Books by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Sorrows of Young Werther (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels)
One of the world's first bestsellers, this tragic masterpiece attained an instant and lasting success upon its 1774 publication, catapulting the author to the forefront of the German literary movement known as Sturm und Drang. A burst of parodies, operas, poems, and plays based on The Sorrows of Young Werther rapidly ensued, along with the cultlike following of young romantics across Europe who affected the manner of the novel's passionate and self-destructive hero.
Young Werther bares his soul to readers in the form of alternately joyful and despairing letters about his unrequited love. His story marks the initial great achievement of what has since been termed "confessional" literature; Goethe, who based the story in part on his own unhappy love affair, acknowledged a sense of freedom upon completing the work. A sensitive exploration of the mind of a young artist, the tale addresses age-old questions — the meaning of love, of death, and the possibility of redemption — in the exuberant language of youth.
"Werther appeared to seize the hearts of men in all quarters of the world, and to utter for them the word which they had long been waiting to hear," observed the Victorian sage Thomas Carlyle. Indeed, Goethe's portrayal of Zerrissenheit, "the state of being torn apart, in which a character struggles to reconcile his artistic sensibilities with the demands of the objective world, proved tremendously influential to subsequent writers, and The Sorrows of Young Werther continues to speak to modern readers.
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Selected Poetry of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Penguin Classics)
Goethe viewed the writing of poetry as essentially autobiographical, and the works selected in this volume represent more than sixty years in the life of the poet. In early poems such as 'Prometheus,' he rails against religion in an almost ecstatic fervor, while 'To the Moon' is an enigmatic meditation on the end of a love affair. The Roman Elegies show Goethe's use of Classical meters in an homage to ancient Rome and its poets, and 'The Diary,' suppressed for more than a century, is a narrative poem whose eroticism is combined with its morality. In selections from Faust, arguably his greatest and most personal work, Goethe creates an exhilarating depiction of humankind's eternal search for truth.
• Dual-language edition
• David Luke's exquisite verse translations are arranged chronologically
• Includes an introduction and notes that place the poems in the context of the poet's life and times, as well as indexes of German and English titles and first lines
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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The Sorrows of Young Werther (Penguin Classics)
"Be on your guard … and take care not to fall in love!"
Visiting an idyllic German village, Werther, a sensitive and romantic young man, meets and falls in love with sweet-natured Lotte. Although he realizes that Lotte is to marry Albert, he is unable to subdue his passion for her and his infatuation torments him to the point of absolute despair. The first great ‘confessional’ novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther draws both on Goethe’s own unrequited love for Charlotte Buff and on the death of his friend Karl Wilhelm Jerusalem. The book was an immediate success and a cult rapidly grew up around it, resulting in numerous imitations as well as violent criticism and even suppression for its apparent recommendation of suicide. Goethe’s sensitive exploration of the mind of a young artist at odds with society and ill-equipped to cope with life is now considered the first great tragic novel of European literature. This edition includes notes and an introduction by Michael Hulse who explores the origins of the novel in the author’s life and examines its impact on European culture.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Faust: Part 1 (Tragedy)
Faust is ever frustrated in his quest for knowledge and the true essence of life. By this, he attracts the attention of the Devil, Mephistopheles. Faust makes a deal with the Devil for more knowledge and power, agreeing to give his soul to Mephistopheles on the moment that Faust reaches the zenith of happiness. Faust believes this moment will never come. Yet happiness does arrive to Faust, in the form of the young and beautiful Margaret. Mephistopheles cleverly brings the two together in a lustful and ultimately tragic affair. Margaret and her family are destroyed by Mephistopheles' deceptions and Faust's desires. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust is a tragic drama. It is Goethe's most famous work and considered by many to be one of the greatest works of German literature. This translation is written by Bayard Taylor in the original meter. Taylor felt a deep connection to German culture and literature that is shown in his ability to create a translation in verse and tone that compliments the original.
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The Sorrows of Young Werther (Oxford World's Classics)
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, David Constantine
The Sorrows of Young Werther propelled Goethe to instant fame when it first appeared in 1774. Goethe's story of a sensitive young artist--an alienated youth of searching introspection and passionate intensity--captured the Romantic sensibility of the day and led to a wave of imitations. Translated by the award-winning author David Constantine, this new edition captures the novel's lyric clarity and powerful immediacy. In addition, Constantine's critical introduction sheds light on the autobiographical background, the novel's epistolary form and structure, and Werther's reception and afterlife. The explanatory notes illuminate contemporary allusions, literary references, and the parallels with Goethe's life.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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Goethe's Faust
The best translation of Faust available, this volume provides the original German text and its English counterpart on facing pages. Walter Kaufmann's translation conveys the poetic beauty and rhythm as well as the complex depth of Goethe's language. Includes Part One and selections from Part Two.
