Verse Plays and Epic

Five enduring works that demonstrate Goethe’s mastery of poetic form and engagement with neoclassical ideals

This volume presents the four plays and the narrative poem that, along with Faust, established Goethe as one of the masters of European verse drama and epic. These timeless works display a balance between poetic form and ethical sensibility that characterizes much of Goethe’s work during the era of Weimar Classicism. Verse Plays and Epic features authoritative English translations of the dramas Iphigenia in Tauris, Torquato Tasso, The Natural Daughter, and Pandora along with the epic poem Hermann and Dorothea.

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 Michael Hamburger, Hunter Hannum, and David Luke