Important-like survey about German culture

[Fawriel]

I'm German and my ex-girlfriend is Dutch.
Until a while ago, she did not know who Goethe and Schiller were.
She's pretty educated, actually, so that confused me, because as far as I'm concerned, Goethe and Schiller are in about the vicinity of guys like Washington or Einstein in terms of importance.

So, tell me, without looking anything up, would you know who Friedrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang Goethe were?

 

[Ensee]

I wouldn't, those names don't seem familiar to me at all. But I'm 15, so what do I know.

 

[Mechareaper]

I'm not German (well, I have some German blood but I'm not nationally German) so I don't know who they are, but Schuller sounds familiar, but Goethe doesn't really ring a bell.

 

[pikachun00b7]

Being 13 I'm kinda ********. I think I heard Schiller somewhere before, but I do not know his significance. The German I'm most familiar now is Leibniz (did I spell that right?), and that because my dad is teaching me Calculus.

 

[Lightshade]

Wow, seeing as how most of the teens in this topic don't know who they are, I seem like the odd one. I'm 100% german, I live in the U.S. and love Friedrich's work, john wolfgang's a pretty good writer as well. They're both good writers. I'm a teen as well if any were wondering how I know this.

 

[Chaotic Yoshi]

Not a clue, maybe it'll ring a bell if I heard it pronounced or something.

 

[Mic_128]

Was wolfgang a composer? If not, I've got no clue, sorry.

 

[Xsyven]

You're thinking of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mic.

I didn't know either of the two that you mentioned, though.

 

[Fawriel]

Wow. I guess I really overestimated their international popularity.
As it seems, he's less popular among the younger population than Kafka... which I guess makes sense, although Kafka never had quite the same impact.

Thanks for the replies anyway. Keep 'em going anyway, surveys are fun!

( Goethe wrote Faust, by the way. How many of you know that one? )

 

[Lightshade]

I loved that one, great book, really. Upon looking t the rest of the posts, I think I'm the only american person here other then Fawriel who understands this stuff. You people should read more.

 

[Skler]

Never heard of either of them.

 

[tmw_redcell]

I'll bet Goethe's a lot more well-known than Schiller, at least in North America. Kafka's probably more well-known than both of them combined, not in terms of name recognition but at least knowing that he wrote The Metamorphosis or The Trial or something. And Goethe confuses people because it's pronunciation is so different from how it's spelled, from an English-speaking perspective.

But yeah, I doubt any American would say they were nearly as important as Washington or Einstein.