Goethe's Three Methods Of Translation

In his formulation of his translation theory and the concept of weltliteratur in the 19th Century, Goethe comes up with three methods of translation: simple prose translation which is rarely taken into account in studies of world literature simply because of its functional nature that emphasizes direct language translation over content. The next is the epoche--in which the purpose of study and translating is not to gain a higher understanding of the foreign culture or to make clearer the meaning of the text to a domestic audience, but rather to appropriate the cultural peculiarities present in the text and interpret it in light of one’s own cultural and personal interests only. The final method is that of the interlinear translation. As Theo D’haen explains it in The Routledge Concise History of World Literature, this final method creates:
“[a] translation that aims to identify itself with the original finally approaches the condition of an interlinear version and much furthers understanding of the original, it leads us back to the original text, stronger, it forces us back to that text, thus finally the circle is closed in which the foreign and the native, the known and the unknown move closely together” (D’haen, 122).
The last is the most idealistic of the three perhaps, but is often what might make an appearance in the mind of the common man when asked how a translation should function.
“The question of translation forms an inevitable part of any discussion on world