Book description
'Shall I embrace you, must I let you go?
Again you haunt me: come then, hold me fast!'
Goethe viewed the writing of poetry as essentially autobiographical
and the works selected in this volume represent over sixty years in
the life of the poet. In early poems such as 'Prometheus' he rails
against religion in an almost ecstatic fervour, while 'To the Moon' is
an enigmatic meditation on the end of a love affair. The Roman Elegies
show Goethe's use of Classical metres in homage to abcient Rome and
its poets, and 'The Diary' , supressed for more than a century, is a
narrative poem whose eroticism is unusually combined with its
morality.
Arranged chronologically, David Luke's verse translations are set
alonjgside the German orginals to give a picture of Goethe's poetic
development. This edition also includes an introduction and notes
placing the poems in the context of the poet's life and times.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, novelist,
playwright, courtier, and natural philosopher, one of the greatest
figures in Western literature. He gained fame early with
The Sorrows
of Young Werther
(1774), but his most famous work was the poetic drama in two parts,
Faust
.
