On Coleridge as translator of Faustus from the German of Goethe
The recent publication of Faustus from the German of Goethe, translated by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Oxford University Press, 2007), edited by Frederick Burwick and James McKusick, has given rise to some controversy concerning whether Coleridge was properly identified as the translator. In this short essay I select a few telling facts from the comprehensive collection of evidence supporting Coleridge’s role as translator. In addition to a sampling of the phrases from Coleridge’s own poetry that are echoed in his translation, and of the references in his notebooks on rendering German words, this essay also briefly summarizes evidence from external sources.