INTENSE AND FRUITFUL THOUGH IT WAS, scholars long neglected Goethe’s involvement with the culture of Arabia, which appeared modest in comparison with his more obvious attraction to other Eastern traditions. While his interactions with the arts of Persia, India, and China received close attention, hardly any was paid to his relations with Arabian culture. Hans Pyritz’s Goethe bibliography lists only one relevant publication, a four-page essay, and even this contains insupportable and, on the whole, misleading claims. Whereas this piece ventures that “Goethe felt at home in the Arabic language” and understood “classical Arabic as spoken in Muhammad’s own time,” another, in a reference work appearing in 1962, goes to the other extreme, denying that Goethe had any interest at all in Arabian culture and culminating in the absurd assertion that he “paid no attention whatever to the Arabian Orient.” I hope to demonstrate that, on the contrary, his interest in that region and its culture was highly developed and of long duration.

To begin with, Goethe admired the Thousand and One Nights, a classic of world literature that influenced him enormously. Babinger, however, refuses to acknowledge even this fact: “It seems odd that [Goethe] never consulted Ant. Galland’s translation of the Thousand and One Nights, which was soon translated into German, often republished, and is esteemed to the present day.” This is an error, as even a cursory examination of the Weimar edition’s index reveals, which does not even list all references to Galland’s version. Throughout his life, Goethe loved the stories of Sheherazade. Thanks to his mother and grandmother, he had become familiar with some in early childhood and had never forgotten them. His affection for this work, entirely Arabic in language and style, many of whose stories originated in Arabia, did not diminish as he grew older. Motifs, figures, and narrative strategies in many of his works were rooted in Sheherazade’s tales. Even as an old man, he found relief in these stories during long, depressing winter nights or spells of illness. The intensity and endurance with which he perused the many volumes of the Thousand and One Nights time and again amazed his family and friends. He mentioned the work, if only in passing, dozens of times in letters, diaries, and conversations, but even fleeting allusions are, by virtue of sheer numbers, highly indicative.