A Study Of Goethe’s Translation Thought

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a renowned German writer and thinker, was also a greattranslator and translation theorist. His lifelong translation practice was accompanied by richreflections on translation abounding throughout his works. These reflections find their mostfamous expression in Dichtung und Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth), West-stlicher Divan(West-Eastern Divan), and Letter to Carlyle.Goethe’s reflections on translation derive from his views of nature, human, society andculture, and therefore have an artistic and literary basis. His ideas about artistic creation and“world literature” have great influence on the construction of his translation thought. Throughexamining Goethe’s translation thought on the basis of his artistic and literary ideas, thisthesis intends to explore the connection and interaction between these philosophical ideas,with the hope of revealing the essence of Goethe’s translation thought and his contributionsto translation studies.The thesis starts with a review of Goethe’s life and his major achievements in translationtheory and practice, followed by an in-depth analysis of the artistic basis of Goethe’stranslation thought with methods of induction-deduction and comparison. The third chapterapproaches Goethe’s reflections on translation from the concept of “world literature” anddiscusses the connection and interaction between world literature and Goethe’s translationthought. At the end of this thesis, the conclusion is drawn that Goethe’s translation thought isclosely related to his artistic and literary ideas, which contributes to the profundity anduniqueness of his translation thought. By examining translation issues from the perspectivesof artistic philosophy and world literature, Goethe has endowed literary translation withhumanistic significance and revealed its status and important role, thus advancing theGerman classical translation theory.