The definitive English version of three landmark works of world literatureContaining three of Goethe's major prose works, this volume explores a range of themes: unfulfilled love, infidelity, divorce, tragic love, fantasy, and moral rebirth. One of Goethe's best-known works, The Sorrows of Young Werther, explores the extremes of the subjective experience through the novel's depiction of a sensitive young man caught up in a love impossible to fulfill. In Elective Affinities, a novel of tragic love, Goethe employs all the requisites of sentimental romance to give a deeply ironic perspective to the idea of love. Finally, Novella, named for the prose form that Goethe saw as essentially revolving around a single ';unheard-of event,' thoroughly examines the possibilities inherent in that genre.The Collected Works of Goethe presents modern translations of a representative portion of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's vast body of work. Selected from more than 140 volumes in German, this twelve-volume series remains the standard collection in English and features poetry, drama, fiction, memoir, criticism, and scientific writing.Edited by David E. WellberyTranslated by Victor Lange and Judith Ryan

The definitive English version of three landmark works of world literatureContaining three of Goethe's major prose works, this volume explores a range of themes: unfulfilled love, infidelity, divorce, tragic love, fantasy, and moral rebirth. One of Goethe's best-known works, The Sorrows of Young Werther, explores the extremes of the subjective experience through the novel's depiction of a sensitive young man caught up in a love impossible to fulfill. In Elective Affinities, a novel of tragic love, Goethe employs all the requisites of sentimental romance to give a deeply ironic perspective to the idea of love. Finally, Novella, named for the prose form that Goethe saw as essentially revolving around a single ';unheard-of event,' thoroughly examines the possibilities inherent in that genre.The Collected Works of Goethe presents modern translations of a representative portion of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's vast body of work. Selected from more than 140 volumes in German, this twelve-volume series remains the standard collection in English and features poetry, drama, fiction, memoir, criticism, and scientific writing.Edited by David E. WellberyTranslated by Victor Lange and Judith Ryan