Published in 1979, this study is intended as a continuation of the work of the scholars and previous commentators on Goethe's Wanderjahre. While considering the scientific structure, it concentrates first on one basic question of form--that of the series of narrative insertions--and then of necessity on one matter of content that is linked so closely with them that the two are almost inseparable, namely the concept of the family as the Urform (archetype) and metamorphosis of the types of human association. Thus the intention of this book is to contribute to the new and better understanding of the novel and which will, it is to be hoped, at long last help the work take its place as one of the two crowning masterpieces (along with Faust II) of Goethe's life.

of him in like measure within myself, that is my highest wish. This noble individual was not conscious of the fact that at that very moment the divine within him and the divine of the universe were most intimately united. So, for Goethe, the resonance with a natural rationality seems part of the genius of modern science. Einstein's 'cosmic religion', which reflects Spinoza, also echoes Goethe's remark (Ibid. , Item 575 from 1829): Man must cling to the belief that the incomprehensible is comprehensible. Else he would give up investigating. But how far will Goethe share the devotion of these cosmic rationalists to the beautiful harmonies of mathematics, so distant from any pure and 'direct observation'? Kepler, Spinoza, Einstein need not, and would not, rest with discovery of a pattern within, behind, as a source of, the phenomenal world, and they would not let even the most profound of descriptive generalities satisfy scientific curiosity. For his part, Goethe sought fundamental archetypes, as in his intuition of a Urpjlanze, basic to all plants, infinitely plastic. When such would be found, Goethe would be content, for (as he said to Eckermann, Feb. 18, 1829): . . . to seek something behind (the Urphaenomenon) is futile. Here is the limit. But as a rule men are not satisfied to behold an Urphaenomenon. They think there must be something beyond. They are like children who, having looked into a mirror, turn it around to see what is on the other side.

Fink explores how Goethe's scientific activities contributed to the growing literature in the history and philosophy of science.

Focuses on childhood in the Age of Goethe, in addition to various other topics and works. The Goethe Yearbook, first published in 1982, is a publication of the Goethe Society of North America and is dedicated to North American Goethe Scholarship. It aims above all to encourage and publish original English-language contributions to the understanding of Goethe and other authors of the Goethezeit, while also welcoming contributions from scholars around the world. Volume 14 features a special section on childhood in the Age of Goethe, co-edited with Anthony Krupp. In addition, readers will find two essays illuminating Goethe's Triumph der Empfindsamkeit, an inspired reading of Das Märchen against the background of Goethe's critique of Newtonian science, a careful analysis of the daemonic in the poem "Mächtiges Überraschen," and essays on Egmont and Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre. Contributors: Kelly Barry, Paul Fleming, Edgar Landgraf, Liliane Weissberg, Angus Nicholls, Robin A. Clouser Simon J. Richter is Professor of German at the University of Pennsylvania, and book review editor Martha B. Helfer is Professor of German at Rutgers University. Anthony Krupp is Assistant Professor of German at the University of Miami.

The question of coherence in Goethe's novels, which, like Faust, compelled his attention throughout his creative life, has only recently occupied a few critics. Professor Muenzer's study offers the most comprehensive effort of this kind by examining the problematic nature of self-definition through the four novels and its emergence as a discursive process of the imagination. The self of these texts, Muenzer suggests, evolves as a symbolic construct that records a patter of pursuit for each of their protagonists and orients the reader toward three basic goals of human aspiration. Thus, Werther aspires to purposefulness as a center of teleological fulfillment, while the hero of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship refers to an ideological center of participation in his social desire. Eduard, in The Elective Affinities, presumes to occupy a center of archaeological power through his typically self-assertive strategies. In the last of his novels, Wilhelm Meister's Journeymanship, Goethe articulates the need to balance all such self-involved behavior with an attitude of self-denial. Apparently, the mind can orient itself through centers of purpose, order, and power, but it must also recognize the illusion of their attainment. Identity does not involve a substantive presence, and the result of self-definition for Goethe is interpretive work. Each of Professor Muenzer's interpretations has been guided by this premise. The interests of all of Goethe's novelistic protagonists, he concludes, "serve as orienting postures toward goals that cannot be literally achieved." Consequently, symbolic resolutions are proposed. These then introduce new problems as points of departure in subsequent works. The hidden agenda of Goethe's work as a novelist is a self that exists as a textual problem, a series of interpretive moves that endlessly defer the attainment of self presence by supplementing each other in narrative fictions.

In Melusine’s Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth, editors Misty Urban, Deva Kemmis, and Melissa Ridley Elmes offer an invigorating international and interdisciplinary examination of the legendary fairy Melusine. Along with fresh insights into the popular French and German traditions, these essays investigate Melusine’s English, Dutch, Spanish, and Chinese counterparts and explore her roots in philosophy, folklore, and classical myth. Combining approaches from art history, history, alchemy, literature, cultural studies, and medievalism, applying rigorous critical lenses ranging from feminism and comparative literature to film and monster theory, this volume brings Melusine scholarship into the twenty-first century with twenty lively and evocative essays that reassess this powerful figure’s multiple meanings and illuminate her dynamic resonances across cultures and time. Contributors are Anna Casas Aguilar, Jennifer Alberghini, Frederika Bain, Anna-Lisa Baumeister, Albrecht Classen, Chera A. Cole, Tania M. Colwell, Zoë Enstone, Stacey L. Hahn, Deva F. Kemmis, Ana Pairet, Pit Péporté, Simone Pfleger, Caroline Prud’Homme, Melissa Ridley Elmes, Renata Schellenberg, Misty Urban, Angela Jane Weisl, Lydia Zeldenrust, and Zifeng Zhao.

A fresh reading of the Willhelm Meister novels that dismisses the notion of the Bildungsroman to reveal unities between the texts.

Goethe is often revered rather than read, known of rather than known. It is the aim of this study to provide a corrective to this state of affairs. The authors concentrate on literary work and offer analyses that represent an impassioned advocacy