Cristiane von Goethe

Christiane von Goethe

auntyuta

I find my comment ftom Dec 2017 rather interesting. What do you think?

Dec 3, 2017

I had read the original German version of this article. I published here the automatic translation into English. I noticed now that some of the English writing sounds rather obscure. For instance in the last paragraph it is being referred to ‘her’ health, so it should say as ‘she’ grew older . . . .

My apologies for taking the easy way out by publishing this ‘automatic’ translation. Tell me please, if you find more obscure sections in this article.

However, some sections seem to come out well in translation. For instance this paragraph:

“Even after her marriage Christiane was accepted as a “Geheimrätin von Goethe” by the Weimar society only reluctantly and hesitantly. To change the social rejection of his wife, Goethe asked the wealthy widow Johanna Schopenhauer , mother of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer , to break the barrier with an official invitation to tea. She did it with the remark: “If Goethe gives her his name, we will be able to give her a cup of tea.”
(„Wenn Goethe ihr seinen Namen gibt, werden wir ihr wohl eine Tasse Tee geben können.“)

This remark by Johanna Schopenhauer does sound quite sarcastic, don’t you think?