Frederick the Great discussion post 12

[cahn]

Every time I am amazed and enchanted that this is still going on! Truly DW is the Earthly Paradise!

All the good stuff continues to be archived at rheinsberg :)

Comments

Re: He said, she said, they said: on partitioning Poland and other matters

[cahn]

But I can't possibly tell you all, since we were in conversation for at least sixteen hours per day with each other.

Oh Joseph. :D
So curious as to what MT thought of this. gambitten, do you have access to MT's letters?

for I believe Canada to be as civilized as Pommerellen

LOL!

"This Prussia which I basically received from your hand" becomes of course "my property, which I negotiated because I'm just that awesome" later on.

FRITZ! Poor Heinrich :P

And I have made my own rhyming, not prose translation!

This is really cool. I feel like translations that try to retain meter and rhyme and other language features really help me get what someone would feel reading it in the original, in a way that's hard for me when it's a straight translation made purely for word accuracy. Like this one, the way you preserve the alliteration with "confident, comforted," whereas I would never have noticed it in "ging getrost" otherwise.

(I've tried to make rhyming translations before and they are horribly difficult! So I really appreciate this and know it's not easy.) Thank you! <3

To give you a proof of just how calmly minded I am, I include a little brochure which aims at showing the flaws of German literature

OMG. You are so calmly minded, Fritz. Yeah, whatever you say.

see the entire audience swoon at hearing these ridiculous farces which are worthy of a Canadian savage.

Man, Fritz, you really have it in for Canada, don't you? LOL.

Besides, a tolerant taste can't be the distinguishing characteristic of a King, and would not, had he possessed it, have allowed him to make a great name for himself; I rather think that the great and noble live by exclusivity.

That's really a neat thing for Goethe to have said, especially as a reply to just having gotten his entire discipline trashed, hee.

Re: He said, she said, they said: on partitioning Poland and other matters

[mildred_of_midgard]

Man, Fritz, you really have it in for Canada, don't you? LOL.

He does. Canada and the Iroquois are his go-to throughout his life for "the epitome of uncivilized." Much like we say "Timbuktu" to mean "so far away idek where it is or if it even exists" (which apparently Malians, understandably, don't appreciate).

That's really a neat thing for Goethe to have said, especially as a reply to just having gotten his entire discipline trashed, hee.

I can see why Goethe is BFFs with Carl August, Master of Chill (and son of good mom).

Re: He said, she said, they said: on partitioning Poland and other matters

[selenak]

Man, Fritz, you really have it in for Canada, don't you? LOL.

What I thought. Not sure why Canada in particular, other than that the French and the Brits duking it out there was the overseas front of the 7 Years War, so he probably got some reports on that via Mitchell. But there was no tobacco imported from Canada, so I doubt he had much interest.

Thank you for the poetry translation appreciation, I am bit proud of it, I must confess, for those reasons.

Re: He said, she said, they said: on partitioning Poland and other matters

[mildred_of_midgard]

What I thought. Not sure why Canada in particular, other than that the French and the Brits duking it out there was the overseas front of the 7 Years War, so he probably got some reports on that via Mitchell.

So Fritz was insulting people by comparing them to Iroquois at least as early as 1740, but in 1760, d'Argens sent him a French officer who had served in Canada (and couldn't go back to France because he's been kicked out for fighting a duel, which is why he went to Canada in the first place), and Fritz and d'Argens talk about how savage everything is in Canada, the Iroquois being cannibals, etc. So depending on how closely Fritz interacted with this officer, he may have had extra Eurocentric input on that terrible place called Canada. And either way, the exchange with d'Argens probably brought it front and center. Plus he is occasionally in his correspondence mentioning its fate in the 7 Years' War, so it's on his radar at least a little bit (despite being tobacco-less).

But there was no tobacco imported from Canada, so I doubt he had much interest.

LOL.

Thank you for the poetry translation appreciation, I am bit proud of it, I must confess, for those reasons.

I appreciate it in much the same way that you appreciate my OCR+translation interface: poetry is indistinguishable from magic to me!