Opera lovers might know E.T.A. Hoffmann from Jacques Offenbach’s opera The Tales of Hoffmann or as the author of The Nutcracker. He was one of the most important and well-known German poets of Romanticism.
To really appreciate the quote one should know that “love” is feminine in German, whereas “thought” is masculine.
“What is space and time to love! Doesn’t she live in thoughts and does he recognise a measure?”
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I read and re-read, sat and pondered 🤔👍
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Was the translation difficult to understand? It’s one of these aphorisms that use highly stylised and compressed language. A more interpretative translation would be: Time and space mean nothing to love. Love lives in thought, and thought knows no boundary. It’s an epitaph on a gravestone.
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It was understandable. I like a “humanised” version as well as this one
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Oooh, complex stuff.
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