Start gifting
Libro.fm for Business
Start a membership, get two free audiobooks
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account
Limited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks!
Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new one credit per month membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Sign up today
Gift audiobook credit bundles
You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.
Start giftingGoethe
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreIn 1878 the Victorian critic Matthew Arnold wrote: "Goethe is the greatest poet of modern times . . . because having a very considerable gift for poetry, he was at the same time, in the width, depth, and richness of his criticism of life, by far our greatest modern man."
In this Very Short Introduction Ritchie Robertson covers the life and work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832): scientist, administrator, artist, art critic, and supreme literary writer in a vast variety of genres. Looking at Goethe's poetry, novels, and drama pieces, as well as his travel writing, autobiography, and essays on art and aesthetics, Robertson analyzes some of the key themes in his works: love, nature, religion, and tragedy. Dispelling the misconception of Goethe as a sedate Victorian sage, Robertson shows how much of his art was rooted in turbulent personal conflicts, and draws on recent research to present a complete portrait of the scientific work and political activity which accompanied Goethe's writings.
Ritchie Robertson is Taylor Professor of German at the University of Oxford. He is Research Director for the Modern Languages Faculty, co-director (with Carolin Duttlinger and Katrin Kohl) of the Oxford Kafka Research Centre, convenor of the Bithell Series of Dissertations in German, and editor of the series Germanic Literatures. He is the author of The 'Jewish Question' in German Literature, 1749-1939: Emancipation and its Discontents, Mock-Epic Poetry from Pope to Heine, and Kafka; A Very Short Introduction. He has translated several German authors into English for the Oxford World's Classics and Penguin Classics series, and has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 2004.
British audiobook narrator and AudioFile Earphones Award winner Nigel Patterson has many credits as a stage, screen, and voice-over actor that influence his powerful characterization across a broad range of genres. AudioFile commented "his keen ear and impeccable diction give insights into the prevailing attitudes of the period . . . his wholly credible characters stay with you long after you unplug." A graduate linguist of the University of Oxford, he is fluent in French and Spanish, has lived and worked in the U.S. for fifteen years, and knows many different accents and dialects from around the world.