From: brock@ucsub.Colorado.EDU (Steve Brock)
Subject: Review of Goethe: The Collected Works
Date: 10 Apr 1995 18:37:45 GMT

GOETHE: THE COLLECTED WORKS, Victor Lange, Eric Blackall, Cyrus
Hamlin, executive editors.  Princeton University Press, 41 William
Street, Princeton, NJ 08540, (800) 777-4726, FAX: (609) 258-1335. 
Illustrated, notes, biographical note.  12 volumes, $14.95 to
$16.95 each, paper.  

                     Reviewed by Steve Brock

     Goethe's 140-volume "Gesammelte Werke" has been condensed into
12 volumes, translated into English, and published in simultaneous
cloth and paper editions by Suhrkamp Verlag (cloth) and Princeton
University Press (paper).  Princeton's editions, which include
poetry, fiction, drama, essays, memoirs, and scientific writings,
are being published three volumes at a time, with volumes 1-6
available, volumes 7-9 due out in May, and volumes 10-12
tentatively due out in the Fall.

     The set contains the following available titles:

     Volume 1 - "Selected Poems," edited by Christopher Middleton. 
          Due to difficulties in translation, the poems are
          featured in both English and German on facing pages. 
          This, of course, is no help to those not fluent in
          German.

     Volume 2 - "Faust I and II," edited and translated by Stuart
          Atkins.  One of the world's great works of world
          literature, all in English.  Atkins' translation gives
          the plot a coating of sugar in several places.  "The
          Observer" notes that his translation of the conclusion of
          Part II ("Woman, eternally, shows us the way") sounds
          "like something chanted at a feminist rally."

     Volume 3 - "Essays on Art and Literature," edited by John
          Gearey.  The essays, presented in chronological order,
          display Goethe as an inquisitive representative of his
          era, providing opinions on German architecture, the
          theory and history of art, and literary theory and (most
          important to book reviewers) criticism.  Especially worth
          reading is his tribute to Shakespeare.

     Volumes 4, 5, and 6 - Three of Goethe's autobiographical
          works: "From My Life: Poetry and Truth Parts 1-4,"
          "Campaign in France 1792/Siege of Mainz," and "Italian
          Journey," edited by Thomas P. Saine and Jeffrey L.
          Sammons.  Goethe recalls his youth, his military
          exploits, and his travels in Italy where he begins to
          feel that he is intellectually parting company with his
          contemporaries, becoming a "man of affairs" with a
          consuming interest in scientific pursuits.

     Forthcoming volumes are:  Volume 7 - "Early Verse Drama and
Prose Plays," edited by Cyrus Hamlin and Frank Ryder; Volume 8 -
"Verse Plays and Epic," edited by ; Volume 9 - "Wilhelm Meister's
Apprenticeship," edited by Eric A. Blackall; Volume 10 -
"Conversations of German Refugees" and "Wilhelm Meister's
Journeyman Year or The Renunciants," edited by J.K. Brown; Volume
11 - "The Sorrows of Young Werther," "Elective Affinities," and
"Novella," edited by D.E. Wellbery; and Volume 12 - "Scientific
Studies," edited by D. Miller.
     There's no getting around it, Goethe's numerous writings, for
the most part, are ponderous and difficult to understand.  The
editors have attempted to interpret Goethe's profound lucidity
without losing his essence, and in most cases in the published
volumes, they have succeeded.  Goethe is on the come-back trail. 
Grade for Volumes 1-6: A-.