A Village Romeo and Juliet (Swiss-German Classics)

Gottfried Keller

Ιαν 2015 · Mondial

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Love is necessarily an important element in all imaginative literature, but with Gottfried Keller it does not overshadow all other aspects of life. Great passion we do not find in his works. In "A Village Romeo and Juliet", it is not ill-consuming love that makes the two young people seek death, but the bitter realization of life's law, as they understood it, which made it impossible for them ever to be united. The story is a fine illustration of what a great artist may make out of his raw material. Keller had read in a newspaper a report of the suicide of two young people, the sort of tragedy that we may read almost daily in newspapers; he seized upon the possibilities of the situation and the result was this story, perhaps the best he ever wrote. --- Gottfried Keller (1819-1890) was one of the foremost Swiss novelists and one of the most original figures of German literature since Goethe, a master of style worthy to be classed with the great names of all ages. (John Albrecht Walz)

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This Swiss German-language poet and novelist, born in Zurich, is known for his widely read realistic short stories of Swiss provincial life.The Saturday Review wrote of his autobiographical Green Henry (1854-55), "The book's instantly captivating quality is the charm with which a quietly sequential life of curiosity and perception is narrated in the pellucid recollection of the mature poet. Keller's eye for the colorful scene and his skill in endowing the concrete particular with something like archetypal significance make him an artist of rare integrity." His best work, A Village Romeo and Juliet (1876), "tells of the tragic fate of two youthful lovers who are prevented from making an honest marriage by the sins of their fathers" (Ernst Rose).