Erotic Poems (Oxford World's Classics)

Book info: Erotic Poems (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback, 208 pages) – Oxford University Press, 1999. Language: English.

Editorial censorship has long obscured Goethe's Roman Elegies, which were inspired by Goethe's sexual liberation in Italy and his love for the woman he took as his unofficial wife on his return to Germany. They are here presented as Goethe boldly conceived them, together with the long-supressed narrative poem known as The Diary. Completing the edition is a selection from Goethe's more light-hearted and much censored cycle of erotica, the Venetian Epigrams. An illuminating Introduction by Hans Vaget provides the background to these poems, as well as showing some of the profound and little-known connections between them. Editorial Reviews Review `welcome the new additions to the finest and widest-ranging library of great writing (at accessible prices too), OUP's World's Classics series ... Goethe's Erotic Poems ... this is the first readily available version of the uncensored Elegies' Oxford Times About the Author David Luke was a Student (Fellow) and Tutor in German at Christ Church, Oxford, until 1988. He translated and edited the prize-winning World's Classics editions of Faust Part One and Part Two. Hans Rudolf Vaget is Helen and Laura Shedd Professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature at Smith College (Northampton, Mass.). He has published extensively on Goethe, Wagner and Thomas Mann.