From the moment he published his first novel, Die Leiden des jungen Werther, at the age of 24 to the appearance of Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre three years before his death, Goethe's novels set the tone for prose writing in German. His novels are daring, bold, experimental, never satisfied with repeating formula or meeting reader-expectations. In them, he tests the limits of narrative prose, and explores the boundaries between fiction and science, psychology, and fantasy. The world of Goethe's novels raises some important questions for our own age, as we try to discover an appropriate language for talking about truth, globalization, and power. In this course we will read all of Goethe's novels with an aim to rethinking current ideas on language and truth.