Dryden's Translation Research Articles

John Milton and the Transformation of Ancient Epic (review)

Reviews417 John Milton and tL· Transformation of Ancient Epic, by Charles Martindale; xi & 239 pp. Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes & Noble, 1986, $28.50. "It is a trudi that cannot be too often stated that style shaU not be considered in vacuo; style is not an absolute, it is relative to the job to be done" (p. 214). The author here is praising Lucan and MUton; equaUy could he praise himself. With a seldom-disguised directness he reads his texts in order to deal with a highly complex assignment: die reception of Homer, Virgil, Ovid, and Lucan into Paradise Lost and at times die text of one into another's. His comments deserve respect because he so obviously knows the languages he reads. His audience will discover few better examples of the invigorating, postmodernly ignored values of "common sense and judgement" (p. 20). Martindale makes diree major points in his book: MUton in Paradise Lost privileged Homer over Virgil; he confronted Ovid from the Renaissance perspective , that is, as a text that could be moral, aUegorical, rhetorical, or "amoral"; and he looked upon Lucan as a necessary forerunner to his own "epic ofideas." Martindale divides his book into five chapters: an introduction and four devoted severaUy to die major classical authors. Each of the later ones opens with an all-important discussion of the Renaissance reading of the ancient poet at hand before any specific examinations of how Milton incorporated his imitations or, better, "metaphrases" (pp. 41-47) into his epic. En passant the author provides some startlingly attractive, comparative readings: Horace's Pyrrha Ode and its translations by Fenshawe and Milton (pp. 42-47); Vulcan's Fall in Iliad 1.589— 94 and Paradise Lost 1.738-51 (pp. 72-74); Chapman's translation of Alcinous' garden in Odyssey 7.1 12ff and the bower of Eden in Paradise Lost 9.829—35 (pp. 83-85); Marlowe's Dido Queen ofCarthage (II1.1 . 1 12-26) and the Earl ofSurrey's translation oí Aeneid 2.1030-1068 (pp. 111-13); and Dryden's translation of Ovid's theoxenia at die hands ofPhUemon and Baucis in Metamorphoses VIII.61 Iff and at die hands of Eve in Paradise Lost 5.337-44 (pp. 184-88). Yet, Martindale's simple style can also deal widi major theoretical issues. Not only does he take some well-deserved swipes at New Criticism in the name of MUton, the "personal poet" (pp. 65-70), and against Lewis Martz's possibly anachronistic reading of die last two books of the MetamorpL·ses (pp. 156—57), he especiaUy and more to die point addresses die difficult issues of aUusion, imitation, and translation. He devotes his introduction to these topics; no student of MUton should ignore his words. Martindale realizes diat "aUusion" depends on a complex relationship among die designing writer, the competent reader, the historical context, and rhetorical tone (pp. 1-9). He reminds us diat Milton is, after aU, "recreating in English a manner of writing" (p. 10) and that we, as critics, are too often apt to confuse 418Philosophy and Literature "allusion and a commonplace" and assume "that an aUusion necessarily brings in its train die whole context of die original" (p. 13). (In the Renaissance it seldom did.) Although he tends to agree widi die intertextualists diat "imitation naturally encouraged the critic to set a passage of poetry against its source for careful comparison" (p. 18), in the end "diere is no magic key to MUton's practice" (p. 20). The author will, nonetheless, offer Dryden's term, "metaphrase ," to describe Milton's particular act of translation in which he "seeks to reproduce as much as possible of the word order and syntactic movement of die original" (p. 45). Here MUton senses "the radical differences between Latin and English verse . . . and . . . the value of not seeking to accommodate diem in bland syntiiesis" (p. 47). Once againjudgment and common sense confront die metaphors of theory and emerge the victor. Martindale's format excludes two relevant hexameter texts: Hesiod's T^gony and Apollonius ofRhodes'Argonautica. Hesiod is important in MUton's reception of the Greeks; Apollonius, in Virgil's and Lucan's. But this is a very...

Translations of Roman Poetry - Howard Clarke (ed.): Vergil's Aeneid and Fourth ‘Messianic’ Eclogue in the Dryden Translation (Edited with Introduction and Notes). Pp. xlix + 378. University Park and London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989. $28.75. - Charles Boer (ed.): Ovid's Metamorphoses (Translation). (Dunquin series.) Pp. xxi + 359. Dallas: Spring Publications, 1989. Paper, $17.

