Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther (New York: Vintage Classics, 1990). Die Leiden des jungen Werthers [The Sorrows of Young Werther] was published in 1774 and is a quintessential example of early Romanticism and the Sturm und Drang movement. It’s what is called an “epistolary novel”: a novel...
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust: A Tragedy, trans. Walter Arndt, ed. Cyrus Hamlin, 2nd edition (NewYork: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001). Goethe’s Faust has been on my reading list for a long time. I finally got through it, and it was nothing like I expected. My exposure to Faust has been through music and music...