As we reach the end of the tragedy of the First Part of Faust and look back, we seem to have come, with Mephistopheles, upon that midway height where we can see only with astonishment “ how Mammon in ...

1811-1812. A rich autumn of grape harvesting, of golden forests and red sunset skies. The last but two symphonies and the last violin sonata. Lovely declining days and latter-day loves. And the ...

The biographer of a truly world-historical writer finds his work weighted with a double burden. He must trace how his subject’s private passions and follies gave rise to original art, and he must show ...

If Johann Wolfgang von Goethe remains a mere name to most English readers, it is certainly not for want of trying. Even before Goethe died, in 1832, Thomas Carlyle had begun a campaign to make England ...

“Close thy Byron, open thy Goethe!”, wrote the 19th-century historian Thomas Carlyle. The English-speaking readers who followed his advice can probably be counted on one hand, so AN Wilson’s choice to ...