We barely glimpse Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) in this magisterial tome's first 75 pages, which are devoted to the revolutions wrought by the French people in politics and Immanuel Kant in philosophy. They must be understood, argues British scholar Nicholas Boyle in the second volume of a projected trilogy, because their impact transformed Goethe's life and art: "What had been a cultural quest, winding through the complex social certainties of the German ancien regime, became an interrogation of all levels of existence in an epoch of world-wide revolution and nascent Romanticism." Examining the period simplistically known as "Weimar classicism" (1790-1803), Boyle offers penetrating analyses of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Faust: Part I, and The Natural Daughter, the works through which Goethe developed his mature theme of renunciation, "the silence that acknowledges the absence from reality of the Ideal." But the author also limns with acuity Goethe's relations with other German intellectuals, in particular his intimate friendship with Friedrich von Schiller, and his less rarified activities, notably the common-law marriage to a woman who rooted him in everyday life. This is not a book for the light-minded or easily daunted reader, but those up to its challenges will revel in a thrilling blend of comprehensive biography and an epic intellectual history. --Wendy Smith


From Publishers Weekly
Boyle's 1991 first volume of this work-in-progress--the most thorough English-language biography of Goethe--closed at the poet's midlife. A professor of German at Cambridge University, Boyle intended to complete his account in this second volume but the overstuffed book encompasses only 13 of Goethe's remaining 42 years (although they were central years to his career). At the outset of this installment, we find the irreligious poet in Weimar, growing fat and living, without benefit of clergy, with Christiana Vulpius, the mother of his only surviving child. This irregular union distances Goethe far enough from aristocratic trivialities at the duke's court that he can devote himself to writing. Although he has some fallow periods, the 1790s see his completion of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Hermann and Dorothea and The Natural Daughter, as well as his return, after a long hiatus, to Faust. Boyle's dense narrative--crowded with analyses, plot summaries and historical background--is not easy reading. The book springs briefly to life when Goethe becomes "the Duke's field-poet" during a campaign against France in the Napoleonic wars, but more often Boyle forsakes biographical drama for explication. Toward the end of the volume, for instance, when Goethe is deathly ill, the narrative breaks off for 20 pages of analysis of his writings. These excursions, together with Boyle's apparent reluctance to sacrifice any detail, suggest that even a third volume may be insufficient to accommodate the rest of the poet's life. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Apr.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
The first volume of this work (LJ 1/91) was hailed by critics as the best biography of the 18th-century German poet, novelist, and playwright to appear in English. In this second installment, Boyle (head of Cambridge's German Department) again excels, studying the most productive and personally intense years of the world-celebrated Goethe, beginning with his return to Weimar as a middle-aged family man. The eight main chapters of this volume present a thorough scholarly analysis not only of a literary figure's life but of an unparalleled period in German literature and philosophy. In fact, Boyle dwells on historical and literary context so much that Goethe is barely mentioned for the first 75 pages. This volume also presents unique new readings of some of Goethe's works, including Faust, Wilhelm Meister, and The Natural Daughter. Boyle's monumental work requires familiarity with Goethe and is highly recommended for serious literary collections. For an English-speaking audience unfamiliar with the German author, a volume of Goethe's Selected Works (Everyman's Library: Knopf, 2000), with an excellent introductory essay by Boyle, is better suited.DAli Houissa, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Jeremy Adler
Boyle's unrivaled knowledge and generosity of spirit make this not just a supreme biography, but one of the finest works on the 18th century.


