Goethe: Revolution and Renunciation, 1790-1803, Vol. 2 FROM THE PUBLISHER
In this, the second volume of Goethe: The Poet and the Age, Nicholas Boyle covers the most eventful and crowded years of Goethe's life: the period of the French Revolution, which turned his life upside down, and of the German philosophical revolution which ushered in the periods of Idealism and Romanticism. It was also a period dominated by two intense personal relationships -- with Schiller, Weimar's other great poet, philosopher, and dramatist, and with Christiana Vulpius, the mother of his son. Goethe was a poet of supreme intelligence and sensitivity living through political and intellectual changes which have shaped the modern world. The transition into modernity is the theme of this volume: Goethe's harrowing experiences of the Revolutionary wars; the explosion of new ideas in philosophy and literature which he absorbed and adapted and which for ten years made Jena the intellectual capital of Europe; the political upheaval initiated by Napoleon which destroyed the Holy Roman Empire in which Goethe had grown up, and with it the cultural role he had envisaged for Jena and Weimar. Boyle vividly narrates both the large-scale events and the personal dramas of this exciting time, giving lucid accounts of important thinkers whom English readers have hitherto found inaccessible, and analysing in new ways Goethe's works of the period, notably Wilhelm Meister, The Natural Daughter, and Faust.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Boyle's 1991 first volume of this work-in-progress--the most thorough English-language biography of Goethe--closed at the poet's midlife. A professor of German at Cambridge University, Boyle intended to complete his account in this second volume but the overstuffed book encompasses only 13 of Goethe's remaining 42 years (although they were central years to his career). At the outset of this installment, we find the irreligious poet in Weimar, growing fat and living, without benefit of clergy, with Christiana Vulpius, the mother of his only surviving child. This irregular union distances Goethe far enough from aristocratic trivialities at the duke's court that he can devote himself to writing. Although he has some fallow periods, the 1790s see his completion of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Hermann and Dorothea and The Natural Daughter, as well as his return, after a long hiatus, to Faust. Boyle's dense narrative--crowded with analyses, plot summaries and historical background--is not easy reading. The book springs briefly to life when Goethe becomes "the Duke's field-poet" during a campaign against France in the Napoleonic wars, but more often Boyle forsakes biographical drama for explication. Toward the end of the volume, for instance, when Goethe is deathly ill, the narrative breaks off for 20 pages of analysis of his writings. These excursions, together with Boyle's apparent reluctance to sacrifice any detail, suggest that even a third volume may be insufficient to accommodate the rest of the poet's life. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Apr.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|
Library Journal
The first volume of this work (LJ 1/91) was hailed by critics as the best biography of the 18th-century German poet, novelist, and playwright to appear in English. In this second installment, Boyle (head of Cambridge's German Department) again excels, studying the most productive and personally intense years of the world-celebrated Goethe, beginning with his return to Weimar as a middle-aged family man. The eight main chapters of this volume present a thorough scholarly analysis not only of a literary figure's life but of an unparalleled period in German literature and philosophy. In fact, Boyle dwells on historical and literary context so much that Goethe is barely mentioned for the first 75 pages. This volume also presents unique new readings of some of Goethe's works, including Faust, Wilhelm Meister, and The Natural Daughter. Boyle's monumental work requires familiarity with Goethe and is highly recommended for serious literary collections. For an English-speaking audience unfamiliar with the German author, a volume of Goethe's Selected Works (Everyman's Library: Knopf, 2000), with an excellent introductory essay by Boyle, is better suited.--Ali Houissa, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\
Adler - The New York Times Book Review
Magnificent . . . Boyle's unrivaled knowledge and
generosity of spirit make this not just a supreme
biography, but one of the finest works on the 18th
century . . . Nobody has better depicted how
Goethe lived.
Beddow - Times Literary Supplement
Because Boyle makes disarmingly little fuss about his own originality, general readers may not realize just how much of this volume takes them to the leading edge of current Goethe scholarship. But they will be in no doubt that they are in the hands of a writer who...can clarify the most abstruse philosophies and bring to life the complex textures of personal relationships int he tiny and yet strangely universal world of Goethe's Weimar.
A. S. Byatt - Times Literary Supplement
A quite extraordinary work of scholarship and understanding...often very moving and always illuminating. Boyle is very close to Goethe's mind and to his writing and its processes. he is good on Goethe's personal life and equally good on his political activities, as well as the minutiae of provincial court life.Read all 6 "From The Critics" >
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