Abstract: This essay outlines Goethe's portrayal of movement as an essential form of nonverbal communication in his essay Über Laokoon and in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre and Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre. Goethe’s depiction of movement as a venue through which people can express themselves and can understand those who are moving predates and aligns with modern theories of movement. Both Goethe and modern theorists highlight that physical movement is an essential nonverbal form of self-expression that draws people together as they become aware of both the emotions that are being expressed and their emotional reactions to and interpretations of those physical movements.

Keywords: movement, nonverbal communication, dance, stage performance, traveling, self-discovery

THROUGHOUT GOETHE's WILHELM Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship) and Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre (Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years) characters are moving toward one another, dancing, and performing on stage. These movements are essential because they draw people together and facilitate their discovery of new people, their own inner values, and their connections to one another. Wilhelm's travels and his stage performances move him toward others, which ultimately leads to the discovery of his own feelings and desires as well as their feelings. Movement in all forms is essential to Wilhelm's understanding of himself. In addition, his movement from place to place and toward others highlights how he begins to understand and connect with others by seeing them moving, coming toward him, moving on stage, and dancing. All these forms of movement lead Wilhelm to strong relationships with new people and to a much deeper understanding and appreciation of their inner selves as well as his own.

The main focus of this essay is on the impact of movement that Wilhelm encounters with Mariane, Mignon, and Joseph and Marie. While much attention has been devoted to travel in Goethe's Lehrjahre and Wanderjahre as a path toward education and an escape from bourgeois economic life, Goethe also foregrounds the significant impacts of movement in stage performance, dance, and characters’ movement and movement toward each other while traveling. It is important to note that Goethe often portrays traveling not merely as a simple movement from one space to another but in terms of how those traveling perceive each other's movements when they meet each other along the way—i.e., their movement as a form of self-expression, and movement as a means of understanding the inner selves of one another.