The Cambridge Companion to Goethe

"Sharpe's beautifully edited book offers timely essays on the most significangt aspects of Goethe's monumental work.... This remarkable set of essays avoids repetition and oversimplifcation while reflecting prudently on the presen status of Goethe scholarship. highly recommended for all academic and public collections." Choice

"In a word, this is without a doubt a highly useful book...It should be of great use to the non-Germanist, and certainly should find its place in many an introductory undergraduate and graduate class." German Studies Review, Horst Lange

Lesley Sharpe is Professor of German at the University of Bristol. She is the author of Schiller and the Historical Character and Friedrich Schiller: Drama, Thought and Politics (Cambridge, 1991). She has written widely on Schiller, Goethe and women writers of the eighteenth century and from 1994-2000 was Germanic Editor of the Modern Language Review.

List of contributors; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Chronology; Introduction Lesley Sharpe; 1. The world Goethe lived in: Germany and Europe, 1750-1830 Thomas P. Saine; 2. Goethe the writer and literary history Nicholas Saul; 3. Goethe the poet John R. Williams; 4. Goethe the dramatist David V. Pugh; 5. Faust Jane K. Brown; 6. Weimar Classicism: Goethe's alliance with Schiller T. J. Reed; 7. Goethe and the Weimar theatre Lesley Sharpe; 8. Goethe's prose fiction Martin Swales; 9. Autobiographical writings Dennis F. Mahoney; 10. In defence of experience: Goethe's natural investigations and scientific culture Daniel Steuer; 11. Goethe and gender Barbara Becker-Cantarino; 12. Goethe and the visual arts Beate Allert; 13. Goethe and the political world W. Daniel Wilson; 14. Religion and philosophy H. B. Nisbet; 15. Reception in Germany and abroad Gerhart Hoffmeister; A guide to further reading; General index; Index of Goethe's works.