Roman Elegies: And Other Poems & Epigrams (Poetica 29)

About this book

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) is mainly known to the English-speaking world as the author of the poetic drama Faust. In Europe - as poet dramatist novelist art critic literary theoretician travel writer author of a treatise on light and colour and prolific correspondent - he is regarded as the supreme Romantic literary figure. This selection is a classic introduction to one of the giants of European literature. It collects all the beautifully crafted versions Michael Hamburger has made over many years from all periods of Goethes creative life adding more than twenty new poems to Poems and Epigrams (1983) and including the complete text of Goethes erotic masterpiece the Roman Elegies. The critical introduction provides a valuable account of a writer who was in the words of his translator so many-sided as to constitute a whole literature. Michael Hamburger is a poet and critic and the outstanding contemporary translator of German poetry into English. His many awards include the Schlegel-Tieck Prize (1981) the German Federal Republics Goethe Medal (1986) and the European Translation Prize (1990). Michael Hamburgers Collected Poems 1941-1994 is also published by Anvil as are his selections from the poetry of Hlderlin Rilke and Celan and his seminal critical work on modern poetry The Truth of Poetry.