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The Sufferings of Young Werther: A New Translation by Stanley Corngold
“Stanley Corngold’s translation is a triumph. This is a glorious achievement, a Werther for the ages.”―Christopher Prendergast A masterpiece of European imagination, The Sufferings of Young Werther is the classic Sturm und Drang tale of youthful angst and tragedy. The acclaimed translator Stanley Corngold brings new passion and precision to Goethe's timeless novel of obsessive love and madness in this magnificent new translation.
Goethe's themes of unrequited love, the pain of rejection, deepening despair, and their tragic consequences are as relevant today as when the novel was first published in 1774. His hugely influential novel informed the writing of, among others, Franz Kafka and Thomas Mann.
In translating The Sufferings of Young Werther, Corngold follows the German text closely, never knowingly using a word that was not current in English at the time the novel was written and yet maintaining a modern grace and flair. The result is an eagerly awaited translation that speaks to our time through the astonishing liveliness of Goethe's language―as well through the translator's own.
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The Sorrows of Young Werther (Modern Library)
A Major New Translation
For more than two centuries the very title of this book has evoked the sensitivity of youth, the suffering of the artist, the idea of a hero too full of love to live. When it was first published in Germany, in 1774, The Sorrows of Young Werther created a sensation. Banned and condemned but embraced—especially by the young—it has continued to captivate.
Now Burton Pike’s startlingly new translation expresses as never before all the anguish, ideas, and ardor of this seminal, iconic novel. And his Introduction reveals both Goethe’s inspirations and his influence—on works ranging from Madame Bovary to Frankenstein and beyond.
Here is the classic story of Werther, a young man “seeking the infinite” in an art he cannot master and a woman he cannot have—the prototype of the Romantic hero in a work that anticipated the Romantic Age. Here is a bold new look at a masterpiece that has changed lives and, like its beloved hero, will never grow old.
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The Sorrows of Young Werther (Vintage Classics)
A major work of German romanticism in a translation that is acknowledged as the definitive English language version. The Vintage Classics edition also includes NOVELLA, Goethe's poetic vision of an idyllic pastoral society.
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The Essential Goethe
The most comprehensive one-volume collection of Goethe's writings ever published in English
The Essential Goethe is the most comprehensive and representative one-volume collection of Goethe's writings ever published in English. It provides English-language readers easier access than ever before to the widest range of work by one of the greatest writers in world history. Goethe’s work as playwright, poet, novelist, and autobiographer is fully represented. In addition to the works for which he is most famous, including Faust Part I and the lyric poems, the volume features important literary works that are rarely published in English―including the dramas Egmont, Iphigenia in Tauris, and Torquato Tasso and the bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, a foundational work in the history of the novel. The volume also offers a selection of Goethe’s essays on the arts, philosophy, and science, which give access to the thought of a polymath unrivalled in the modern world. Primarily drawn from Princeton’s authoritative twelve-volume Goethe edition, the translations are highly readable and reliable modern versions by scholars of Goethe. The volume also features an extensive introduction to Goethe’s life and works by volume editor Matthew Bell.
Includes: Selected poems Four complete dramas: Faust Part I, Egmont, Iphigenia in Tauris, and Torquato Tasso The complete novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship A selection from the travel journal Italian Journey Selected essays on art and literature Selected essays on philosophy and science An extensive introduction to Goethe’s life and works A chronology of Goethe’s life and times A note on the texts and translations
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The Essential Goethe
The most comprehensive one-volume collection of Goethe's writings ever published in English
The Essential Goethe is the most comprehensive and representative one-volume collection of Goethe's writings ever published in English. It provides English-language readers easier access than ever before to the widest range of work by one of the greatest writers in world history. Goethe’s work as playwright, poet, novelist, and autobiographer is fully represented. In addition to the works for which he is most famous, including Faust Part I and the lyric poems, the volume features important literary works that are rarely published in English―including the dramas Egmont, Iphigenia in Tauris, and Torquato Tasso and the bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, a foundational work in the history of the novel. The volume also offers a selection of Goethe’s essays on the arts, philosophy, and science, which give access to the thought of a polymath unrivalled in the modern world. Primarily drawn from Princeton’s authoritative twelve-volume Goethe edition, the translations are highly readable and reliable modern versions by scholars of Goethe. The volume also features an extensive introduction to Goethe’s life and works by volume editor Matthew Bell.
Includes: Selected poems Four complete dramas: Faust Part I, Egmont, Iphigenia in Tauris, and Torquato Tasso The complete novel Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship A selection from the travel journal Italian Journey Selected essays on art and literature Selected essays on philosophy and science An extensive introduction to Goethe’s life and works A chronology of Goethe’s life and times A note on the texts and translations
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The Sorrows of Young Werther (Modern Library Classics)
A major work of German romanticism in a translation that is acknowledged as the definitive English language version. The Vintage Classics edition also includes NOVELLA, Goethe's poetic vision of an idyllic pastoral society.
