A fresh study of one of the most perplexing and daring novels ever written, one that was largely misunderstood when it first appeared, and which has emerged only in the last two decades as a work that pointed forward, stylistically and structurally, to the modernist novels of the twentieth century. Bahr shows how Goethe subordinated the role of the author-narrator, making use of a variety of sophisticated narrative devices, such as the archive, the interpolated novella (some of whose characters appear as 'real' figures in the novel itself!) to distance himself from the work, thus ironizing its apparent meaning.
- ISBN10 1571130969
- ISBN13 9781571130969
- Publish Date 15 October 1998
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 28 May 2021
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Imprint Camden House Inc
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 139
- Language English