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Title: Italian Journey {1786-1788} (Penguin Classics) by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Mayer ISBN: 0-14-044233-2 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 December, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.86 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Original Beautiful Mind Goes South
Comment: In preparation for a trip to Italy, I began reading the accounts of famous travellers to that land: D.H. Lawrence, Charles Dickens, Tobias Smollett, and now Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. I had no great expectations but was knocked for a loop from page one.
Never before had I encountered a questing mind quite like Goethe's. Almost from the moment to left Carlsbad in September 1786, he was noticing the geological structures underlying the land and the flora and fauna above it. He sits down and talks with ordinary people without an attitude -- and this after he had turned the heads of half of Europe with his SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER. Here he was journeying incognito, apparently knowing the language well enough to communicate with peasants, prelates, and nobility.
One who abhors marking books I intend to keep, I found myself underlining frequently. "In this place," he writes from Rome, "whoever looks seriously about him and has eyes to see is bound to become a stronger character." In fact, Goethe spent over a year in Rome learning art, music, science, and even sufferings the pangs of love with a young woman from Milan.
Bracketing his stay in Rome is a longish journey to Naples and Sicily, where he becomes acquainted with Sir Warren Hamilton and his consort Emma, the fascinating Princess Ravaschieri di Satriano, and other German travelers. One of them, Wilhelm Tischbein, painted a wonderful portrait of Goethe the traveller shown on the cover of the Penguin edition.
The translation of W.H. Auden and Elizabeth Mayer is truly wonderful. My only negative comments are toward the Penguin editors who, out of some pennywise foolishness, have omitted translating the frequent Latin, Greek, and French quotes. I am particularly upset about the lack of a translation of the final quote from Ovid's "Tristia." In every other respect, this book is a marvel and does not at all read like a work written some 215 years ago. It is every bit as fresh and relevant as today's headlines, only ever so much more articulate!
Rating: 4
Summary: Travelling in Italy in the 1780's
Comment: Goethe comes alive as a very real person, not just the famous German author, in this travel memoir detailing the two years he spent in Italy in the 1780's. A wonderful description of travel before airplanes and cameras. Somewhat tedious descriptions of geology and of his works-in-progress are frequent, but never too long.
It might be helpful to read (or re-read) the introduction after having read part of the book (say, into the first Roman visit).
Rating: 5
Summary: Rocks and Rolls
Comment: This was billed as a good introduction to Goethe. I don't know, since this is the first Goethe I've read--but I'm delighted. It starts as a sojourn south, with detailed notations of rocks, geologic information and topography. Don't let that deter you! His description of eating just bread and red wine on his sea voyage to Sicily (because of his rolling seasickness) had me running for a bottle Italian Barbera! As my late great aunt would have said: "A nice, nice book."
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Title: Italian Hours (Penguin Classics) by Henry James, John Auchard ISBN: 0140435077 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: D.H. Lawrence and Italy: Twilight in Italy, Sea and Sardinia, Etruscan Places (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics) by D. H. Lawrence ISBN: 0141180307 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 July, 1997 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Goethe: The Collected Works, Vol. 9) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Eric A. Blackall ISBN: 0691043442 Publisher: Princeton University Press Pub. Date: 03 April, 1995 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Pictures from Italy (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens, Kate Flint ISBN: 0140434313 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 July, 1998 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Rome (Eyewitness Travel Guides) ISBN: 0789494213 Publisher: Dorling Kindersley Publishing Pub. Date: 01 February, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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