Alchimie der Liebe

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John Donne (1572-1631), the most famous metaphysical poet and guiding star of English modernity, is one of the great love poets of world literature. His tension-filled perspective on Eros, between ecstasy and disillusionment, frivolity and holiness, finds its equal only in his contemporary Shakespeare. Donne's Alchemy of Love signifies the transformation of existence through emotions, images, and words that reach us unchanged after almost four hundred years. He captures the alchemy and charlatanry of love with a precision that serves wit and metaphorical exuberance. He advocates for the expanding universe at the dawn of the emerging mathematical and scientific age. Donne is an unmatched master of the sonnet, the day song, the elegy, and other forms. The translations by Werner von Koppenfels convey the liveliness and wit of this poetry in a magnificent way. In the afterword, Werner von Koppenfels outlines Donne's biography and illustrates the philosophical and spiritual background against which this epochal poetry was created.