Best German Dramas & Plays Books
Here you will get Best German Dramas & Plays Books For you.This is an up-to-date list of recommended books.
1. Faust: Parts I & II
Author: by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Published at: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (January 20, 2015)
ISBN: 978-1507547267
Faust Parts I & II – Goethe. A translation into English by A.S. Kline with illustrations by Eugne Delacroix. Goethe’s two-part dramatic work, Faust, based on a traditional theme, and finally completed in 1831, is an exploration of that restless intellectual and emotional urge which found its fullest expression in the European Romantic movement, to which Goethe was an early and major contributor.
Part I of the work outlines a pact Faust makes with the devil, Mephistopheles, and encompasses the tragedy of Gretchen, whom Faust seduces. Part II, developed over a long period of Goethe’s later life, reflects Goethe’s own transition from a predominantly Romantic to a wider world-view and explores more extensive themes, including the values of the Classical past, as it moves towards the work’s resolution.
The protagonist, Faust, is presented in a complex manner, and Goethe’s treatment of the subject matter raises ethical and spiritual issues, many of which are not resolved within the drama itself. Goethe’s stress is on Faust’s striving towards the good, and on the nature of human error, rather than on the traditional Christian view of sin and redemption, and the play’s opening sections and its conclusion can be seen as humanist allegory or metaphor rather than an expression of orthodox religious belief.
2. Faust: A Tragedy, Parts One and Two, Fully Revised
Author: by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Published at: Yale University Press; Revised ed. edition (July 29, 2014)
ISBN: 978-0300189698
Greenberg has accomplished a magnificent literary feat. He has taken a great German work, until now all but inaccessible to English readers, and made it into a sparkling English poem, full of verve and wit. Greenberg’s translation lives; it is done in a modern idiom but with respect for the original text; I found it a joy to read.
Irving Howe (on the earlier edition) A classic of world literature, Goethe’s Faust is a philosophical and poetic drama full of satire, irony, humor, and tragedy. Martin Greenberg re-creates not only the text’s varied meter and rhyme but also its diverse tones and stylesdramatic and lyrical, reflective and farcical, pathetic and coarse, colloquial and soaring.
His rendition of Faust is the first faithful, readable, and elegantly written translation of Goethe’s masterpiece available in English. At last, the Greenberg Faust is available in a single volume, together with a thoroughly updated translation, preface, and notes.
3. Faust (Calla Editions)
Author: by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Published at: Calla Editions; Reprint edition (October 17, 2013)
ISBN: 978-1606600504
At the time of Faust’s 1808 publication, Goethe was already famous as one of the most accomplished men of his era. A statesman as well as an artist and the writer of scientific essays, poetry, and criticism, the German author sealed his immortality with this ambitious drama and its embodiment of eighteenth-century humanism.
Goethe based his protagonist on figures of history and legend, and of all the many Faustian legends, his remains the best known. This sumptuous edition features John Anster’s excellent translation, acclaimed for its truth to the meter of the original German verse.
Nearly 30 illustrations by Harry Clarke, eight of them in full color, enhance the text. Created in the early 1920s, Clarke’s images reflect the influences of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, forming a powerful contribution to the supernatural air of Goethe’s masterpiece.
4. Spring Awakening
Author: by FRANK WEDEKIND
Published at: FSG Adult; First edition (September 4, 2007)
ISBN: 978-0865479784
First performed in Germany in 1906, Frank Wedekind’s controversial play Spring Awakening closed after one night in New York in 1917 amid charges of obscenity and public outrage. For the better part of the twentieth century Wedekind’s intense body of work was largely unpublished and rarely performed.
Yet the play’s subject matterteenage desire, suicide, abortion, and homosexualityis as explosive and important today as it was acentury ago. Spring Awakening follows the lives of three teenagers, Melchior, Moritz, and Wendl, as they navigate their entry into sexual awareness.
Unlike so many works that claim to tell the truth of adolescence, Spring Awakening offers no easy answersor redemption. Today, one hundred years after the play’s first performance, a new musical version of this essential modern masterpiece is being hailed as the “best new musical …
In a generation” (John Heilpern, The New York Observer). Franzen’s version of the textfor so long poorly served in Englishis unique in capturing the bizarre and inimitable comic spirit that animates almost every line of this unrelentingly tragic play. There couldn’t be a better time for this thrilling, definitive new translation.
