Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Books

Perfect for anyone who wants to read Goethe's peotry in German and understand it as well. For those familar with the German language, Goethe isn't the easiest writer to understand in German.

This is a rich resource for the study of Goethe and Faust, but it seems to be aimed at the pure german lit scholar in that there are a lot of german quates with no translations - footnotes or otherwise.
So if you don't speak german like me it can get a little frustrating.
but for what you can glean... very good.

Whenever anyone wants to write a review on a masterpiece, they will no doubt be contradicted by others who either loathed or loved it. So I must remind you that this review reflects my appreciation of Goethe's Faust. I don't know German so I cannot tell you which translation is `the best' nor do I know enough about Goethe himself to tell you if Prudhoe was true to Goethe's meaning.

With the above in mind... I was pleasantly surprised when I read Faust. From other reviews and from books that mentioned Faust, I thought it would be an impossible read; lengthy and with so many allegories that you needed to know German (or European) mythology before you could even begin to appreciate it. This is not the case; I think the wonder in this book is the many gems of wisdom that can be found throughout.
Take for instance this line where Faust contemplates man's struggle to understand the world around him and find contentment:

" Man reaches Good on earth and the perceives
the better still remains illusion"

or Faust's struggles with the two natures that are in most humans, he says
"two souls, alas are housed within my breast
and one would gladly sunder from the other
one clamors for the world, it's lust
Is shackled to the joys of brute creation
The other struggles to ascend from dust
To infinity of aspiration"

Many more such illuminating lines are within this book. I found the interludes with all the mythical creatures, witches, warlocks etc... taxing. I wish those sections had been shorter so that you didn't have to trudge through those before you came to the real story. I guess that is what prevents me from giving this book five stars. To be fair though, in those outlandish scenes, like toward the end on Walpurgis' night ( a kind of Halloween) there are some funny bits, where Goethe mocks critics, skeptics, dogmatists and a host of other `tics' and `ists'.

The devil in this play, as you most probably are already aware, is not the scriptural devil, he is more like a smart aleck than anything else, and plays the clown too often to be taken seriously. The only admirable character in this play is Gretelchen, who is pure innocence, love and beauty, although one could possibly identify more with the flawed and human Faust.

I have not given a synopsis of the story, it wasn't my intention and I hope I have not given away too much of it. It is a pretty interesting and witty story with the exceptions that I mentioned above. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants something almost on a par with Shakespeare.

Johann's words are weaved into an intricate design that gives one a real peek into the life of Faust. With startling insights and a clear focused writing style, Johann has created a book that is easy to read, informative, and a must for your bookshelf.

Interesting work. Why it took decades to finish...I dunno. The contemporary feel of the translation is welcome.

Goethe is a bit like broccoli--one should like him better than one actually does. Goethe goes to great lengths to credit everyone who helped him become the most important German author ever. It moves at a very slow pace. It also is somewhat self-deceptive and misleading, as it ends when Goethe was in his late 20's. In order to get a more accurate view of Goethe's life, Dichtung and Wahrheit is best read in conjunction with a traditional biography. Goethe's autobiography appears in 4 parts, and this volume consists of the first 3, which were written earlier, and it is more thorough than the 4th part that appears in volume 5 of this series. Anyone seriously interested in studying autobiography as a genre should read it, even if it is slow going.

It is very nice book I like very much the historical books and the music books. Romain Rolland is a very good writer.

This is a book with an excellent analysis of the reasons behind Goethe's attempt to discredit Newton's Opticks, specifically his work on the generation of colour in the spectrum obtained by the refraction of a "ray" of light (through a prism) emitted through a small pinhole. It must be remembered that Dennis Sepper is a philosopher rather than a physicist which means that the actual analysis of Goethe's work on 'Colour Theory' is not so deeply studied, although he does say just enough to give the impression all is not well with the standard Newtonian view and that Goethe's observations, especially the fact that the spectrum obtained by the above technqiue is a product of two spectra obtained at the edges between a dark and lighter surface e.g. a card with half black and half white colouring, remain valid today. The spectrum then only ever appears at the boundary between the two and only certain colours of the spectrum, reversing the position of black and white shows some more spectral colurs and the meeting of the two produces the green seen in standard spectra.

