Elective affinities : a novel
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Elective affinities : a novel
(The world's classics)
Oxford University Press, 1994
- Other Title
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Wahlverwandtschaften
- Uniform Title
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Wahlverwandtschaften
Available at 3 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [xxiii])
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Goethe conducts an experiment with the lives of people who are living badly. Charlotte and Eduard, aristocrats with little to occupy them, invite Ottilie and the Captain into their lives - against morality, good sense and conscious volition all four are drawn into relationships as inexorably as if they were substances in a chemical equation. The novel asks whether there is free will or not. More disturbingly, it confronts its characters with the monstrous consequences of their repression of any real life in themselves. It seems that they are sunk so far in convention, fear and unnaturalness that a real life, or even the beginnings of one, must appear to them as something terrible and destructive. Goethe wrote "Elective Affinities" when he was 60 and long established as Germany's literary giant. He remained an uneasy and scandalous figure. David Constantine is the translator of Holderlein's "Selected Poems".
by "Nielsen BookData"