Dem Schleifstein gleich, der selber zwar nicht schneidet, aber doch das Eisen schneidend macht, die Andern lehren, was einen Dichter bilde - Christoph Martin Wielands Uebersetzung von Horaz' Epistula ad Pisones. Eine Poetik

In 1781 Christoph Martin Wieland, who had identified with the Roman poet Horace throughout his life, who had sensed a kindred soul in him and worked on his oeuvre, began to translate his Epistles and Satires into German. Naturally it is a work of large dimensions, which is why this thesis can concentrate on the translation of the Epistula ad Pisones. This epistle, for which Quintilian supplied the title Ars Poetica, went down in history as one of the most important poetological treaties of antiquity. Wieland, however, did not believe that it was a poetic manual but rather a letter meant to discourage the untalented son of Piso from becoming a writer. By means of a detailled comparison with the original and an analysis of Wieland's methods of translation, this thesis shows that Wieland's hypothesis is questionable and that the text can be very well defined as a poetic manual.