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 it is up to me to get her to give in ERIK WEISSENGRUBER
to reason, with gentle persuasion.
ZEAL: If you have seen "CAN ONE NOT BE SERIOUS, EVEN WHEN
the wickedness by which LAUGHING?": BRITISH TRANSLATIONS OF G.E.
they blindly abhor your religion, LESSING'S MINNA VON BARNHELM, 1786-1805
isn't it better for all of them
to die?
In his essay "The State of German Literature," Thomas
REUGION: Cease your retribution, Carlyle asserts that of all the great German authors, "it is to
Zeal; do not kill them,
Lessing that an Englishman would turn with the readiest affec-
ｾ＠'; for my benign nature
tion" (40). Writing in 1827, Carlyle was attempting to direct
does not wish it; let them
li British readers of Goethe and Schiller towards writers of the
ii convert and live. German Enlightenment, writers overlooked during the brief
;!
AMERICA: If you plead for me not to die, vogue for German literature at the end of the eighteenth cen-
and show yoursdf merciful tury. My essay is, in p;ut, an attempt to suggest some of the
because you proudly hope
reasons why, during the fifty year prior to Carlyle's essay, En-
to get me to surrender,
glishmen (and women) had failed to turn to Lessing with any
first with physical weapons,
great aff-ection. Lessing's comedy Minna von Barnhelm was one
now with those of the mind, of the first German plays ever to be performed on the British
then you are mistaken;
stage. 1 However, despite a fairly successful production of the
for, though in captivity
play, and the publication of several translations, Lessing never
I weep for my freedom,
attained a public profile comparable to the notoriety of Goethe
my own free will
and Schiller, or the immense popularity of Kotzebue. It is my
with ever-increasing autonomy
contention that Lessing's British translators adapted the play to
will (still) worship my Gods!
conform to British theatrical taste, and social mores, and in do-
THE WEST: I said before that your power ing so, they obscured the artistic innovations that Lessing had
obliges me to surrender to you;
achieved in Minna. Even though Fanny and Thomas Holcroft
but in this matter, let it be clear
shared Lessing's liberal and humanitarian values, they simplified
that there is no power or force
Lessing's play to such an extent that, although Lessing's progres-
that can stop the will's
sive sentiments are retained, his sophisticated understanding of
free actions; and so,
the relationship between sensibility and social life is excised.
though in chains I may groan,
Lessing embodies his themes in the gestures and spatial rda-
you cannot impede that here,
tionships of his figures, and in the form as well as in the content
in my heart, I declare
of their discourses. In adapting Minna to accord with British
I worship the great God of Seeds!
taste, his British translators failed to capture Minnds combina-
tion of comedy, sentiment, and social critique. By altering the
form of his play, Lessing's translators, wittingly or unwittingly,

50: METAMORPHOSES
SPRING 2 0 0 1 : 51
.. occluded all that was provocative about its content They pro-
duced translations guaranteed not to offend, but also guaran-
teed not to excite.
The theme of a play is encoded not only in discourse, but
also in the significant gestures and spatial relationships of its
characters. These "latent signs," constituting the implicit theat-
ricality of a play, are as susceptible to mistranslation as the ver-
bal components of the source text. 2 Because Minna is, in part, a
play about a character learning to express his feelings, and be-
cause such expression is necessarily gestural as well as verbal,
any significant alteration of that gestural expression is a signifi-
cant alteration of the play's themes. Sentiment (noble or selfless
ideals) and sensibility (open, responsive affective life) provide
the subject matter for Lessing's play, as well as being the moti-
vating factors that bring his protagonists together. Sentiment
and sensibility were, however, the subject of great contention in
British literature and British cultural criticism during the period
under consideration. Sentimental literature, whether foreign or
domestic, was condemned by many conservative cultural critics
for contributing to moral decadence, and for unleashing a ten-
dency towards anti-authoritarianism that would ultimately result
in a social revolution like the one in France. At the turn of the
nineteenth century, the state of British cultural politics was such
that translators of German literature also had to function as
censors, if their work was to be positively received by the British
public. This censorship is apparent in the manipulation of the
verbal and gestural components of Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm.
James Johnstone's The Disbanded Officer is one of the earli-
est English translations of a German play, and has the distinc-
tion of being the first play of German origin to be performed in
a commercial British theatre. 3 However, Johnstone did not cre-
ate the English version of an innovative German play; rather, he
wrote an English play in a rather flimsy Getman disguise.
Johnstone fails to capture either the essence of Lessing's Ger-
man text,· or to produce a memorable English play. The case of
Johnstone's Disbanded Officer illustrates a perennial occupational
52 : MET AM 0 R PH 0 S E S
hazard for translators. In a 1918 review of Gilbert Murray's
translation of Euripides's Medea, T.S. Eliot makes a number of
comments about Murray's treatment of Greek that are equally
applicable to Johnstone's treatment of German. Not only does
Murray "almost habitually use two words where the Greek lan-
guage requires one, and where the English language will provide
one,'' but he translates "Greek brevity'' into either "the loose
frame of William Morris,'' or "the fluid haze of Swinburne"
(61). Like Murray, Johnstone is an example of how a translator
can pose as a modern artist making an unfamiliar work approach-
able to a modern audience, while writing like a second-rank imi-
tator of outdated poetic modes.
Johnstone repeatedly foregrounds the fact that The Dis-
banded Officer is an Englj.sh appropriation of a German original.
At the same time, Johnstone assumes a rather condescending
stance towards Lessing, suggesting that both Lessing and Ger-
man literature have primitive qualities that require English so-
phistication. Johnstone suggests that by successfully appropri-
ating Gennan works, and assimilating them to British tastes,
British translators are contributing to England's reputation as a
cosmopolitan nation. This reputation is to be secured, accord-
ing to Johnstone, not through a pedantic and exact rendering of
the original language, but in the production of a stage-worthy
text suitable for sophisticated British taste. Johnstone concedes
that his translation deviates significandy from the source text:
I own, this play and Lessing's are materially different; but I have
endeavoured to make it what he would have done, had he written
at the present moment, and for an English audience. His gold is
new cast into a more fashionable form; and though it has lost in
bulk, I hope it has not lost in weight. (v)
As a critiC, Lessing tried to promote the use of unaffected stage
diction by German authors, and as an author, .successfully em-
ployed this diction in his plays. 4 Johnstone, however, overloads
Lessing's play with rhetorical flourishes. In doing so, Johnstone
disproves the cliched notion, apparendy in existence even in his
time, that German is inherendy more verbose and unwieldy than
S P R I NG 2 0 0 1 : 53
 English. In Minna, Lessing employed his new mode of diction
in a new kind of comedy, a riihrendes Lustspiel or "touching'' com-
edy, free from the emotional coarseness of both unsophisticated
farce and sophisticated satire, and free the exaggerated senti-
ments of the weinenerlichen ｬＮｊｩｳｴｰ･ｾ＠ or French comMie larmqyanle. 5
Rather than furthering Lessing's innovations in a British con-
text, Johnstone rewrote Lessing according to prior conventions
of native British comedy.
