Click cover to enlarge

 Open access under:
CC BY-NC 4.0

Part of the book: Horace’s Epistles, Wieland and the Reader

Jane V. Curran

MHRA Texts and Dissertations 38

Bithell Series of Dissertations 19

W. S. Maney & Son Ltd for the Modern Humanities Research Association and the Institute of Germanic Studies

GermanPoetryTranslationopen

Abstract.  Wieland’s Horace translations were published during the wave of enthusiasm for antiquity which swept the German world of letters in the eighteenth century. The status of ancient writers became a burning issue for lively debate; both Greek and Roman poets continued to provide myths, settings, issues, characters and general inspiration as well as forms and techniques for large numbers of original modern works. Wieland was prominent among those who borrowed from the ancient heritage, as we can see from his Geschichte des Agathon, Musarion, and Geschichte der Abderiten, to name but three. The eagerness with which translations from ancient texts were undertaken and published was a significant manifestation of that enthusiasm. Wieland, in translating Horace, was not offering his readers something they would otherwise have been unable to procure; Horace was well known and widely read, both in the original and in German translations. And yet Wieland’s translations of Horace’s Satires and Epistles, with their curiously personal style and tone occupy a rather special place in the market.

Full text.  This contribution is published as Open Access and can be downloaded as a PDF, or viewed as a PDF in your web browser, here:

Link to full text as PDF