Sepper separates the book into sections with the first an introduction explicating both Goethe's and Newton's ideas followed by the second section on Goethe's first work on colour: "The Beitraege" and its differences to the later "Farbenlehre" and the reason for these differences. The third section discusses the inherent problems within Newton's views and his experimentun crucis. The remaining chapters discuss how Goethe was right and where he was wrong as well as his very sophisticated ideas on the philosophy of science which makes him one of the earliest student's of the discipline; something which was not fully investigated until the 20th Century.

Its a superbly argued book and Sepper never at any point verges too much in either direction. Both weaknesses and strengths are highlighted, in both instances, whether Goethe or Newton. Sepper makes the point that there is still much to colour science, even as it stands today, that needs to be more fully explored. Even with the tremendously successful wave theory which explains most of the phenomena of light and colour. I say most given that quantum theory was needed for some cases and who knows what still remains to be discovered. maybe even some of the observations of Goethe may still need to be explained.

I would say that of all the books written on the subject of the so-called non-scientific science of Goethe, this is by far the best. Having read both critiques of Goethe by scientists and other books by proponents of Goethe this one is very clear and gets to the bottom of often vague statements made by others. Only Bortoft's book on "The Wholeness of Nature" does the same kind of justice.

A timely book describing the way of science practised by Goethe and still continued today through the talents of Bockemuehl, Schad and others. Thankfully Goethe's "way" has not died the seemingly natural death expected after the assault of scientific positivism/reductionism/mechanism which has been the mainstream approach associated with science since Galileo, Newton and Descarte. In fact science has come to mean this very method. Whether it is admitted or not by many scientists, they do feel a certain dimunition in the sense of life first experienced when exposed to the original dynamic ideas of science such as general relativity, evolution or the concept of the atom. This sense, well expressed by Blake's beautiful poetic lines "universe in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower" is what drew them to a scientific career in the first place and shows that scientists just as much as artists are searchers for wonder in the universe. The question remains how has this sense of wonder been eradicated from the modern scientific approach. The answer is it hasn't, not completely, investigators still feel this sense of wonder as they investigate a new phenomenon for the first time and the associated flood of ideas emanating from it. However once past this initial stage scientific investigations progress in a very methodical way which leaches the life from the initial phenomenon. Goethe initiated a science which tries to maintain this "living" sense at all stages of the investigation without the influx of total subjectivity. This book demonstrates some investigators' own contemporary scientific investigations from the growth of plants to the evolution and structure of mammals. Hopefully such expositions will be read and digested by future scientists and lead to a new revitalisation of science in a creative living way, where this very approach becomes part of the life of the scientist rather than as a separate part of his world.

Esta novela es un perfecto género de romanticismo, no simplemente por ser una novela "romántica" sino porque tenemos a un personaje dispuesto a perder su vida antes que vivirla renunciando a los ideales artificiales que se ha creado sobre ella.

En este caso particular, el Joven Werther sufre y es bendecido con una gran sensibilidad que al tiempo que le permite vibrar con cada pequeño detalle cotidiano, le impide relacionarse con los demás de una manera que sea indiferente a sus personalidades. Lógicamente su vocación de solitario sufrirá un shock cuando encuentra una mujer que, aunque prometida para casarse con otro y por lo mismo, fuera de su alcance debido a las convenciones de la época, le mueve el piso de manera tal que toda su energía vital la dirige a lograr su atención y dedicación, aceptando anticipadamente su destino al fracaso, pues aunque la desee, debido a que ella es su imagen de la pureza y la nobleza, si lograra su objetivo destruiría su ideal y con eso la esencia misma de su búsqueda.

Por ello al colocarse en una situación en la que solo puede optar por el desengaño o el sufrimiento opta por este último.

Como los suicidios por amor no han pasado de moda y tristemente aún son muy frecuentes los estúpidos que los practican por esta causa, la trama de esta novela aún puede acompañar emocionalmente a uno que otro lector de este siglo. De hecho Goethe se esfuerza en justificar la conducta de su personaje durante la novela cuando le hace afirmar:

"N se trata, pues, de saber si un hombre es débil o fuerte, sino de que si puede soportar la extensión de su desgracia, sea moral, sea física; y me parece tan ridículo que un hombre que se suicida es un cobarde, como absurdo dar el mismo nombre a quien se muere de una fiebre maligna".