In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Simon Cauchi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes > >> A few years ago our listowner (I think) posted some interesting >>comments about the strength and weaknesses of Dryden's version; >>unfortunately I cannot find them now. > >I wonder if you are thinking of these words cited from an article by Jasper >Griffin in the TLS (17 May 1991): > >"A great English poet translated the greatest work of Latin literature. >Dryden knew Latin, he had an eminent command of English, his mind moved >naturally in tune with the rhetoric of the Latin poets; his version is >inimitable in its energy, brilliance, panache. It is, of course, now >separated from us by 300 years, and the ability to read it with pleasure is >perhaps hardly as widespread even as the ability to enjoy the original. It >is also very unlike the original in two obvious respects. Dryden's rhyming >couplets break up the varied rhythms of Virgil into a uniform movement; and >the hard cast of his mind, his deficiency in tenderness, deprives Virgil of >many of his most individual notes. > But still: there are moments, I think, when poetry into prose won't >go, and one example from Dryden can illustrate that." > >(Griffin goes on to quote West's and Dryden's translations of Aeneid 6: 882-9.) > Yes, that was it; and the comment on the hard cast of Dryden's mind exactly describes the lines I quoted. Thanks, Leofranc *_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_* Leofranc Holford-Strevens 67 St Bernard's Road usque adeone Oxford scire MEVM nihil est, nisi ME scire hoc sciat alter? OX2 6EJ
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