Thursday, August 23, 2018
An Extinct Language
Hugh Trevor-Roper, letter to Felix Raab (September, 1962):
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Do you realise how fortunate you are to read German? It is becoming—to judge from most of my pupils—an extinct language in England. And yet what wonderful books were written in it in the Goethezeit! Do you know Voigt's die Wiederbelebung des klassischen Alterthums: it is a marvellous book, never translated. And—though of course much later—Gregorovius's Wanderjahre in Italien? But I may be prejudiced in favour of Gregorovius: I taught myself German as an undergraduate, reading his Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter.
