All her life, Louise Bogan exerted almost complete control over which of her poems were published and which were not. Her habit with each of her books, beginning with the Body of This Death (1923), was to exclude any previously published poems which no longer met her standards. Thus, Body of This Death included only one of five poems that had originally been published in the Chicago-based magazine Poetry just two years before. The following book, Dark Summer (1929), included poems Bogan wrote between 1923 and 1929, as well as several from Body of This Death -- but some poems were discarded. And so on: with each new volume, Bogan included poems which survived the winnowing of her rigorous eye, but discarded those with which, for whatever reason, she was no longer pleased. Bogan's final book, The Blue Estuaries, published a year before her death in 1970, collects in one volume all the poems she selected for her personal oeuvre.

The theme of psychological frozenness seemed to have exerted an early fascination for Bogan. "Medusa," for example, is an exquisitely rendered depiction of horrific changelessness. The speaker has seen something terrible -- represented by the Medusa, with her "stiff bald eyes" -- that has becomes transfixed in memory. It is the scene the speaker witnesses, not the speaker herself, that becomes frozen as a result of the encounter with the Medusa. Nothing in process at the beginning of the scene will be fulfilled, nor will anything follow: "The water will always fall, and will not fall."

By comparison, the lines in "The Sleeping Fury," a poem written several years later, are longer and looser than Bogan's usual controlled, formal lines, and they impose a structure fitting to the poem's content of freedom and redemption. The three Furies of Greek myth were responsible for punishing persons guilty of crimes that disturbed the social order -- murder (particularly of family members) or sexual crimes, for example. Here the speaker, whose crime we never learn, has tried to placate the enraged Fury with a burnt sacrifice; but while the sacrifice satisfies the society of which the speaker is a member, the Fury herself is unappeased. The speaker, whose repentance was half-hearted and false -- "The ignoble dream and the mask, sly, with slits at the eyes, / Pretence and half-sorrow, beneath which a coward's hope trembled." -- is still haunted by guilt and the Fury's scourges. It is only when the "scourged advances to meet" the Fury, turning back toward her to accept full punishment, that the Fury's rage come to an end and the speaker feel peace. This is a poem about guilt and expiation, self-confrontation and peace. It is also a poem about justice: "You, who give, unlike men, to expiation your mercy." "Men," says the speaker, will forgive even those who do not atone for their crimes -- but not the Fury, who is undeceived by the speaker's mask of "half-sorrow."

Though hearkening back to different mythological beings and written years apart from each other, "Medusa" and "The Sleeping Fury" are companion pieces, demonstrating Bogan's emotional range: in one poem, the depiction of pschological frozenness; in the other, the breaking open through a difficult self-confrontation to a peace in which even the frightening monster ceases to be frightful. One might speculate on the events in Bogan's life that gave rise to these poems, but we are unlikely to ever know for sure -- Bogan was not a confessional poet.

Most of Bogan's poems are short lyrics. Rarely do they exceed one printed page in length; rarely do they step outside the constraints of "closed" forms. Within those bounds, her close and careful attention to word choice makes even her shortest poems -- "Sub Contra," for example, or "Cassandra" or "The Drum" -- resonate with meaning. Many poets could write five times as many lines, each line twice as long, and not capture what Bogan captures half so well. "Her poems can be read and reread: they keep yielding new meanings, as all good poetry should," wrote Theodore Roethke.

Many of her poems may, however, present difficulties for the first-time reader. "Women are not noted for terseness," wrote Marianne Moore, "but Louise Bogan's poetry is compactness compacted," and Martha Collins has noted how reviewers of Bogan's poetry have frequently referred to Bogan's "craftsmanship" but almost in the same breath to her "obscurity." But given patience, close attention, an alert mind, and a good dictionary, her poems are not only penetrable, but among the best work American poetry has to offer.

In this work, L. Gluck shows the reader her true strong emotion, and the enthalpy of love. Her images are gripping -- sometimes stark and at other times lush and vibrant. Common to all her pieces is the ability to move the reader to feel emotion. Maybe it is a sudden gasp of revelation of connection or perhaps the moment comes later, when the poetry resurfaces from deep in memory. Beware, emotions will be evoked.

What is it about this particular novella which inspired a series of youthful suicides throughout Europe soon after its publication? Why did Napoleon insist on keeping the French translation with him during his campaign in Egypt? How did Goethe succeed in capturing the poignancy of the human heart, while fascinating a jaded but "enlightened" 18th century public? The young German author touched a universal chord with this slender volume, in which he offers tender insight on such diverse Romantic subjects as Love, Religion, Nature and Man's relationships with God and his fellow men. Why do critics consider it a classic of both German and World Literature?