Book Description
When Volume I of Nicholas Boyle's biography of Goethe appeared, it received an avalanche of praise on both sides of the Atlantic. George Steiner, in The New Yorker, called it "the best biography of Goethe in English." Doris Lessing, in The Independent, called it "biography at its best." And The New York Times Book Review hailed it as "a remarkable achievement," adding "there is nothing comparable to this study in any language." Now comes the second volume of this definitive portrait, published on the 250th anniversary of Goethe's birth. Here Nicholas Boyle chronicles the most eventful and crowded years of Goethe's life: the period of the French Revolution--which turned Goethe's life upside down--and of the philosophical revolution in Germany which ushered in the periods of Idealism and Romanticism. It was also a period dominated by two intense personal relationships--with Schiller, Weimar's other great poet, philosopher, and dramatist, and with Christiana Vulpius, the mother of his son. Boyle paints vivid portraits of Goethe's harrowing experiences of the Revolutionary wars, of the explosion of new ideas in philosophy and literature which for ten years made Jena the intellectual capital of Europe, and of the upheavals sparked by Napoleon which destroyed the Holy Roman Empire. Boyle captures both the large-scale events that swept Europe and the personal dramas of this exciting time. And he offers brilliant new analyses of Goethe's works of the period, most notably Wilhelm Meister, The Natural Daughter, and Faust. Indeed, this volume is a major work of historical and literary scholarship, and an important biography of one of the giants of Western culture.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In this, the second volume of Goethe: The Poet and the Age, Nicholas Boyle covers the most eventful and crowded years of Goethe's life: the period of the French Revolution, which turned his life upside down, and of the German philosophical revolution which ushered in the periods of Idealism and Romanticism. It was also a period dominated by two intense personal relationships -- with Schiller, Weimar's other great poet, philosopher, and dramatist, and with Christiana Vulpius, the mother of his son. Goethe was a poet of supreme intelligence and sensitivity living through political and intellectual changes which have shaped the modern world. The transition into modernity is the theme of this volume: Goethe's harrowing experiences of the Revolutionary wars; the explosion of new ideas in philosophy and literature which he absorbed and adapted and which for ten years made Jena the intellectual capital of Europe; the political upheaval initiated by Napoleon which destroyed the Holy Roman Empire in which Goethe had grown up, and with it the cultural role he had envisaged for Jena and Weimar. Boyle vividly narrates both the large-scale events and the personal dramas of this exciting time, giving lucid accounts of important thinkers whom English readers have hitherto found inaccessible, and analysing in new ways Goethe's works of the period, notably Wilhelm Meister, The Natural Daughter, and Faust.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Boyle's 1991 first volume of this work-in-progress--the most thorough English-language biography of Goethe--closed at the poet's midlife. A professor of German at Cambridge University, Boyle intended to complete his account in this second volume but the overstuffed book encompasses only 13 of Goethe's remaining 42 years (although they were central years to his career). At the outset of this installment, we find the irreligious poet in Weimar, growing fat and living, without benefit of clergy, with Christiana Vulpius, the mother of his only surviving child. This irregular union distances Goethe far enough from aristocratic trivialities at the duke's court that he can devote himself to writing. Although he has some fallow periods, the 1790s see his completion of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, Hermann and Dorothea and The Natural Daughter, as well as his return, after a long hiatus, to Faust. Boyle's dense narrative--crowded with analyses, plot summaries and historical background--is not easy reading. The book springs briefly to life when Goethe becomes "the Duke's field-poet" during a campaign against France in the Napoleonic wars, but more often Boyle forsakes biographical drama for explication. Toward the end of the volume, for instance, when Goethe is deathly ill, the narrative breaks off for 20 pages of analysis of his writings. These excursions, together with Boyle's apparent reluctance to sacrifice any detail, suggest that even a third volume may be insufficient to accommodate the rest of the poet's life. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Apr.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal

The first volume of this work (LJ 1/91) was hailed by critics as the best biography of the 18th-century German poet, novelist, and playwright to appear in English. In this second installment, Boyle (head of Cambridge's German Department) again excels, studying the most productive and personally intense years of the world-celebrated Goethe, beginning with his return to Weimar as a middle-aged family man. The eight main chapters of this volume present a thorough scholarly analysis not only of a literary figure's life but of an unparalleled period in German literature and philosophy. In fact, Boyle dwells on historical and literary context so much that Goethe is barely mentioned for the first 75 pages. This volume also presents unique new readings of some of Goethe's works, including Faust, Wilhelm Meister, and The Natural Daughter. Boyle's monumental work requires familiarity with Goethe and is highly recommended for serious literary collections. For an English-speaking audience unfamiliar with the German author, a volume of Goethe's Selected Works (Everyman's Library: Knopf, 2000), with an excellent introductory essay by Boyle, is better suited.--Ali Houissa, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Adler - The New York Times Book Review

Magnificent . . . Boyle's unrivaled knowledge and generosity of spirit make this not just a supreme biography, but one of the finest works on the 18th century . . . Nobody has better depicted how Goethe lived.

Beddow - Times Literary Supplement

Because Boyle makes disarmingly little fuss about his own originality, general readers may not realize just how much of this volume takes them to the leading edge of current Goethe scholarship. But they will be in no doubt that they are in the hands of a writer who...can clarify the most abstruse philosophies and bring to life the complex textures of personal relationships int he tiny and yet strangely universal world of Goethe's Weimar.

A. S. Byatt - Times Literary Supplement