SHELLEY AS TRANSLATOR OF FAUST. THE ‘PROLOGUE’

Abstract

THE aim of this article is to present for comparison sections of a transcription of two holograph manuscripts containing Shelley's translation of the 'Prologue in Heaven' from Goethe's Faust.I The MSS., to be described below, are of interest as representing first-hand two extreme stages, the alpha and the omega as it were, in the creation of a literary composition; and more particularly, as intimating some of the methods of Shelley the poet. What I shall call Text A is a preliminary working draft in Shelley's hand, a crude line-for-line, word-for-word transliteration of the original German; Text B is a fair-copy made by Shelley of his completed versification. The translation was completed in 1822, the last year of Shelley's life.2 It seems reasonable to assume that the prosings of Text A were made the same year, as part of the Faust project, and preliminary to the transmutation of their material into viable verse; however, if we are to believe Richard Garnett, who obtained the MSS. at Boscombe Manor, and through Garnett W. M. Rossetti, the prosings are from I8I5, the year Shelley is thought to have begun learning German.3 Shelley's version of the 'Walpurgisnacht' was published shortly after his death in the first issue of Leigh