Goethe [VINTAGE 1929] [FIRST EDITION]

Carre, Jean Marie; Hard, Eleanor (translator from the French)

Verlag: Coward-McCann, Inc., New York, 1929

Beschreibung

Very good condition black boards with a gilt front cover illustration and gilt spine lettering. Includes Preface by Jean Marie Carre; and a rear section entitled: German and English Titles of Goethe's Works. Translated from the French by Eleanor Hard. The upper spine edge is moderately rubbed; the lower spine edge much less so. (see photographs); the volume is otherwise in fine condition. All pages are in fine condition and the binding is exceedingly tight and square. "This little book makes no pretense of being a substitute for the great German monographs - different as they are in purpose, method and point of view - of Bielschowsky, Richard Meyer, Gundolf and Emil Ludwig. My aim is infinitely more circumscribed. I propose simply to let the reader see the various stages and the more characteristic scenes of his life, leaving aside all questions of philosophic or aesthetic interpretation, and taking as my main guides Goethe's autobiographical writings and correspondence, as well as contemporary memories and commentaries. To my mind, no logic can put the full blossoming of a genius into one formula. Goethe's life was long enough, rich enough and flexible enough to contain the most contradictory aspects within it. Was he not romanticist and yet classicist, impassioned and yet poised, idealist and yet realist, conservative and liberal, avid and resigned? And yet if his life did not congeal into one Olympian attitude, it did not, on the other hand - as the puritan Carlyle and his brilliant German disciple Ludwig would have us believe - resolve itself into a long series of inner battles. Goethe was not a soul perpetually harassed by discord: he was possessed of a healthy, aristocratic spirit which found a philosophy of rich optimism in his maturity. He loved life in all its forms, did not disdain physical pleasures for spiritual ones, and was more convinced of his own genius that fearful of his demons. What was his final renunciation but the actual application of his pantheism, and the acceptance of his part in the universal harmony? There are, there must be, many steps in the ladder of existence: good and evil, Faust and Mephisto, alike belong to the world of life: and his whole career need not have a torn, tragic look, a hesitant course and an overtone of despair, merely because he was tugged at by both of them.Here is an explorer of genius let loose in a vast marvelous world. Let us, opening our eyes as wide as he, follow him through the various stages, episodes and trials of his voyage on this earth, and let us not disdain description and anecdote. His life is more than a life: it is a glimpse into his times, and a page of history. Finally, let us not disdain the part that women play in it. They explain the perpetual richness of his lyric poetry: his ever youthful heart burned to the end with flames of love and sparks of inspiration. Soothsayer and painter, visionary of the invisible and splendid student of reality, interpreter of eternal mysteries and spokesman of his times, extraordinary man; heroic, according to Carlyle, or representative, according to Emerson: others have interpreted and will again interpret the message that he left the world. For myself, I will be content, in this book to watch him live - a man among mankind. - Jean Marie Carre" - excerpt from the Preface. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 004327

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Goethe [VINTAGE 1929] [FIRST EDITION]

Verlag: Coward-McCann, Inc., New York

Erscheinungsdatum: 1929

Einband: Hardcover

Zustand: Very Good

Auflage: 1st Edition