Italian Journey Paperback – Illustrated, 28 October 1982

The presence of works of art, like those of Nature, makes us restless. We wish to express our feelings and judgements in words, but before we can do that, we must first recognize, by intuition and understanding, what we are looking at; so we begin to identify, classify, differentiate. But then we find that this, too, if not impossible, is very difficult, so in the end we return to a wordless beholding.- Goethe, Italian JourneyIf one were to ask me my top ten favourite Penguin classic editions that I have in possession then I cannot help but consider this single volume by Goethe as among the first five titles that I would recommend. I will just try and list all the then volumes that came to my mind after I finished reading this essential classic.10. Laurence Sterne The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman/ Herman Melville Moby-Dick or, the Whale09. Boccaccio The Decameron08. Oscar Wilde De Profundis and Other Prison Writings07. Stendhal The Red and the Black06. Nikolai Gogol Dead Souls05. The Portable Dante04. Jane Austen The Complete Novels of Jane Austen03. Goethe Italian Journey02. D.H.Lawrence The Complete Poems01. Montaigne The Complete EssaysI understand that this list is far from complete and that I am missing quite a few indispensable classics but I still decide to let this list stand as some of the few essential things that I would take with myself if I were to be going on a one month long vacation in a desert island. Some other honourable mentions I must mention are The Idiot, Anna Karenina, Sentimental Education, and a few others that I have read but do not come to mind at this moment. I also needed to mention Blake's complete poetry The Complete Poems and Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel but sadly I do not own these titles.Goethe's Italian Journey with all its polemics and beauty of description, with all its reflections into art and painting, and with all its lively discussions into the nature of art and architecture, and with its discursive notes on the culture of a foreign land and civilization shall stand the test of time as a seminal work of travel writing; and in fact one of the very first and finest works of its genre taking into account the modern world. On retrospection I cannot help but feel that this is one classic that could have been conjured up only by a polymath and autodidact of Goethe's stature in search of a personal and artistic quest and to find relief from his responsibilities and the agonies of unrequited love.