William Taylor (writer, 1765)

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William Taylor

William Taylor (born November 7, 1765 in Norwich , † March 5, 1836 in Norwich) was an English writer, essayist, translator and critic.

Life

Taylor was born in Norwich, the only child of a wealthy manufacturer with ties to continental European trading partners, and received a high level of education and training in Palgrave, Suffolk . For several years he made extensive trips on the European continent (first to Italy, France, Holland, then mainly to Germany) to learn foreign languages. After five months in Detmold with Pastor Röderer in 1871, he already understood and read Klopstock , Lavater , before traveling large parts of Germany for more than a year and meeting people like Schlözer, Kaufmann, Goethe (?). Like his father, he sympathized with the ideas of the French Revolution . With the collapse of his father's economic situation, he turned fully to literature and became a great admirer of German poetry. He translated numerous German classics into English, including Nathan the Wise ( Lessing ), Iphigenie auf Tauris ( Goethe ), Talks with the Gods ( Wieland ). He was a very prolific literary critic and reviewer . The three-volume Historic Survey of German Poetry (1828–30) is his most important work . In his later years he found an adversary and critic in Thomas Carlyle .

meaning

Before the strictly conservative Thomas Carlyle, he can be regarded as the first Englishman to systematically advocate the knowledge and understanding of German literature and Romanticism in England.

literature

  • John Warden Robberds: Memoir of the Life and Writings of the late W. Taylor of Norwich . 2 volumes, 1843
  • Georg Herzfeld: William Taylor von Norwich, A Study of the Influence of Newer German Literature in England . 1897
  • Robert Southey: A Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Late William Taylor of Norwich . Murray, London 1843
  • Merton A. Christensen: Taylor of Norwich and the Higher Criticism . In: Journal of the History of Ideas . 1959
  • Taylor, William . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 26 : Submarine Mines - Tom-Tom . London 1911, p. 473 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edward Thomas: George Borrow. The man and his books . (English, archive.org [accessed March 28, 2018] Transcribed from the 1912 Chapman & Hall edition).
personal data
SURNAME Taylor, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English writer, essayist, translator and critic
DATE OF BIRTH November 7, 1765
PLACE OF BIRTH Norwich
DATE OF DEATH March 5, 1836
Place of death Norwich