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Elective Affinities

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( 13,363 ratings, 835 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Elective Affinities by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe explores the complex dynamics of human relationships. The plot centres on a married couple, Eduard and Charlotte, who invite a charming Captain and a beautiful young woman named Ottilie to their estate. As the four characters interact, mutual attractions develop, pushing the boundaries of their social and moral commitments. The story investigates the interplay of personal freedom, societal norms, and the inexorable pull of emotional connections.
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might like this if you're intrigued by the exploration of human relationships and the forces of attraction and fate within social and moral confines. This novel delivers a compelling tale of love, marriage, and the inevitability of human passions, set against a backdrop of philosophical and scientific ideas. If you appreciate richly detailed narratives with complex character development, this might be a captivating read for you.

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Eduard and Charlotte are an aristocratic couple who live a harmonious but idle life in their estate. But the peace of their existence is thrown into chaos when two visitors - Eduard's friend the Captain and Charlotte's passionate young ward Ottilie - provoke unexpected attraction and forbidden love.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Eduard and Charlotte are an aristocratic couple who live a harmonious but idle life in their estate. But the peace of their existence is thrown into chaos when two visitors, Eduard's friend the Captain and Charlotte's passionate young ward Ottilie, provoke unexpected attraction and forbidden love.

Taking its title from the principle of elective affinities β€” the theory that certain chemicals are naturally drawn to one another β€” this is a penetrating study of marriage and adultery. Inspired by Goethe's own conflicting loyalties as he battled to maintain his relationship with his wife and control his feelings for a younger woman, Elective Affinities is one of the greatest works of the romance era: a rich exploration of love, conflict, and the inescapable force of fate.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Elective Affinities by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is often praised for its exploration of human relationships and moral dilemmas, examining the tension between social expectations and personal desires. Critics highlight the psychological depth of the characters and the novel's elegant prose. Some reviews mention its ability to provoke thought about the nature of attraction and the consequences of following one's passions versus societal norms.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780140442427

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 27 July 1978

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin Classics

Contributors:

  • Translated by R. J. Hollingdale
  • Translated by R. J. Hollingdale

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 19.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 237g

Pages: 320

About the Author

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe was born in Frankfurt-am-Main in 1749. At twenty-four he wrote Goetz von Berlingen, a play which brought him national fame and established him in the Sturm und Drang movement. Goethe began work on Faust, and Egmont, another tragedy, before being invited to join the government at Weimer. He finished Faust before he died in 1832. R.J. Hollingdale has translated eleven of Nietzsche's books and published two books about him. He is honorary president of the British Nietzsche Society.

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