Goethe Iphigenie Auf Tauris

Annotation

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. An eminent German critic once said, that Goethe's Iphigenie was 'the only poetical production in the literature of Germany nearly every line of which requires a full explanation; for whilst in his Faust there occur scenes and a number of passages which can be well understood without any further elucidation, such is not the case with his Iphigenie, which the reader cannot fully appreciate or thoroughly comprehend as a whole, unless he understands throughout the work every allusion, is familiar with all the parallel passages in the classical authors, and is, besides, enabled by a complete analysis to enter fully into the spirit of the noble production.' Admitting that opinion, the truth of which is generally acknowledged, it will readily be granted that a thorough and complete commentary on Goethe's Ip bigenie is an absolute necessity for English readers of that drama. Guided by this fact, and by my own long experience as a teacher in this country, I have explained and elucidated in my Notes every passage - nay, every single expression - which seemed to me to require elucidation and interpretation. I have also, from beginning to end, explained every mythological allusion, pointed out classical reminiscences, and quoted to the best of my knowledge parallel passages from Greek and Latin authors. Goethe's Iphigenie is the fruit of his classical readings, which he chiefly carried on with Herder; and there are therefore to be found in this drama numerous reminiscences, which can be traced not only to the Tauric Iphigenia of Euripides and other plays of that poet, but also to the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, treating of kindred subjects, and to Homer.