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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Unseen World and Other Essays by John Fiske: is much more Byronic than Dantesque,--one hardly knows which
version to call more truly poetical; but for a faithful rendering
of the original conception one can hardly hesitate to give the
palm to Mr. Longfellow.
Thus we see what may be achieved by the most highly gifted of
translators who contents himself with passively reproducing the
diction of his original, who constitutes himself, as it were, a
conduit through which the meaning of the original may flow. Where
the differences inherent in the languages employed do not
intervene to alloy the result, the stream of the original may, as
in the verses just cited, come out pure and unweakened. Too
The Unseen World and Other Essays |
