Talk:The Visit (play)

Untitled
Wer hat hier mein Englisch imitiert?

Heinrich Lübke

Have I got you right?
I thought I understood the German, but not the meaning! Do you mean "Who has imitated my German?" Are you referring to the content of this article? I didn't write it, but if you have problems with it, try looking at the history of the article and contact the person who did. Also, if you wrote it in the German Wikipedia, all of Wikipedia is free to be reproduced and distributed, especially within itself! However, if that is not the case, and your have published a book with identical or very similar content, then you have every right to complain as it is a very serious issue that does occasionally occur here. Mark Lewis 20:05, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * No, you missed his (admittedly oblique and obscure) joke. Heinrich Lübke was a well-known German statesman who was famous for how badly he spoke English, and especially because he used ultra-literal translations of German idioms into English (e.g., "Charles walked the street down.").  For some reason, Germans found (and still find) this sort of thing highly amusing.  So I would guess that whoever posted (obviously not Lübke himself) was accusing the article of containing similarly botched translations and/or Germanicisms in the English. -- PKtm 22:04, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

New edits
The interpretation of how much is comedy and how much is drama/tragedy is wildly debated, as is the question of how truthful Dürrenmatt was being when he wrote his notes on the play. They certainly seem to contradict what the play seems to be about.

Also, what does it mean when it says the play is "traditionally performed as a screenplay"? I don't understand that. -Branddobbe 00:14, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'll have a look through, just to make sure that it is emphasized that it was the author's own written view that are mentioned, not necessarily the general consensus of opinion. Secondly, when I first read through the article, it did not appear too clear as to whether it is more often read as a novel or performed as a play (in terms of entertainment, not analysis). If you feel that the article is not NPOV, incomplete, incoherent, please change. I just felt that a plot summary was insufficient for such a great work of literature. --Mark Lewis 17:40, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Billion or Million
In the German original Claire Zachanassian offers Güllen one "Milliarde" (which is an English Billion (10 to the 9th power), see long and short scales). But my attempt to correct this got erased. I've never read the English version of the play. Does anybody know if the English version talks about one Million (10 to the 6th)? If I dont recieve an answer, I'll change it back to "Billion".
 * --David Bürge (Swiss foreign exchange student currently in California) (sry, dont have an English Wiki-Account)

I just finished reading an English translation and in my edition (published by Johnathan Cape in London, 1962; translated by Patrick Bowles). He uses the term "million" but does not specify a million what, nor is it ever written in numerical form so it's unclear what type of million is being referred to.--Ibis3 18:00, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I just finished reading another English translation (Samuel French). Alfred requests one million from Claire, but she offers the town one billion.

In German it's definitely one billion, as million is millionen and thousand is tausand. I'd recommend keeping it to one billion. Also, why is the currency listed as pounds? In the original German it's explicitly obfuscated.SadMarvin 13:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)


 * explicitly obfuscated? Isn't that an oxymoron?  Kostaki mou 02:36, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I think SadMarvin meant "deliberately ambiguous" (and I agree). David spector (talk) 20:56, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Although the original German says 'Milliarde' - a direct translation of 'billion', maybe because the exchange rate between the Mark and the Pound would have made a million sound not as exorbitant to a German audience as an English or even American one. (If you catch my drift - bit unclear) JSvejk (talk) 15:32, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Curious points changed
I've pointed out that in the German text the character is not called Schill and that "pounds" are not mentioned as the reward. (Edmund1989 (talk) 12:28, 17 November 2007 (UTC))


 * The original character name (Ill) is usually changed in English translations to avoid confusion. I've seen Schill and Schell. NeoAdamite (talk) 06:00, 1 December 2011 (UTC)


 * That point probably deserves mention in the article. NeoAdamite (talk) 17:21, 12 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The thing is that the fact "ill" means sick in English has already been commented on. --91.34.244.81 (talk) 10:22, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Claire's Gift
I have the Samuel French translation from 1958 and the amount is given as one billion marks. I'm sure this is variable, but I wanted to note another case. Gegenuber (talk) 02:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Relationship to The Lottery?
Shouldn't the relationship (if any) to the book The Lottery be explained? Since The Visit appeared about eight years after The Lottery was published, and appears to have the same plot, one naturally wonders about their relationship. David spector (talk) 21:00, 31 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't see much of a resemblance, other than "townspeople kill someone". But if you have a citation, go to. NeoAdamite (talk) 19:21, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

"Distrain"
Does anyone know what that word means or was meant to mean? Restrain? That doesn't work in the sentence. . . . There must be an explanation, but it's not coming to me! betswiki (talk) 03:37, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

What language was this written in originally?
This article says:"Anton Schill (Alfred Ill in the German-language version) is the owner of Güllen's general store[...]" But nothing before that in the article suggests that the play was originally in some language other than German. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:55, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Dampen and damp
Damp means to suppress; we write of damping vibration. People have come to use "dampen", which means to make damp, and this usage is even admitted in Merriam-Webster. Let's continue to use the perfectly good root word and not the one with another, inapplicable, meaning. Chenopodiaceous (talk) 02:56, 15 September 2021 (UTC)