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Love Letters Of Great Men - Vol. 1
by Mark Twain, Victor Hugo, Vincent Van Gogh, John Keats, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Winston Churchill, Lord Byron, Ludwig van Beethoven, Napoleon Bonaparte, Theodore Roosevelt Jr.
LOVE LETTERS OF GREAT MEN (Volume 1) is an anthology of romantic love letters written by leading male historical figures. *** The book plays a key role in the plot of the US movie Sex and the City. *** When Carrie Bradshaw in the "Sex and the City" movie began reading the book Love Letters of Great Men, millions of women wanted to get their hands on the book. Of course, what could be more romantic than an entire book of love letters, written by men! *** The book includes love letters written by Ludwig van Beethoven, Pietro Bembo, Napolean Bonaparte, Rupert Brooke, Robert Browning, Robert Burdette, Lord Byron, Lord Randolph Churchill, Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, John Constable, Cuff Cooper, Oliver Cromwell, Pierre Curie, Alfred de Musset, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gustave Flaubert, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Lyman Hodge, Count Gabriel Honore de Mirbeau, Victor Hugo, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, John Keats, Henry IV of France, Henry VIII, Franz Liszt, Jack London, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Thomas Otway, Robert Peary, Sir Walter Raleigh, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., John Ruskin, Robert Schumann, George Bernard Shaw, Richard Steele, Alfred de Musset, Dylan Thomas, Count Leo Tolstoy, Vincent Van Gogh, Voltaire, Henry von Kleist, and Woodrow Wilson.
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A Very German Christmas: The Greatest Austrian, Swiss and German Holiday Stories of All Time (Very Christmas, 5)
by Hermann Hesse, Rainer Maria Rilke, Thomas Mann, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Joseph Roth, Heinrich Heine, Erich Kästner, Martin Suter, Arthur Schnitzler
The fifth volume in our popular Very Christmas series, this collection brings together traditional and contemporary holiday stories from Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. You'll find classic works by the Brothers Grimm, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Heinrich Heine, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Hermann Hesse, Joseph Roth, and Arthur Schnitzler, as well as more recent tales by writers like Heinrich Böll, Peter Stamm, and Martin Suter. Eine fröhliche Weihnachten—A Merry Christmas—made all the more festive with these literary treats redolent of candle-lit trees, St. Nikolaus, gingerbread, the Christkindl, roast goose and red cabbage, Gugelhopf and stollen cakes, accompanied by plenty of schnapps.
Joseph Roth’s story “Christmas in Cochinchina,” published in English for the first time in this collection, appeared in the December 2020 issue of Harper’s Magazine.
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Scientific Studies (Goethe: The Collected Works, Vol. 12)
Goethe's scientific work is less familiar to the reading public than his poetry, yet his understanding of natural phenomena displays the same sensitivity and brilliance as his depictions of human relationships. Based on Goethe's research in anatomy, botany, physics, chemistry, zoology, meteorology, and geology, these forty selections call upon scientists to devlop their perceptions both inwardly and outwardly in pursuing the continuum of nature through an interconnected and living world.
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Die Gedichte. Nach der Ausgabe letzter Hand.
Excerpt from Gedichte
Grfcheint hiefe gamminng meiner Göebirhie, bie feinen slinfpruch auf befonberen qberth machen, meinen ärenn; ben alä ein Iiebeä, bieiieicht noch nach meinem Ebbe ban: ernbeß qinbenfen, qsieien aiä eine nicht nnmiiifommene (habe, haben fre mein gtreben nach qbahrhe-it, Siebe unb %reih eit erfanni, bann iii mir eine feib Iiche ©tunbe unb reicherer flohn aie ber goibene Borbeer= franö, bon eineä Rönigeß ©anb gereicht, geworben.
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This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Die Leiden des jungen Werther Die Wahlverwandtschaften Kleine Prosa Epen (German Edition)
Dieser Band versammelt Goethes literarische ›Erfolgstexte‹: die 1774 veröffentlichten Leiden des jungen Werthers, die ihren Autor über Nacht berühmt machten; die 1809 aus einem Novellenplan hervorgegangenen Wahlverwandtschaften; das Revolutionsepos Herrmann und Dorothea, das noch zu Goethes Lebzeiten in mehr als dreißig Einzelausgaben erschienen ist. Hinzu kommen als hochkarätige Zeugnisse von Goethes formvielfältiger Erzählkunst die symbolgesättigte Prosa der Novelle, die Gesänge des Reineke Fuchs sowie Erzählskizzen und fragmentarische Epen.
