Thayenga Jun 25, 2010:

Prodigy... ...would have been my choice here as well since he was a genius, though not quite a master yet, not ever having been permitted - by life itself - to become one.

Michael Wetzel Jun 25, 2010:

Then I was making it more complicated than necessary and you had the answer all along. "Frühvollendet" typically (or maybe even only) means something else, as defined in Collins and by others here, but the meaning of the phrase in this passage is clearly "prodigy".

Rachel Ward (asker) Jun 25, 2010:

Dates: According to wiki, he was about 22 when he started work on St Vitus cathedral and 27 for the Bridge. Sounds like a prodigy to me!

Michael Wetzel Jun 25, 2010:

... but the Collins definition doesn't seem to suit Peter Parler.
Can you use "prodigy" for an adult who was previously a child prodigy? Does "former prodigy" necessarily have negative connotations?

In terms of the content of the sentence in the context of a guide book: nothing would be lost by simply saying the "gifted" or "genius" or even "renowned". This would probably also be better than any other solution that is less concise than "prodigy".

opolt Jun 25, 2010:

Prodigy would be ok ... ... IMHO. But there's something very subtle about "frühvollendet", which is not easy to render, namely that it often (not always) implies that the artist showed tremendous genius early on, but that for some reason his life suddenly ended just as he was about to become a real master. I.e., "frühvollendet" often implies a feeling of mourning, sorrow about the destiny bestowed upon him by the gods -- that he wasn't allowed to come full circle, to become a mature master. For instance, one wouldn't normally call Goethe (maybe not even Mozart) "frühvollendet", even though he garnered fame as a writer and poet very early on. But in the case of H. v. Kleist, or many of the German expressionist writers who died very young (Georg Heym and many others), one certainly could.

In that sense, I very much prefer the dictionary definition above, about the early climax of the genius, which retains part of the original meaning.

Armorel Young Jun 25, 2010:

Agree with Wendy Linguee comes up with "early-ripened (genius)", which conveys the meaning although not in words that I would choose.

Wendy Streitparth Jun 25, 2010:

I think prodigy is on the right lines or maybe virtuose, although this doesn't convey the früh part.