Richard Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg has been one of the most performed operas ever since its premier in 1868. It was adopted as Germany's national operas ('Nationaloper'), not least because of its historical coincidence with the unification of Germany under Bismarck in 1871. The opera epitomizes themes of Germanness, including what many regard as blatant anti-Semitic imagery, and thus ideally suited the agenda of the Third Reich, or so it seemed. Despite or perhaps because of the ease with which the Nazis appropriated the work, it was selected as the first opera to be performed when the Bayreuth festival re-opened after the War.The first section of this volume, 'Performing Meistersinger, contains three commissioned articles from internationally respected artists - a conductor (Peter Schneider), a stage director (Harry Kupfer) and a singer (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau), all experienced in the performance of this unusually demanding 5-hour work. The second section, 'Meistersinger and History', examines both the representation of German history in the opera and the way the opera has functioned in history through political appropriation and staging practice. The third section, 'Representations', is the most eclectic, exploring in the first place the problematic question of genre from the perspective of a theatrical historian. The chronic issue of Wagner's chief opponent, Eduard Hanslick, and his musical and dramatic representation in the opera as Bessmesser, is then addressed, as are gender issues, and Wagner's own utterances concerning the opera. Contributors: Nicholas Vazsonyi, Peter Schneider, Harry Kupfer, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Hans Rudolf Vaget, Lutz Koepnick, David B.Dennis, Klaus Van Den Berg, Thomas S. Grey, Lydia Goehr, Eva Rieger, Peter HAyng. Nicholas Vazsonyi is Associate Professor of German, University of South Carolina

Volume 12 is dedicated to founding editor Thomas P. Saine, and includes essays on Goethe's novels, plays, and poems, the Ilmpark, Bach, Ossian, Goethe reception, and Schiller. The Goethe Yearbook, first published in 1982, is a publication of the Goethe Society of North America and is dedicated to North American Goethe scholarship. It aims above all to encourage and publish original English-language contributions to the understanding of Goethe and other authors of the Goethezeit, while also welcoming contributions from scholars around the world. The book review section seeks likewise to evaluate a wide selection ofrecent publications on the period, and is important for all scholars of 18th-century literature. Volume 12 honors founding editor Thomas P. Saine with contributions from prominent scholars such as Ehrhard Bahr, Benjamin Bennett, Dieter Borchmeyer, Jane Brown, Jill Kowalik, Ruth Kluger, Meredith Lee, John McCarthy, Jeff Sammons, Helmut Schneider, Hans Vaget, and more. The volume includes essays on Goethe's novels, plays, and poems, the Ilmpark, Bach, Ossian, Goethe reception, and Schiller. Simon J. Richter is associate professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. Book review editor Martha B. Helfer is associate professor of German at the University of Utah.

`a world without love would be no world' Elegy II This bilingual edition of Goethe's erotic poems contains the Roman Elegies (1789), The Diary (1810), and a selection from the Venetian Epigrams of 1790. Editorial censorship has long obscured the true form and content of the Elegies, which were inspired by Goethe's sexual liberation in Italy and his love for the woman he took as his unofficial wife on his return to Germany.They are here presented as Goethe boldly conceived them together with the long-surpressed narrative poem known as The Diary. Superficially the story of a failed sexual adventure by a man of 60, at another level this is a profound study of the psychology of desire and the nature of fidelity, as well as being one of the most beautiful and good-humoured poems in the German language. Completing the edition is a selection from Goethe's more light-hearted and much censored cycle of erotica, the Venetian Epigrams. David Luke's translations do full justice to Goethe's aim of liberating German poetry and restoring sexual love to its central position in human life. Hans Vaget's fine introduction provides the background to these poems, as well as showing some of the profound and little-known connections between them. Johann Wolfgang Goethe was born in 1749, the son of a well-to-do citizen of Frankfurt. In the early 1770's he was the dominating figure of the German literary revival, his tragic novel Werther bringing him international fame. In 1755 he became a minister of state and director of the court theatre and in the 1790's he and his younger contemporary Schiller were the joint architects of Weimar Classicism, the central phase of German literary culture. Faust, written at various stages of his life and in a variety of styles, became a constantly enlarged repository of his personal wisdom and his creative energies never ceased to take new forms. In 1806 he married Christiane Vulpious, having lived with her for eighteen years. He died in 1832. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Sixteen new, carefully focused essays on the prose works of one of the great writers of modernity. Thomas Mann is among the greatest of German prose writers, and was the first German novelist to reach a wide English-speaking readership since Goethe. Novels such as Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain, and Doktor Faustus attest to his mastery of subtle, distanced irony, while novellas such as Death in Venice reveal him at the height of his mastery of language. In addition to fresh insights about these best-known works of Mann, this volume treats less-often-discussed works such as Joseph and His Brothers, Lotte in Weimar, and Felix Krull, as well as his political writings and essays. Mann himself was a paradox: his role as family-father was both refuge and facade; his love of Germany was matched by his contempt for its having embraced Hitler. While in exile during the Nazi period, he functioned as the prime representative of the "good" Germany in the fight against fascism, and he has often been remembered this way in English-speaking lands. But a new view of Mann is emerging half a century after his death: a view of him as one of the great writers of a modernity understood as extending into our 21st century. This volume provides sixteen essays by American and European specialists. They demonstrate the relevance of his writings for our time, making particular use of the biographical material that is now available. Contributors: Ehrhard Bahr, Manfred Dierks, Werner Frizen, Clayton Koelb, Helmut Koopmann, Wolfgang Lederer, Hannelore Mundt, Peter Putz, Jens Rieckmann, Hans Joachim Sandberg, Egon Schwarz, and Hans Vaget. Herbert Lehnert is Research Professor, and Eva Wessell is Lecturer in Humanities, both at the University of California, Irvine.