A comprehensive account of Goethe's relationship to Arabian culture, mediated by his interest in certain poets and texts and by his highly nuanced attitude toward Islam. Abundant evidence bears witness to Johann Wolfgang Goethe's lifelong predilection for the literature, religion, and culture of ancient Arabia. Scholars have hardly yet touched upon Goethe's relationship to Arabic literature. His remarkable West-oestlicher Divan suggested that his interest in the "Orient" was limited to the Persian poet Hafez, his chief model for the collection, and to the culture of Persia. Yet significant aspects of this work and others stem from pre-Islamic and Islamic traditions of Arabian literature. This study examines comprehensively Goethe's relationship to Arabian culture, mediated primarily by his interest in certain poets and texts and by his highly nuanced attitude toward Muhammad, the Qur'an, and Islam. Katharina Mommsen has explored exhaustively Goethe's opinions about Arab poets and their sources, the numerous traces of Arabic poetry that entered his works, and thegrounds for his ambivalent affinity for Islam and its Prophet. Extensive textual evidence reveals how throughout his life Goethe's temperament determined his interest in particular Arabian poets and was in turn modulated by them.The study also opens new perspectives on Goethe's biography, especially in the early nineteenth century when he was writing the Divan. Katharina Mommsen's studies of Goethe, including Goethe und die Moallakat, Goethe und 1001 Nacht, and numerous articles on Goethe and Islam, are recognized internationally. She is Professor Emerita of German at Stanford University. Michael M. Metzger is Professor Emeritus of German at the University at Buffalo.

This documentation of the genesis of Goethe's works was compiled in the 1950s by Momme and Katharina Mommsen at the Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften [German Academy of Sciences] in East Berlin.and is now continued at the Mommsen Foundation for the Advancement of Goethe Research in California. The work reconstructs and documents the history of the genesis of Goethe's works, based on all of the currently available documents, letters and personal journal entries written by Goethe himself and those close to him. The material includes numerous texts that were previously unknown or largely ignored. The carefully edited documents, which are arranged in chronological order, provide unique insight into the creative processes behind Goethe's works and into both the intellectual and personal cosmos in which Goethe created them. The background of the genesis of his biographical, historical, art-theoretical and natural-scientific writings is also documented. The first three volumes of the work have been published by Walter de Gruyter in 2006. The first two volumes are reproductions of the volumes originally published in 1958, which have been expanded to include new documents. It is planned to publish one additional volume every two years. The complete work comprise approximately 18 volumes

This documentation of the genesis of Goethe's works was compiled in the 1950s by Momme and Katharina Mommsen at the Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften [German Academy of Sciences] in East Berlin.and is now continued at the Mommsen Foundation for the Advancement of Goethe Research in California. The work reconstructs and documents the history of the genesis of Goethe's works, based on all of the currently available documents, letters and personal journal entries written by Goethe himself and those close to him. The material includes numerous texts that were previously unknown or largely ignored. The carefully edited documents, which are arranged in chronological order, provide unique insight into the creative processes behind Goethe's works and into both the intellectual and personal cosmos in which Goethe created them. The background of the genesis of his biographical, historical, art-theoretical and natural-scientific writings is also documented. The first three volumes of the work have been published by Walter de Gruyter in 2006. The first two volumes are reproductions of the volumes originally published in 1958, which have been expanded to include new documents. It is planned to publish one additional volume every two years. The complete work comprise approximately 18 volumes

This documentation of the genesis of Goethe's works was compiled in the 1950s by Momme and Katharina Mommsen at the Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften [German Academy of Sciences] in East Berlin.and is now continued at the Mommsen Foundation for the Advancement of Goethe Research in California. The work reconstructs and documents the history of the genesis of Goethe's works, based on all of the currently available documents, letters and personal journal entries written by Goethe himself and those close to him. The material includes numerous texts that were previously unknown or largely ignored. The carefully edited documents, which are arranged in chronological order, provide unique insight into the creative processes behind Goethe's works and into both the intellectual and personal cosmos in which Goethe created them. The background of the genesis of his biographical, historical, art-theoretical and natural-scientific writings is also documented. The first three volumes of the work have been published by Walter de Gruyter in 2006. The first two volumes are reproductions of the volumes originally published in 1958, which have been expanded to include new documents. It is planned to publish one additional volume every two years. The complete work comprise approximately 18 volumes