brought into prominence by the new interest in that German dramatist at the close of the century.[1]
A letter of Maria Stanley herself also shows that her husband had translated other German poetry. She writes to her sister Louisa, early in 1800:
I dote upon the German authors, whether they are in the tender, passionate, or horrible style. In all, I think, they excel. There is a play by Goethe—'Stella'—some scenes of which the Man [a common name of Mrs. Stanley for her husband] has translated, and I never read anything equal to it for passion mixed with the greatest delicacy of sentiment. . . . Now and then I catch the Man to translate a little, and am as pleased as Punch. Last night I had an idyll and a half read to me.[2]
That German literature was frequently read in these years at the Stanley home is also clear from another passage in the letters. Mrs. Stanley writes:
In general, I am disappointed with any translation of any play, poem or fragment which has not first been translated by the Man; and not only because Adam the relator is to be preferred before any angel, for reasons too obvious to insert, but because the literal version which he gives, though it would not do to set down, often preserves more of the spirit and peculiar beauty of the German sentiments than a polished and Englishified translation can do.[3]
I have been thus full in the account of Mr. Stanley and his translation of Lenore because they have not been given sufficient prominence in previous discussions of the Bürger influence in England. Stanley's acquaintance with German literature was quite as early as that of William Taylor of Norwich. His translation of Bürger's poem was also the first to be published. Even before publication, too, like Taylor's, it had inspired another. Besides, indirectly, it called forth the publication of Taylor's first version and of Pye's translation. Incidentally, it resulted in the drawings of Blake, and less directly the designs of Lady Diana Beauclerk.
III. William Taylor and His Translation of Lenore.
The publication of Stanley's Leonora resulted in the speedy printing of William Taylor's first version of the Bürger poem in the Monthly Magazine for March. I say the first version because,
- ↑ One of the two translations referred to in the letter quoted in the preceding footnote is noticed in the Monthly Review of May, 1799. It was translated by Maria Geisweiler.
- ↑ Early Married Life, p. 191.
- ↑ Early Married Life, p. 179.
