Susan Gustafson's central thesis is attractive and persuasive ... This book offers a good deal of illumination. * Modern Language Review *
A series of fresh, incisive, and beautifully nuanced readings that recast our understanding of Goethe's art and sensibilities ... All in all, this is a skillfully crafted work that constitutes a distinctive and rewarding contribution to existing Goethe scholarship and to eighteenth- and early-nineteenth- century German studies more generally. * European Romantic Review *
Goethe's Families of the Heart presents us with a revolutionary and experimental Goethe, one whose literary depictions of unconventional family groupings and love relationships seem radical even today. In her original readings of well-known texts, Susan Gustafson uncovers, throughout Goethe's works, a consistent emphasis on fluidity: shifting bonds between lovers, or parents and children, that transcend established categories of biology, gender and social status. Resonating with 21st-century debates about definitions of the family, gender and sexuality while remaining attentive to the historical and cultural context of Goethe's works, this book is sure to provoke discussion among thoughtful and curious readers. * Eleanor ter Horst, Associate Professor and Department Chair of Modern and Classical Languages and Literature, University of South Alabama, USA *
Goethe's Families of the Heart proposes a refreshingly clear and entirely convincing reading of the complex nature of the family in Goethe's oeuvre. Through nuanced interpretations of some of Goethe's major literary works, Gustafson shows how Goethe advocates for a model of family that belies bourgeois norms for marriage and family based on blood, heterosexuality and economic alliance. With aplomb, Gustafson points to Goethe's many elective families, families of the heart. Gustafson offers a vital intervention into scholarship of the Goethezeit, reminding us through her close readings of Goethe's works of the autonomy of literary discourses vis-a-vis dominant ideologies. Goethe's Families of the Heart makes an eloquent and compelling case for the centrality of love in all its forms, traditional and queer, within Goethe's literary oeuvre. * Heidi Schlipphacke, Associate Professor of Germanic Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA *
Goethe's work is famous for its unorthodox or 'fractured' families, but Gustafson pursues a new line of argument about human connections in the novels and plays, locating multiple 'elective families,' groupings based primarily on choices dictated by love. For Gustafson, attractions in Goethe are fluid, non-exclusive, and person-based rather than fixed, monogamous, and gender-based. Her readings of major canonical texts such as Elective Affinities, the Wilhelm Meister novels and Stella provide crucial additions and corrections to our understanding of these works. Gustafson's arguments are as novel as they are convincing. An important book. * Gail Hart, Professor of German, University of California, Irvine, USA *
Susan Gustafson's most recent work is truly novel in its approach and refreshing for its ecumenical breadth. She borrows from yet broadens queer and gender theory in examining Goethe's expansive concept of desire. Lucidly written, Goethe's Families of the Heart is thrilling to read for its discovery of the ever-shifting affinities and relationships in Die Wahlverwandtschaften, Stella, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, and Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre. According to Gustafson, Goethe consistently challenges bourgeois family norms of constancy and biological inheritance. His families are radical ones, composed of adoptive children and same-sex adult households. What is decisively unique about Goethe's Families of the Heart is that it brings back love to the table. This is a courageous, life-affirming book that does not shy away from addressing the topics of commitment and the connections of the heart. * Alice Kuzniar, Professor of German and English, University of Waterloo, Canada *
Gustafson (Univ. of Rochester) analyzes familial relationships in Goethe's key works, primarily Elective Affinities and the two Wilhelm Meister novels. She argues that all three works describe familial relations corrupted by suffocating bourgeois or aristocratic values or issues of prestige and money. Happiness is found only when one escapes the constrictions of society and follows one's innate affinities (Wahlverwandtschaften). The starting point for this interpretation is Goethe's famous device linking the tendency of certain elements to displace others in a chemical reaction with the human displacement depicted in Elective Affinities. Happily married Charlotte and Eduard invite the Captain and Ottilie to their estate. Eduard is attracted to Ottilie, Charlotte to the Captain. Tragedy ensues, not happiness. Gustafson finds similar actions in the two Meister novels, concluding that Goethe outlines the fundamental need to remove all obstacles to all love relationships including heterosexual, same-sex, nonexclusive, group, and adoptive families. New relationships are motivated among dozens of Goethe's figures by these all-powerful elective affinities. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. * CHOICE *
Susan Gustafson's Goethe's Families of the Heart presents an innovative examination of relationships and families in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's literary works ... Gustafson provides an excellent analysis and numerous examples of elective affinities and adoptive families in Goethe's works ... Goethe's Families of the Heart is a significant and timely book not only because of its revolutionary analysis of Goethe's literary works, but also because it raises profound questions about the essence of relationships and the family that resonate in the Goethezeit as well as today. * Women in German Newspaper *
