Goethe’s is perhaps the most capacious German vocabulary on record. More important than word count, however, is the creativity of his language, his knack for finding the phrase that captures the contours of shared experience. Like Shakespeare’s English or Pushkin’s Russian, Goethe’s German lives in the ears of the people. Forget about Faust 2, it’s almost unreadable. Goethe has written a lot of great stuff, his personal travel reports are a great read as well. Unfortunately I have to agree with the other post here, if you’re not reading in German, you’ll miss half of the beauty. Goethe‘s mastery of the German language is amazing. 4. Nur die Harten kommen in den Garten. Translation: Only the strongest survive. This evocative German proverb’s literal translation — “ Only the tough ones make it to the garden " — alludes to a deeper meaning grounded in Christian theology — the return of tenacious souls to the heavenly Garden of Eden. Need helping finding a good English translation of Goethe's Faust. I've always found the story of Faust alluring, and after reading Christopher Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus', I'm willing to dive into Goethe's take on the legend. My problem is deciding on a decent translation so I thought I'd ask the experts (yes, that's you!). Discussion in English. Primary and secondary literature available in English (with additional, optional secondary texts available in German). Graduate students in the German program are expected to read German primary texts (e.g. Faust) in the original language, and cite them in German in their papers. The lexeme Ach (ah, alas), though hardly a concept, let alone a traditional philosophical one, plays an important role in Goethe’s writing as a means of enacting and performing some of the poet’s fundamental conceptual principles. The very mode of this interjection’s production in speech—which makes possible the voicing of the almost A new version in English of the First Part of Goethe’s Faust may seem difficult to justify. Certainly, there are enough precedents. Indeed, the success of Louis MacNeice’s abridged radio version and C.F. MacIntyre’s free verse translation of 1942, in particular, convinced me I should attempt my own, a project that has become deeply personal. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German poet, novelist, critic, playwright, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and amateur artist. He is widely considered to be the greatest and most influential German literary figure of the modern era. Arthur Schopenhauer named Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship on of the top four novels ever written. uDq4KW.