Jim McKusick, Dean of the University of Montana’s Honors College, has cracked the code.
McKusick, a scholar of 19th century English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, has all but proved an
anonymous translation of Goethe’s Faust is really the work of famed poet Coleridge.
The discovery was a long time coming, and may never have been as provable as it is today, thanks
to modern mathematics and computers.
McKusick used a tool called stylometrics to analyze the 1821 coffee table publication.
Stylometrics is a computerized statistical analysis of a writer’s style, focusing on such things
as word counts and word usage. However, McKusick says, it’s “not a matter of matching up exact
phrases.” That’s what’s done to test for originality versus plagiarism, he adds.
McKusick used stylometrics to compare known Coleridge works with the anonymous Faust translation.
Word counts, pronoun use, conjunctions and prepositions were all examined by McKusick, and found
to be a match with Coleridge’s distinctive writing style. “Everyone has a characteristic
fingerprint of style,” McKusick points out.
To be sure the 1821 publication could only be traced to Coleridge, McKusick also did comparative
analyses with other known German translators of the time. There was no other match. Stylometrics,
McKusick says, does not offer proof of Coleridge authorship, but a high probability of it – and,
importantly, evidence that the other translators of the time were not the author.
Before 2003, when stylometric software became widely available, such analysis was the province of
mathematicians. “You still have to have a good understanding of mathematics,” to use the programs,
McKusick says, but it opens up the world of statistical analysis to others.
The work in question was published as an illustrated “coffee table” volume in 1821, and due to its
popularity, reissued in 1824. “It was widely read back then,” McKusick says, “but in the twentieth
century it’s been an obscure, rare book.” That rarity, oddly, is what first brought it to light as
a possible Coleridge work.
Paul Zall spent his career as a research scholar at the Huntington Library in California.
According to Fred Burwick, co-editor of the newly revealed work, Zall suspected the anonymous tome
was the work of Coleridge. “He showed it to me and said, ‘This looks a lot like Colerdige.’”
“I didn’t believe it,” Burwick adds.
Eventually, though, Zall convinced other scholars of his theory’s viability. As the findings were
set to be published by the New York Public Library, the library closed its press. Discouraged,
Burwick says Zall “gave up on it, until he met Jim McKusick.”
McKusick was a newly-minted PhD working at the library at the time. With their common interest in
Coleridge, Zall literally handed the project to the young McKusick. Zall gave McKusick the
two-foot tall stack of notes he had on the volume, with the statement, “Jim, this is my legacy.
Good luck and Godspeed.”
As we all know, God works in His own sweet time, and the speed that Zall wished for the project
has taken almost two decades.
The wait, perhaps, has been worth it. “Faust is arguably the greatest work of the modern literary
world,” says McKusick. Proving Coleridge’s authorship is “not only of historical importance,” the
work, he says, is “magnificent. It’s a gorgeous translation. It’s a book people will want to
read.”
The Oxford University Press agrees, and has just begun taking advance orders for the book, which
will be released in September. McKusick said the Press’s acceptance of the work for publication
was the key factor for finally releasing the evidence he has held “for several months.” The
credibility of Oxford University, the dean says, tells the scholarly community “they regard it as
a legitimate discovery.”
McKusick is quick to share the credit for validating Coleridge’s Faust with his fellow scholars.
Visiting professor Robert Pack is “one of the very few people in the whole world who has read the
complete translation.”
Professor Dave Patterson, chair of the University’s Mathematics department “has carefully read”
McKusick’s analysis. “It’s a very nice use of stylometrics and statistics to prove the case,” of
Coleridge’s authorship, Patterson adds. “This is a strong piece of evidence in conjunction with
the other evidence.”
One of those pieces is a letter from Goethe himself, referring to Coleridge’s translation of his
Faust.
Co-editor of the forthcoming work, UCLA’s Fred Burwick, unearthed the corroborating evidence.
“I do specialize in Anglo-German literary translations,” Burwick said. “I was doing a presentation
on Colerdige in Germany, and I remembered Paul’s argument. I became convinced my skepticism was
totally out of place.”