5. Faust: Parts One and Two (Dover Thrift Editions)
Author: by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Published at: Dover Publications (June 13, 2018)
ISBN: 978-0486821887
The best-known work of the Enlightenment literary giant Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust took a lifetime to write. For more than sixty years, Goethe worked on his masterpiece and ultimately divided it into two parts, the second of which was published in 1832, the year of his death.
Hailed as Germany’s greatest contribution to world literature, Faust drew upon the legends surrounding a sixteenth-century sorcerer as well as Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus. But Goethe’s epic interpretation further explores the tension between learning and experience, and in this version Faust sells his soul not simply for magic powers but also for a heightened sense of existence.
Part One of the dramatic poem concerns the magician’s devilish pact with Mephistopheles and his seduction of Gretchen, an innocent girl. Part Two incorporates a vast array of influences theological, mythological, philosophical, political, musical, and literaryto relate Faust’s life at court, his romance with Helen of Troy, and his salvation.
6. Unwavering: Love and Resistance in WW2 Germany (World War 2 Trilogy) (Volume 3)
Author: by Marion Kummerow
Published at: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1st edition (March 25, 2017)
ISBN: 978-1544886152
From inspiration to heartache, hope is fleeting as freedom becomes a distant memory Wilhelm Quedlin’s plan to change the tide of the war is thwarted when he is arrested. And, making matters worse, with the arrest of his wife, Hilde, the fate of their children is thrown into chaos.
The situation is desperate and the circumstances become even more dire when Q finds out who was behind his capture and imprisonment.Yet hope remains… In the midst of their situation, Q and Hilde are encouraged when they meet like-minded political prisoners in the penitentiary and rumors of reprieval make the rounds.
Despite darkness and despair looming in the distance, their hope never fades. Will they evade the inevitable and come out unscathed by the claws of the Gestapo?
7. Die Verwandlung / The Metamorphosis: Bilingual Edition German – English | Side By Side Translation | Parallel Text Novel For Advanced Language Learning | Learn German With Stories
Author: by Franz Kafka
Published at: Independently published (November 24, 2019)
ISBN: 978-1711197456
This version of the novella has been accommodated for German learners. The original German version of the story has been aligned side-by-side with the official English translation by Ian Johnston. German is printed on the left page, and English on the right page.
The parallel text version will save you from reaching for the dictionary to locate the meaning of a word. As a result, you’ll have a smoother reading experience.”The Metamorphosis” (original German title: “Die Verwandlung”) is a short novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915.
It is often cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world. The story begins with a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking to find himself transformed into an insect.
8. The Robbers and Wallenstein (Penguin Classics)
Author: by Friedrich Schiller
Published at: Penguin Classics; First Edition Thus (February 28, 1980)
ISBN: 978-0140443684
Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) was one of the most influential of all playwrights, the author of deeply moving dramas that explored human fears, desires and ideals. Written at the age of twenty-one, The Robbers was his first play. A passionate consideration of liberty, fraternity and deep betrayal, it quickly established his fame throughout Germany and wider Europe.
Wallenstein, produced nineteen years later, is regarded as Schiller’s masterpiece: a deeply moving exploration of a flawed general’s struggle to bring the Thirty Years War to an end against the will of his Emperor. Depicting the deep corruption caused by constant fighting between Protestants and Catholics, it is at once a meditation on the unbounded possible strength of humanity, and a tragic recognition of what can happen when men allow themselves to be weak.
9. The Investigation
Author: by Peter Weiss
Published at: Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd; First Printing, Underlining edition (July 1, 2000)
ISBN: 978-0714503011
The Investigation is a dramatic reconstruction of the Frankfurt War Crimes trials, based on the actual evidence given. This testimony, concerning Auschwitz and the atrocities which were enacted there, has been edited and extracted by Peter Weiss into a dramatic document that relies solely and completely on the facts for its effectiveness.
There is no artistic license, no manipulation of facts and figures, no rearrangement of events for theatrical effect. Nameless witnesses stand and recall their appalling memories of Auschwitz, allowing us to bear witness to their painful and painstaking search for truth and, ultimately, justice.
What emerges is a chastening and purging documentary of deeply moving power. Peter Weiss was born in 1916 and settled in Sweden before the outbreak of World War II. Apart from his writing, he was also well known as a painter, theatrical and operatic director, and a film maker.
