Charlotte von Stein

Charlotte von Stein (born Dec. 25, 1742, Eisenach, Saxe-Weimar—died Jan. 6, 1827, Weimar) was a German writer and an intimate friend of and important influence on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; she was the inspiration for the female figures Iphigenie in his Iphigenie auf Tauris and Natalie in Wilhelm Meister. She remained for Goethe an unattainable feminine ideal and should not be confused with the warm and simple Lotte, heroine of The Sorrows of Young Werther, who was inspired by Goethe’s earlier attachment to Charlotte Buff.

The eldest daughter of the Weimar master of the court ceremonies, Stein became lady in waiting to the duchess Anna Amalia (1758), subsequently marrying Friedrich, Freiherr von Stein (1764), equerry to Duke Charles Augustus (Karl August) of Saxe-Weimar. On Goethe’s arrival in Weimar (1775) an intimate friendship began, and the ensuing Seelenbund (“union of souls”) was of considerable influence on Goethe’s life and work; Goethe’s letters and poems to Stein demonstrate their close attachment. After Goethe’s return from Italy (1788), his relations with Christiane Vulpius, whom he later married, caused a break in the friendship. By 1801, however, Stein and Goethe had achieved some reconciliation.

Stein wrote several plays, including Rino (1776), a small humorous piece on Goethe and ladies of the court, and the prose tragedy Dido (1792; published 1867), a work containing many allusions to her break with him.