TEMPLE, Feb. 25th, 1833. I COMMENCED this translation without the slightest idea of publishing it, and even when, by aid of preface and notes, I thought I had produced a book which might contribute something towards the promotion of German literature in this country, I still felt unwilling to cast it from me beyond the power of alteration or recall. I therefore circulated the whole of the first impression amongst my acquaintance, and made up my mind to be guided by the general tenor of the opinions I might receive from them. I also wished the accuracy of my version to be verified by as many examinations as possible, and I hoped to get some additional matter for the notes. "The complete explanation of an author (says Johnson) not systematic and consequential, but desultory and vagrant, abounding in casual allusions and light hints, is not to be expected from any single scholiast. What can be known. will be collected by chance from the recesses of obscure and obsolete papers (or from rare and curious books), perused commonly with some other view. Of this knowledge every man has some, and none has much; but when an author has engaged the public attention, those who can add anything to his illustration, communicate their discoveries, and time produces what had eluded diligence." The result of the experiment has been so far satisfactory, that I am now emboldened to lay the work before the public, with some not unimportant alterations and additions, suggested by subsequent inquiry or by friends. These, however, are all comprised in the two last sheets, which was the largest portion of letterpress I could ask the printers to keep standing so long. The Corrigenda list is consequently large, but it need give little trouble to those who do not intend to be exceedingly critical. A. H. TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. THE outline of Faust's story is already familiar enough, and I have given all that I think necessary in the way of illustration or commentary in my Notes. In this place, therefore, I have principally to explain the motives which led to the following hazardous and, some may think, presumptuous undertaking. It was first suggested to me by a remark made by Mr. Charles Lamb to an honoured friend of mine: that he had derived more pleasure from the meagre Latin versions of the Greek tragedians, than from any other versions of them he was acquainted with. The following remarks by Goethe himself confirmed me in it: "We Germans had the advantage that several significant works of foreign nations were first translated in an easy and clear manner. Shakespeare translated into prose, first by Wieland, then by Eschenburg, being a reading generally intelligible and adapted to every reader, was enabled to spread rapidly, and produce a great effect. b I honour both rhythm and rhyme, by which poetry first becomes poetry, but the properly deep and radically operative, the truly developing and quickening, is that which remains of the poet, when he is translated into prose. The inward substance then remains in its purity and fullness; which, when it is absent, a dazzling exterior often deludes us with the semblance of, and, when it is present, conceals."* These will be admitted to be very high authorities in favour of occasional prose translations of poetry; and I think no one who knows "Faust" will deny, that it is the poem of all others of which a prose translation is most imperatively required, – for the simple reason, that it teems with thought, and has long exercised a widely-spread influence by qualities wholly independent of metre and rhyme. I am not aware that I can illustrate my meaning better than by the following extract from a German Review. It forms part of a critical notice of a work by M. Rosenkranz, and may be taken as a fair sample of the light in which Faust is constantly considered in Germany:- "The various attempts to continue the infinite * Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit.-Th. 3, B. 11. Hardly a single sentence of the English version, published under the title of Memoirs of Goethe, is to be depended upon. In the Westminster Review for April, 1824, decisive proofs were given that it was a bad translation from a bad French translation, by a person who did not understand a word of the original. It is really terrific to see the manner in which Goethe's reflections on religious subjects have been perverted by him. |