Alle Texte werden nach den Erstausgaben ediert und mit reichen Kommentaren erschlossen. Die Leiden des jungen Werthers werden in den beiden Fassungen von 1774 und 1787 parallel abgedruckt.
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Faust (German Edition)
»Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach, in meiner Brust«
Wer kennt es nicht, das dramatische Schicksal und Handeln des »Faust«! Es gibt wohl kaum einen Schüler, der ihm nicht einmal in seiner Schulzeit begegnet wäre, für den Bildungsbürger gehört er sowieso zum Kanon. Zurecht! Denn was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 60-jähriger Schaffenszeit mit dem »Faust« zuwege gebracht hat, sucht in der deutschen Dichtung seinesgleichen, lässt sich nur mit dem Begriff der Weltliteratur angemessen fassen und steht auf einer Ebene mit dem »Don Quijote« oder der »Göttlichen Kommödie«.
Der Universalgelehrte Faust befindet sich in einer tiefen Krise bei seiner Suche nach dem, »was die Welt im Innersten zusammenhält«. Eingesperrt in seine Gelehrtenstube drängt es ihn schließlich bis nahe an den Selbstmord. Nur die Osterglocken retten ihn. Beim berühmten Osterspaziergang wird ihm bewusst, dass er sich nach umfassendem Weltwissen gleichermaßen wie nach irdischer Weltlust sehnt. Da er sich aber von allen irdischen Lebenswerten abgeschnitten sieht, verflucht er das Leben. Hier nun wittert der Teufel in Gestalt des Mephisto seine Chance und bietet Faust einen Pakt an: Würde dieser auch nur einen Augenblick das Leben genießen und dabei verweilen wollen, wäre Fausts Seele auf immer verloren.
Faust lässt sich auf den Handel ein und wird von Mephisto nun mit derbsten Sinnesgenüssen überschüttet: Aber sowohl die Studentenrunde in Auerbachs Keller als auch den Spuk in der Hexenküche erträgt Faust nur widerwillig. Erst die Begegnung mit dem nur 14-jährigen Gretchen erweckt in Faust irdisches Verlangen. Nun nimmt das Drama seinen Lauf ...
Bei aller Individualität des Schicksals von Faust, der uns hier in einer Charaktertragödie entgegentritt, verweist das Stück klar über das Einzelschicksal hinaus auf ein allgemeines Menschheitsdrama. Dies macht den ›Faust‹ zu einem zeitlosen Lese- und Theatererlebnis bis in unsere Zeit.
»Trotz der 60jährigen Schaffenszeit und der Mannigfaltigkeit der theatralischen wie poetischen Mittel bildet die Dichtung eine dramatisch-strukturelle Einheit, deren Handlungsziel durch die Wette des Herrn mit Mephisto festgelegt ist: der verworrene Mensch ist zur Klarheit prädestiniert, der Irrende wird zum Urquell zurückfinden, ein guter Mensch in seinem dunklen Drange ist sich des rechten Weges wohl bewußt. Gegen den Glauben des Herrn an das Gute im Menschen setzt Mephisto sein diffamierendes Menschenbild. Der Teufel, das verneinende und zerstörende Prinzip, hat doch zugleich im Weltenplan gegen seinen Willen eine die natürliche Trägheit des Menschen anstachelnde Funktion.« Gero v. Wilpert: »Lexikon der Weltliteratur«
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Italienische Reise.
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herbert von Einem
Book by Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, Einem, Herbert von
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Faust: Part 2 (Penguin Classics)
In this sequel to Faust, Mephistopheles takes Faust on a journey through ancient Greek mythology, conjuring for him the insurpassably beautiful Helen of Troy, as well as the classical gods. Faust falls in love with and marries Helen, embodying for Goethe his 'imaginative longing to join poetically the Romantic Medievalism of the germanic West to the classical genius of the Greeks'. Further to the themes of redemption and salvation in this great drama, are Goethe's eerie premonitions of modern phenomena such as inflation and the creation of life by scientific synthesis.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Maxims and Reflections (Penguin Classics)
Throughout his long, hectic and astonishingly varied life, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) would jot down his passing thoughts on theatre programmes, visiting cards, draft manuscripts and even bills … Goethe was probably the last true ‘Renaissance Man’. Although employed as a Privy Councillor at the Duke of Weimar’s court, where he helped oversee major mining, road-building and irrigation projects, he also painted, directed plays, carried out research in anatomy, botany and optics – and still found time to produce masterpieces in every literary genre. His fourteen hundred Maxims and Reflections reveal some of his deepest thought on art, ethics, literature and natural science, but also his immediate reactions to books, chance encounters or his administrative work. Although variable in quality, the vast majority have a freshness and immediacy which vividly conjure up Goethe the man. They make an ideal introduction to one of the greatest of European writers.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Elective Affinities (Penguin Classics)
Condemned as immoral when it was first published, this novel reflects the conflict Goethe felt between his respect for the conventions of marriage and the possibility of spontaneous passion.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Italian Journey: 1786-1788 (Penguin Classics)
Goethe's account of his passage through Italy from 1786 to 1788 is a great travel chronicle as well as a candid self-portrait of a genius in the grip of spiritual crisis.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Theory of Colours
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Charles L. Eastlake
The wavelength theory of light and color had been firmly established by the time the great German poet published his Theory of Colours in 1810. Nevertheless, Goethe believed that the theory derived from a fundamental error, in which an incidental result was mistaken for a elemental principle. Far from affecting a knowledge of physics, he maintained that such a background would inhibit understanding. The conclusions Goethe draws here rest entirely upon his personal observations.
