Courage under Chaos

Ottilie von Goethe was a headstrong personality who often disregarded conventions in her pursuit of intellectual and emotional freedom.

Ottilie von Goethe’s eventful life and outsized personality have often been the subject of novellas, novels and fictional biographies. Most of these narratives focused on her role as Goethe’s daughter-in-law, her unhappy marriage and her impassioned opinions which secured her a place as one of the most fascinating, but also most controversial women of her time.

This exhibition at the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv (GSA), on the other hand, focuses on Ottilie von Goethe’s rarely studied intellectual life’s work – her activities as a translator, her role as founder and editor of the multilingual journal Chaos, and as an important proponent of English-German cultural exchange. Her poetry and political commitment are explored at greater depth by several contemporary authors from Weimar, Leipzig and Vienna. For the first time ever, the exhibition presents items from Ottilie von Goethe’s estate which document her voluntary commitment to preserve Goethe’s legacy, and which serve to reconstruct her private library and art collections. The exhibition reveals Ottilie to be an intellectual, curious and cosmopolitan woman who led her life in a self-determined and freedom-loving manner.

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