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Samuel Taylor Coleridge | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Polyglots |  | |
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6450 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes  Studies: German | Message 1 of 1 12 April 2007 at 3:24pm | IP Logged |
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Unhappy with his wife, he left her and his children to the care of Southey, who had a little more money, and to the philanthropic Wedgwood Brothers, who granted Coleridge an annuity, and took care of his family while the poet went to Germany with the Wordsworths. He is said to have learned German in six weeks, “by talking with children and with the peasants”, and was able to translate Wallenstein by Schiller.
http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=982 6 In May, 1796,--he was then twenty-four years old,--Coleridge wrote to a friend, "I am studying German, and in about six weeks shall be able to read that language with tolerable fluency. Now I have some thoughts of making a proposal to Robinson, the great London bookseller, of translating all the works of Schiller, which would make a portly quarto, on condition that he should pay my journey and my wife's to and from Jena, a cheap German University where Schiller resides, and allow me two guineas each quarto sheet, which would maintain me. If I could realize this scheme, I should there study chemistry and anatomy, and bring over with me all the works of Semler and Michaelis, the German theologians, and of Kant, the great German metaphysician." In September, 1798, in company with Wordsworth and his sister, and at the expense of his munificent friends Josiah and Thomas Wedgewood, he went to Germany and spent fourteen months in hard study. There he attended the lectures of Eichhorn and Blumenbach, made the acquaintance of Tieck, dipped quite deeply into philosophy and general literature, and took by contagion the speculative ideas that filled his imagination with visions of intellectual discovery. Schelling's "Transcendental Idealism," with which Coleridge was afterwards most in sympathy, was not published till 1800. http://www.alcott.net/alcott/home/champions/Coleridge.html P. S. I am translating the "Oberon" of Wieland; it is a difficult language, and I can translate at least as fast as I can construe. I have made also a very considerable proficiency in the French language, and study it daily, and daily study the German; so that I am not, and have not been idle. * * * Carlyon afterwards in later life, in his "Early Years and Late Reflections", depicted Coleridge as the life and soul of the party, incessantly talking, discussing, and philosophizing, and diving into his pocket German Dictionary for the right word. Carlyon devotes 270 pages of the first volume of his book to Coleridge. What have I done in Germany? I have learned the language, both high and low German, I can read both, and speak the former so fluently, that it must be a fortune for a German to be in my company, that is, I have words enough and phrases enough, and I arrange them tolerably; but my pronunciation is hideous. 2ndly, I can read the oldest German, the Frankish, and the Swabian. 3rdly. I have attended the lectures on Physiology, Anatomy, and Natural History, with regularity, and have endeavoured to understand these subjects. 4thly, I have read and made collections for a history of the "Belles Lettres," in Germany, before the time of Lessing: http://thunderbird.k12.ar.us/The%20Classics%20Library/Britis h%20Literature/coleridge/biographia%20epistolaris%20volume%2 01.txt 1 person has voted this message useful |
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