OUR STORE IS CLOSED ON ANZAC DAY: THURSDAY 25 APRIL
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a German poet, novelist, playwright, courtier, and natural philosopher. He is the author of many works, most famously the poetic drama, Faust. Eric Ormsby is a translator, scholar of Islamic thought, and senior research associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies. He has published seven poetry collections and two critical works on poetry and translation.
"""...what I really want to say is how exhilarating and enjoyable it is to read a book that combines such strikingly different kinds of artistic excellence and such diverse perspectives with the underlying coherence that comes from the shared reference to Goethe's original cycle.""--Marjorie Perloff ""Polyphonic Voices"" ""Ormsby wisely makes no attempt to simulate Goethe's elaborate rhyming stanzas; rather, he provides en face literal prose translations, with helpful explanatory notes at the bottom of each page. Goethe's polyphonic sequence folds lines and phrases from his Persian and Arabic sources into German lyric so as to create an East-West complex at once intimate and theatrical.""--Marjorie Perloff ""Times Literary Supplement - Books of the Year 2019"" ""This fine volume -- which also contains a translation of the essays on Eastern culture that Goethe added to make the poems more intelligible -- should make the Divan accessible to many more readers.""-- ""Times Literary Supplement"" ""Ormsby's book has the whole Divan + all the short, eccentric, extremely interesting essays that Goethe originally included--more than a hundred pages' worth.""--Marjorie Perloff ""Rhino Poetry"""
