The Writers Who Translated Goethe into English Became Some of the Best Writers in English

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) is the central figure in the German literary canon. Poet, novelist, playwright, and scientist, he is to the German language what William Shakespeare is to English-speaking cultures, only more so. The fact that such a protean, polymathic, and “great” figure emerged on the doorstep of the modern world, rather than in a faraway era, makes Goethe feel less mythical, more like a contemporary, and more like one of us. Indeed, Goethe spoke and wrote in what is recognizably modern German instead of a language that may sometimes require guidance to fully grasp, even for native speakers, as is the case when students approach Shakespeare’s Elizabethan English for the first time.

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