About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherGingko Library

ISBN-101909942553

ISBN-139781909942554

eBay Product ID (ePID)10050388982

Product Key Features

Book TitleWest-Eastern Divan : Including Goethe's 'notes and Essays' and the Unpublished Poems, by Eric Ormsby

Number of Pages640 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2021

TopicEuropean / German, Middle Eastern, General

GenrePoetry

AuthorJohann Wolfgang von Goethe

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.2 in

Item Weight19.1 Oz

Item Length0.8 in

Item Width0.5 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceScholarly & Professional

ReviewsThis fine volume -- which also contains a translation of the essays on Eastern culture that Goethe added to make the poems more intelligible -- should make the Divan accessible to many more readers., Ormsby wisely makes no attempt to simulate Goethe's elaborate rhyming stanzas; rather, he provides en face literal prose translations, with helpful explanatory notes at the bottom of each page. Goethe's polyphonic sequence folds lines and phrases from his Persian and Arabic sources into German lyric so as to create an East-West complex at once intimate and theatrical., This edition of the Divan is probably without any serious rivals, even among the best German versions. Eric Ormsby is not only a Goethe scholar and translator; he is also an accomplished scholar of Islam -- of Muslim religion, languages, literature, and culture -- and as a result possesses a comprehensive knowledge of the original sources from which, at a considerable remove, Goethe's poems were derived. The scholarly apparatus is far more than one has any right to hope for. No other edition, certainly, offers so full an appreciation and illumination of both the Eastern and the Western sides of the text., ...what I really want to say is how exhilarating and enjoyable it is to read a book that combines such strikingly different kinds of artistic excellence and such diverse perspectives with the underlying coherence that comes from the shared reference to Goethe's original cycle., Ormsby's book has the whole Divan + all the short, eccentric, extremely interesting essays that Goethe originally included--more than a hundred pages' worth., "[Ormsby] knows the languages in question, differentiating, for instance, the poetic forms in Goethe's Divan from the inexhaustible prosody of Hafiz's Persian. His familiarity with the commentaries on Hafiz's work and on the "Eastern" context of the traditions on which Hafiz himself drew (and Hammer and Goethe in turn) is evident in accompanying footnotes."

Dewey Edition23

Dewey Decimal831.6

SynopsisIn 1814, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe read the poems of the great fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafiz in a newly published translation by Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall. For Goethe, the book was a revelation. He felt a deep connection with Hafiz and Persian poetic traditions, and was immediately inspired to create his own West-Eastern Divan as a lyrical conversation between the poetry and history of his native Germany and that of Persia. The resulting collection engages with the idea of the other and unearths lyrical connections between cultures. The West-Eastern Divan is one of the world's great works of literature, an inspired masterpiece, and a poetic linking of European and Persian traditions. This new bilingual edition expertly presents the wit, intelligence, humor, and technical mastery of the poetry in Goethe's Divan . In order to preserve the work's original power, Eric Ormsby has created this translation in clear contemporary prose rather than in rhymed verse, which tends to obscure the works sharpness. This edition is also accompanied by explanatory notes of the verse in German and in English and a translation of Goethe's own commentary, the "Notes and Essays for a Better Understanding of the West-Eastern Divan ." This edition not only bring this classic collection to English-language readers, but also, at a time of renewed Western unease about the other, to open up the rich cultural world of Islam., In 1814, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe read the poems of the great fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafiz in a newly published translation by the Austrian scholar Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall. The book was a revelation. He referred to Hafiz as his twin and was immediately inspired to create a Divan of his own. At the same time Goethe met and fell in love with Marianne von Willemer and the homage he had begun to Hafiz blossomed into a duet for two lovers. In this much anticipated new translation, Eric Ormsby's clear prose is accompanied by explanatory notes of Goethe's verse, in both German and English, and of his commentary, the 'Notes and Essays for a Better Understanding of the West-Eastern Divan. Includes all the poems in the 1819 and 1827 editions together with more than 50 poems published posthumously. Book jacket.

LC Classification NumberPT2026.W3