FAUST: A DRAMATIC POEM, BY GOETHE. TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH PROSE, WITH NOTES, ETC. BY A. HAYWARD, Esq. A NEW EDITION. BOSTON: TICKNOR AND FIELDS. M DCCC LVI. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION. THE difference between this edition and the last consists in a few verbal alterations of the text, some slight additions to the notes, and the omission of everything not required to illustrate the author's meaning, or explain the original intention of this work; which was simply to clear up certain misconceptions regarding the poem, and cause it to be more studied and better understood. The subsequent sudden and almost simultaneous appearance of seven or eight new translations, affords a fair presumption that the desired object has been at least partially attained; and, from the circumstance of their being all in verse, it may be inferred that prose versions are rather favorable than unfavorable to metrical ones. The author of the most admired, Dr. Anster, has generously given me the credit of encouraging him to the completion of his task; and this alone must be deemed no unimportant service to literature. 11 KING'S BENCH WALK, TEMPLE. December, 1838. |