A DRAMATIC POEM, BY GOETHE. TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH PROSE, WITH NOTES, ETC. BY A. HAYWARD, Esq. A NEW EDITION. BOSTON: TICKNOR, REED, AND FIELDS. M LCCC LI. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION. THE difference between this edition and the last consists in a few verbal alterations of the text, some slight additions to the notes, and the omission of everything not required to illustrate the author's meaning, or explain the original intention of this work; which was simply to clear up certain misconceptions regarding the poem, and cause it to be more studied and better understood. The subsequent sudden and almost simultaneous appearance of seven or eight new translations, affords a fair presumption that the desired object has been at least partially attained; and, from the circumstance of their being all in verse, it may be inferred that prose versions are rather favorable than unfavorable to metrical ones. The author of the most admired, Dr. Anster, has generously given me the credit of encouraging him to the completion of his task; and this alone must be deemed no unimportant service to literature. 11 KING'S BENCH WALK, TEMPLE. December, 1838. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION OF THE TRANSLATION. In this edition much of the matter has been reärranged, the Notes are augmented by about a third, and an Appendix, of some length, has been annexed. The translation itself was found to require only a few verbal corrections; yet, even as regards the translation, I lay the work before the public with much more confidence than formerly, both on account of the trying ordeal it has passed through, and the many advantages I have enjoyed in revising it. It is singular (and to the student of German literature at once cheering and delightful) to see the interest which Germans of the cultivated class take in the fame of their great authors, and most particularly of Goethe. They seem willing to undergo every sort of labor to convey to foreigners a just impression of his excellence; and many German gentlemen, personally unknown to me, have voluntarily undertaken the irksome task of verifying the translation word for word by the original, and obligingly forwarded to me the results of the comparison. The amateurs of German literature in this country, also, partake of the same spirit of enthusiasm, and I have received many valuable suggestions in consequence. My German friends will find that I have retained a few expressions objected to by them, but they must do me the justice to remember that they are at least as likely to err from not knowing the full force of an English idiom, as I am from not knowing the full force of a German |