The critical attention given to Goethe over two centuries has ranged in tone from adulatory to iconoclastic, but has always reflected the central position he occupied in German literary scholarship and cultural life. The three plays analysed here are prime examples of German Classicism, and have thus provoked strong reactions in the struggle between modernists and conservatives, engaging critics in fundamental questions of aesthetics, ethics, politics, and ideology. In tracing the history of their criticism, this book also explores the development of academic literary studies in Germany from their beginning in the nineteenth century through the turbulent events of the twentieth, presenting a fascinating image of literary scholarship intertwined with controversies concerning the German national identity and Germany's place in the world.