This volume does not have to be studied to be appreciated. The author's subjective theory of colors permits him to speak persuasively of color harmony and aesthetics. These notions may evoke a positive response on their merits, but even among those who regard them as pure fantasy, the grace and style of Goethe's exposition provide abundant rewards. Although his scientific reasoning on this subject has long since been dismissed, modern readers continue to appreciate the beauty and sweep of Goethe's conjectures regarding the connection between color and philosophical ideas. In addition, he offers insights into early nineteenth-century beliefs and modes of thought as well as a taste of European life during the Enlightenment.
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The Golden Goblet: Selected Poems of Goethe
The Golden Goblet traces Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s poetry from the idealism of youth to the liberation of maturity. In contrast to his rococo contemporaries, Goethe’s poetry draws on the graceful simplicity of German folk rhythms to develop complex, transcendent themes. This robust selection, artfully translated by Zsuzsanna Ozsváth and Frederick Turner, explores transformation, revolution, and illumination in Goethe’s lush lyrical style that forever altered the course of German literature.
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Egmont
Egmont is a play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which he completed in 1788. Its dramaturgical structure, like that of his earlier 'Storm and Stress' play Gotz von Berlichingen (1773), is heavily influenced by Shakespearean tragedy. In contrast to the earlier work, the portrait in Egmont of the downfall of a man who trusts in the goodness of those around him appears to mark a shift away from 'Storm and Stress' values. In Egmont, Goethe relates the fight of Count Egmont (1522-1568) against the despotic Duke of Alba. Egmont is a famous Dutch warrior and the Duke of Alba represents the Spanish invader. Though under threat of arrest, Egmont refuses to run away and give up his ideal of liberty. Imprisoned and abandoned because of the cowardice of his people, and despite the desperate efforts of his mistress Klarchen, he is sentenced to death. Egmont is a political manifesto in which Egmont's craving for justice and national liberty is opposed to the despotic authority of the Duke of Alba. It is also a drama of destiny in which the Flemish nobleman, with fatalism, accepts the dire consequences of his straightforwardness and honesty.
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West-Eastern Divan: Complete, annotated new translation, including Goethe's "Notes and Essays" & the unpublished poems
In 1814, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe read the poems of the great fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafiz in a newly published translation by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall. For Goethe, the book was a revelation. He felt a deep connection with Hafiz and Persian poetic traditions, and was immediately inspired to create his own West-Eastern Divan as a lyrical conversation between the poetry and history of his native Germany and that of Persia. The resulting collection engages with the idea of the other and unearths lyrical connections between cultures.
The West-Eastern Divan is one of the world’s great works of literature, an inspired masterpiece, and a poetic linking of European and Persian traditions. This new bilingual edition expertly presents the wit, intelligence, humor, and technical mastery of the poetry in Goethe’s Divan. In order to preserve the work’s original power, Eric Ormsby has created this translation in clear contemporary prose rather than in rhymed verse, which tends to obscure the works sharpness. This edition is also accompanied by explanatory notes of the verse in German and in English and a translation of Goethe’s own commentary, the “Notes and Essays for a Better Understanding of the West-Eastern Divan.” This edition not only bring this classic collection to English-language readers, but also, at a time of renewed Western unease about the other, to open up the rich cultural world of Islam.
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Essays on Art and Literature (Goethe: The Collected Works, Vol. 3)
Translated by Ellen von Nardroff and Ernest H. von Nardroff
The reflections on art and literature that Goethe produced throughout his life are the premise and corollary of his work as poet, novelist, and man of science. This volume contains such important essays as "On Gothic Architecture," "On the Laocoon Group," and "Shakespeare: A Tribute." Several works in this collection appear for the first time unabridged and in fresh translations.
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Faust, Part Two
A brief analysis of the development, style, and protagonists of the play is included with Goethe's masterpiece about a troubled man who sells his soul to the devil.
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Faust: A Tragedy, Part One
A classic of world literature, Goethe's Faust has been neglected by English-speaking readers of the twentieth century. One reason for this is that there has been no readable English version of Goethe's philosophical and poetic drama, one that captures its life, satire, irony, humor, and tragedy. Now an award-winning translator and critic has supplied such a translation; it will enchant and enlighten students and general readers alike.
