A Translation from German into English of Joseph von Eichendorff's Romantic Novel Ahnung und Gegenwart (1815) by Joseph von Eichendorff (review)

It is a notable event for students of Romanticism and general readers alike that renowned scholars Dennis F. Mahoney and Maria A. Mahoney have prepared the first English translation of Ahnung und Gegenwart (1815). Indeed, it is the first translation of this unjustly neglected novel into any language at all. The authors hope that this groundbreaking example of a late Romantic narrative with its ethereal and musical poetic inclusions will serve as a text for college classes in several disciplines while opening the way for specialists in comparative literature and other humanities or social sciences to integrate consideration of this novel into their scholarship.

The sturdy paperback format of this book with its attractive youthful photograph of Eichendorff is both practical and reasonably priced. It offers a competent introduction consisting of a biography and a welcome overview of influences on his life and work. There are also accurate assessments of his place in the Romantic era and modern scholarship. Finally, the authors offer interpretations of salient aspects of the text to guide general readers as they approach an unfamiliar story.

The authors provide informative notes throughout the text. They appear on the pages where individual items need elucidation rather than at the end of the book. This benefits general readers who may find endnotes cumbersome. It also tends to minimize intrusion on the narrative flow. Notes sometimes refer to secondary works pertinent to a particular passage. They serve the function of a selected bibliography and do not intrude on the translators' intention to provide an approachable story for contemporary readers.

In a literary work of this kind a translator must decide the vexing question of whether to render the familiar poetry in its original form or to give prose translations. Happily for future readers, the Mahoneys successfully retain the original spirit of Eichendorff's language while keeping the English poetic lines as close to the original as possible. Here is one of many lovely examples: "Oh valleys wide, oh heights / Oh forest green so fair, / In pains and my delights / I found sweet refuge there" (145). The German reads: "O Täler weit, o Höhen / O schöner, grüner Wald / Du meiner Lust und Wehen / Andächtiger Aufenthalt." Another example is "Mild air comes down blue and flowing / Springtime, springtime it must be" (165), and, in German, "Laue Luft kommt blau geflossen, / Frühling, Frühling soll es sein." When the translators depart from the poetic form of a poem, as they do in the ballad "Der Reitersmann," they explain their rationale: "The following long ballad … has an 'ABAB' rhyme scheme with an irregular rhythm. As with other long ballads within the novel, we have elected to concentrate on the story line, with rhymes for the second and fourth lines, while following Eichendorff's original rhythm as far as possible" (320).

The task of translating Eichendorff is complicated not just by the great familiarity of his language but also by the disarmingly simple emotions and phraseology of the original. Indeed, the poetry is so musical that composers have always been attracted to it. Many Germans think of these poems as folk songs rather than the achievement of one person. Another difficulty of translation concerns the rendering of the novel's title into English, which the translators neatly sidestep by keeping the original German.

While the notes that accompany the narrative elucidate the action, they also provide comparisons to other literary works, and these can be very helpful. To illustrate the scope of such notes, here is a straightforward example from chapter 14. Friedrich is looking at "a collection of old paintings that he had only recently purchased and … had planned to enjoy" (232). One of them is a surprisingly vivid depiction of Genevieve: "and the sun shines splendidly, everything making music in...