Note 2 — Chapter IX

This question has given rise to much discussion among students of Goethe’s writings. Herman Grimm is one of those who emphatically maintain that the First and Second Parts were from the beginning in Goethe’s mind. See his “Goethe,” Zweiter Band, 273. A full and clear statement of the opposite view will be found in Karl Biedermann’s “Deutschland im Achtzehnten Jahrhundert,” Zweiter Band, 1034. Herman Grimm and those who agree with him rely mainly upon some expressions used by Goethe a few days before his death, in a letter written to William von Humboldt (one of the dearest and most highly esteemed of his friends). Biedermann, however, shows conclusively that this letter has been misunderstood.