ECKERMANN, JOHANN PETER

born Sept. 21, 1792, Winsen, Hanover [now in Germany] died Dec. 3, 1854, Weimar, Prussia [now in Germany] German writer, chiefly remembered as the assistant and close associate of the aging author J.W. von Goethe; his Gesprche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens, 182332, 3 vol. (183648; Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of His Life), is comparable in importance with James Boswell's Life of Johnson. Reared in great poverty, Eckermann served in the German war of liberation against Napoleon and became a clerk in the war department at Hanover, later studying for a year at Gttingen, from 1821 to 1822. At an early age Goethe became his idol. Eckermann published a book of poems in 1821 and in 1823 attracted Goethe's attention by sending him the manuscript of his Beitrge zur Poesie mit besonderer Hinweisung auf Goethe (Helps Toward Understanding Poetry with Special Instructions on Goethe), which contained sensitive appreciations of Goethe's work. Goethe invited Eckermann to Weimar, and he there gave up his own ambition of becoming an original poet to become Goethe's unpaid literary assistant. Eckermann also acted as tutor to the son of the grand duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and, in 1838, acquired an appointment at the Weimar court and the position of librarian. Eckermann's Gesprche has been translated into every major European language. The first English translation, Conversations with Goethe (1839), was made by the American critic Margaret Fuller. Based on notes taken with Goethe's permission, Eckermann's Conversations are not mere records of interviews but an artistically selective arrangement of information on Goethe's life and thought. Eckermann also acted as Goethe's literary executor and published his posthumous works (183233) and, with F.W. Riemer, prepared the first complete edition of Goethe's works.