Martin Greenberg re-creates not only the varied meter and rhyme of Faust but also its diverse tones and styles—dramatic and lyrical, reflective and farcical, pathetic and coarse, colloquial and soaring. His rendition of Faust is the first faithful, readable, and elegantly written translation of Goethe's masterpiece available in English. Complete with preface and notes, it offers as does none other the range and power of the original in a modern idiom.
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Conversations of Goethe with Johann Peter Eckermann
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann
German poet, dramatist, novelist, translator, scientist, and musician, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (17491832) was the last universal genius of the West and a master of world literature, the author of The Sorrows of Young Werther, Wilhelm Meister, and Faust. Nowhere else can one encounter a more penetrating, many-sided, and personal Goethe than in the extraordinary Conversations (1836) by Johann Peter Eckermann (17921854), a German author and scholar as well as Goethe's friend, archivist, and editor. Although only thirty-one when first meeting the seventy-four-year-old literary giant, Eckermann quickly devoted himself to assisting Goethe during his last nine years while never failing to record their far-ranging discourse. Here are Goethe's thoughts on Byron, Carlyle, Delacroix, Hegel, Shakespeare, and Voltaire, as well as his views on art, architecture, astronomy, the Bible, Chinese literature, criticism, dreams, ethics, freedom, genius, imagination, immortality, love, mind over body, sculpture, and much more. Eckermann's Conversationscomparable to Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnsonallows Goethe to engage the reader in a voice as distinct as it is entrancing.
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West-East Divan: Poems, with "Notes and Essays": Goethe's Intercultural Dialogues (Global Academic Publishing)
Translations of Goethe’s poems about Arabia and Persia and his essays on Islamic culture.
In West-East Divan (1819), Germany’s greatest poet J. W. von Goethe offered a work of lasting appeal. Stimulated by the Divan (“Collection”) by medieval pub poet Hafiz, Goethe blends his own identity with that of the Persian Sufi master who sang the delights of wine and tavern romance in a context of Qur’anic allusion. Martin Bidney accompanies his rendering with commentary poems; and Peter Anton von Arnim joins him to offer, as well, the first translation into English of Goethe’s “Notes and Essays,” a pioneering guide to the cultural history of the Middle East. Bidney’s “Introduction” clarifies the transformation brought about in Goethe’s thought by his Muslim mentor.
“Bidney’s translations of the … Divan poems … render, for the first time, both form and content in a way that is faithful to the original. The poetical commentaries authored by … Bidney are of a stunning originality and … are composed entirely in the spirit of Goethe’s own conception of world literature as a deeply felt interchange among peoples and cultures. I recommend this book most emphatically and with highest praise, in the hope that after nearly two hundred years it will help Goethe’s West-East Divan to make the breakthrough it deserves in the English-speaking world.” — Katharina Mommsen
“Bidney’s Introduction … correctly indicates that Goethe [offers] ‘one of the most notable and far-reaching visions of East-West understanding achieved in modern times …’ [This] ‘englishing’ of the Divan [is] a pleasure to read.” — Khalil Semaan
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Faust I & II, Volume 2: Goethe's Collected Works - Updated Edition (Princeton Classics, 5)
One of the great classics of European literature, Faust is Goethe's most complex and profound work. To tell the dramatic and tragic story of one man’s pact with the Devil in exchange for knowledge and power, Goethe drew from an immense variety of cultural and historical material, and a wealth of poetic and theatrical traditions. What results is a tour de force illustrating Goethe’s own moral and artistic development, and a symbolic, cautionary tale of Western humanity striving restlessly and ruthlessly for progress.
Capturing the sense, poetic variety, and tonal range of the German original in present-day English, Stuart Atkins’s translation presents the formal and rhythmic dexterity of Faust in all its richness and beauty, without recourse to archaisms or interpretive elaborations.
Featuring a new introduction by David Wellbery, this Princeton Classics edition of Faust is the definitive English version of a timeless masterpiece.
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The Sufferings of a Young Werther
"A highly readable, sensitive, and lively Werther. Corngold is both faithful to the German and true to the demands of a modern English text" —Jeremy Adler, Times Literary Supplement
A masterpiece of European imagination, The Sufferings of Young Werther is the classic Sturm und Drang tale of youthful angst and tragedy. The acclaimed translator Stanley Corngold brings new passion and precision to Goethe's timeless novel of obsessive love and madness in this magnificent new translation.
Goethe's themes of unrequited love, the pain of rejection, deepening despair, and their tragic consequences are as relevant today as when the novel was first published in 1774. His hugely influential novel informed the writing of, among others, Franz Kafka and Thomas Mann.
