Goethe: Life as a Work of Art (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781631494895)

A masterful intellectual portrait, Goethe: Life as a Work of Art is celebrated as the seminal twenty-first-century biography of the writer considered to be the Shakespeare of German literature. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), a remarkably prolific poet, playwright, novelist, and--as R?iger Safranksi emphasizes--a statesman and naturalist, first awakened not only a burgeoning German nation but the European continent with his electrifying novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Safranski has scoured Goethe's entire oeuvre, relying exclusively on primary sources, including his correspondence with contemporaries, to produce a "fresh and authentic" (Economist) portrait of the avatar of the Romantic era. Skillfully blending "artistic analysis with swift, sharp renderings" of the great political and intellectual figures Goethe encountered, "[Safranski's] portrait of the prolific genius leaves the reader with lasting awe, even envy" of a monumental legacy (The New Yorker). As Safranski ultimately shows, Goethe's greatest creation, even in comparison to his masterpiece Faust, was his own life.

Author: R?iger Safranski
ISBN-10: 1631494899
ISBN-13: 9781631494895
Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation
Language: English
Published: 12/04/2018
Pages: 688
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.55lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 1.60d