception influenced artists, particularly Turner), Goethe has been largely discredited as a scientific thinker, says Sammons. Goethe's fierce -- and misguided -- opposition to the theories of Isaac Newton is "part of what gives him a bad name as a scientist," she notes.

With a degree in law (which he never practiced), Goethe served in the cabinet of Duke Carl August of the small duchy of Saxe-Weimar. Rising from a position roughly equivalent to minister of parks and recreation to that of prime minister, he was able to use his authority to further his scientific pursuits. It was as a member of the Duke's cabinet that Goethe helped to revive a silver mine in the duchy and to set up a "weather station." In this latter capacity, he was able -- while generally disdaining the scientific instruments of his day -- to develop his interest in barometric pressure.

"Most of his experiments were based on direct observation by the human eye," says Sammons.

While the value of Goethe's achievements as a scientist might be questionable, his theories and observations clearly contributed to his literary work, says Sammons, noting that names and images inspired by Goethe's studies of botany and geology abound throughout his plays and poems.

The Beinecke Library is open for exhibition viewing 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. Admission is free. For further information, call (203) 432-2977 or visit the library's website at www.library.yale.edu/beinecke/.

"Goethe and Modern Culture"

The three-day conference on "Goethe and Modern Culture" will feature a variety of activities at the Whitney Humanities Center, unless otherwise noted.

The event will begin on Friday, Oct. 8, with an opening address by author and recording artist Charles Rosen. An internationally acclaimed pianist, whose repertoire ranges from Bach to Elliott Carter, Rosen delivered the Bianca Finzi-Contini Lecture at Yale in 1996. "The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven," his most celebrated book, received the National Book Award for Arts and Letters in 1972 and has been translated into seven languages.

Rosen's lecture, "Distrusting Goethe: The Perils of Becoming a Classic," will take place at 5:15 p.m. at Morse Recital Hall, Sprague Memorial Hall, 470 College St. The talk will be followed by a reception at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library marking the opening of the exhibition "Goethe the Scientist."

There will be two colloquia -- a morning and afternoon session -- on Saturday, Oct. 9. These will be opened with an address by Manfred Osten, secretary general of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. (See related story).

The colloquia will bring together scholars from Yale, the University of Glasgow and Humboldt University of Berlin, among other institutions, to discuss the enduring influence of Goethe on today's culture and the meaning of his literary work within the context of modern times.

The scholars attending the Saturday sessions are not necessarily Goethe specialists and may approach the subject in very different ways, according to Brigitte Peucker, chair of the German languages and literature department and one of the organizers of the conference. She describes the colloquia as "a way of addressing Goethe from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives."

An unstaged ensemble reading of Goethe's play "Iphigenia in Tauris" will be the main event on Saturday evening. This English language translation by David Luke will be directed by Jean Randich, and will be read by four professional actors from New York. The performance will be repeated on Sunday at 2 p.m.

On Sunday the conference will end with a roundtable discussion, "Current Issues and Further Challenges in the Study of Goethe," by a group of American Goethe scholars. That discussion will take place 9:30 a.m.­1 p.m.

All the events are free and open to the public, and all the talks will be presented in English.

For more information about any of the events connected to the Goethe celebration, call (203) 432-0781 or send e-mail to german@yale.edu.

-- By Dorie Baker

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