About this title: In "Elective Affinities", a novel of tragic love, Goethe employs all the requisites of sentimental romance to give a deeply ironic perspective to the idea of love.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
Date Published: 1963
ISBN-13:9780895269560ISBN:0895269562
Description: Good in good dust jacket. Good, In good dust jacket. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 321 p. Ex-Library expected imperfections. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books
Date Published: 1978
ISBN-13:9780140442427ISBN:0140442421
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Clean pages, notes written in margins throughout text, around first 30 pages have dog eared corner, tight binding. Text in English, German. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 304 p. Penguin Classics. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Penguin Books
Date Published: 1978
ISBN-13:9780140442427ISBN:0140442421
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Text in English, German. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 304 p. Penguin Classics. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Hardback.
Publisher: Henry Regnery Co, Chicago
Date Published: 1963
Description: Fair condition dust jacket. Near very good condition. 305 pp. Previous owner's name. Small amount of underlining on first two pages of introduction. read more
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Minor extremity wear, light rubbing otherwise a near fine copy. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 300 p. Penguin Classics. Audience: General/trade. This book reflects the conflict which Goethe felt between his high regard for the idea of marriage and his experience of spontaneous passion. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing,
Date Published: 1962.
Description: Vg in tan boards/8vo. /274 pp. /introduction by Frederick Ungar/translated by James Anthony Froude and R. Dillon Boylan. Literature. LIT2/4151. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Date Published: 1999-03
ISBN-13:9780192837769ISBN:0192837761
Description: Good. Reading crease in front cover at edge of spine; back cover creased. Some edge wear; stray pen-mark on bottom edge of book. NOT an ex-library book; no publisher's remainder marks. Military (APO/FPO) orders are welcomed-Thank you for your service. read more
Description: Very Good. 12mo. 300pp. Penguin Classics edition of Goethe's fiction describing the emotional turmoil into which Eduard and Charlotte are thrown by the introduction into their home of two fresh faces; translated with an introduction by RJ Hollingdale; this copy has some light foxing to endpapers and text block, o.w. Very Good throughout in very lightly rubbed covers. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Frederick Ungar Publishing,, NY:
Date Published: 1962
Description: Very Good in Very Good dust jacket. A novel. Translated from the German. First edition thus. Very good in a very good dust jacket. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr, Cary, North Carolina, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1994
ISBN-13:9780192828613ISBN:0192828614
Description: Very Good. 16mo-over 5¾"-6¾" tall 244 PGS., SPINE UNCREASED, TEXT UNMARKED, PAGES YELLOWED AND STARTING TO TAN AT EDGES, LIGHTLY RUBBED COVER EDGES. read more
"Herr Goethe definitely had a passion for drama and tragedy. Except this time she dies but, don't cry yet, he joins her in death (gothic, right?) and "Thus the lovers lie sleeping side by side ; peace hovers above their resting-place ; fair angel faces gaze down upon them from aloft. And what happiness is in store for them at the moment of their common awakening!"
It started promising, a not-so-young couple's life is disturbed by 2 newcomers and using the chemical process of elective affinities, 2 new couples form; the marriage disintegrates and from this moment onward the pace slows down to the point of boredom just to be revived in the last 50 pages in full speed. Thank God Romanticism is over!"
"It was interesting. Goethe wrote this book in part as a meditation and exploration of the scientific developments that were happening at the time. Specifically he was interested in chemistry and the law of attraction. "The tendency of those elements which, when they come into contact, at once take hold of, and act on one another, we call 'affinity', states one of the characters in the book. So Goethe applies these laws that are being discovered in chemistry to human relationships, and so creates a sort of 'formula romance'. It was interesting to see how he wove these different scientific ideas and also the current aesthetic philosophy into the story through the conversations of the characters and the structure of the plot. At one point the narrator observes: "He who looks at Beauty is proof against the breath of Evil; he is in harmony with himself and the whole world."(52). This is in line with Kant's notion of beauty, which Goethe would have been aware of at the time."
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