Johs. Ewalds oversættelse af Klopstocks Der Messias

Abstract

Around 1766, Johannes Ewald (1743-81) started to translate Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock's still unfinished epic Der Messias from the revisted version printed in Halle 1760. He only managed v. 1-298 of the first song. Some ten years later, he returned to the matter of making a fair copy of the text and including 32 footnotes where he explained the difficulties that he encountered when trhying his hand at Danish hexameters. Whatever Ewald aimed to do with these pages, nothing came of it. They were printed in two editions of his Collected Writings in 1851 and 1920-24. However, the text in theory and practice shows sections treating his handling of metre, vocabulary and idioms, his self-critical footnotes and his relation to German language and archaic Danish. Quotes from other contemporary Danish academics who in printed or hand-written attempts tried to cope with him are inserted. Klopstock and Ewald share the fate of being much more respected in the history of literature than still read as a classic. Yet both in their respective vernaculars introduced a specific lyrical style on the basis of a largely irrational imagery and a sometimes incomprehensibly condensed language. This along with an almost religious respect for poetry was a heritage they passed on to the next century.