Abstract
The paper discusses how poetic imagination was shared in Germany and Britain in the late 18th century via translations, contemporary periodicals and subscription libraries, using Gottfried August Bürger’s gothic poem “Lenore” (1773) and the English translations.
Inspired by a British poem, Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1766), Bürger composed “Lenore”, published on a German periodical. About 20 years later, an English translation of “Lenore” by William Taylor was published on a British radical periodical and highly acclaimed by Romanic poets. Being translated and published on periodicals available at public libraries, “Lenore” was widely read by middle-class readers and the poetic imagination was passed down to the next generations.
