"Stella: A Play for Lovers" (1776) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

CONTENTS: Susan E. Gustafson/Kristina Becker Malett: Translators' Introduction - Stella: A Play for Lovers (1776) - Appendix.

Susan E. Gustafson is the Karl F. and Bertha A. Fuchs Professor of German Studies at the University of Rochester. Her research interests include eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German literature, women's studies, gender studies, and translation. Her scholarship has focused on non-traditional representations of love and families including same-sex relationships, adoptive families, and all families coming together through love and not determined by social mandates.

Kristina Becker Malett is Assistant Professor of Instruction at the University of Rochester. She received her master's in Education and American Studies at the Free University and Humboldt University Berlin. She taught for several years in the Berlin school system. She also taught German-language courses at the Eastman School of Music 2008-2017 and has been teaching German in the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Rochester since 2010.

«This new translation of Goethe's original version of Stella introduces contemporary English-speaking audiences to his audacious play. Goethe wrote at a time when Romantic ideals of freedom, family, and love were first gaining expression. Still, he challenges gender relations and asks what the desire for intimacy between two women means in depicting a ménage à trois.» (Dr. Alice Kuzniar, University Research Chair, Professor of German and English, University of Waterloo)







This theater-worthy translation of Goethe's Stella makes the complete first (1776) version of this emotionally complex drama available for the first time to English-speaking readers. The book's accessible and engaging introduction contextualizes the drama in its national and international contexts, while the appendix documents the substantial changes made by Goethe in 1806 version. In Gustafson's and Becker's lively and accurate translation, Stella will continue to delight and challenge contemporary readers and audiences.» (Eleanor ter Horst, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature, University of South Alabama)







«This elegant, lively translation of Goethe's Stella includes a ménage à trois, removed from a later version. The reader is introduced to women discovering love for one man and their own shared passion. Ideal for future productions, this translation rescues a controversial play for a new audience.» (Eve Moore, Associate Professor of German, Kenyon College)







«This new translation fills a gap in Goethe scholarship and will prove useful to those looking to understand the author's development from his earlier years of composing dramas and to those who wish to experience another side of Goethe that is seldom discussed in comparison with his later and more famous works. As the translators state in their introduction, the