In describing Lessing's reputation, Johnstone claims that
"His plays as much applauded at Vienna,/As here the Schoolfor
Scandal, or Duennd' (xii), thereby associating Lessing's comedy
with the work of Sheridan. By attempting to cast Lessing's gold
into a more fashionable form, Johnstone set himself the diffi-
cult task of imbuing Minna with qualities from both the witty
comedies of previous decades, and from more contemporary
plays of moral sentiment and delicate sensibility. Johnstone at-
tempts to present Minna as a play with a moral, yet in his pro-
logue, Johnstone describes his play as a sophisticated foreign
import, a "good old Hock" imported from the Rhine, to com-
pete with the sparkling wines of France and Southampton port
(xit). Johnstone, however, misreads the contemporary scene when
he imagines that comedy in the mode of Sheridan and Gold-
smith would be more in fashion than the sentimental spirit of
Lessing's play. In the decades-long battle between sentimental
comedy and laughing comedy, and despite the efforts of Sheridan
and Goldsmith, sentimental comedy was ultimately the victor.
According to Ernest Bembaum, those playwrights who attempted
to imitate She Stoops to Conquer (1773) or Schoolfor Scandal (1777)
"vulgarized the comic spirit instead of invigorating it" (258). In
light of these shifts in British theatrical taste, it is surprising to
read Johnstone's claim in the verse epilogue to The Disbanded
Officer, that English audiences are, too, in love with French wit
and sophistication, and are unlikely to approve of virtuous pro-
tagonists such as Minna and Tellheim (renamed Holberg in
Johnstone's play). Johnstone states of his characters that be-
cause their "too great goodness is their great defect," they will
54: METAMORPHOSES
not be well received by the jaded London audience (xvi).
Johnstone hits upon the ingenious solution of making
6
the sentiments of his characters an occasion for comedy. This
is a reversal of the common practice in laughing comedy, where
humor grows out of characters who pretend to be me more
virtuous than they actually are. Joseph Surface in Sheridan's School
for Scandal is a good example of this sort of character. Holberg
and his fiancee may be figures of fun at times, yet their virtues
are genuine. In act four, Caroline, Baroness of Bruchsal
Oohnstone's peculiar substitution for Minna von Barnhelm) re-
veals to her servant Lisetta (Franzisca in the original) that she
will appeal to her beloved's pride by pretending to be disinher-
ited. Lisetta is incredulous:
USETIA: In the character of an eloped, disinherited-'Lord, 'twill
never do--a man, to whom the bride's poverty is held out as an
inducement to matrimony, will make as much haste as a child, when
it is told to come and be whipt.
BARONESS: Holberg, you'll allow is an exception ... his very re-
fusal endears him still the more-A man of honour and senti-
ments--
USETIA: Honour and sentiments! dear Ma'am, what man can
brave the ridicule of being half a century behind the fashion. (46)
Johnstone seems to have been a poor judge of literary fashion,
for protagonists like Holberg had, in fact, become common by
the 1780s. It is Lisetta's cynicism that would have been out of
fashion at that time. Lisetta's witty comments and leering asides
to the audience are reminiscent of the classic British comedy of
manners, and not of sentimental comedy. Johnstone's interpo-
lation of ironic humor can be seen as his attempt to shield him-
self from possible condemnation by the partisans of witty and
cynical laughing comedy. Johnstone employs decades-old stage
conventions to protect himself from the accusations of being
too sentimental. At the same time, he knows contemporary taste
well enough to not let cynical humor overshadow the sentiments
expressed by his characters. He ironically acknowledges that his
protagonists may in fact be too good to be true, yet makes them
S P R I NG 2 0 0 1 : 55
.. capable of acts of goodness that would be approved by the au-
dience. acters into the kinds of stock characters that London audiences
had long been familiar with.
Johnstone's frequent ironic nods to the audience, and his
Johnstone's Holberg does retain some of the complexi-
frequent employment of aphorisms, run counter to the aesthetic
ties of Lessing's Tellheim. Holberg is full of sympathetic feel-
unity that Lessing sought in theory and in practice. Lisetta makes
ings for others, yet has trouble expressing them. He regrets
many aphoristic comments, sometimes directed to the audience,
leaving his fiancee, yet does not feel worthy of marrying her
sometimes not. Her counterpart in Lessing's play is firmly inte-
while his honesty is under suspicion and while he has no future
grated into the aesthetic unity of the play, and her words are
prospects. Johnstone even permits Holberg to reveal his noble
solely motivated by the dramatic situation and rooted in her in-
sentiments to the audience by permitting him to speak the clos-
dividual personality. In short, Franziska is an individual, whereas
ing words of the play: "Generosity may proceed from ostenta-
Lisetta is the stock "saucy servant" found in the British (and
tion or vanity, but gratitude must flow from the heart, and arise
French) comedy of manners.. Johnstone permits other charac-
from true feeling" (71). Lessing, by contrast, simply lets his au-
ters to enunciate witty aphorisms and (far less often) moral prin-
dience see his characters in action, and permits them to draw the
ciples.
moral for themselves.
Johnstone's open and direct address to his audience is
Tellheim is often unable to express in action what he feels
entirely in keeping with the conventions of eighteenth-century
inside, and hesitates to return Minna's gestures of approach, rec-
British drama. However, Lessing, like Diderot, was opposed to
onciliation, or support. Tellheim's depth of feeling, and the con-
casual familiarity between actor and spectator, and attempted to
strictions imposed by his rigid code of honor are expressed in
separate actor from audience. Both Lessing and Diderot be-
his gestures, not just in his words. In the first encounter of the
lieved that the actor who disappeared into his or her character
two lovers (II, viii), Lessing uses gesture to express Tellheim's
could, paradoxically, better excite the sensibility of the spectator
internal emotional conflict. The stage directions indicate that
than could an actor who constantly broke the theatrical illusion
Tellheim runs to Minna at his first glimpse of her, but stops
by acknowledging the presence of the audience. 7 Johnstone does
short and retreats when she reciprocates the same movement
not seem to comprehend this new aesthetic, and resorts to the
(58-59). At the end of the same scene, Minna tries to assure
conventional practices of the British theatre.
