Overview
Now reaching its 200th anniversary, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s sequence of poems, the West-Eastern Divan serves as the inspiration for this new collection poems by twenty-four international poets. Goethe’s original work shows the poet looking east from his homeland of Germany to build a collection of writing inspired by the poetic traditions of Persia. In twelve books, Goethe writes on a variety of great poetic themes, including love, humor, parables, and paradise. Over the years since its original publication in 1819, the Divan has served as inspiration for a variety of literary, theoretical, and musical responses. A New Divan revisits Goethe’s work in a lively celebration of cross-cultural exchange. Works by twelve poets from the East and twelve from the West respond to the themes laid out in Goethe’s Divan and build bridges between cultures, nationalities, and languages. The poets have been paired to write in response to each of the twelve books of the Divan, and here present their multi-lingual works in eleven different languages, each with a poetic interpretation written in English. Three pairs of essays complement and shed further light on the series of poetic exchanges. These writings mirror the original notes that Goethe included in his West-Eastern Divan. Reaching through time, language, and poetic history, A New Divan offers a lyrical conversation and opens paths of connection across cultures.
Full Product Details
Author: Barbara Schwepcke ,
Bill Swainson ,
Bill Swainson ,
Adonis
Publisher: GINGKO
Imprint: Gingko Library
Dimensions:
Width: 15.30cm
, Height: 2.10cm
, Length: 23.90cm
Weight: 0.448kg
ISBN: 9781909942288
ISBN 10: 1909942286
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 10 June 2019
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Out of stock
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.
Reviews
https://www.ft.com/content/d49e3b78-86df-11e9-b861-54ee436f9768; 'a multilingual delight', Ruth Padel, Financial Times Weekend; https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/a-new-divan-how-german-writer-goethe-is-still-inspiring-writers-through-a-new-project-1.865626
https://www.ft.com/content/d49e3b78-86df-11e9-b861-54ee436f9768; https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/a-new-divan-how-german-writer-goethe-is-still-inspiring-writers-through-a-new-project-1.865626
Author Information
Dr Barbara Schwepcke is the founder of Gingko as well as the chair of its board of trustees. After receiving her doctorate from the London School of Economics she worked as a publisher for Prospect Magazine. In 2003 she founded Haus Publishing. Bill Swainson is a freelance editor and literary consultant. Since 1976 he has worked for leading literary publishers, including John Calder Publishers, Allison & Busby, Harvill Press and Bloomsbury, where he was Senior Commissioning Editor for fifteen years. In 2015 he was awarded an OBE for services to literary translation.
