One of world literature's towering figures, Goethe dominated two centuries of European writing and thought. The Enlightenment's most wayward genius, and Romanticism's most remarkable, he led two great artistic movements without fully subscribing to either. While his stature in the English-speaking world is often acknowledged, his poems are little regarded, for the simple reason that they have proven untranslatable. But thanks to John Whaley's outstanding translation, Goethe's poetry can at...
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) is universally recognized as a towering figure in world literature. This major new collection brings together poems from every decade of Goethe's writing life, in both their German originals and John Whaley's magnificent new translations--complete with their astonishing technical virtuosity, depth of feeling, wit, and occasional bawdry.