Tellheim that she loves him despite the injuries to his body and
Johnstone also gives his characters allegorical or repre-
his reputation. When her words fail, she tries to establish an
sentative names: Tellheim's servantJust is renamed Rohf, a name
emotional connection through touch by grasping his hand and
which suggests his roughness and bad temper. Tellheim's com-
bringing it to her breast. Tellheim tries to draw away, to hide his
rade-in-arms Paul Werner is given the name Warmans in order
face with his hat, and finally ends the encounter by fleeing the
to emphasize his marital nature. Similarly, the Landlord is re-
scene. Johnstone has his two lovers simply run into each other's
named Katzenbuckel, suggesting that he has a hunchback, or is
arms upon seeing each other. He completely eliminates the ges-
perhaps only emotionally deformed. Lessing was admired for
tures (stopping short, turning, shrugging of the shoulders) that
creating genuinely German characters, with individual person-
Lessing uses to suggest the psychological restrictions that in-
alities, when he could have easily turned his soldiers, servants,
hibit Tellheim's ability to express or to receive compassion.
and landlords, into the stock characters found in older comedies. 8
Johnstone's officer is little more than a sentimentalized and mildly
Johnstone undoes Lessing's innovations, and turns Minna's char-
comic version of a seventeenth-century heroic gallant, torn be-

56: METAMORPHOSES
S P R I NG 2 0 0 1 : 57
 tween love and honour. Lessing's officer is hardly a Werther or
a Don Carlos. However, Tellheim's struggle to overcome so-
cially-imposed restrictions in order to express his deeper feel-
ings, points forward to the Sturm und Drang movement, mdo-
drama, the Gothic and the sentimental dramas of August von
Kotzebue. 9
The Schoolfor Honor, an anonymous translation of Minna
von Barnhelm, appeared during a period of intense controversy
surrounding sentimental literature, German sentimental litera-
ture in particular. 10 In the 1790s, "sentimental" no longer merdy
signified literature that aimed at a moral uplift or which sought
to create sympathetic responses to positive heroes, or to extend ·
sympathy to heretofore scorned groups (as was the aim of
Cumberland in such plays as The West Indian or The Jew). Many
conservative cultural critics used "sensibility" and "sentiment"
as code words to stigmatize any work that the critic considered
to be characterized by either an excess of emotion1or by perni-
cious political principles. Such disordered emotions in literature
would, in the minds of contributors to The Anti-Jacobin, The
Edinburgh Review, and The British Critic, contribute to disorder in
social life and politicallife. 11
Rebellion against propriety and classical standards, it was
argued by such critics, would lead to political rebellion similar to
that raging in France. By rigidly conttQ!!!ng one's sensibility, one
could steel oneself against appeals to th' emotions by radical
authors. The first line of defense against revolutionary senti-
ments was a stable, orderly sensibility, one responsive to the tra-
ditional sentimental attachments to family, country, and custom,
but resistant to both the prompting of an unchecked fancy, and
attachment to the wrong kind of external objects. An anony-
mous satirist in The Anti-Jacobin depicted sensibility as the "Sweet
child of sickly fancy," spawned in France, and introduced to
England by Rousseau who "Taught her to cherish still in either
eye,/Of tender tears a plentiful supply... Taught her to meet by
rule her feelings strong,/ False by degrees, and exquisitdy wrong"
C'The New Morality" 298). The satirist makes a commonly re-
58: METAMORPHOSES
peated claim that Rousseauism in literature would lead to
Rousseauism in politics, and that women especially were suscep-
tible to be seduced into moral and political radicalism by the
literature of sentiment and sensibility.
Minna von Barnhelm features a woman who acts on her
strong feelings and teaches her beloved to give in to his feelings
as well. Minna is just the sort of character disliked by the critics
of sensibility. Moreover, she is the sort of woman that the crit-
ics of sensibility feared the new literature would create: impul-
sive, generous, enthusiastic in expressing her desires, forgiving
of the faults of others, and friendly to all, regardless of rank or
distinction. The anonymous author of The Schoolfor Honor was
confronted with the challenge of satisfying the growing demand
for German sentimental literature, while avoiding attacks by critics
eager to condemn any work that they considered to place too
much of an emphasis on sentiment and sensibility. By suppress-
ing the anti-authoritarian sentiments of Lessing's play, and turn-
ing Minna (renamed Lady Louisa) into an opponent of a par-
ticular kind of exaggerated sensibility, the author of School for
Honor created a play designed to appeal to popular taste, while
ｾ｡ｶｯｩ､ｮｧ＠ criticism on ideological grounds.
.f/ The fad for German literature produced, according to Mor-
gan and Hohlfeld, "a grade of translation decidedly mediocre"
(44). The Schoolfor Honor is an example of this sort of transla-
tion, although it is not quite indifferent as The Disbanded Officer to
the literal meaning of Lessing's text. Perhaps the author's an-
tipathy to Lessing's principles is more to blame for the strangely
lifeless quality of this translation than any lack of talent or knowl-
edge of German. The translator tries to compensate for the
stilted dialogue and flattened characters by introducing topical
humor, although he or she does not transgress Lessing's aes-
thetic principles by introducing direct address. He or she up-
dates the topical references in Lessing's play from the epoch of
the Seven Years War to Britain's current military and ideological
struggle against Republican France.
Lessing creates a character to serve as a contrast to
S P R I NG 2 0 0 1 : 59
Tellheim. Paul Werner is a friend of Tellheim's, a soldier who,
unlike Tellheim, wants to stay in the military. Werner is far from
being a stereotypical braggart soldier, but Lessing uses Werner's
comic attachment to war and the army life to suggest that
Tellheim is sensible to reject military service. The audience first
encounters Werner in act one, when he comes looking for
Tellheim, but ftnds Just instead, who informs Werner of the
desperate straits that Tellheim is in. Werner dismisses Just's con-
cerns about the future, because Werner is enthusiastic about a
new war beginning in Persia. He explains his plan to Just:
Du kennst den Prinz Heraklius nicht? den braven Mann nicht, der
Persien weggenommen und nachsterTage die ottomanische Pforte
einsprengen wird? Gott sei Dank, dafi doch noch irgendwo in der
Welt Kriegistl .. .ich wandere nach Persien, urn unter Sr. Koniglichen
Hoheit dem Prinzen Heraklius ein paar Feldziige wider den Tiirken
zu machen. (28) 12
The translator of Schoolfor Honor updates this play to refer to the
war in which Britain was engaged at that time:
Thou knowest not the Great Admiral, the conqueror of the French,
who has preserv'd the Ottoman Crescent from the revolutionary
comet? Heaven be praised, that war is still somewhere stirring!. . .I
am marching to Egypt, to make a few campaigns against the Re-
publicans. (1.12.16)
The translator is cleverly retaining the idea that Werner. (here
renamed Warner) wants to adventure to the exotic east, even if
Warner wants to defend the Turks instead of attacking them.
