Dare To Be Happy: A Study of Goethe’s Ethics

This text explores Goethe’s ethics of happiness and themes of resignation within them. Prandi has separated autobiographical material from literary expository of these themes in order to clarify the misunderstanding that has rsulted from relying on Goethe’s fictional works to document his personal ethical convictions. Prandi works out in detail the usefulness of Spinoza’s Ethics in explaining and evaluating ethical views expressed in poetry and fiction. She also uses Lucretius and Spinoza as models of influence for Goethe’s natural morality , considering the similarity between the three in their definitions of the good as what makes people rationally happy.