Title: Lotte in Weimar
First published: 1939
Description: Mann's novelistic biography of Goethe was first published in English in 1940. Lotte in Weimar is a vivid dual portrait, a complex study of Goethe and of Lotte, the still-vivacious woman who in her youth was the model for Charlotte in Goethe's widely-read The Sorrows of Young Werther. Lotte's thoughts, as she anticipates meeting Goethe again after forty years, and her conversations with those in Weimar who knew the great man, allow Mann to assess Goethe's genius from many points of view. Hayden White's fresh appraisal of the novel reveals its consonances with our own concerns.
Subjects: Fiction, German Authors, Goethe in fiction, drama, poetry, In literature, Relations with women, Women, German fiction, Continental european fiction (fictional works by one author), Fiction, biographical, Authors, fiction, Germany, fiction, Fiction, romance, historical, Fiction, romance, historical, general
Places: Germany, Weimar (Thuringia)
People: Charlotte Buff Kestner (1753-1828), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), Thomas Mann (1875-1955)
Time periods: 18th century