Goethe Yearbook 32

This year's volume features special sections on gambling in the Age of Goethe and on Goethe and music, as well as book reviews, a translation of Lenz's "Zerbin" and other essays on the period.


The Goethe Yearbook is a publication of the Goethe Society of North America, showcasing North American and international scholarship on Goethe and other authors and aspects of German literature and culture of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In volume 32, Joanna Raisbeck analyzes two recently discovered sonnets by Karoline von Günderrode, uncovering an a priori pessimism that anticipates nineteenth-century thinkers. This is followed by Brian Donarski's scholarly introduction to and translation of Lenz's Zerbin, or Recent Philosophy-the first time this text has appeared in English. Ethan Blass reads surprising similarities in staging and visual language between Goethe's Die natürliche Tochter and Hitchcock's film Marnie, arguing that Goethe's theatrical innovations are protocinematic. The next four articles, by Claire Baldwin, Austen Hinkley, Jürgen Overhoff, and William H. Carter, offer an exploration of the theme "Gambling in the Age of Goethe." These essays touch on both canonical and forgotten figures to illuminate a rich discourse around chance, coincidence, risk management, and play that connects with key aspects of historical discourse and literary representation in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The final two pieces, by Jonathan Guez and Matthew Poon, treat musical responses to Goethe's works by Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann. A collection of book reviews that offer a comprehensive view of new work in the wider field closes the volume.