However, Warner's quixotic journey has a serious undertone,
whereas Werner's decision to keep on fighting even if he has to
go to Persia is Lessing's comic reminder of how the desire to
make war can persist in the absence of practical necessity. An-
other blatant appeal to patriotic sentiment occurs when Warner
hears of Tellheim's troubles: "But were I in his place, I know
what I would do ... Lead Paul Warner to Egypt.-Fire and thun-
der! The brave Englanders must have heard of Major Tellheim!"
(17). The author of Schoolfor Honor uses Warner to stir up pro-
military and anti-French sentiments on the part of the audience.
60: METAMORPHOSES
The author also appears to be compensating for the delicate
sensibility that Tellheim manifests in some scenes, by having
Warner assert that Tellheim is a tough, vigorous character, who
is as brave as the British spectators watching School for Honor.
Lessing's Werner serves to make the German audience think
critically, whereas Warner is used to flatter the British audience.
The S chao/for Honor also practices subtler revisions of the
political critique embedded in Lessing's play. In act four of Minna,
a friend of Tellheim's, a French officer named Riccaut, tells Minna
that Tellheim has been cleared of all suspicion, and that the Prus-
sian government will make good his debts. The Frenchman re-
counts (In French) a confidence passed on to him by the Prus-
sian official who brought the good news concerning Tellheim:
Monsieur, m'a dit ｾｯｮ＠ Excellence, vous comprenez bien que tout
depend de Ia maniere dont on fait envisager les choses au roi, et
vous me connaissez ... II coute un peu cher au roi ce Tellheim, mais
est-ce que !'on sert les rois pour rien? II faut s'entr'aider en ce
monde; et quand il s'agit de pertes, que ce soit le roi qui en fasse, et
non pas un honnete homme de nous autres. (114) 13
It is perhaps understandable that in the conservative climate of
the 1790s, a British translator would want to censor such senti-
ments about the need for honest men to band together against
kings, and School for Honor contains no trace of the subversive
message passed on to Riccaut by the Prussian official. Lessing
articulates sentiments that verge on republicanism, but chooses
to express these sentiments indirectly, via a reported speech, more-
over, a speech reported in French. The Prussian official did
state that the King was able to set matters right once the circum-
stances had been explained to him. However, this statement
which ostensibly praises the power and intelligence of the King,
can also ·be read ironically-if kings may be easily convinced by
their counselors, then they are as equally prone to being con-
vinced of falsehoods as they are of being enlightened about the
truth. The Prussian official insinuates that "honest men" of all
nations share in a common interest in supporting one another
against exploitation by kings, even if he does so in a jocular
SPRING 2 0 0 1 : 61
 manner. Riccaut's speech has hints of republicanism that would
be poorly received by a nation at war with the French republic,
and by critics dedicated to eliminating all republican and radical
sentiments from literature and theatre.
Lessing closely associates sentiment and sensibility by mak-
ing an awakened sensibility the source of humanitarian senti-
ments, sentiments at odds with the authoritarian values of his
time. Tellheim's emotional reunion with Minna in act five is a
moment of both social and personal recognition. Tellheim's
anagnorisis requires that he acknowledge the prompting of his
sensibility and rethink his relationship to the martial and aristo-
cratic values. In his confessional speech to Minna, Tellheim con-
demns not only the military, but also the social elite that uses the
military for its own purposes:
Die Dienste der Grofien sind gefahrlich, und lohnen der Miihe,
des Zwanges, der Erniedrigung nicht, die sie kosten .. .Ich ward
Soldat aus Parteilichkeit, ich weifi selbst nicht fiir welche politischen
Grundsatze, und aus der Grille, dafi es fiir jeden ehrlichen Mann
gut sei, sich in diesem Stande, eine Zeitlang zu versuchen, urn sich
mit allem, was Gefahr heillt, vertraulich zu machen und Klilte und
Entschlofienheit zu lernen. (167) 14
In The Disbanded Officer, Johnstone completely excises the politi-
cal implications of this speech. The corresponding passage in
The Schoolfor Honor, like the bulk of the translations in this ver-
sion, is fairly faithful to the original, but with important omis-
sions and transformations. The original Tellheim blames a gen-
eralized "partisanship" Ｈｐ｡ｲｴ･ｩｬ｣ｨｫｾ＠ for driving him to war, and
not obedience to some political theory or slogan. His English
copy blames himself, solely: "I became a soldier from attach-
ment to I knew not what political maxim" (94). Disordered or
unclear politics led the English Tellheim to war, whereas the
spirit of blind partisanship, unconstrained by clear political prin-
ciples, drove the German Tellheim to enter military service. The
English Tellheim describes the service of the great as being
"thankless" and "replete with humiliation," but not dangerous,
and he does not claim that patriotic service is no"-the trouble,
ｗＢｯＨＧｾＭ｜＠
62: METAMORPHOSES
compulsion, and debasement that it involves. The English
Tellheim states that it was a "conviction" that an honorable man
should serve in the military, whereas the German Tellheim uses
the German word Grille, meaning caprice or fancy, to character-
ize this belief. The original Tellheim complains that the army
inured him to physical cold and taught him decisiveness, but
implies that the military taught him to be emotionally cold as
well. The translator manages to give a fairly accurate transcrip-
tion of Tellheim's rejection of military life, yet understates the
bitterness Tellheim feels, and mutes Lessing's insinuations that
the service of the great can be spiritually as well as physically
crippling.
In addition to altering Tellheim's anagnorisis, the author of
School for Honor subtly alters the nature of the crisis or peripetia
that compels Tellheim to change his way of thinking and feel-
ing. Before resorting to subterfuge, Minna attempts to cajole
Tellheim out of his melancholy, and employs humor in order to
awaken Tellheim's optimism. The author of Schoolfor Honor is
far more faithful to this sequence of events than Johnstone, and
accurately renders the process whereby Minna first attempts to
awaken Tellheim's sensibility. However, the translator signifi-
cantly alters the moment of greatest conflict between Minna
and Tellheim, the argument in act four that results in Tellheim's
famous misanthropic laughter at Minna's optimism. Although
Riccaut has advised Minna of the change in Tellheim's fortunes,
she keeps this information from Tellheim, so that he will be
compelled to woo her despite his (imagined) poverty and dis-
grace. Minna, partly by design and partly out of caprice, at-
tempts to trick Tellheim into letting his love for her overcome
his pride. Minna repeatedly challenges Tellheim to have hope in
the future. Minna's repeated insistence that justice will prevail in
his case aggravates Tellheim to such an extent, that he is forced
to admit the extent of his debt. In doing so, he becomes en-
raged at the injustices he has suffered, and laughs contemptu-
ously at Minna's optimism. In Minna von Barnhelm, Tellheim's
frustration culminates in stasis and self-absorption, and Minna
S P R I NG 2 0 0 1 : 63
...
is compelled to liberate his constricted sensibility. In act four of
School for Honor, Lady Louisa disciplines Tellheim's disordered
sensibility.
