Customer Reviews

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

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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!)

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.

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.