Goethe's »Seefahrt« (1776) was written a few months after the poet's arrival in Weimar. The study has a dual aim. It shows first that the poem was a response by Goethe to Salomon Gessner's idyll »Der Sturm«, a response based on a poetological program indebted to Herder's concept of the ode form and Diderot's theory of drama. In addition, it outlines the anthropological horizons within which 18th century sea poetry developed. Goethe's poem is the presentation of a 'physical and moral' conflict. Against the background of a tradition that goes back to the 107th Psalm, it unfolds a motivic constellation of genuinely Horatian poetic inspiration and actualizes its relevance for Goethe's own life-world.