ABSTRACT

The English Goethe Society (EGS) is the third oldest Goethe society in the world. Although it was founded solely as a literary society ‘to promote and extend Goethe’s work and thought’, the appointment of Friedrich Max Müller as the society’s first president suggested that the early founders of the EGS also saw it as playing an important diplomatic role in Anglo-German relations. This article demonstrates that from its founding in 1886 to the beginning of the First World War, the EGS experienced various crises, not least in its relations with other Goethe societies in Britain and with the Goethe-Gesellschaft in Weimar.

中文翻译：

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文明竞争：英国歌德协会的起源及其与魏玛歌德协会的早期关系

摘要

英国歌德协会（EGS）是世界上第三古老的歌德协会。尽管它只是作为一个文学协会而成立，“以促进和扩展歌德的工作和思想”，但任命弗里德里希·马克斯·穆勒为该协会的第一任主席表明，EGS 的早期创始人也认为它在盎格鲁语中发挥着重要的外交作用-德国关系。本文表明，从 1886 年成立到第一次世界大战开始，EGS 经历了各种危机，尤其是在与英国其他歌德学会和魏玛歌德协会的关系方面。