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Maxims and Reflections

Author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Introduction by Peter Hutchinson
Edited by Peter Hutchinson
Translated by Elisabeth Stopp
Notes by Peter Hutchinson
Paperback
$18.00 US
Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Classics
5.1"W x 7.7"H x 0.6"D   | 6 oz | 64 per carton
On sale Mar 01, 1999 | 208 Pages | 9780140447200
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Throughout his long, hectic and astonishingly varied life, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) would jot down his passing thoughts on theatre programmes, visiting cards, draft manuscripts and even bills … Goethe was probably the last true ‘Renaissance Man’. Although employed as a Privy Councillor at the Duke of Weimar’s court, where he helped oversee major mining, road-building and irrigation projects, he also painted, directed plays, carried out research in anatomy, botany and optics – and still found time to produce masterpieces in every literary genre. His fourteen hundred Maxims and Reflections reveal some of his deepest thought on art, ethics, literature and natural science, but also his immediate reactions to books, chance encounters or his administrative work. Although variable in quality, the vast majority have a freshness and immediacy which vividly conjure up Goethe the man. They make an ideal introduction to one of the greatest of European writers.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Before he was thirty, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had proven himself a master of the novel, drama, and lyric poetry. But even more impressive than his versatility was his unwillingness ever to settle into a single style or approach; whenever he used a literary form, he made it something new. Born in 1749 to a well-to-do family in Frankfurt, he was sent to Strasbourg to earn a law degree. There, he met the poet-philosopher Herder, discovered Shakespeare, and began to write poetry. His play Götz von Berlichingen (1773) made him famous throughout Germany. He was invited to the court of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, where he quickly became a cabinet minister. In 1774 his novel of Romantic melancholy, The Sorrows of a Young Werther, electrified all of Europe. Soon he was at work on the first version of his Faust, which would finally appear as a fragment in 1790. In the 1780s, Goethe visited England and immersed himself in classical poetry. The next decade saw the appearance of Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, his novel of a young artist's education, and a wealth of poetry and criticism. He returned to the Faust material around the turn of the century and completed Part 1 in 1808. The later years of his life were devoted to a bewildering array of pursuits: research in botany and a theory of colors, a novel (Elective Affinities), the evocative poems of the West-Eastern Divan, and his great autobiography, Poetry and Truth. In his eighties he prepared a forty-volume edition of his works; the forty-first volume, published after his death in 1832, was the second part of Faust. Goethe’s wide-ranging mind could never be confined to one form or one philosophy. When asked for the theme of his masterwork, Faust, he could only say, “From heaven through all the world to hell”; his subject was nothing smaller. View titles by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Maxims and ReflectionsPreface
Introduction
Further Reading
A Note on the Text
FROM ELECTIVE AFFINITIES (1809)
From Ottilie's Diary

FROM ART AND ANTIQUITY
Vol. I, issue 3: Naïvety and Humour (1818)
Vol. II, issue 3: Matters of Serious Moment (1820)
Vol. III, issue 1: Own and Adopted Ideas in Proverbial Formulation (1821)
Vol. IV, issue 2: Own and Assimilated Material (1823)
Vol. V, issue 1: Individual Points (1824)
Vol. V, issue 2: Individual Points (1825)
Vol. V, issue 3: Individual Points (1826)
Vol. VI, issue 1: [untitled] (1827)

FROM THE PERIODICAL ISSUES ON MORPHOLOGY
Vol. I, issue 4: [untitled] (1822)

FROM THE PERIODICAL ISSUES ON THE NATURAL SCIENCES
Vol. II, issue 1: Old Ideas, Almost out of Date (1823)

FROM WILHELM MEISTER'S JOURNEYMAN YEARS (1829)
Thoughs about Art, Ethics and Nature in the Spirit of the Travellers
From Makarie's Archive

