Lol! That is an awesome coincidence. I was tortured to death with everything Faust/Goethe/Thomas Mann related at school. Our German teacher at that time was a big admirer of all of the above. We spent a whole year reading "The sorrows of young Werther", Plenzberg's adaption "The new sorrows of young Werther" (even worse) and "Lotte in Weimar" Since I was apparently the only one in class who actually bothered reading the latter, from then on I had the "honor" to get all Thomas Mann related assignments, including one about reading his diaries (boring to death, except for some historical background and the random sexual fantasy about a bell boy). The other big one happened to be "Dr. Faustus".
Of course we read Goethe's original "Faust". Part I is really worth a read, it's an example of his best writing, whereas Part II is ... let's just say difficult. It's one of those pieces I meant when I said he liked listening to himself. There's a reason it's only read by literature professors! ;)
Well, I own a lot of different translation of Shakespeare's works for the same reason.
I fear finding a translation of Ernst Otto will be even more difficult, because he isn't really well-known outside of Germany (or inside the country for that matter), whereas Anna Seghers at least had some "international success". Good Luck!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-04-18 01:27 am (UTC)Of course we read Goethe's original "Faust". Part I is really worth a read, it's an example of his best writing, whereas Part II is ... let's just say difficult. It's one of those pieces I meant when I said he liked listening to himself. There's a reason it's only read by literature professors! ;)
Well, I own a lot of different translation of Shakespeare's works for the same reason.
I fear finding a translation of Ernst Otto will be even more difficult, because he isn't really well-known outside of Germany (or inside the country for that matter), whereas Anna Seghers at least had some "international success". Good Luck!