Elective Affinities cover art

Elective Affinities

Preview
Free with 30-day trial
Prime logo New to Audible Prime Member exclusive:
2 credits with free trial
1 credit a month to use on any title to download and keep
Listen to anything from the Plus Catalogue—thousands of Audible Originals, podcasts and audiobooks
Download titles to your library and listen offline
₹199.00 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

Elective Affinities

Written by: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Narrated by: Jonathan Booth
Free with 30-day trial

₹199.00 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for ₹546.23

Buy Now for ₹546.23

Goethe as a novelist is best known for two earlier novels, The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) and Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship (1796). But Elective Affinities, which was published in 1809, is widely regarded as his mature masterpiece, not least because of its unusual provenance, which brings together Goethe the scientist as well as Goethe the writer. Baron Eduard and his second wife Charlotte enjoy a quiet, humdrum existence in their opulent castle, but when he invites his friend the Captain and she invites her niece Ottilie to stay with them, their lives are turned inside out as both hosts begin to feel attracted to their guests. Using one of the chemistry theories of the time (the term ‘elective affinities' was used by Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton) as a metaphor throughout the novel, Goethe juxtaposes social interactions with scientific principles, while illustrating the typically Romantic concern of the individual coming to terms with society. Controversial when first published and still much critically debated today, Goethe's Elective Affinities is an early model for the modern novel.

©1960 Translation by H. M. Waidson (P)2023 W. F. Howes Ltd
Classics Genre Fiction Literary Fiction
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_c
No reviews yet