Given Lessing's insistence on the unity of word and im-
age in his theatrical aesthetic, even the slightest changes in
Lessing's stage directions are an alteration of Lessing's mean-
ing.15 The differences between the physical stances adopted by
the characters in Minna and those in Schoolfor Honor are symbolic
of the difference between their authors' respective treatment of
sensibility. In act four, scene six, Lessing presents a visual sym-
bol of Tellheim's constricted sensibility, the sensibility that is
liberated in the course of the play. Lessing depicts Tellheim
immobilized by anger and frustration, while Minna tries to re-
awaken Tellheim's interest in her and in the outside world:
0, i.iber die wilden, unbiegsamen Manner, die nur imrner ihr stieres
Auge auf das Gespenst der Ehre heften, fiir alles andere Gefiihl
sich verharten! -Hierher Ihr Augel auf'mich, Tellheim! (Dtrindts
Vtrtiejl11nti tmbeweglith mit slarrtn A11gm immtr attj tine Stelle gesehm.)
Woran denken Sie? Sie hOren mich nicht? (141) 16
In order for Tellheim to free himself from his paralysis, he must
turn his gaze away from insubstantial phantoms and turn it to-
wards Minna. Where Tellheim is now unbeweglich or immobile,
and his gaze frozen, he could, if he broke away from the false
sentiments of pride and honor, become mobile and open to a
world of feelings. The School for Honor presents Tellheim's di-
lemma and Minna's response differently:
0 save me from the wild inflexible spirits, who for ever fix their
haughty looks on the gothic phantom of honor, and harden them-
selves against every softer feeling. Hither direct your eyes my
Tellheim, here on mel (Tellheim throwing his 9es abo111 in a wild dis-
traded manner.) -On what are you thinking? You hear me nod
(17)
"Gothic," like "sensibility'' and "sentiment" was one of the terms
that conservative cultural critics used to stigmatize those works
of art that threatened the artistic, moral, and political traditions
of Britain. In her notorious\reed against German literature in
....
64: METAMORPHOSES
Stricfllres on the Modern System of Female Education, Hannah More
repeatedly condemns German literature as a throwback to the
emotional excesses of the "gothic" Middle Ages, and suggests
that once again, the "Goths" of the Danube are preparing to
overthrow civilized society (39-40). Instead of standing immo-
bile and staring in one place, this Tellheim is wild and distracted,
and unable to keep his gaze ft.xed. Consumed as he is by gothic
phantoms, Tellheim is unable to respond to Lady Louisa's pleas,
and cannot open his heart to her and to softer, civilized feelings.
In Schoolfor Honor, Lady Louisa eventually manages to discipline
a wild, gothic spirit by appealing to his sensibility, and asking
him to ft.x his gaze on her. In this translation of Lessing's Minna,
no subversive tendency, whether expressed in discourse or in
bodies, escapes censorship.
Fanny Holcroft's translation of Minna, published in her
father's short-lived Theatrical Recorder, is proof that ideological
compatibility between author and translator is no guarantee of
an effective translation. Fanny Holcroft produced a very literal
and faithful translation of Lessing's play, but while her transla-
tion is free from distracting and ill-considered interpolations, it
is also significantly abbreviated. In his commentary on the trans-
lation, Thomas Holcroft justifies this abbreviation as a neces-
sary corrective to the inherent flaws of the source text:
The passion itself is here verbose: it almost wearies, yet the trans-
lation has been freely curtailed by my daughter and mysel£ ... Many
of the German pieces are intolerable, only because of their length.
In this, suspense is immediately enfeebled, by the open ardent love
of the lady. (260)
Holcroft considers Minnds gradual exposition to be a flaw on
Lessing's part, whereas Goethe considered it to be Lessing's great
innovation as a playwright. 17 Moreover, he sees the absence of
suspense as a characteristic flaw of German drama in general, a
careless generalization all the more surprising for being enunci-
ated in a journal dedicated to promoting foreign drama during a
time of intense xenophobia in Britain. Thomas Holcroft's con-
ventional literary taste might have predisposed him to view
S P R I NG 2 0 0 1 : 65
 Lessing's concentration on the gradually developing sensibilities
of his characters not as dramatic experimentation, but as poor
comic writing. Despite his political radicalism, and despite his
posthumous reputation as a sentimental author, Holcroft ad-
mired the fast pace, wit, and satire found in traditional British
comedy, and was critical of the vogue for sentimentalism
(Stallbaumer 33). Both Fanny and Thomas Holcroft shared
Lessing's liberal and humanitarian sentiments, and reproduce in
full such potentially subversive passages as Riccaut's recounting
of the Prussian official's words, and Tellheim's excoriation of
army life and the service of the great Yet both editor and trans-
lator fail to translate the linguistic and gestural subtleties that
Lessing uses to unveil the subjective life of his characters.
All of the translators in question have a tendency to ren-
der in the indicative or affirmative moods, passages from Minna
that were written in the conditional. Lessing's characters ex-
press their wishes and uncertainties in the form of questions,
questions about both feared and wished-for possibilities.
Lessing's discourse posits a world that is open, where characters
are uncertain about their own internal motivations and the mo-
tivations of others. 18 For example, in act one, Tellheim encoun-
ters the widow of his friend Marloff. Marloff had died indebted
to Tellheim, and his widow attempts to pay Tellheim back. De-
spite his desperate straits, Tellheim is unwilling to take advan-
tage of another's misery, and he convinces Marloff's widow that
the debt has already been paid. Once left alone, Tellheim de-
stroys Marloff's IOU, and says to himself:
Armes, braves Weibl lch mufi nicht vergessen, den Bettel zu
vernichten. (Er nimml am seinem Taschenb11che Briefichafttn, die er
ｾｪｴＮＩ＠ Wer steht mir daftir, dafi eigner Mangel mich nicht dnmal
verleiten konnte, Gebrauch davon zu machen? (19) 19
In Lessing's play, Tellheim admits that he cannot completely trust
himself, and wonders if he might at some point be tempted to
collect the money owed him. Fanny Holcroft transforms
Tellheim's self-examination into a scene of firm resolution: "Wor-
thy, unfortunate matron! I must destroy Marloff's note; (tearing
66: METAMORPHOSES
a papery accumulated misfortunes too often harden the heart"
(221). In Lessing, Tellheim has to remind himself to destroy
· Marloff's note. In Holcroft's rendering, Tellheim is not a char-
acter who is capable of forgetting, or even of questioning the
firmness of his moral sentiments-he clearly affirms a general
moral principle C'accumulated misfortunes harden the heart")
and the reader witnesses him acting in accordance with this prin-
ciple.
