Goethe: Life as a Work of Art

ISBN: 1631494899

Author: Safranski, R?diger

Condition: New

A New York Times Book Review Editors Choice SelectionNamed one of the Best Books of the Year by the Economist and Kirkus ReviewsThis splendid biography (Wall Street Journal) of Goethe presents his life and work as an essential touchstone for the modern age. 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 Rdiger 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 Goethes 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, [Safranskis] portrait of the prolific genius leaves the reader with lasting awe, even envy of a monumental legacy (The New Yorker). As Safranski ultimately shows, Goethes greatest creation, even in comparison to his masterpiece Faust, was his own life.