Translations of Roman Poetry - Howard Clarke (ed.): Vergil's Aeneid and Fourth ‘Messianic’ Eclogue in the Dryden Translation (Edited with Introduction and Notes). Pp. xlix + 378. University Park and London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989. 17. - Volume 40 Issue 2

Vergil's Aeneid; and, Fourth ("messianic") eclogue: in the Dryden translation

Vergil's Aeneid; and, Fourth ("messianic") eclogue: in the Dryden translation

Scott, Chaucer, and Medieval Romance: A Study of Sir Walter Scott's Indebtedness to the Literature of the Middle Ages

According to Mitchell, Confessio Amantis is one of the many works of medieval literature with which Scott was familiar, but Scott's attitude towards the poem was evidently typical of his time. He read it, certainly, but except for the of and some lines from Book VI referring to the Tristan-story [6.467-75?] (which he quotes in the note to II.1 of Sir Tristrem [the ME version, which he edited in 1804]), it made little impression on him; on the whole he found in 'dull' (p. 37; the source for the last quotation is not specified). Scott edited the works of Dryden in 1808; and in his headnote to Dryden's translation of the Wife of Bath's Tale he cited both Florent and Marriage of Sir Gawaine: What was a mere legendary tale of wonder in the rhyme of the minstrel, and a vehicle for trite morality in that of Gower, in the verse of Chaucer reminds us of the resurrection of a skeleton, reinvested by miracle with flesh, complexion, and powers of life and motion (p. 36). Interestingly enough, Scott does not appear on any of the available lists of Gower allusions and commentary. bibliography is not large, and the example of Scott suggests that there are still other references to be identified. See Macaulay, Complete Works, II, viii-ix; Heinrich Spies, Bisherige Ergebnisse und weitere Aufgaben der Gower-Forschung, Englische Studien, 28 (1900): 163-74, 207?8; Spies, Goweriana, 1. Weitere Hinweise auf Gower in der englischen Literatur, Englische Studien, 34 (1904): 169-75; Spies, rev. of Macaulay, Complete Works, IV, Englische Studien, 35 (1905): 105-06 and n.; Fisher, Gower (1964), pp. 1-36; N.W. Gilroy-Scott, John Gower's Reputation: Literary Allusions from the early fifteenth century to the time of 'Pericles', YES, 1 (1971): 30-47; and Derek Pearsall, The Gower Tradition, in Gower's Confessio Amantis: Responses and Reassessments (1983), pp. 184-94.] [PN. Copyright Gower Society. JGN 9.1]

Clandestine Protest against William III in Dryden's Translations of Juvenal and Persius

Previous articleNext article No AccessClandestine Protest against William III in Dryden's Translations of Juvenal and PersiusKirk CombeKirk Combe Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Modern Philology Volume 87, Number 1Aug., 1989 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/391746 Views: 3Total views on this site Copyright 1989 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:James Gifford Dramatic Text, Music Text:, Interdisciplinary Literary Studies 14, no.11 (Oct 2012): 21–37.https://doi.org/10.5325/intelitestud.14.1.0021 References, (Sep 2012): 545–585.https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118301074.refs

An Echo of Lewis Maidwell in Dryden's Translation of Juvenal

An Echo of Lewis Maidwell in Dryden's Translation of Juvenal

Religion and Politics in Dryden's Poetry and PlaysThe Works of John Dryden. Vol. 3: Poems, 1685-1692. Earl Miner , Vinton A. Dearing