Repeatedly rendering Lessing's questions as statements of
fact has the effect of producing a world of discourse that is
fundamentally different from that created by Lessing. The Dis-
banded Officer makes use of direct audience address, and Johnstone
frequently (but unsuccessfully) attempts to turn pithy phrases,
so the use of the affirPlative is explicable as part of a general
tendency towards the aphoristic in Johnstone's writing (and an-
other indication of his allegiance to older forms of dramatic
writing). The School for Honor transforms Lessing's text into a
weapon for fighting the cultural wars of the 1790s, and it is not
surprising that it seeks to resolve uncertainties and hopes into
certainties and matters of fact. The Holcrofts, by simply fol-
lowing traditional patterns of English stage diction, and not out
of ideological antipathy to Lessing, create the same flattening of
character, and the same simplification of human motivation and
interaction, that characterize the first two translations of Minna
von Barnhelm. Lessing's characters doubt themselves, question
the world and wonder about their future. Their English
doppe(gangerundertake their actions in the light of clearly enunci-
ated moral principles--doubt, uncertainty, and unconscious
motivations do not seem to be part of their world.
All of the translators in question manifest a desire to sub-
ordinate Lessing's exploration of character to the needs of the
plot. Both the comedy of manners and sentimental comedy are
plot-driven, whether the plot consists of a series of comic in-
trigues that expose the follies of the protagonists, or in the
progress of virtuous characters towards their inevitable reward.
British standards of propriety combine with dramatic conven-
S P R I NG 2 0 0 1 : 67
.• tion to produce a theatrical environment hostile to the exposi-
tion of character undertaken by Lessing. Lessing was the first
German author, but certainly not the last, to suffer at the hands
of translators determined to suppress any excessive emotional
outbursts by his characters. 20 Whether this suppression was un-
dertaken in the name of moral propriety or dramatic effective-
ness, the end result was the same: translations less passionate
and less interesting than their originals.
For example, all three translators only partially reproduce
Minna's sudden burst of religious sentiment towards the end of
act two. In the original text, Minna is briefly alone on stage, and
takes advantage of her solitude to express her happiness at the
prospect of winning Tellheim back:
Ich will nicht wnsonst allein sein. (Siefa/tel die Hiinde) Auch bin ich
nicht alleinl· (tmd blickt aujwiirls) Ein einziger dankbarer Gedanke
gen Himmel ist das vollkommenste Gebetl- lch hab' ihn, ich hab'
ihn! (Mit ausgebreiteten Armen) Ich bin gliicklichl und frohlichl Was
kann der Schopfer Iieber sehen als ein frohliches Geschopf? (57) 21
Minna's declaration of her happiness before the gaze of her
creator is hardly as extravagant as Schiller's "Ode to Joy," yet all
of Lessing's translators seem embarrassed by his conflation of
sacred and profane sentiments, and do not render the scene in
full. Fanny Holcroft renders this passage as follows: "He is found!
Ani I alone? Let me give vent to my rapture! Yet no! I am not
alone. (Looking up) Silent adoration is most acceptable to Heaven!
Tellheiml Tellheim! my heart overflows!" (230). Daniel
Chodwiecki included the image of Minna stretching her arms
out and presenting herself to her creator in his popular engrav-
ings of scenes from Lessing's play. Lessing's British translators,
however, were hesitant to present Minna expressing her happi-
ness with folded hands, a glance towards heaven, and her arms
stretched outwards. Simon Shepherd claims that Thomas
Holcroft, as a consequence of· his atheism, frequently excised
religious references from the plays he translated, and Fanny
Holcroft may have been following her father's example (506) ..
However, the younger Holcroft's elimination of Minna's ·ecstatic
68: METAMORPHOSES
gestures is typical of her treatment of emotional excess through-
?Ut the play as a whole. It is more likely that considerations of
dramatic propriety and not ideological conviction compelled
Fanny and Thomas Holcroft to restrict the expression of senti-
ment and sensibility in their version of Minna von Barnhelm.
In his survey of German literature, Carlyle attempted to
rescue Lessing's plays from the obscurity into which they had
fallen, and to point out the virtues of Lessing's style, a style con-
siderably different from those German authors who became
popular in Britain after Lessing:
[Lessing's plays] ... have a genuine and graceful poetic fire; yet no
works known to us in any language are purer from exaggeration,
or any appearance of falsehood. They are pictures, we might say,
painted not in colo,urs, but in crayons; yet a strange attraction lies
in them; for the figures are grouped into the finest attitudes, and
true and spirit-speaking in every line. (Carlyle 41)
Like Chodwiecki's engravings, Carlyle's description of Lessing's
style highlights the unaffected grace and directness of expres-
sion in Lessing's writing. Yet there were also provocative and
potentially controversial ideas imbedded in Lessing's plays, even
in· Minna von Barnhelm. As a consequence of their inability to
engage with both Lessing's ideas and his dramatic innovations,
Lessing's translators were unable to evoke his genuine and grace-
ful poetic fire.
Notes
1 As Lessing's play is not well known in the English-speaking world,
a brief summary of the play is appropriate. The setting is Berlin at the
end of the Seven Years War. Prussian officer Major Tellheim has just
been discharged. The Prussian government has refused to reimburse
Tellheim for expenses incurred while raising troops in Saxony, falsely sus-
pecting him of embezzlement. Disgraced, suffering from a permanent
wound to his arm, and completely impoverished, Tellheim decides to break
his engagement to a Saxon noblewoman, Countess Minna von Barnhelm,
and pawns for ready cash the engagement ring she had given him. Minna
S P R I NG 2 0 0 1 : 69
 tlfi
has, unbeknownst to Tellheim, arrived in Berlin to look for him, and ends
up at the inn where Tellheim is staying. Accidentally discovering her en-
gagement ring in the hands of the landlord, Minna buys the ring back, and
resolves to win back Tellheim. Tellheim insists that he is unworthy of her
love, and breaks way from her. Minna then conspires to play upon
Tellheim's sense of pride by pretending to have been disinherited by her
uncle for loving Tellheim, and that she is therefore in need of his protec-
tion. Tellheim, hesitant because he has yet to recover the ring he pawned,
asks for Minna's hand, but she continues to toy with him, even after ex-
li tracting a heartfelt confession of love from Tellheim. Minna willfully
d
u continues to deny Tellheim's suit even after it is revealed that the Prussians
Ｎﾷｾ＠ will reimburse him and clear his name. Tellheim accidentally discovers
that Minna has been in possession of the ring for some time, and has
;! known about the good news regarding his debts. He becomes enraged at
Minna for manipulating him, suspects that she had cruelly decided to
manipulate him into begging for her hand before casting him aside, and
decides once again to abandon her. The sudden appearance of Minna's
uncle forces a reconciliation between her and Tellheim. Tellheim aban-
dons his inflexible code of honor, and Minna realizes that artifice and
manipulation cannot obtain love.
