The Metamorphosis of Plants
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • Published: 10 September 2024
  • ISBN: 9780262551021
  • Imprint: MIT Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 156
  • RRP: $55.00

The Metamorphosis of Plants

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Goethe’s influential text, newly illustrated with stunning color photographs.

Goethe’s influential text, newly illustrated with stunning colour photographs.

The Metamorphosis of Plants, published in 1790, was Goethe’s first major attempt to describe what he called in a letter to a friend “the truth about the how of the organism.” Inspired by the diversity of flora he found on a journey to Italy, Goethe sought a unity of form in diverse structures. He came to see in the leaf the germ of a plant’s metamorphosis—“the true Proteus who can hide or reveal himself in all vegetal forms”—from the root and stem leaves to the calyx and corolla, to pistil and stamens. With this short book—123 numbered paragraphs, in the manner of the great botanist Linnaeus—Goethe aimed to tell the story of botanical forms in process, to present, in effect, a motion picture of the metamorphosis of plants. This MIT Press edition of The Metamorphosis of Plants illustrates Goethe’s text (in an English translation by Douglas Miller) with a series of stunning and starkly beautiful colour photographs as well as numerous line drawings. It is the most completely and colourfully illustrated edition of Goethe’s book ever published. It demonstrates vividly Goethe’s ideas of transformation and interdependence, as well as the systematic use of imagination in scientific research—which influenced thinkers ranging from Darwin to Thoreau and has much to teach us today about our relationship with nature.
  • Published: 10 September 2024
  • ISBN: 9780262551021
  • Imprint: MIT Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 156
  • RRP: $55.00
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About the author

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in Frankfurt-on-Main in 1749. He studied at Leipzig, where he showed interest in the occult, and at Strassburg, where Herder introduced him to Shakespeare's works and to folk poetry. He produced some essays and lyrical verse, and at twenty-two wrote Götz von Berlichingen, a play which brought him national fame and established him in the current Sturm und Drang movement. This was followed by the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther in 1774, which was an even greater success.

Goethe began work on Faust, and Egmont, another tragedy before being invited to join the government of Weimar. His interest in the classical world led him to leave suddenly for Italy in 1786 and the Italian Journey recounts his travels there. Iphigenia in Tauris andTorquato Tasso, classical dramas, were written at this time. Returning to Weimar, Goethe started the second part of Faust, encouraged by Schiller. In 1806 he married Christiane Vulpius. During this late period he finished his series of Wilhelm Master books and wrote many other works, including The Oriental Divan (1819). He also directed the State Theatre and worked on scientific theories in evolutionary botany, anatomy and color. Goethe completed Faust in 1832, just before he died.

Also by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Sorrows of Young Werther
Sketchy, Doubtful, Incomplete Jottings
Sindbad the Sailor
The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-tongue
Three Tang Dynasty Poets
Faust, Part II
Faust, Part I
See all

Praise for The Metamorphosis of Plants

"Goethe would be delighted with this edition of The Metamorphosis of Plants. It does what he hoped would eventually become possible and provides pictures situated in the text of all the plants to which he refers, so that we can see for ourselves the specific points to which he is drawing our attention. Reading it, I felt that here at last is the complete book, compared to which all previous publications of it seem like only a skeleton. Thanks to Gordon Miller's wonderful photography and careful selection of images, as well as his perceptive introduction, we can now all appreciate the extraordinary nature of Goethe's achievement. We can only be astonished at the detailed and painstaking observational work, together with the overall vision of the idea of metamorphosis, which biology today recognizes as the truth of the plant. This welcome edition makes Goethe's work more widely available than ever before, both for those who have not yet had the opportunity to read it, and for those who have read it, to read it again as if for the first time."
--Henri Bortoft, author of The Wholeness of Nature and Goethe's Scientific Consciousness