In translating The Sufferings of Young Werther, Corngold follows the German text closely, never knowingly using a word that was not current in English at the time the novel was written and yet maintaining a modern grace and flair. The result is an eagerly awaited translation that speaks to our time through the astonishing liveliness of Goethe's language—as well through the translator's own.
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Faust A Tragedy : Interpretive Notes, Contexts, Modern Criticism
This edition presents Parts I and II complete. Cyrus Hamlin provides essential supporting material for this difficult text, and his Interpretive Notes have been expanded and reset in larger, easy-to-read type. "Comments by Contemporaries" includes short pieces by Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Carlyle, and Wilhelm von Humboldt. "Modern Criticism"--comprised of ten essays newly added to the Second Edition--presents the perspectives of Stuart Atkins, Jaroslav Pelikan, Benjamin Bennett, Franco Moretti, Friedrich A. Kittler, Neil M. Flax, Marc Shell, Jane Brown, Hans Rudolf Vaget, and Marshall Berman. A Selected Bibliography is included.
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The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings (Signet Classics)
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Marcelle Clements
The Sorrows of Young Werther brings to life an idyllic German village where a youth on vacation meets and falls for lovely Charlotte. The tragedy unfolds in the letters Werther writes to his friend about Charlotte’s charms, even after he realizes his love will remain unrequited. “Reflections on Werther” and “Goethe in Sesenheim,” collections of excerpts from the author’s own memoirs, reveal the genius who, as Nietzsche said, “disciplined himself into wholeness.” Next is “The New Melusina,”the delightful story of a pixie princess who assumes the form of a woman as she searches for a human mate. Finally, “The Fairy Tale” is a sophisticated but strange story in which the laws of nature and physics do not apply—mingled among its human characters is a cast of two sentient will-o’-the-wisps, a giant and his shadow, a talking green serpent, and four metal statues.
With an Introduction by Marcelle Clements
and a New Afterword
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Elective Affinities: A Novel (Oxford World's Classics)
Elective Affinities was written when Goethe was sixty and long established as Germany's literary giant. This is a new edition of his penetrating study of marriage and passion, bringing together four people in an inexorable manner. The novel asks whether we have free will or not and confronts its characters with the monstrous consequences of repressing what little "real life" they have in themselves, a life so far removed from their natural states that it appears to them as something terrible and destructive.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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From My Life: Poetry and Truth, Part 4 (Goethe: The Collected Works, Vol. 5)
An authoritative English translation of Goethe’s classic autobiographical account of war and conquest in the age of revolution
In August 1792, Goethe accompanied Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, during the Prusso-Austrian invasion of revolutionary France to restore Louis XVI as king. After the Cannonade of Valmy that September, the German armies were forced to retreat, never again to threaten the heart of France until the end of the Napoleonic era. The French subsequently invaded the Rhineland and captured the city of Mainz, claiming it for the French Republic. When German armies besieged Mainz, Goethe witnessed the capture of the city at the close of 1793.
Goethe’s narrative of these events has become a classic text for the history of Franco-German relations during the revolutionary period. A product of recollection, historical hindsight, and considerable study of other published sources, it is a fascinating document of the military catastrophe exposing the decline of Prussian power since the death of Frederick II, which eventually culminated in Napoleon’s devastating 1806 victory at Jena and Auerstedt.
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The Sorrows of Young Werther, Elective Affinities, Novella (Goethe: The Collected Works, Vol. 11)
Containing three of Goethe's major prose works, this volume explores a range of themes: unfulfilled love, infidelity, divorce, tragic love, fantasy, and moral rebirth. One of Goethe's best known works, The Sorrows of Young Werther, explores the extremes of the subjective experience through the novel's depiction of a sensitive young man caught up in a love impossible to fulfill. In Elective Affinities, a novel of tragic love, Goethe employs all the requisites of sentimental romance to give a deeply ironic perspective to the idea of love. As the title indicates, Novella examines the possibilities inherent in this genre.
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Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Goethe: The Collected Works, Vol. 9)
An authoritative English translation of one of the most important works in the history of the novel
Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1795–1796), Goethe’s second novel, is a foundational work in the history of the genre―perhaps the first Bildungsroman, a coming-of-age story focusing on the growth and self-realization of the main character. The story centers on Wilhelm, a young man living in the mid-1700s who strives to break free from the restrictive bourgeois world of his upbringing and seek fulfillment as an actor and playwright. Goethe’s novel had a huge impact on the Romantics. Hegel, Schelling, Novalis, and Schopenhauer considered it one of the most important novels yet written. Schlegel famously called it one of the “three tendencies of the age,” along with the French Revolution and the philosophy of Fichte. And Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann composed songs to poems from the novel. It also had a major influence on nineteenth-century British writers, including Thomas Carlyle, who was its first English translator, and George Eliot. Drawn from Princeton’s authoritative collected works of Goethe, this is the definitive English version of a landmark of world literature.