Ill)
,,I
2
Susan Bassnet-McGuire, "Ways through the Labyrinth: Strate-
gies and Methods for Translating Theatre Texts," The Manip11/ation of Ut-
;i
I. erahm: Sllldies in Uterary Translation, ed. Theo Hermans (New York: St.
Iii, Martin's, 1985) 89. Bassnet-McGuire attempts to describe common strat-
egies for theatrical translation by building on the work of theatrical
semioticians Tadeuz Kowzan, Paola Puggliatti, and Franco Ruffini.
Bassnet-McGuire insists that the translator of a theatrical work "carries
the responsibility of transferring not only the linguistic but a series of
other codes as well" (89).
3
Kenneth J. Northcott, lntr., G.E. Lessing Minna wn Barnhebn,
trans. Kenneth J. Northcott (Chicago: University of Chicago, t 972) xxi.
Northcott corrects the frequendy encountered claim that Minna was the
very first German play to be translated (or adapted into English). That
honor belongs to Klopstock:s The Death of Adam.
4
The evolution of Lessing's diction is the subject of Jiirgen
,i Schroder's Gottho/J Ephraim Lessing: Sprache 11nd Drama (Miini:hen: Wilhelm
Fink, 1972). Of particular relevance is the Chapter entided "Sprache und
Rhetorik" (106-138).
5
lr G.E. Lessing "Abhandlungen von dem weinerlichen oder
riihrenden Lustspiele." Gesammelle Werkt in Zwei Biintlm, Band 2 (Giitersloh:
Sigbert Mohn Verlag, t 966) 171-172.
6
The supporters of laughing comedy more often created charac-
70 : M ETA M 0 R P H 0 S E S
ters who pretend to be virtuous and express noble sentiments while pur-
suing ignoble aims. Joseph Surface in Sheridan's Schoolfor Scandalis a good
example of this satirical strategy. Holberg may be a figure of fun at times,
but his virtue is genuine.
7 Diderot's art criticism is illustrative of this shift in eighteenth-
century aesthetics, a shift away from the rhetorical or ironic
acknowledgement of the spectator, and towards the aesthetics of the self-
enclosed work of art, where the work affects the sensibility of the specta-
tor, without direcdy addressing him or her. Diderot attacks courdy paint-
ers such as Watteau and BouCher, and praises the sentimental paintings of
Greuze. The ladies, nymphs, and goddesses of the courdy painters offer
themselves knowingly and unreservedly to the gaze of the (male) specta-
tor, to excite an immediate affective (sexual) response. The sentimental
scenes depicted by Greuze are self-enclosed and his figures do not ac-
knowledge the presence of the spectator. Nonetheless, Diderot believed,
Greuze's paintings succeeded in affecting the viewer's sensibility. See
Diderot, "Greuze," Didtrot's Tho11ghts on Art and S!Jie, ed. and trans. Beatrix
L. Tollemai:he (New York: Burt Franklin, 1971) 105-114.
8 Barner et. al, Lessing: Epoche-Werk-Wirktmg, fiinfte Auflage
(Miini:hen: C.H. Beck, 1975) 259.
9 Simon Shepherd has examined the relationship between new kinds
of subjectivity and new forms of staging practice. See "Melodrama as
Avant-Garde: Enacting a New Subjectivity," Texlllal Pradia 10.3 (1996):
507-522.
1 'David Simpson investigates the astounding growth of British
xenophobia in Romanticism, Nationalism, and the &volt Against Theory (Lon-
don: University of Chicago Press, 1993). Simpson's account of The British
Critic illustrates the speed of the transformation of British intellectual life:
''As late as 1793 the first issue of the British Critic, which openly decalred
itself for the conservative cause, was able to review a goodly number of
German books without demonstrating any animus against them on na-
tional grounds. The same journal maintained a fairly measured response
to German publications for most of the decade, but by 1799 it was taking
issue with the 'siCkly sentiment' of German drama and its 'profanation' of
the name of God" (87).
11 See Marilyn Buder, Romantics &be/s & &actionaries: English Utera-
lllrt and Its Baclegro11nd, 1760-1830 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981 ).
The Chapter entided ''Art for the People in a Revolutionary Decade" (39-
68) addresses measures undertaken by intellectual elites in the seventeen
nineties to "correct" popular tastes, and insure that artists maintained both
cultural and political decorum.
S P R I NG 2 0 0 1 : 71
.... 12
"You don't know Prince Heraclius. You don't know about the
great man who has conquered Persia and is now going to finish off the
Turks. Thank God there's somewhere left in the world where there's a war
on! ... I'm going to Persia to fight a campaign or two against the Turks
under the leadership of His Royal Highness, Prince Heraclius" (Northcott
20).
13
In their edition of Minna von Barnhebn, W.F. Leopold and C.R.
Goedsche provide an English translation of Riccaut's French: "Sir, his
excellency said to me, you understand that all depends on the manner in
which one makes the king see matters, and you know me ... This Tellheim
costs the king rather much, but does one serve kings for nothing? In this
world we must help each other; and when it comes to losing, let it be the
king who loses, and not an honest man of our kind" (4.2.115)
14
In their edition of Minna von Barnhebn, W.F. Leopold and C.R.
Goedsche translate this passage as follows: "It is dangerous to serve the
mighty, and such service offers no recompense for the humiliation and
the duress which it brings ... I became a soldier because of a certain parti-
sanship. I do not know, myself, the political principles for which I fought.
And it was a whim of mine that soldiering is good for every man of honor
for a time at least, so that he may become familiar with everything that
men call danger and so learn boldness and determination" (94).
15
Schroder 306.
16
"Oh, these wild inflexible men who can fix their obstinate eyes
on nothing but the ghost of their honor and who steel themselves against
any other feeling!. .. Look at me, Tellheiml (fELLHEIM, meatf11Jhile, has
been slaring.ftxed!J in front of hinue!f) What are you thinking about? Can't
you hear me?" (Northcott 78).
17
Goethe, Conversations with &kermann, trans. Wallace Wood (New
York: Dunne, 1901) 366.
18
For a discussion of Lessing's use of conditional structures, and
conditional statements that disguise themselves as affirmative statements,
see SchrOder 241.