The exacting labors of the editors of the California Dryden proceed at a pace which may be unique among twentieth-century editions. The first volume of Dryden's poetry for that edition (1649-80) was fifteen years in preparation; nearly as long an interval elapsed before the recent appearance of the next volume of his poetry (1685-92),' and we must still await the volume of poems for the intervening years, 1681-84. Perhaps only the editors themselves can appreciate the magnitude of their task, however, and the general editor of the present volume, Earl Miner, has profited from the most frequent criticism raised by reviewers of the first. The excessive illustrative quotations which swelled the commentary of that volume are happily missing from this one, and while Professor Miner's commentary is certainly very long (about 250 pages for as many pages of text), it is so pertinent to the poems that no student of Dryden will wish it shorter. One advantage of the long delay in the appearance of this volume has been the opportunity it has afforded the editor to publish elsewhere a number of more specialized studies to which he can refer the reader without adding needlessly to the length of his commentary. The text of the poems in this volume, for which Vinton A. Dearing is responsible as in all the others of the California Dryden, follows the first printed edition of each poem as to accidentals, in keeping with modern practice, and incorporates substantive changes from later editions for which the poet was responsible. The volume offers a thoroughly dependable text, therefore, but since James Kinsley followed the same editorial practice in his edition of The Poems of John Dryden for the Oxford English Texts series in 1958, the modern reader's needs were already provided for in this respect. Kinsley's commentary, on the other hand, was rather sparse-less than 300 pages for the entire body of Dryden's poetry-and it is Miner's incomparably fuller commentary to which all students of the poet will turn with greatest interest. Their expectations will not be disappointed. Textual cruxes are solved, archaic words and seventeenthcentury usage explained, cross-references to Dryden's other poems supplied, and helpful analogues provided from other writers. Without attempting a variorum edition, Miner has included, with scrupulous acknowledgment, the suggestions of a great many earlier editors; yet the amount of original research revealed by his notes is impressive. Dryden's poems for the seven-year period represented by this volume are enormously varied: they include classical translations, panegyrics, odes, short lyrics, complimentary epistles, prologues and epilogues, as well as his longest and most ambitious polemical poem. Miner handles all these poetic genres with equal facility, discussing the literary antecedents of each in his headnotes to the individual poems and offering many rewarding general comments. His discussion of Dryden's translations of Lucretius and Horace included in Sylvae is particularly fine. He makes us aware of the originality and creative imagination Dryden habitually brings to the difficult task of rendering an earlier poet in another language and a later idiom. Miner's discussion of the ode To the Pious Memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew supplies a sensible redress to the recent attempt to make of the poem an ironic and mildly satiric comment on the dead woman's achievements. Like 1 The Works of John Dryden. Vol. 3: Poems, 1685-1692. Edited by Earl Miner and Vinton A. Dearing. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969. Pp. xv+ 581.

Virgil, Dryden, Gay, and Matters Trivial

Recent criticism of John Gay's poetry has largely continued to slight its merit or to misread it. Trivia has been especially mishandled, the chief critical faults being the tendency on the part of some to take the poem too seriously and to overlook a number of aspects that reinforce its mock-georgic nature. Gay was completely aware of what he was doing at all times in Trivia, and it is only when one reads the poem closely, with Dryden's translation of Virgil in mind, that a great deal of what he was indeed doing is clearly revealed. Not only did Gay go to Dryden's Virgil for particular phrases: “certain signs” of the weather, the “spoils” of Russia's “bear,” “callow care,” and a number of others, but he also used single words in the unusual senses Dryden had already employed: “infest” to mean “attack,” “contagion” to mean “fire,” “laborious” to mean “undergoing trouble and hardship,” as well as others. There is a whole vocabulary, available in Dryden's Virgil, to which he could have helped himself, in addition to those borrowings that can be demonstrated. A number of passages in Trivia also take their point of departure from Dryden's Virgil. When one adds an occasional clear echo of the Bible or Milton, all intended to enhance the mock-dignity of his poem, there can be no doubt of Gay's poetic competence.

Dryden's Translation of Lucretius

Dryden's Translation of Lucretius

Dryden's translation of Chaucer: A problem in neo-classical diction

Dryden's translation of Chaucer: A problem in neo-classical diction

Seventeenth-Century Translations of Juvenal

A MONG numerous cross-currents of seventeenth-century writing (the clich6 is perhaps inevitable), there are two which are often closely connected: satire and translation. It is main purpose of this article to consider some of problems this relationship produces, by a study of seventeenth-century translations of Juvenal. For greater clarity and ease of handling discussion will be largely limited to translations of three satires only-Satires 1, 2, and 10. Throughout late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Juvenal's reputation was high and interest in his work considerable. To mention no others, Elizabethans such as Lodge and Nashe knew him and quoted him; antiquarians such as Selden and Camden regarded him highly; Hall was clearly under his influence in writing of Virgidemiarum; Jonson borrowed from Satire 10 for some passages in Sejanus' and owned a late manuscript.2 He is praised for his deep judgment and grave sentences;3 his satires are far better than those of Horace; and though he be sententiously tart, yet is his phrase cleare and open;4 he is the best Satyrist and wittiest man of all Latin writers.' Boccalini, whose Ragguagli di Parnasso were popular reading in second half of century, to judge by number and variety of translations, saw not why Italian poets should so much presume upon their skill in Satyrical Poetry, there not being any one of them who might deservedly be compared to Juvenal;6 and preface to Dryden's translation of 1693 has a measured and balanced appraisal of Juvenal, Horace, and Persius.7 All this being so, it is surprising that first complete translation of Juvenal into English did not appear until as late as 1647, when Stapylton published his version as 7uvenal's Sixteen Satyrs, or a Survey of Manners