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Reading Remedy: books to help you deal with unrequited love

Maxims and Reflections

First complete translation into English of 'Maximem und Reflexionen'

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832) 
 
 
Trans. Elisabeth Stopp, Edited With An Introduction And Notes By Peter Hutchinson

Throughout his long, hectic and astonishingly varied life, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749&ndash;1832) would jot down his passing thoughts on theatre programmes, visiting cards, draft manuscripts and even bills &hellip; Goethe was probably the last true &lsquo;Renaissance Man&rsquo;. 
 
Although employed as a Privy Councillor at the Duke of Weimar&rsquo;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 &ndash; 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.

Elective Affinities

R. J. Hollingdale's translation conveys the simple elegance of the original.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe was born in Frankfurt-am-Main in 1749. At twenty-four he wrote Goetz von Berlingen, a play which brought him national fame and established him in the Sturm und Drang movement. Goethe began work on Faust, and Egmont, another tragedy, before being invited to join the government at Weimer. He finished Faust before he died in 1832. 
 
 
R.J. Hollingdale has translated eleven of Nietzsche's books and published two books about him. He is honorary president of the British Nietzsche Society.

Eduard and Charlotte are an aristocratic couple who live a harmonious but idle life in their estate. But the peace of their existence is thrown into chaos when two visitors - Eduard's friend the Captain and Charlotte's passionate young ward Ottilie - provoke unexpected attraction and forbidden love. Taking its title from the principle of elective affinities - the theory that certain chemicals are naturally drawn to one another - this is a penetrating study of marriage and adultery. Inspired by Goethe's own conflicting loyalties as he battled to maintain his relationship with his wife and control his feelings for a younger woman, Elective Affinities is one of the greatest works of the romance era: a rich exploration of love, conflict, and the inescapable force of fate.

Italian Journey 1786-1788

Goethe's famous account of his time and travels in Italy

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in 1749. Having studied at Leipzig and Strassburg, he began to write some essays and lyrical verse, and at twenty-four wrote a play Goetz von Berlichingen, which brought him national fame and established him in the Sturm und Drang movement. He is most famous for his tragedy Werther. He died in 1832. 
 
 
W. H. Auden was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University from 1956 to 1960. He published poems throughout his life, and in 1946 became a US citizen. He died in 1973. 
 
Elizabeth Mayer has also translated, in collaboration with Louise Bogan, Elective Affinities and Werther.

In 1786, when he was already the acknowledged leader of the Sturm und Drang literary movement, Goethe set out on a journey to Italy to fulfil a personal and artistic quest and to find relief from his responsibilities and the agonies of unrequited love. As he travelled to Venice, Rome, Naples and Sicily he wrote many letters, which he later used as the basis for the Italian Journey. A journal full of fascinating observations on art and history, and the plants, landscape and the character of the local people he encountered, this is also a moving account of the psychological crisis from which Goethe emerged newly inspired to write the great works of his mature years.

The Sorrows of Young Werther

A key work in the German 'Sturm und Drang' movement, Johann Goethe's autobiographical epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther is a defining moment in early Romanticism, which has influenced writers from Mary Shelley to Thomas Mann. This Penguin Classics edition is translated from with an introduction by Michael Hulse. 
 
Visiting an idyllic German village, Werther, a sensitive young man, meets and falls in love with sweet-natured Charlotte. Although he realises that she is to marry Albert, he is unable to subdue his passion and his infatuation torments him to the point of 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 suppression on the grounds of its apparent support of suicide. Goethe's sensitive exploration of the mind of an 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. 
 
Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832) was born in Frankfurt, Germany. Although he directed the German State Theatre, dabbled in the occult and worked on scientific theories in evolutionary botany, Goethe is best remembered for his great works The Sorrows of Young Werther and Faust, and his part in the 18th century 'Sturm and Drang' movement. 
 
If you enjoyed The Sorrows of Young Werther, you might like Stendhal's Love, also published in Penguin Classics.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe was born in Frankfurt in 1749. He is best remembered for his great works The Sorrows of Young Werther and Faust, and his part in the 18th century 'Sturm and Drang' movement. He died in 1832. Michael Hulse is an acclaimed literary German translator.

Visiting an idyllic German village, Werther, a sensitive young man, falls in love with sweet-natured Lotte. Though he realizes that Lotte is to marry Albert, he is unable to subdue his passion and his infatuation torments him to the point of despair. The first great 'confessional' novel, it draws both on Goethe's own unrequited love for Charlotte Buff and on the death of a close friend. 
The book was an immediate success and a cult rapidly grew up around it, resulting in numerous copycat deaths as well as violent criticism and suppression for its apparent support of suicide. Goethe's exploration of the mind of an artist at odds with society and ill-equipped to cope with life remains as poignant as when it was first written.

The Sorrows Of Young Werther, Elective Affinities, Italian Journey and Faust

Selected Works

The finest editions available of the world's greatest classics from Homer to Achebe, Tolstoy to Ishiguro, Proust to Pullman, printed on a fine acid-free, cream-wove paper that will not discolour with age, with sewn, full cloth bindings and silk ribbon markers, and at remarkably low prices. All books include substantial introductions by major scholars and contemporary writers, and comparative chronologies of literary and historical context.

Everyman's Library's publication in a single beautiful hardback volume of Goethe's four principal masterpieces, together with a selection of his poems and letters

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832) is one of the towering figures of world culture, a universal man whose extraordinary talents found expression in literature, drama, autobiography, politics and the sciences.  Edited and introduced by Nicholas Boyle, author of the definitive biography of Goethe, the Everyman's Library edition shows that Goethe remains one of the most intriguing and readable of European writers. Goethe established an international literary reputation overnight with The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), a story of disappointed love and pathological sensibility which mounted a powerful challenge to the rationalism of the Enlightenment.

(Part Two)

Faust

The second part of Goethe's masterpiece, reworking the Dr Faustus myth

Johann Wolfgang Goethe was born in 1749. He studied at Leipzig, where he showed interest in the occult, and at Strassburg, where Herder introduced him to Shakespeare's works and to folk poetry. He produced some essays and lyrical verse, and at twenty-four came to fame as part of the Sturm und Drang movement - a position established on the publication of Werther. Goethe worked on Faust throughout his life, while travelling through Italy and returning to Weimar, where he directed the State Theatre. He died in 1832. 
 
 
Philip Wayne was Headmaster of St Marylebone Grammar School. He translated the complete Faust in two volumes. He died in 1965.

The second part of Goethe's masterpiece opens with Faust struggling to recover from the death of his beloved Gretchen. The quick-witted demon Mephistopheles soon persuades him to look beyond his sorrow and enter the world of politics and power, but the great scholar is still eager for new sensations, and asks Mephistopheles to reveal Helen of Troy to him in a vision. Overwhelmed by her beauty, Faust demands she be brought back from the underworld - but even this fails to bring him contentment, and his appetite for knowledge remains unsated. Completed a few months before Goethe's death, this rich and allusive work weaves together a wealth of diverse philosophical ideas and influences, reworking the medieval myth of Dr Faustus and speculating upon the search for truth in the Age of Enlightenment.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Books by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Articles featuring Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Reading Remedy: books to help you deal with unrequited love

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