19
"Poor woman! I must not forget to destroy that note. (Takes
somepapmfrom his ｾｴｬ･＠ and tears themlljJ.) Who can guarantee that my own
need might not one day make me put them to use?" (Northcott 15).
' » L.F. Thompson points out that translators of German literature
felt compelled by propriety to mute the emotional outbursts of their char-
acters. A particular source of concern was the behavior of women in
romantic affairs. British translators such as Margaret Inchibald were fre-
quently embarrassed by the forthrightness of their female protagonists
72: METAMORPHOSES
and felt compelled to subdue their passionate expressions of desire (Th-
ompson 63). The elder Holcroft also expresses some embarrassment at
Minna's active pursuit of Tellheim (260).
21 "I don't want to be alone for nothing. (She folds her hands.) I am
not alone! (Looking lljJ.) One, single thankful thought directed to heave is
the most perfect prayer. I have found him, I have found him! (Sheflings her
arms 11/itk). I am happy, what can be more pleasing to God's eyes than a
joyful creature?" (Northcott 56).
Works Cited
Barner, Wilfried et. al. Lessing: Epoche- Werk- Wirklmg. Fiinfte Auflage.
Miinchen: C.H. Beck, 1975.
Bassnet-McGuire, Susan. ''Ways through the Labyrinth: Strategies and
Methods for Translating Theatre Texts." The Manipulation of l.it-
emhlre: Shldies in Literary Translation. Ed. Theo Hermans. New
York: St. Martin's, 1985. 87-102.
Bernbaum, Ernest. The Drama of Sensibility: A Sketch of the History of En-
glish Sentimental Comedy and Domestic Tragedy: 1696-1780. Harvard
Studies in English 3. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1915.
Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1958.
Butler, Marilyn. Romantics, Rebels and Reactionaries: English Iiterahlre and its
Backgrotmd; 1760-1830. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Carlyle, Thomas. "The State of German Literature." Critical and Miscella-
IIIOIIS EJSt!)S. Vol. 1. New York, 1872. 22-73. 7 vols.
Diderot, Dennis. "Greuze." Diderot} Thoughts on Art and Style. Ed. and
trans. Beatrix L. Tollemache. Philosophy Monograph Ser. 72. New
York: Burt Franklin, 1971. 105-114.
Eliot, T.S. "Euripides and Professor Murray." Selected Essqys. London:
Faber, 1932. 59-64.
Goethe,Johann Wolfgang von. Conversations with Behrmann. Trans. Wallace
Wood. New York: Dunne, 1901.
Holcroft, Fanny, trans. Minna von Barnhebn. By G. E. Lessing. The Theatri-
cal Retorder 10 (1805):216-259.
Holcroft, Thomas. Remarks on Minna von Barnhebn. By G.E. Lessing. The
Thealrieal Retorder 10 (1805):260.
Johnstone, James, trans. The Disbanded Officer; or, The Baroness of Bmchsal
By G.E. Lessing. London, 1786.
Lessing, G.E. ﾷｾ｢ｨ｡ｮ､ｬｵｧ･＠ von dem weinerlichen oder riihrenden
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 Lustspiele." GuammeJte Werkt in Zwei Bandtn. Band 2. Giitersloh:
Sigbert Mohn, 1966. 171-212.
---. Minna von Barnhelm. Ed. W.F. Leopold and C.R. Goedsche. Rev. ed.
Boston: D.C. Heath, 1961.
---. Minna von Barnhelm. Trans. Kenneth J. Northcott: London: Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1972.
More, Hannah. Strichlru on the Modern System of Female Ed11calion. 4th ed.
London, 1799. 2 vols.
Morgan, B.Q., and A.R. Hohlfeld. German I.iteralllrt in British ｍ｡ｧｾｮ･ｳＺ＠
1750-1860. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1949.
''The New Morality." The Bea111iu of theAnli-]arobin. London, 1799. 293-
31 t.
Northcott, Kenneth J. Introduction. Minna von Barnhelm. By G.E. Lessing.
Trans. Kenneth J. Northcott. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1972.
The Schoolfor Honor; or, The Chana of War. Trans. of Minna von Barnhelm.
By G.E. Lessing. London, 1799.
Schroder,Jiirgen. Gollhoki Ephraim l...IJ.ring: Spracht 11nd Drama. Miinchen:
Wilhelm Fink, 1972.
Shepherd, Simon. "Melodrama as Avant-Garde: Enacting a New Subjec-
tivity." TexhlaJPradia 10.3 (1996):507-522.
Simpson, David. Romanlidrm, Nationalism, and the Revolt Against Theory.
Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Stallbaumer, Virgil Rudolph. Thomas Hokroft: RtulicaJ and Man of Lellm.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1936.
Thompson, L.F. ｋｯｾ｢Ｑ･Ｚ＠ A S11rvey of his Progress in Frana and Engkmd.
Bibliotheque de Ia Revue de Utterature Comparee St. Paris:
Ubrairie Ancienne Honore Champion, 1928.
74: METAMORPHOSES
PATRICIA GABORIK
LAYERS OF OTHERING: MISSING POLITICS
IN TRANSLATION OF CARLO GOZZI'S TURANDOT
If we are aware that translating is not merely passing from one text
to another, transferring words from one container to another, but
rather transporting one entire culture to another with all that this
entails, we realize just how important it is to be conscious of the
ideology that underlies a translation.
(Alvarez and Vidal, "Translating: a Political Act" 5)
It almost sounds easy: learn the ideological perspective from
which one writes, and ｾｮ＠ "accurate" translation of a work can
be achieved. On the other hand, given our incomplete aware-
ness of the ideologies and constructs that inform our use of
language, to claim an "objective" or "true" translation seems
disingenuous. Nonetheless, many translation theorists and prac-
titioners call for the translator to seek, explore, and finally con-
vey what closely approximates an original author's intentions.
When we consider George Steiner's observation in After Babel
that, "No two historical epochs, no two social classes, no two
localities use words and syntax to signify exactly the same things,
to send identical signals of valuation and inference," the task
begins to seem impossible (45). Notwithstanding the difficul-
ties, many who write about translation demand proper consider-
ation and understanding of a work's cultural context and the
ways language conveys that context. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak,
for one, expects a 't)_urrender to J;be ｯｲｩｾ＠ rather than a privi-
leging of the work's intended aul!9i'.eruce.-..::-------
.. - n ying Orientalism in Carlo Gozzi's
1761 Turandot:ftaba chinese teatrale lragicomica (a tragi-comic Chi-
nese fairy tale for the theatre), I realized that the play's most
interesting (and indeed most problematic) othering came from its
English translations rather than from the original Italian text In
the wake of a contemporary "melting pot" and culturally sensi-
S P R I NG 2 0 0 1 : 75