Goethe: The Poet and the Age: Volume II: Revolution and Renunciation, 1790-1803 (Goethe - The Poet & the Age) [Hardcover]

Nicholas Boyle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 13, 2000 | Series: Goethe - The Poet & the Age (Book 2)

When Volume I of Nicholas Boyle's biography of Goethe appeared, it received an avalanche of praise on both sides of the Atlantic. George Steiner, in The New Yorker, called it "the best biography of Goethe in English." Doris Lessing, in The Independent, called it "biography at its best." And The New York Times Book Review hailed it as "a remarkable achievement," adding "there is nothing comparable to this study in any language."
Now comes the second volume of this definitive portrait, published on the 250th anniversary of Goethe's birth. Here Nicholas Boyle chronicles the most eventful and crowded years of Goethe's life: the period of the French Revolution--which turned Goethe's life upside down--and of the philosophical revolution in Germany 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. Boyle paints vivid portraits of Goethe's harrowing experiences of the Revolutionary wars, of the explosion of new ideas in philosophy and literature which for ten years made Jena the intellectual capital of Europe, and of the upheavals sparked by Napoleon which destroyed the Holy Roman Empire.
Boyle captures both the large-scale events that swept Europe and the personal dramas of this exciting time. And he offers brilliant new analyses of Goethe's works of the period, most notably Wilhelm Meister, The Natural Daughter, and Faust. Indeed, this volume is a major work of historical and literary scholarship, and an important biography of one of the giants of Western culture.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

We barely glimpse Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) in this magisterial tome's first 75 pages, which are devoted to the revolutions wrought by the French people in politics and Immanuel Kant in philosophy. They must be understood, argues British scholar Nicholas Boyle in the second volume of a projected trilogy, because their impact transformed Goethe's life and art: "What had been a cultural quest, winding through the complex social certainties of the German ancien regime, became an interrogation of all levels of existence in an epoch of world-wide revolution and nascent Romanticism." Examining the period simplistically known as "Weimar classicism" (1790-1803), Boyle offers penetrating analyses of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Faust: Part I, and The Natural Daughter, the works through which Goethe developed his mature theme of renunciation, "the silence that acknowledges the absence from reality of the Ideal." But the author also limns with acuity Goethe's relations with other German intellectuals, in particular his intimate friendship with Friedrich von Schiller, and his less rarified activities, notably the common-law marriage to a woman who rooted him in everyday life. This is not a book for the light-minded or easily daunted reader, but those up to its challenges will revel in a thrilling blend of comprehensive biography and an epic intellectual history. --Wendy Smith

From 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 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 968 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (April 13, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198158696
• ISBN-13: 978-0198158691
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #507,231 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Very Big Book on Goethe, January 30, 2001

By 

T. J. Stewart (Cincinnati, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Goethe: The Poet and the Age: Volume II: Revolution and Renunciation, 1790-1803 (Goethe - The Poet & the Age) (Hardcover)

This book is undoubtedly the best book on Goethe available in English. Boyle's descriptions of Weimar and Jena bring the late 18th and early 19th century to life. After reading the book, I had a much better grasp on Goethe and his contemporaries. I recommend the book highly to anyone seriously interested in understanding German literature. My one complaint is that the book is almost too unwieldly to read in bed. It also took several months to digest. (But well worth the effort!)

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank god for Boyle, February 22, 2008

By 

Michael G. Wenzke - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Goethe: The Poet and the Age: Volume II: Revolution and Renunciation, 1790-1803 (Goethe - The Poet & the Age) (Hardcover)

I'm not a student or a scholar, I'm just a huge fan of Goethe, and he's not very prominent in America. There are two volumes out and a third planned for the biography...my recommendation is get a background in Goethe first. Werther, then Faust, Wilhem Meister, Egmont, Ellective Affinities, I also highly highly highly reccommend Goethe's conversations with Eckermann. Nietzshce called it the best book in the German languange and I have to agree. In other words, develop a taste for Goethe, then Boyle's biography will be an engrossing exploration of genius. It's not just the story of Goethe, it's a battle of enlightenment vs. romanticism, idealism vs. realism, Goethe vs. the world and Goethe vs. himself. The ideas here are bigger than the story. I'm at a loss as to how this biography was actually written. It's a major accomplishment to finish it, an even bigger one to understand it, an absolute triumph for Boyle in writing it.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Multidimensional scholarship, September 8, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Goethe: The Poet and the Age: Volume II: Revolution and Renunciation, 1790-1803 (Goethe - The Poet & the Age) (Hardcover)

Oof! Be prepared to read this book at a snail's pace or lightly many times over. I don't believe I have ever read anything quite like it: multidimensional scholarship raised to another level. Nearly two centuries separate Goethe from us, but this work throws a bridge across time.