At last an engaging and highly readable guide to the works and
significance of Goethe.
The year 1999 saw the 250th anniversary of the birth of Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe, Germany's greatest writer. Appropriately, literary scholars
within Germany and beyond paid tribute to this remarkable talent. But a
number of commentators also noted that Goethe is often revered rather
than read, known of rather than known. This study remedies this state of
affairs by offering an introduction to Goethe and his works for the
English-speaking reader -- now inpaperback and with all quotations. The
authors concentrate on the literary work and offer analyses that
represent an impassioned, but by no means uncritical, advocacy -- one
that seeks to persuade both academic critics and general readers alike
that Goethe is one of the key figures of European modernity. To an
extent that is virtually unique in modern literature, Goethe was active
in a whole number of literary genres. He was a superb poet, unrivaled in
the variety of his expressive modes, and in his ability to combine
intellectual sophistication withexperiential immediacy. He also wrote
short stories and novels throughout his life, ranging from the The
Sorrows of Young Werther, to The Elective Affinities. He was also a
highly skilled dramatist, both in the historical mode and in the
classical verse-drama. Above all else, Goethe is the author of Faust: a
work that attempts -- and achieves -- more than any other modern
European drama.
Martin Swales is Professor of German at University College London. Erika
Swales is College Lecturer and Fellow of King's College, Cambridge.
