Clark S. Muenzer

The question of coherence in Goethe's novels, which, like Faust , compelled his attention throughout his creative life, has only recently occupied a few critics. Professor Muenzer's study offers the most comprehensive effort of this kind by examining the problematic nature of self-definition through the four novels and its emergence as a discursive process of the imagination. The self of these texts, Muenzer suggests, evolves as a symbolic construct that records a patter of pursuit...