Goethe and Patriarchy: Faust and the Fates of Desire

by James Simpson

This book traces the history of a complex sexual fantasy which features recurrently in Goethe's writings from his days as a student in Leipzig to the final years as Europe's most celebrated living poet. Simpson shows how the young man's fantasy of innocent sexuality became an increasingly troubled one during the poet's first decade in Weimar. Goethe began to recognize in it a submerged element: the incestuous roots of desire. Triggered by this discovery,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1900755041
• ISBN13: 9781900755047
• Release Date: November 1998
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 336 Pages