POSTHUMOUS
On Literature and Life
On Art and Art History: Aphorisms for the Attention of Friends and Opponents
On Nature and Natural Science
Sketchy, Doubtful, Incomplete Jottings
Addenda from the Posthumous Papers

Notes

About

Throughout his long, hectic and astonishingly varied life, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) would jot down his passing thoughts on theatre programmes, visiting cards, draft manuscripts and even bills … Goethe was probably the last true ‘Renaissance Man’. Although employed as a Privy Councillor at the Duke of Weimar’s court, where he helped oversee major mining, road-building and irrigation projects, he also painted, directed plays, carried out research in anatomy, botany and optics – and still found time to produce masterpieces in every literary genre. His fourteen hundred Maxims and Reflections reveal some of his deepest thought on art, ethics, literature and natural science, but also his immediate reactions to books, chance encounters or his administrative work. Although variable in quality, the vast majority have a freshness and immediacy which vividly conjure up Goethe the man. They make an ideal introduction to one of the greatest of European writers.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Creators

Before he was thirty, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe had proven himself a master of the novel, drama, and lyric poetry. But even more impressive than his versatility was his unwillingness ever to settle into a single style or approach; whenever he used a literary form, he made it something new. Born in 1749 to a well-to-do family in Frankfurt, he was sent to Strasbourg to earn a law degree. There, he met the poet-philosopher Herder, discovered Shakespeare, and began to write poetry. His play Götz von Berlichingen (1773) made him famous throughout Germany. He was invited to the court of the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, where he quickly became a cabinet minister. In 1774 his novel of Romantic melancholy, The Sorrows of a Young Werther, electrified all of Europe. Soon he was at work on the first version of his Faust, which would finally appear as a fragment in 1790. In the 1780s, Goethe visited England and immersed himself in classical poetry. The next decade saw the appearance of Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, his novel of a young artist's education, and a wealth of poetry and criticism. He returned to the Faust material around the turn of the century and completed Part 1 in 1808. The later years of his life were devoted to a bewildering array of pursuits: research in botany and a theory of colors, a novel (Elective Affinities), the evocative poems of the West-Eastern Divan, and his great autobiography, Poetry and Truth. In his eighties he prepared a forty-volume edition of his works; the forty-first volume, published after his death in 1832, was the second part of Faust. Goethe’s wide-ranging mind could never be confined to one form or one philosophy. When asked for the theme of his masterwork, Faust, he could only say, “From heaven through all the world to hell”; his subject was nothing smaller. View titles by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Table of Contents

Maxims and ReflectionsPreface
Introduction
Further Reading
A Note on the Text
FROM ELECTIVE AFFINITIES (1809)
From Ottilie's Diary

FROM ART AND ANTIQUITY
Vol. I, issue 3: Naïvety and Humour (1818)
Vol. II, issue 3: Matters of Serious Moment (1820)
Vol. III, issue 1: Own and Adopted Ideas in Proverbial Formulation (1821)
Vol. IV, issue 2: Own and Assimilated Material (1823)
Vol. V, issue 1: Individual Points (1824)
Vol. V, issue 2: Individual Points (1825)
Vol. V, issue 3: Individual Points (1826)
Vol. VI, issue 1: [untitled] (1827)

FROM THE PERIODICAL ISSUES ON MORPHOLOGY
Vol. I, issue 4: [untitled] (1822)

FROM THE PERIODICAL ISSUES ON THE NATURAL SCIENCES
Vol. II, issue 1: Old Ideas, Almost out of Date (1823)

FROM WILHELM MEISTER'S JOURNEYMAN YEARS (1829)
Thoughs about Art, Ethics and Nature in the Spirit of the Travellers
From Makarie's Archive

POSTHUMOUS
On Literature and Life
On Art and Art History: Aphorisms for the Attention of Friends and Opponents
On Nature and Natural Science
Sketchy, Doubtful, Incomplete Jottings
Addenda from the Posthumous Papers

Notes

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