Influence
William Taylor was England's first advocate of and enthusiast for German Romantic literature, and leader in its assimilation until the return of Coleridge from Germany in 1799. English writers were indebted to his enthusiastic if free translations. In 1828 the author Thomas Carlyle reminded Goethe that:
- A Mr.Taylor of Norwich who is at present publishing 'Specimens of German Poetry', is a man of learning and long ago gave a version of your Iphigenie auf Tauris (Iphigenia in Tauris)
Taylor is depicted as a mentor in George Borrow's semi-autobiographical novel Lavengro. Borrow described his philological teacher as:
- the Anglo-German... a real character, the founder of the Anglo-German school in England, and the cleverest Englishman who ever talked or wrote encomiastic nonsense about Germany and the Germans. (Romany Rye)
Read more about this topic: William Taylor (man Of Letters)
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—Rachel Carson (20th century)
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“Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. Their authors are a natural and irresistible aristocracy in every society, and, more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)