His magnificent play Marat/Sade, which is also available from Marion Boyars Publishers, established his reputation among English-speakling audiences as a revolutionary dramatist, and has continued to be a bestselling classic.He died in 1982.
10. The Boy Who Saw In Colours
Author: by Lauren Robinson
Published at: Lauren Robinson (May 8, 2020)
ISBN: 978-1838533540
WINNER OF LITERARY TITAN’S GOLD BOOK AWARD FOR FICTIONNOMINEE OF BIBA AWARD FOR 2020″… Ambitious, challenging and thought-provoking debut.” ~ Irish ExaminerWhat if colours could speak? Berlin,1939, and as a nation holds its breath, Josef, a young boy whose family fall victim to the “moustached man,” turns once again to the colours for guidance.
Lost in a German school that discourages the very idea of uniqueness, he soon realises that it is because of the mere existence of art that he can express himself at all. We join Josef on a journey into his upside-down view of Nazi Germany, and how Hitler managed to hypnotise the minds of a generation.
Sounds are tasted, memories have colours and the strong do not survive
11. Mother Courage and Her Children: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder (Modern Classics)
Author: by Bertolt Brecht
Published at: Methuen Drama; Parallel Text ed. edition (March 1, 2012)
ISBN: 978-1408111512
Mother Courage and Her Children is widely regarded as Brecht’s best work, a theatrical landmark and one of the most powerful anti-war plays in history. This unique bilingual edition allows students to compare the original German text with a translation by one of the world’s leading playwrights, Tony Kushner.
In this play, a chronicle of the Thirty Years War, Mother Courage follows the armies back and forth across Europe, selling provisions and liquor from her canteen wagon. One by one she loses her children to the war but will not part with her livelihood – the wagon.
The Berlin production of 1949, with Helene Weigel as Mother Courage, marked the foundation of the Berliner Ensemble. The English translation by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner is inventive and vigorous, making Brecht’s epic drama accessible to the 21st century reader.
Contemporary language and humour make it the perfect English version to elucidate and compare with the original text. This edition also includes a critical introduction and commentary notes on particular words and phrases.
12. The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Modern Plays)
Author: by Bertolt Brecht
Published at: Methuen Drama (November 15, 2013)
ISBN: 978-1472566577
Described by Brecht as ‘a gangster play that would recall certain events familiar to us all’, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is a witty and savage satire of the rise of Hitler recast by Brecht into a small-time Chicago gangster’s takeover of the city’s greengrocery trade.
Using a wide range of parody and pastiche from Al Capone to Shakespeare’s Richard III and Goethe’s Faust Brecht’s compelling parable continues to have relevance wherever totalitarianism appears today. Written during the Second World War in 1941, the play was one of the Berliner Ensemble’s most outstanding box-office successes in 1959, and has continued to attract a succession of major actors, including Leonard Rossiter, Christopher Plummer, Antony Sher and Al Pacino.
This version, originally translated by George Tabori, has been revised by leading Scottish playwright Alistair Beaton.
13. Faust, Part One: A New Translation with Illustrations
Author: by Johann Wolfgang van Goethe
Published at: Deep Vellum Publishing; Illustrated edition (January 19, 2021)
ISBN: 978-1646050239
The original tale of moral destruction, in a brand-new translation: Faust is a man torn between the urges of the living world and the significance of moral living. He feels nothing, he lives for nothing, and thus engages in a wager with Mephistopheles, the devil himself.
Goethe’s master work shares the deep complexity of a human life, rife with pain, mistakes and dynamic complexity. With Faust, the lushly lyrical and philosophically brilliant drama on which the poet spent almost his entire life, Goethe solidified himself as a major literary figure whose work would transcend time and space to create the modern world.
Now, this brand-new, dynamic translation demands we ask of our world: who will win, humanity or Mephistopheles?
14. The Master Builder and Other Plays
Author: by Henrik Ibsen
Published at: Penguin Classics (August 11, 2015)
ISBN: 978-0141194592
Henrik Ibsen’s most important plays in superb modern translations, part of the new Penguin Ibsen seriesThis new Penguin Classics series of Henrik Ibsen’s plays will offer the best available editions in English of the great works by the father of modern drama, all under the general editorship of Ibsen scholar Tore Rem.
All plays included here are newly translated and based on the recently published, definitive Norwegian texts. The Master Builder and Other Plays collects his last four plays: Little Eyokf, John Gabriel Borkman, and When We Dead Awaken, in addition to the title play.
For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
