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on a Pilgrimage Hesperus Press, 2010. 
Few words emerge more strikingly in Goethe’s late work than that of Verrat or "betrayal." The three stories collected here are all drawn from a creative period in Goethe’s life that began when he turned fifty and ended with his death at the age of eighty-two. They have been brought together because of their shared interest in this provocative nexus of erotic and communicative betrayal that became a hallmark of Goethe's later career. Whether it is the young pilgrimess who sings a tale of a miller’s daughter betraying her lover to her family; the young man who betrays his true feelings about a mismatched fiancée; or the comical coach ride of "Not too far!" in which everyone betrays everyone else, infidelity was at the very heart of Goethe’s thinking about literature towards the end of his life. As he would famously write in one of the poems accompanying his Oriental reverie, The West-East Divan (1816-17): "Writing poetry is itself a betrayal." |
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