Luise Gottsched, 'Der Lockenraub' / Alexander Pope, 'The Rape of the Lock'

Luise Gottsched was one of the most prominent translators in eighteenth-century Germany, bringing her countrymen into contact with the work of many key writers, thinkers and scientists in the European republic of letters. Der Lockenraub (1744) was the first German verse translation of Alexander Pope's Rape of the Lock (1714), and an impressive achievement at a time when English was still an exotic language in Germany and England largely a terra incognita. The introduction will outline the circumstances which gave rise to this important text and discuss its influence on the development of mock-epic poetry in Germany. The volume will thus underline the crucial role played by translation in shaping German culture during the Enlightenment.