Difference between revisions of "Jane Austen and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe"

Revision as of 13:27, 19 April 2007

Looking at my chronologically ordered bookshelf, a recent change it received after Olaf's constant waves of ideas upon the rocks of my mind, it dawned on me that the colourful copy of Jane Austen's Emma takes a radiant place right between my Reclam editions of Goethe's Faust I and II. How could that be? Why is it that reading Jane Austen I certainly don't feel as much at home as reading Siri Hustvedt but not quite as remote as when browsing through Goethe's masterpiece? Why is it that I consider Goethe to be the corner stone of German literature, laden with tradition and importance, yet, at the same time, experience so many difficulties trying to understand his text, feeling the need to consult secondary material, while Jane Austen's novels seem to speak to me without the urgent need for critical help?

The ominous year of 1750 comes to my mind and I wonder if more ideas will have filled my head after a lunch with Olaf. Anna Auguscik 13:27, 19 April 2007 (CEST)