The Experience of the Foreign: Culture and Translation in Romantic Germany

SUNY Series: Intersections: Philosophy and Critical Theory

by Antoine Berman, S. Heyvaert (Translator)

This book is the first authoritative analysis of the theory of translation in German Romanticism. In a systematic study of Herder, Goethe, Schlegel, Novalis, Humboldt, Schleiermacher, and Holderlin, Berman demonstrates the importance of the theory of translation for an understanding of German romantic culture, arguing that never before has the concept of translation been meditated in such detail and such depth. Indeed, fundamental questions that arise again today, such as the question concerning the proper versus the literal, of the Other to a given culture, the essence of the work of art, and of language, all these issues, and many more, are shown to have been premeditated in a most important manner by these German Romantics.

Hardcover

First published August 1, 1992

Reviews

[Ira · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is about culture and translation in Romantic Germany. Not about the experience of the foreign. Well, the experience of the foreign is already a very odd translation of the original title and the translator's explanation of this choice of words is unconvincing, but even the more interesting original title is not really what the book is about. If the book had really been about l'épreuve de l'étranger it would have been much more interesting, but a book still needs to be written on that.
In any case, in terms of what the book really is about, very little is said of the political drive behind cultural and linguistic unity, so whilst the discussion is informative, it always appears rather skewed towards a culturalist as in de-politicised literary criticism way of understanding the topic.