Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Stella [Stella]

Ellis Dye (Macalester College)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.1: German-language Writing and Culture: Germany, 500-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1776

Places

Germany (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

When the Berlin publisher August Mylius agreed to pay an advance for the young Goethe's morally unconventional drama Stella - agreed to buy a pig in a poke, as he put it - he did so, as he wrote to Johann Heinrich Merck on 24 October 1775, not because he expected a profit from “such a slight piece” but “mainly in order to make the acquaintance of this admittedly extraordinary genius.”

Stella, which appeared in Berlin book stores in January 1776, has been called a “companion piece” to The Sufferings of Young Werther, published in 1774, except that the love triangle is turned around: one man between two women this time. In Stella, the play's eponymous heroine is about to take into h…

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2137 words

Citation: Dye, Ellis. "Stella". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 February 2008 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21839, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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