Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Iphigenie auf Tauris [Iphigenia in Tauris]

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 1787

Places

Germany (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

Goethe’s Iphigenie auf Tauris, a pinnacle of German classical drama, was composed in rhythmic prose between 14 February and 28 March 1779, when Goethe was twenty-nine years old and while he struggled as a government executive with such social problems as starving stocking weavers in Apolda and laboured under the onerous task of levying soldiers to meet a Prussian requisition in the War of the Bavarian Succession. A blank verse version was published in an edition of Goethe’s collected writings by Göschen at Leipzig eight years later. Members and friends of the court performed the original version on 6 April 1779, with Goethe himself in the role of Orest and Corona Schröter as Iphigenie. In 1802 Schiller prepared a …

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2215 words

Citation: Dye, Ellis. "Iphigenie auf Tauris". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 April 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4400, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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