espeare. Schlegel translated only seventeen plays,
and his workmanship excels that of the rest of the translation. Tieck's
part in the undertaking was mainly confined to editing translations by
various hands. Many other German translations in verse were undertaken
during the same period--by J. H. Voss and his sons (Leipzig, 1818-29), by
J. W. O. Benda (Leipzig, 1825-6), by J. Korner (Vienna, 1836), by A.
Bottger (Leipzig, 1836-7), by E. Ortlepp (Stuttgart, 1838-9), and by A.
Keller and M. Rapp (Stuttgart, 1843-6). The best of more recent German
translations is that by a band of poets and eminent men of letters
including Friedrich von Bodenstedt, Ferdinand von Freiligrath, and Paul
Heyse (Leipzig, 1867-71, 38 vols.) Most of these versions have been many
times reissued, but, despite the high merits of von Bodenstedt and his
companions' performance, Schlegel and Tieck's achievement still holds the
field. Schlegel's lectures on 'Shakespeare and the Drama,' which were
delivered at Vienna in 1808, and were translated into English in 1815,
are worthy of comparison with those of Coleridge, who owed much to their
influence. Wordsworth in 1815 declared that Schlegel and his disciples
first marked out the right road in aesthetic criticism, and enjoyed at
the moment superiority over all English aesthetic critics of Shakespeare.
{344} Subsequently Goethe poured forth, in his voluminous writings, a
mass of criticism even more illuminating and appreciative than
Schlegel's. {345} Although Goethe deemed Shakespeare's works unsuited to
the stage, he adapted 'Romeo and Juliet' for the Weimar Theatre, while
Schiller prepared 'Macbeth' (Stuttgart, 1801). Heine published in 1838
charming studies of Shakespeare's heroines (English translation 1895),
and acknowledged only one defect in Shakespeare--that he was an
Englishman.

Modern German writers on Shakespeare.

During the last half-century textual, aesthetic, and biographical
criticism has been pursued in Germany with unflagging industry and
energy; and although laboured and supersubtle theorising characterises
much German aesthetic criticism, its mass and variety testify to the
impressiveness of the appeal that Shakespeare's work has made to the
German intellect. The efforts to stem the current of Shakespearean
worship made by the realistic critic, Gustav Rumelin, in his
'Shakespearestudien' (Stuttgart, 1866), and subsequently by the
dramatist, J. R. Benedix, in 'Die Shak