“Once I knew there was a connection,” Burwick explains, “I went through Goethe’s published
correspondence and did an electronic search. Goethe mentions Coleridge twice,” although he
misspells his name once, Burwick says. But he does say expressly “Coleridge is translating my
Faust.”
Burwick contacted Zall, Zall told him he’d passed the torch on to McKusick.
Burwick had been doing work regarding “verbal echos,” the repetition of particular phrases in a
writer’s work. “Our computers can’t do this very well, but a trained scholar can,” said Burwick.
Unlike the stylometrics, which looks for recurring words, “verbal echos won’t show up on frequency
lists,” Burwick explained. He said Coleridge used certain stylistic phrasings, such as
adjective-modifier-participle, like “wild singing birds” that was unique. “He loved to say things
were wild, but then he’d modify that, whereas another writer would not.”
Contacting McKusick about Coleridge, Burwick said “Jim had found 21” verbal echos. After reviewing
the work, Burwick said “I discovered more than 800.”
“In the following year,” Burwick went on, “we turned to computer-based authorship software.”
Using the stylometric software produced by Leeds University, McKusick “did a really remarkable job
of comparing other translators of the period and the Coleridge,” Burwick said. “Coleridge’s
version is distinctly Coleridge.”
Still, “without Jim’s computer-based analysis, we’d still have a lot of skeptics.” Burwick added
the computer analysis of word structure is similar to DNA analysis, “when your probabilities get
above 98 percent, it’s pretty certain. It’s the biggest breakthrough in Coleridge scholarship in a
hundred years.”
McKusick hopes the inherent poetry of the work will draw its own fans, not just scholars. “It’s a
scandalous work and everyone (will) want to read it,” mentioned McKusick.
Burwick agrees that Coleridge’s translation of Faust is special. This translation “was written
fairly late in Coleridge’s career. Like Faust, he’s looking back… Faust has squandered his life as
a scholar and now wants love and companionship. I think Coleridge related to that.”
Both Faust and Coleridge, Burwick said, were philosophers who contemplated Theism and Pantheism.
In Faust, Mephistopheles leads the main character to the top of Mount Brocken. Coleridge himself
had climbed the mountain twice while in Germany. Both were troubled men. “There were so many
touching points it’s almost uncanny,” says Burwick.
In addition, the story itself reflected an ironic twist in Coleridge’s life. Faust’s popularity in
the 1800’s led to it being widely translated in England. Coleridge was first commissioned for the
job in 1814, when he received a hundred pound advance, but failed to produce a full translation.
“I think it was too much for him,” Burwick says. Coleridge was known as an opium addict, though
McKusick is quick to point out, opium “was cheap and legal” and being an opium addict in the
mid-1800s was akin to being an alcoholic these days.
“Coleridge translated half the play into beautiful English verse,” says McKusick, and connected
those scenes with prose transliterations. In 1820, he was approached by another publisher, Thomas
Boosey, who had a number of German engravings of the play. Boosey’s intent was to produce a
coffee-table volume, and he didn’t need a full translation for that book.
Still, it made sense for him to Coleridge. “He was known to be a poet of the supernatural and
demonic,” says Burwick.
There is extant correspondence between the two in which Coleridge insists upon anonymity for his
part in the work. Because Coleridge had reneged on his arrangement with Murray, the first
publisher, it makes sense he would want his authorship to remain unknown on the newer volume.
In addition, McKusick says, Faust, though widely popular, was “morally questionable.”
“it’s hard for me to evaluate the relative importance of these two reasons for keeping anonymous,”
says McKusick of Coleridge’s decision. “Was it about the money (he owed Murray) or moral
squeamishness? Both of those are valid and significant.”
Both McKusick and Burwick will present their findings at a one-day conference in California on
March 16, honoring “Colerdige’s Faust: A celebration of Paul Zall.” In addition, Anne Basinski of
the UM Music department will give a talk on the musical history of Faust, while three UM student
musicians, sopranos Immanuela Meijer and Veronica Turner and pianist Emily Trapp will present
musical selections of the operatic version of Faust.
Faust is not only a literary work, but a great play, said McKusick. “UM could have the honor of
staging the world premier of this play.” His co-editor, Fred Burwick, just happens to be “a
talented producer of 19th century plays. It would be a beautiful translation to produce,” says
McKusick.
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