DAS PUBLIKUM STUTZTE.” That was how Goethe described the reception of his Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklären almost thirty years after its initial publication in 1790. How could a poet of such renown deviate “von seinem Wege” and devote so much time and energy to plants (Morphologie 752)? The reading public was astonished that Goethe had given more than passing attention to science, a completely alien field. But Goethe had not only ventured into the plant realm, he had wagered a sweeping theory about nature itself. Goethe the poet had pretences of becoming Goethe the scientist.

In the decades following the publication of his Essay, Goethe wrote an ever expanding apology for his work in natural science—“Der Verfasser teilt die Geschichte seiner Botanischen Studien mit”—in which he rebutted the fundamental assumption of what he considered to be a particularly modern ethos of knowledge:

Goethe's suggestion that two seemingly disparate fields of inquiry, natural science and poetry, could be related lay completely “außer dem Gesichtskreise der Zeit” (Morphologie 458). As scientists became increasingly conscious of the disciplines in which they worked, science was pluralized, and the sciences began to operate in their own closed-off circles. Modes of inquiry and ways of knowing isolated themselves into increasingly specialized spheres of knowledge.

For Goethe, the increasing specialization of knowledge was a distinctive feature of a modern age that had come to overestimate itself based on “der großen Masse Stoffes, den sie umfasst.” By breaking knowledge down into discrete fields, or what Goethe refers to as disciplines [Fächer], the modern age was able to accumulate, process and manage more information.