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  • Published: 27 May 2009
  • ISBN: 9780140449020
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $27.99
Categories:

Faust, Part II




A major new translation of Goethe's Faust, Part Two - one of the greatest dramatic-poetic works in all of German literature - by award-winning poet and translator David Constantine

In this sequel to Faust, Mephistopheles takes Faust on a journey through ancient Greek mythology, conjuring for him the insurpassably beautiful Helen of Troy, as well as the classical gods. Faust falls in love with and marries Helen, embodying for Goethe his 'imaginative longing to join poetically the Romantic Medievalism of the germanic West to the classical genius of the Greeks'. Further to the themes of redemption and salvation in this great drama, are Goethe's eerie premonitions of modern phenomena such as inflation and the creation of life by scientific synthesis.

  • Published: 27 May 2009
  • ISBN: 9780140449020
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $27.99
Categories:

Other books in the series

Maldoror and Poems
On Sparta
Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

About the author

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in Frankfurt-on-Main in 1749. He studied at Leipzig, where he showed interest in the occult, and at Strassburg, where Herder introduced him to Shakespeare's works and to folk poetry. He produced some essays and lyrical verse, and at twenty-two wrote Götz von Berlichingen, a play which brought him national fame and established him in the current Sturm und Drang movement. This was followed by the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther in 1774, which was an even greater success.

Goethe began work on Faust, and Egmont, another tragedy before being invited to join the government of Weimar. His interest in the classical world led him to leave suddenly for Italy in 1786 and the Italian Journey recounts his travels there. Iphigenia in Tauris andTorquato Tasso, classical dramas, were written at this time. Returning to Weimar, Goethe started the second part of Faust, encouraged by Schiller. In 1806 he married Christiane Vulpius. During this late period he finished his series of Wilhelm Master books and wrote many other works, including The Oriental Divan (1819). He also directed the State Theatre and worked on scientific theories in evolutionary botany, anatomy and color. Goethe completed Faust in 1832, just before he died.

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