| Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra published the first part of his inventive novel, Don Quixote de la Mancha, in 1605. Literally overnight he went from a struggling writer, whose early renown had dimmed in the light cast by the major stars of Spain's Siglo de Oro, to the most popular author in Spain. At first perceived as a delightfully whimsical novel about the exotic adventures of an eccentric knight and his rustic squire, the work's fame quickly spread across Europe.; This dissertation consists of five chapters, the first of which describes this work's reception in Germany in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the second chapter, I discuss the life of the author Friedrich Justin Bertuch. His seminal 1775 translation of Don Quixote was the first, relatively complete, German rendition based solely on the original Spanish text, since two earlier versions (1683, 1734) were modeled on seventeenth-century French translations. Bertuch's rendition contains not only Cervantes' Part I and his 1615 Part II, but also Alonso de Avellaneda's 1614 apocryphal Part II.; In the third chapter, I delve into various aspects of Bertuch's translation including how he: foreignizes and/or domesticates elements like names, money, foods, measurements, exclamations and customs; deals with the novel's religious references, profanities, and vulgarities; and treats Cervantes's unique sentence structure and abundant use of present participles. Besides giving examples of both his word-for-word renditions as well as his translation mistakes, I also comment on Bertuch's interesting addition of numerous alliterative and rhyming elements. The final point discussed is the significant influence other authors had on his work.; The penultimate chapter of this work deals with the renowned artist Daniel N. Chodowiecki and the evolution of his Don Quixote illustrations for Bertuch's various editions. Because he was the most prolific and popular illustrator of the eighteenth century, having Chodowiecki's name on the title page of Bertuch's translation assured its success.; This dissertation concludes with an epilogue in which the Romantics' translation theory, which differed substantially from Bertuch's Enlightenment translation theory, is briefly presented, along with comments about their new interpretation of Cervantes's work, and Ludwig Tieck's 1799-1804 resulting translation. |