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Conversations of German Refugees, Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years: Or, the Renunciants (Goethe: The Collected Works, Vol. 10)
Goethe was a master of the short prose form. His two narrative cycles, Conversations of German Refugees and Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years, both written during a high point of his career, address various social issues and reveal his experimentation with narrative and perspective. A traditional cycle of novellas, Conversations of German Refugees deals with the impact and significance of the French Revolution and suggests Goethe's ideas on the social function of his art. Goethe's last novel, Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years, is a sequel to Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and to Conversations of German Refugees and is considered to be his most remarkable novel in form.
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Lenz (English and German Edition)
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, George Buchner, Johann Friedrich Oberlin
Lenz, Georg Büchner’s visionary exploration of an 18th-century playwright’s descent into madness, has been called the inception of European modernist prose. Elias Canetti considered this short novella one of the decisive reading experiences of his life, and writers as various as Paul Celan, Christa Wolff, Peter Schneider, and Gert Hofmann have paid homage to it in their works. Published posthumously in 1839, Lenz provides a taut case study of three weeks in the life of schizophrenic, perhaps the first third-person text ever to be written from the "inside" of insanity. An early experiment in docufiction, Büchner’s textual montage draws on the diary of J.F. Oberlin, the Alsatian pastor who briefly took care of Lenz in 1778, while also refracting Goethe’s memoir of his troubled friendship with the playwright — English versions of both of these historical source texts here accompany Lenz for the first time in this bilingual presentation. Based on the best recent edition of the text, this fresh translation will allow readers to discover why Heiner Müller pronounced Lenz the inaugural example of "21st-century prose."
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The Sufferings of Young Werther: A Norton Critical Edition (Norton Critical Editions)
“Corngold’s new translation is of the very highest quality, punctiliously faithful to Goethe’s German and sensitive to gradations of style in this extraordinary, trail-blazing first novel.”
―J. M. Coetzee, New York Review of Books A masterpiece of the European imagination, The Sufferings of Young Werther is the classic strum und drang tale of youthful angst and tragedy. The acclaimed translator Stanley Corngold brings passion and precision to Goethe’s timeless novel of obsessive love and madness in this magnificent new rendition. The text is accompanied by the translator’s introduction and is fully annotated.
Goethe’s themes of unrequited love, the pain of rejection, deepening despair, and their tragic consequences are as relevant today as when the work was first published in 1774. This hugely influential novel was immediately bought, printed, read, exported, and imitated throughout Europe, and what Goethe called the novel’s “fire rockets” have continued to blaze through the centuries, influencing, among many others, Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka. The reader’s understanding and appreciation are enhanced by the Norton Critical Edition’s inclusion of a rich selection of Goethe’s letters and diary entries as well an autobiographical excerpt and lampoons.
“Criticism” brings together seven of the most influential essays written about The Sufferings of Young Werther over the last fifty years. Contributors include Harry Steinhauer, Roland Barthes, R. Ellis Dye, David Wellbery, Hans Rudolf Vaget, Dirk von Petersdorff, and Christiane Frey and David Martyn.
A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.
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Goethe's Theory of Colours Translated from the German, with Notes
This work by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was translated into English in 1840 by Sir Charles Eastlake (1793-1865), painter and later keeper of the National Gallery. Goethe's 1810 work was rejected by many contemporary scientists because it appeared to contradict the physical laws laid down by Newton. However, its focus on the human perception of the colour spectrum, as opposed to the observable optical phenomenon, was attractive to, and influential upon, artists and philosophers. As Eastlake says in his preface, the work's dismissal on scientific grounds had caused 'a well-arranged mass of observations and experiments, many of which are important and interesting', to be overlooked. Eastlake also puts Goethe's work into its aesthetic and scientific context and describes its original reception. His clear translation of Goethe's observations and experiments on colour and light will appeal to anyone interested in our responses to art.
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The Flight to Italy Diary and Selected Letters
'At three in the morning I crept out of Carlsbad, they wouldn't have let me go if I hadn't. I wasn't going to be stopped, for it was time.'
This is the authentic day-to-day record never before translated, of the first eight weeks of freedom as Germany's greatest poet heads for the Italy he has been yearning to see since childhood. Leaving behind the growing frustrations of administrative work, a difficult love-affair, and lack of time to write, he discovers himself again as a sensuous being and an artist. His fresh and spontaneous notes, sometimes dashed down at crowded tables in primitive Italian inns, bring together art and nature, Antiquity and the Renaissance, aesthetics and science, observations of climate, rocks, plants, and the Italian people, in an unpremeditated mixture through which the poet's mature vision of the natural and human world can be seen taking shape. Goethe's Italian diary brings us close to a great European writer at a turning-point in his life.
ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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