Presented in a quaint literary style, this story consists of confidential diary entries and letters to a trusted friend, Wilhelm, by a senstitive protagonist, with the addition of editorial notes. (The latter results from the inveitable drawbacks of first-person narratives.) The plot unfolds as Werther, a young nobleman who interests himself in the daily activities of the peasantry, is enjoying an extended holiday in a scenic area of Germany. Free to savor the magnificent natural beauty around him, Werther is soon dazzled by the numerous charms of the delightful Charlotte--daughter of a local town dignitary. This paragon of feminie virtue and attraction appears more sensual and maternal than truly sexual.

Alas, the incomparable Lotte is already engaged to absent Albert, due home soon. Is she too naive to understand that in Werther she has acquired an ardent admirer? Is she aware of his easily-inflamed fascination, or the violent depths of his stifled emotions? Is she oblivious or heartless to his passionate despair once her fiance has returned? Just how long can she juggle two lovers, or even control her own dainty heart--which Goethe chastely and tantalizingly hides from us?

Readers will be be swept away on the floodtide of Gothe's untamed emotions, as poor Werther faces the inevitable. Ah, but which act requires or proves the greater bravery: to terminate the heart's torment by the simple act of Suicide, or to accept Life's harshness by continuing a lonely, meaningless existence? Which Hell is it better or nobler to endure: that of rejecting God's gift or that of eternal separation from the Beloved? The strain of a prolonged "menage a trois" can not be permitted to endure--neither from a literary or a moral point of view.

The last entries painfully point the way as Werther's despair cascades into definitive--albeit negative--action. Weep, hope forlornly with this ardent young man, even rage at his fate; then be swept away into the maelstrom of thwarted dreams. Analyze and pity Germany's most famous pre-Romantic hero, as he struggles though this psychological novel, for Goethe plays upon the reader's memory's heartstrings with the skill of Ossian's agonized harper.

I have just finished reading Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther and I don't think I've read anything so powerfully moving in years. It is at once both tragic and beautiful. The story consists of letters that Werther has written to a friend describing his passion for "Lotte", his charming, but very married, love interest. We watch as the overly-romantic Werther gradually becomes unhinged and finally kills himself when he realizes he can't have his beloved. Besides this lovely, sad story you also get Goethe's beautiful translation of Ossian's poems near the end. Reading this novella brought back memories of how I once had such passionte yearnings for the loves of my own life --- before I thankfully (and regretfully) got more worldly-wise. This one will be high on my favorites list and will be re-read often.

I always find it sad that more people do not read Goethe for pleasure alone. Yes, he was a "scholarly" writer but his works, although profound, are written in an easily understandable style. I think too many people have been needlessly scared off by Goethe's monumental intelligence and his philosophy. This is too bad. His books revolve around themes that are universal, subjects to which all of us can relate: romantic love, nature, God, beauty.

Eighteenth-century German literature was propelled by a revolution in romanticism, and writers such as Goethe celebrated their most cherished ideals in as ornate and eloquent a manner as possible. While the tendency of American and British writers to ignore the sublime and the romantic in favor of stark realism does have its place, that does not mean that the sublime and the romantic should be casually tossed aside.

The Sorrows of Young Werther is not Goethe at this best (you need to read Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship for that) but it the best introduction to Goethe anyone could find and a lovely novella in its own right. The Sorrows of Young Werther opens more amazingly than any book I have ever read and it is not overstating things a bit to say that Goethe gives us something profound and beautiful on each and every page.

The Sorrows of Young Werther is comprised, for the most part, of letters written by a hopelessly romantic young man named Werther to a friend named Wilhelm. These letters not only detail Werther's doomed love for the beautiful Charlotte, they also contain the most beautiful meditations on just about everything important in life: love, beauty, nature, philosophy, art, religion.

In Werther, Goethe clearly shows us the problems inherent in loving and idealizing something a bit too much. I think many readers will have a problem with the character of Werther. He is simply too romantic to be real. And then there will be those who will wonder how a man who is capable of uttering the most gorgeous and flowing words about beauty, art and nature can fall so hopelessly in love with one woman that he seems to forget all else that he holds dear. Well, Werther, in the best romantic tradition, has invested all the emotion he feels for art, beauty, religion, etc. in Charlotte. Once readers realize this, I think the ending of this novella will make sense to them. Yes, Werther is an extreme but once you come to understand him, he does make perfect sense.

As I said, this isn't Goethe at this best or his most sublime or even, believe it not, his most romantic, but this is certainly the best place to begin if you are just beginning your study of this monumental author or of German romanticism in general.

