Catharina Elisabeth Goethe

Catharina Elisabeth Goethe
Portrait by Georg Oswald May (1776)
Born	Catharina Elisabeth Textor 19 February 1731 Frankfurt am Main
Died	13 September 1808 Frankfurt am Main
Spouse	Johann Caspar Goethe
Children	Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (son) Cornelia Schlosser (daughter)
Relatives	Christiane Vulpius (daughter-in-law) Johann Georg Schlosser (son-in-law) August von Goethe (grandson) Walther von Goethe (great-grandson)

Catharina Elisabeth Goethe, known as "Frau Rat" (19 February 1731 - 13 September 1808) was the mother of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and his sister Cornelia Schlosser.

Biography

She was born and died at Frankfurt am Main, and was a daughter of Johann Wolfgang Textor, a prominent citizen of Frankfurt. She married Johann Caspar Goethe, on 20 August 1748, and had seven children by him, of which only two survived to adulthood.

She is the heroine of Bettina von Arnim's Dies Buch gehört dem König (1843), and is one of the central figures of Karl Gutzkow's play Der Königsleutnant.

Writings

Much of her correspondence has been published in Goethe's Mother, Correspondence of Catharine Elizabeth Goethe with Goethe (Leipzig, 1889). Her letters to the Duchess Anna Amalia, the mother of Goethe's patron Grand Duke Karl August, were published at Weimar in 1885.

Further reading

• Keil, Frau Rat (Leipzig, 1871)
• Eric Schmidt, Charakteristiken (Berlin, 1886)
• Heinemann, Goethes Mutter (6th ed., Leipzig, 1900)

References

• "Goethe, Katharina Elisabeth" . New International Encyclopedia. 1906.