Early Verse Drama and Prose Plays

Eight early plays by Goethe that revolutionized German drama

Goethe’s early plays bear witness to his urgent desire to enliven German theater, an ambition that followed him to the National Theater in Weimar, where he was named director in the early 1790s. Early Verse Drama and Prose Plays brings together eight of these plays, written between 1771 and 1787. Not only do they demonstrate Goethe’s unprecedented versatility in experimenting with new forms of dramatic expression, but they also give insight into his development from Sturm und Drang to classicism. This volume features prose plays (Goetz von Berlichingen with the Iron Hand and Egmont), tragedies and comedies (Clavigo, Stella, and Brother and Sister), and dramatic verse forms (Prometheus, Jery and Betty, and Proserpina).

The Collected Works of Goethe presents modern translations of a representative portion of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s vast body of work. Selected from more than 140 volumes in German, this twelve-volume series remains the standard collection in English and features poetry, drama, fiction, memoir, criticism, and scientific writing.

Edited by Cyrus Hamlin and Frank Ryder
Translated by Robert M. Browning, Michael Hamburger, Cyrus Hamlin, and Frank Ryder