Goethe's Art of Living

by Katharina Mommsen, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Whaley

2003 · Trafford Publishing

Goethe researcher Katharine Mommsen draws the reader into the fascinating life of Germany's greatest literary genius, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). We discover how ordinary items such as the food we eat or the beverages we drink, and everyday activities like hiking, ice-skating, horseback riding, dancing the waltz, and music-making acquire fresh meaning within Goethe's own pantheistic life philosophy. He directed his wisdom toward keeping body and soul healthy, lively, focused, and strong as a basis for a fuller life - for him it became an essential part of the poet's worldly gospel. This book which is composed around hundreds of excerpts from Goethe's works, correspondences and conversations transcends biography, and shows us the poet's art of living in its richness in wit and wisdom, goodness, and love for humanity.

Against Pure Reason

by Johann G. Herder

2005 · Wipf and Stock Publishers

The figure of Johann Gottfried Herder looms increasingly important not only for his prescient contributions to many fields - biblical criticism, philosophy of language, literary criticism, philosophy of history - but also for his pivotal position between the impulses of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. Many of Herder's questions and concerns are more pressing at the end of the modern era than they were at its inception. Bunge's lucid and engaging translations of signal texts from Herder - most appearing here for the first time in English - are arranged thematically: human nature, language, and history; myth and religion; God and nature; literature and the Bible; and Christianity and theology. Along with her extensive Introduction and Bibliography, they constitute an essential resource for coming to terms with the checkered legacy of the Enlightenment.