When I imagined this book as I movie, I thought it would be like a futuristic movie set in the 1950's, with everything the same, the cars and clothes and hair, except for a few overdeveloped gadgets, a little bit like Minority Report. The gadgets are not attempts to master nature but very close imitations of nature, the Glass Bees of the title. They are unheimlich, to use a German word that I don't think Junger ever uses. The Zapparoni character reminded me more of Larry Ellison than Bill Gates, because Gates has a big house with lots of gadgets but Ellison transplanted an entire Japanese house and garden to America. Zapparoni shares the same Japanese perfectionism and fascination with miniatures. Junger also has some thoughts--very little happens in the book, which is almost a short story--on the connection between the perfection of technological means and dismemberment. Well worth reading.

The Glass Bees is a short novel about power, technology and nature. It's also the story of a life; the life of a veteran german captain that has lived in two very different worlds: the "old" world where words like "courage" or "pride" still meant something and a "new" world where the words have lost their meaning, where the power of the State has almost been surrended to huge high-tech transnational firms and where efficency criteria leads the behaviour of most of the peolple. The story tells the way in which the old world's man tries (unsuccsesfully most of the times)to fit himself in the new world.
In my opinion The Glass Bees is an outstanding novel althoug -I have to say it- not one of the 10 best books I have ever read as another reviewer says.

Captain Richard trained as a swashbuckling cavalry officer, but increasingly mechanised forms of warfare forced him to become a tank technician. Now, down on his luck after a life that reads like a radically compressed history of the twentieth century, he approaches the industrialist Zapparoni for a job. As the book came out in the 1950s and its author was born before the turn of the century, Zapparoni's products are called "robots" or "automata"; but they're a far cry from Asimov's Robots and Mechanical Men. As Bruce Sterling points out in his intriguing introduction, some passages from The Glass Bees, taken out of context, might easily have come from a computer magazine of the 1990s, blaring the wonders of miniaturisation and CD-ROM. The bulk of the novel comprises Richard's meditations before, during and after his interview with Zapparoni, and Junger's prescience is impressive not only in terms of the technology he envisages, but also in terms of its effect. Richard notes, for example, that the artificial bees' total efficiency in collecting nectar - not a drop left inside - will simply cause the flowers to die off through lack of cross-pollination. Written with brilliant and chilly clarity, and climaxing in an episode of restrained horror and terrifying ambiguity, The Glass Bees is an examination of the moral and cultural price of technology, from the perspective of a man who had seen plenty. However, although Sterling compares him with Celine, Junger is neither rancorous nor misanthropic. Indeed, despite the fact that Richard's wife is mentioned only a few times and never appears in person, the book is also a rather touching affirmation of human love.

Bogan was quite guarded about her private life, though she lived life large. Her poetry output, though acclaimed, was small, because she demanded absolute perfection before letting her work reach the public. This book, edited excerpts from her deliciously written journals, lets us enter the world of her thoughts and emotions, and informs us about her childhood and later years. Reminiscent of Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings, this book stands on its own as an introduction to the life of a writer, particularly a woman writer. It wil serve well both Bogan fans and those to whom she is an unknown.,

The 3 stars are for the lousy editing and organizing of the book, not its actual contents, which is a collection of the more important works of I understand one of the world's greatest writer.

Books like this should be judged by the way they are edited -- the stature over the past 200 years of the author and of his works contained in the book are beyond dispute anymore. You can always say all the superlative words about, say, Shakespeare or James Joyce, but it will only show that you are just catching up with what the rest of the world knows already. Same here.

Usually, books like this, specially those published by supposedly respectable publishers, would be a bit more well organized. A well known critic would introduce the book at the level of an average reader, would tell you how the works that comprise the collection were selected, would tell you the merits and demerits of the available translations and why a particular translation was chosen for the collection, etc.

It would have maps and chronologies and a bit more background information so you will appreciate better the historical and geographical and cultural context of the author's works.

Aside from the chronology and a terribly irrelevant and unreadable and useless and boring exercise in conceited academic hoo-hah, otherwise known as the book's Introduction, you get none of those goodies and you must just fend for yourself while wading in 1,248 pages of 200 year-old literature.

The specialists -- those who are engaged in the cottage industry that surrounds a major writer -- will probably like this book, if indeed this book collects all of Goethe's books that matter in the English translation.

However for the dilettante like you and me who just knows that Goethe is supposed to be a good writer and specially those who are looking for a good English translation of any of his major work, this book is no help at all. You just don't know whether the translations are the best ones available in English.

Almost all the paraphernalia in the book are useless, and you will be like reading an unknown 200 year-old 1,248-page book of an unknown writer.

(P.S. but I did enjoy reading the Sorrows of Young Werther and the poems, for all they are worth.)