318 Book Reviews by Pietist models of confessional autobiography. The generic kinship is evident in Wilhelm Meister as well as in Dichtung und Wahrheit. Although Goethe discusses religion, religious sentiments, the Bible and other religious writings, Saine observes that the autobiography involves no soul-searing confrontations, no personal struggle toward redemption. Goethe acknowledges a need to "come to terms with" (as opposed to "reconcile") God and the World. His quest for understanding the two is impeiled by "his innate curiosity about the nature of things" and by his "unshaken optimism about his own nature and about human nature in general." When the autobiography takes us into moments of crisis, it is not the Christian soul grasping for faith or salvation, but rather the maturing person seeking to define goals and purpose in life. Just as there are "no confrontations with the darkness of fear and trembling," says Saine, there are "also no confrontations with material adversity." Nevertheless, there is an acute, even painful, awareness of wealth and poverty, political faction, and ideological conflict. The final book oÃ- Dichtung und Wahrheit ends the autobiographical narrative in 1775 at the time Goethe was composing Egmont. Saine adds significantly to these autobiographical volumes by translating Campagne in Frankreich 1792 and Die Belagerung von Mainz. Several critics have documented the disparity between Goethe's letters of the period and these accounts recollected thirty years later. In describing political tensions, Goethe discreetly alters or excises his actual feef ings in experiencing those events. Saine's introduction briefly reconstructs the original circumstances as well as the problems of composition after the lapse of manyyears. He has also added succinct and judicious notes to Heitner's translation and to his own which will help readers identify persons, places, historical events, and literary allusions. The critical exposition that most of us engage in, as literary scholars, is relatively ephemeral. A good translation has staying power as a major service to the profession. Those interested in the reception of Goethe in the nineteenth century will still want to consult the translations of Eastlake and Oxenford. The present three volumes, however, make Goethe's autobiography and scientific writings available to a modern audience and will provide an enduring contribution to the study of Goethe in English. University of California, Los Angeles Frederick Burwick Goethe as a Critic of Literature, ed. Karl J. Fink and Max L. Baeumer. University Press of America, 1984. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, Essays on Art and Literature, ed. John Gearey and trans. Ellen von Nardroff and Ernest H. von Nardroff. Goethe's Collected Works, vol. 3. New York: Suhrkamp Pubfishers New York, Inc., 1986. Goethe Yearbook 319 The nineteenth century revered Goethe as a literary and art critic as well as the consummate artist. Sainte-Beuve termed him the "greatest critic of all ages," an accolade echoed by Matthew Arnold, who called Goethe "the supreme critic." By contrast, the twentieth century has tended to narrow its focus to Goethe the poet. Until recently, accounts of his critical output were largely limited to those of Ernst Robert Curtius, Georg Lukà cs and René Wellek and then primarily to the "Classical" Goethe of the Weimar period. At least part of the reason for this dearth of commentary , as Weilek and others observe, is that while Goethe's critical writings are extensive, they are neither extended nor systematic, appearing frequently in the context of letters, diary entries, and occasional reviews and papers. Other critical statements are embedded in "creative" works. Thus, for instance, Goethe's fullest statements on Shakespeare andHamlet are in Wilhelm Meister, and many thoughts on art are presented in the epistolary novella, Der Sammler und die Seinigen. For the non-reader of German, matters have been further complicated by the limited number of translations available. Aside from the selection of Goethe's literary criticism compiled by Joel Spingarn (1921; rpt. 1964), more recently a selection of his art criticism compiled and translated by John Gage (University of California Press, 1980), and a scattering of both in anthologies such as the Cambridge University Press series, German Aesthetic and Literary Criticism, the reader has had few sources. Now two steps toward a fuller appreciation of Goethe the critic have...