OK, I'll bite: what did Goethe write that you consider indispensable to someone's education? I can just about stand one of his plays and a few of his poems, though I think the world would be perfectly fine without them.
His prose, though, I hate with the force of a thousand suns. I've never read a book so infused with insufferable wankery as "Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre".
Not to forget that Goethe himself considered his most important work his contributions to Physics, where he tried to argue that Isaac Newton was all wrong about Optics. Needless to say that Physics esteemed him less highly than Literature did.
His prose, though, I hate with the force of a thousand suns. I've never read a book so infused with insufferable wankery as "Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre".
Not to forget that Goethe himself considered his most important work his contributions to Physics, where he tried to argue that Isaac Newton was all wrong about Optics. Needless to say that Physics esteemed him less highly than Literature did.