Goethe: Journey of the Mind (Armchair Traveller): Journeys of the Mind - Softcover

Gabrielle Bersier; Nancy Boerner; Peter Boerner

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1909961523 ISBN 13: 9781909961524

Publisher: Armchair Traveller, 2019

Synopsis

The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is often seen as the quintessential 18th century tourist, though with the exception of a trip to Italy he hardly left his homeland. Compared with many of his peripatetic contemporaries, his actual journeys were very few, and the list of European cities he never set foot in is long. He never saw Vienna, Paris or London, and he only once visited Berlin. During the last 30 years of his life he was essentially a homebound writer, but his intensive mental journeys countered this sedentary lifestyle and the misconception of Goethe as a traveller springs from the uniquely international influence of his writing. Whist Italian Journey is a classic piece of travel writing, it was Goethe s only real physical journey. The majority were only of the mind, taken amid the pages of books by others. In his reading, Goethe was the typical 18th-century armchair traveller, accruing knowledge of other places, both near and far, through the words and eyewitness accounts others. In Goethe: Journeys of the Mind, Nancy Boerner and Gabrielle Bersier explore what it was that made the great polymath distinct from his peers and ask, in the internet age, when it possible to learn about anything from anywhere, how Goethe was able to explore the culture and learning of places he never saw with his own eyes.

About this title

About the Author

Nancy Boerner served as a collection development librarian for Germanic, French, and Italian languages and literatures at Indiana University Bloomington s Well s Library and has translated multiple scholarly publications. Gabrielle S. Bersier, Professor Emerita of German, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (USA), is the author of Wege des Heilens. Goethes physiologische Autobiographie 'Dichtung und Wahrheit' (Koenigshausen & Neumann 2014), Goethes Raetselparodie der Romantik. Eine neue Lesart der 'Wahlverwandtschaften' (Niemeyer 1997), along with numerous articles and book chapters on Goethe's relationship to contemporary literature, art and science. Peter Boerner was born in Estonia and educated in Germany. He was the curator of the Goethe Museum in Düsseldorf for several years and edited a paperback collection of Goethe s works which has now now appeared in 45 volumes. He has published extensively in the fields of Comparative Literature and Germanic Studies and teaches at Indiana University- Bloomington in the United States.

Edition details

• Publisher: Armchair Traveller
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1909961523
• ISBN 13: 9781909961524
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 212