This volume contains some twenty definitive essays on the literary works of Goethe by STUART ATKINS, best known for his magisterial contributions to Goethe scholarship and his translation of Faust; although their importance has long been recognised, they have never before been collected in an accessible form. Their leitmotiv is the defence and clarification of the term ‘classicism’, seen as embracing style, motifs, modality and ethics,from antiquity to the Renaissance and later to the Romantics; they also seek to show how each variety of classicism is relevant to Goethe. The whole range of Goethe’s work is covered, from his early letters to his last play, Die Wette, several studies of aspects of Faust are included. A complete bibliography of his scholarly publications completes the volume.