{"title":"Books by Nicholas Boyle","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9780199206599","title":"German Literature","description":"German writers, from Luther and Goethe to Heine, Brecht, and Günter Grass, have had a profound influence on the modern world. This Very Short Introduction presents an engrossing tour of the course of German literature from the late Middle Ages to the present, focussing especially on the last 250 years. Emphasizing the economic and religious context of many masterpieces of German literature, it highlights how they can be interpreted as responses to social and political changes within an often violent and tragic history. The result is a new and clear perspective which illuminates the power of German literature and the German intellectual tradition, and its impact on the wider cultural world. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56226935898485,"sku":"9780199206599","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780199206599_44ede725-2a86-401f-aa85-4d8f5fff85ae.jpg?v=1786012258"},{"product_id":"goethe-the-poet-and-the-age","title":"Goethe: The Poet and the Age","description":"The long-awaited third and fourth volumes of Nicholas Boyle's magisterial biography Goethe: The Poet and the Age cover the period of the Napoleonic Empire in Germany, relatively neglected by literary scholars as years national humiliation. Yet these years saw the publication by Goethe of the major works of his maturity by which his European reputation was established in the nineteenth century and beyond: Faust: Part One, the Theory of Colour, the mysterious novel Elective Affinities, and the three volumes of his autobiography, Poetry and Truth. Neglect of the political and personal context in which these works were written has led to serious misunderstandings which these volumes aim to remedy. Volume III brings to life the turbulent years from 1803 to 1809 which saw the extension of Napoleon's rule to Germany and his establishment of the 'continental system' to blockade British commerce. Vivid accounts are given of Prussia's disastrous defeat at Jena in 1806 and the traumatic occupation of Weimar; of Napoleon's Congress of Erfurt in 1808; and of Weimar's bloody participation in his campaigns in the Tirol and Austria. The direct consequences for Goethe include his sudden marriage to his long-term mistress, Christiana Vulpius, his nervous breakdown after the defeat at Jena (reflected in his drawings and the polemical sections of Theory of Colour), his gradual reconciliation with the Napoleonic settlement and Napoleon's courtship of him at Erfurt, his long working vacations amid the glittering society at the Bohemian spas, and the inspiration for Elective Affinities, of which a radically new interpretation is proposed. Among the many figures whose intellectual and personal relationship with Goethe is depicted are: Schiller, whose death haunted him throughout this period; Hegel, whose Phenomenology is shown to owe much to Goethe; the Romantic dramatist, Zacharias Werner; Silvie von Ziegesar and Bettina Brentano with whom he was linked in sentimental affairs; and his son, August, with whom his relationship gradually matured.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":57499220509045,"sku":"9780198980612","price":30.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57697051279733,"sku":"9780198996576","price":35.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"goethe-the-poet-and-the-age-2","title":"Goethe: The Poet and the Age","description":"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 drama of this exciting time, to give lucid accounts of important thinkers whom English readers have hitherto found inaccessible, and to analyse in new ways Goethe's works of the period, notably Wilhelm Meister, The Natural Daughter, and Faust","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57680071655797,"sku":"9780198996583","price":35.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-nicholas-boyle.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}