Enemies
| Date
| Description
|
|
|
|
 Anonymous woman
(friend of Heinrich Laube) | 1809 | Commented to Goethe: ‘I cannot approve of Elective Affinities, Herr von Goethe; it really is an immoral book!’ |
Friederike Helene Unger
(1741-1813)
German writer | c.1809 | Wrote to German translator and critic August Schlegel (1767-1845) that the morality of the book is "atrocious". [2] |
 Ludwig Tieck
(1773-1853)
German poet and romantic movement novelist (IQ=165) | c.1809 | Called Goethe's novella "torture affinities"; a fact that German writer and novelist Bettina Brentano (1785-1859) let Goethe know. [2] |
 Karl Knebel
(1744-1834)
German poet | 1810 | Commented to Goethe: “he could not stomach it” (Feb 7). [2] |
 Christoph Wieland
(1733-1813)
German poet and writer
(IQ=170) | 1810 |  Commented in a letter to German philologist and archeologist Karl Böttiger, which he suggested should be "burned" after it is read, that: “to all rational readers, the use of the chemical theory is nonsense and childish fooling around”; supposedly, objected owing to the "radicalness of its Christianity" (Jul 16); in another letter, whose addressee, a woman, is unknown, he stated: "I confess to you, my friend, that I have read this truly terrifying work not with out feeling or concern." |
 Tominaga Keii (1920-2009)
Japanese chemical engineer | 2004 | Stated in his chemical thermodynamics chapter, specifically in his mis-dated subsection "Chemical Affinity in 1806", of his Heterogeneous Kinetics, after nearly re-quoting the entire part of the famous "chapter four", that in his concluding passing remark view the human chemical reaction theory and the publication "did not add any scientific value." |
 Sam Kean
(c.1980-)
American science writer | 2010 | In his laymanized chemistry history book The Disappearing Spoon: and Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of Element, he attempts to deride Goethe’s Elective Affinities, commenting, for example: “Goethe would have been better off cutting out the science” and that “Goethe would have been crushed after his death in 1832 to learn that its science and philosophy would soon disintegrate and that people now read his work strictly for its literary value.” |
 Ryan Grannell
(c.1991-)
Irish openly atheist biochemistry student | 2011 | Believes that Goethe's human chemistry theory is a "nutty theory" and that the modern chemical thermodynamics version of Goethe's human chemistry, as presented in the works of American electrochemical engineer Libb Thims, is "calculus coated woo" and "Goethe's Elective Affinities wrapped in a lab coat." |
 Erland Lagerroth
(1925-)
Swedish literary critic and humanism theorist | 2013 | “Today I started from scratch again [see: discussion] and when I got to your homepage, I understood. We have different interests and foci, and so we differ in research and results. Already before I quoted from Gladyshev: "History can be predicted with thermodynamics" and now I found another bon mot: "Love is in its ultimate analysis nothing but a chemical reaction" [Anon chemist, c.1922] [5]. You want to understand by reducing, Prigogine, Jantsch and I by comprehending the great connections = relations, processes, wholenesses, systems. Because it is in their world we live - and love and it is this world that is a wonder to be loved. I understand you have found something related to your interest in Die Wahlverwandtschaften, but I doubt that Goethe would have loved your reductions. But, maybe, as an experiment [see: love thought experiment]. But the four-five persons certainly are much more than their chemical formulas [see: human molelcular formula]. So I stay with Prigogine and Jantsch and myself. But I admire the tremendous work you have done on your interest, and I know there are many like you. But for me this passion for reduction of our wonderful world is a perversion.” [see: anti-reductionism] [4] |
