Although Wordsworth and Goethe are not much alike, to be sure, upon the whole; yet they both have this peculiarity of utter non-sympathy with the subjects of their poetry. They are always, both of them, spectators ab extra,—feeling for, but never with, their characters. Schiller is a thousand times more hearty than Goethe.
I was once pressed—many years ago—to translate the Faust; and I so far entertained the proposal as to read the work through with great attention, and to revive in my mind my own former plan of Michael Scott. But then I considered with myself whether the time taken up in executing the translation might not more worthily be devoted to the composition of a work which, even if parallel in some points to the Faust, should be truly original in motive and execution, and therefore more interesting and valuable than any version which I could make; and, secondly, I debated with myself whether it became my moral character to render into English—and so far, certainly, lend my countenance to language—much of which I thought vulgar, licentious, and blasphemous. I need not tell you that I never put pen to paper as a translator of Faust.
I have read a good deal of Mr. Hayward's version, and I think it done in a very manly style; but I do not admit the argument for prose translations. I would in general rather see verse attempted in so capable a language as ours. The French cannot help themselves, of course, with such a language as theirs.
[Footnote 1: "The poem was first published in 1790, and forms the commencement of the seventh volume of Goethe's Schriften, Wien und Leipzig, bey J. Stahel and G. J. Goschen, 1790. This edition is now before me. The poem entitled, Faust, ein Fragment (not Doktor Faust, ein Trauerspiel, as Döring says), and contains no prologue or dedication of any sort. It commences with the scene in Faust's study, antè, p. 17., and is continued, as now, down to the passage ending, antè, p. 26. line 5. In the original, the line—
"Und froh ist, wenn er Regenwürmer findet,"
ends the scene.
The next scene is one between Faust and Mephistopheles, and begins thus:—
"Und was der ganzen Menschheit zugetheilt ist,"
i. e. with the passage (antè, p. 70.) beginning, "I will enjoy, in my own heart's core, all that is parcelled out among mankind," &c. All that intervenes, in later editions, is wanting. It is thenceforth continued, as now, to the end of the cathedral scene (antè, p. (170)), except that the whole scene, in which Valentine is killed, is wanting. Thus Margaret's prayer to the Virgin and the cathedral scene come together, and form the conclusion of the work. According to Düring's Verzeichniss, there was no new edition of Faust until 1807. According to Dr. Sieglitz, the first part of Faust first appeared, in its present shape, in the collected edition of Goethe's works, which was published in 1808.—Hayward's Translation of Faust, second edition, note, p. 215.]
February 17. 1833.