Influence
William Taylor was England's first advocate of and enthusiast for German Romantic literature, and leader in its assimilation until the return of Coleridge from Germany in 1799. English writers were indebted to his enthusiastic if free translations. In 1828 the author Thomas Carlyle reminded Goethe that:
- A Mr.Taylor of Norwich who is at present publishing 'Specimens of German Poetry', is a man of learning and long ago gave a version of your Iphigenie auf Tauris (Iphigenia in Tauris)
Taylor is depicted as a mentor in George Borrow's semi-autobiographical novel Lavengro. Borrow described his philological teacher as:
- the Anglo-German... a real character, the founder of the Anglo-German school in England, and the cleverest Englishman who ever talked or wrote encomiastic nonsense about Germany and the Germans. (Romany Rye)
Read more about this topic: William Taylor (man Of Letters)
Famous quotes containing the word influence:
“We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For character too is a process and an unfolding ... among our valued friends is there not someone or other who is a little too self confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protruberent there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient solicitations?”
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“I became the Incredible Shrinking Mother the year they started junior high. If our relationship today depended on physical clout, I would have about the same influence with them that the republic of Liechtenstein has on world politics.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)