ABSTRACT
One productive way of thinking about translation is to think of it as a form of rewriting, that is, as a process of composing a text for which there are models and antecedents, contexts and purposes. Goethe lived through a period in which translation and the reception of foreign literature were of formative importance for German letters, and his late eighteenth-century novel, Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, gives us a fascinating insight into the translator’s need for pragmatism. The eighteenth-century German reception of Shakespeare is one of the all-time great stories of translation and reception; and though it might seem far removed from everyday concerns, in fact Wilhelm’s actions as a translator, tailoring his text to meet particular cultural and pragmatic constraints, are commonplaces of professional translation.
