West-East Divan: Poems, with "Notes and Essays": Goethe's Intercultural Dialogues (Global Academic Publishing Books)

Translations of Goethe s poems about Arabia and Persia and his essays on Islamic culture.

In West-East Divan (1819), Germany s greatest poet J. W. von Goethe offered a work of lasting appeal. Stimulated by the Divan ( Collection ) by medieval pub poet Hafiz, Goethe blends his own identity with that of the Persian Sufi master who sang the delights of wine and tavern romance in a context of Qur anic allusion. Martin Bidney accompanies his rendering with commentary poems; and Peter Anton von Arnim joins him to offer, as well, the first translation into English of Goethe s Notes and Essays, a pioneering guide to the cultural history of the Middle East. Bidney s Introduction clarifies the transformation brought about in Goethe s thought by his Muslim mentor.

Bidney s translations of the Divan poems render, for the first time, both form and content in a way that is faithful to the original. The poetical commentaries authored by Bidney are of a stunning originality and are composed entirely in the spirit of Goethe s own conception of world literature as a deeply felt interchange among peoples and cultures. I recommend this book most emphatically and with highest praise, in the hope that after nearly two hundred years it will help Goethe s West-East Divan to make the breakthrough it deserves in the English-speaking world. Katharina Mommsen

Bidney s Introduction correctly indicates that Goethe [offers] one of the most notable and far-reaching visions of East-West understanding achieved in modern times [This] englishing of the Divan [is] a pleasure to read. Khalil Semaan