Walter Meyer asked:

>I don't know the conventions of courtship in Beethoven's day, but
>I would be surprised if "immortal" ("unsterblich") would be a normally
>invoked term of endearment and am curious to know the actual German
>expression that has been translated as "Immortal Beloved".  I wonder if
>the German expression involved some word that could have been translated
>into English as "divine".

No, most probably he actually meant "unsterbliche Liebe" (theirs, of
course), not "unsterbliche Geliebte", so "immortal love", not "immortal
beloved." It's also sensible to keep in mind that Beethoven's knowledge
of his mother tongue was far from impressive. Horrible German he wrote,
full of amazing errors, flaws and faults. The background of this lack of
knowledge was the fact that he received such a bad education, only four
years at school and if we may believe his schoolmates he mostly was half
asleep in the classroom or at least absolutely not interested.

Joyce Maier
www.ademu.com/Beethoven