A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice Selection

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the Economist and Kirkus Reviews

This "splendid biography" (Wall Street Journal) of Goethe presents his life and work as an essential touchstone for the modern age.

A masterful intellectual portrait, Goethe: Life as a Work of Art is celebrated as the seminal twenty-first-century biography of the writer considered to be the Shakespeare of German literature. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), a remarkably prolific poet, playwright, novelist, and -- as Rüdiger Safranksi emphasizes -- a statesman and naturalist, first awakened not only a burgeoning German nation but the European continent with his electrifying novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Safranski has scoured Goethe's entire oeuvre, relying exclusively on primary sources, including his correspondence with contemporaries, to produce a "fresh and authentic" (Economist) portrait of the avatar of the Romantic era. Skillfully blending "artistic analysis with swift, sharp renderings" of the great political and intellectual figures Goethe encountered, "[Safranski's] portrait of the prolific genius leaves the reader with lasting awe, even envy" of a monumental legacy (The New Yorker). As Safranski ultimately shows, Goethe's greatest creation, even in comparison to his masterpiece Faust, was his own life.

• We started tracking this book on June 16, 2017.
• This book was $16.05 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 12 times in the past 2,818 days.
• The current price of this book is $13.65 last checked 3 hours ago.
• This book is at its lowest price in the past year.
• The lowest price to date was $12.56 last reached on July 27, 2018.
• This book has been $12.56 3 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $16.05 last reached on September 11, 2018.
• This book has been $16.05 3 times since we started tracking it.

• Literature & FictionLiterary CriticismRegionsEuropeanGerman

• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 684 Pages
• File Size: 40 KB