In opposition to these remarks, it may be urged, that there are examples of poems originally composed in prose, as Fenelon's Telemachus. But to this we answer, that. Fenelon, in composing his Telemachus, has judiciously adopted nothing more of the characteristics of poetry than what might safely be given to a prose composition. His good taste prescribed to him certain limits, which he was under no necessity of transgressing. But a translator is not left to a similar freedom of judgment: he must follow the footsteps of his original. Fenelon's Epic Poem is of a very different character from the Iliad, the Æneid, or the Gerusalemme Liberata. The French author has, in the conduct of his fable, seldom transgressed the bounds of historic probability; he has sparingly indulged himself in the use of the Epic machinery; and there is a chastity and sobriety even in his language, very different from the glowing enthusiasm that characterizes the diction of the poems we have mentioned: We find nothing in the Telemaque of the Os magna sonaturum. THE difficulty of translating poetry into prose, is different in its degree, according to the nature or species of the poem. Didactic poetry, of which the principal merit consists in the detail of a regular system, or in rational precepts which flow from each other in a connected train of thought, will evidently suffer least by being transfused into prose. But every didactic poet judiciously enriches his work with such ornaments as are not strictly attached to his subject. In a prose translation of such a poem, all that is strictly systematic or preceptive may be transfused with propriety; all the rest, which belongs to embellishment, will be found impertinent and out of place. this we have a convincing proof in Dryden's translation of the valuable poem of Du Fresnoy, De Arte Graphica. The didactic parts of the poem are translated with becoming propriety; but in the midst of those practical instructions in the art of painting, how preposterous appear in such passages as the following? prose Of "THOSE things which the poets have thought unworthy of their pens, the paint "ers have judged to be unworthy of their "pencils. For both those arts, that they "might advance the sacred honours of re"ligion, have raised themselves to heaven; "and having found a free admission into the 66 palace of Jove himself, have enjoyed the sight and conversation of the Gods, whose "awful majesty they observe, and whose "dictates they communicate to mankind, whom, at the same time, they inspire with "those celestial flames which shine so gloriously in their works." ચંદ "BESIDES all this, you are to express the "motions of the spirits, and the affections or passions, whose centre is the heart. "This is that in which the greatest difficulty consists. Few there are whom Jupiter regards with a favourable eye in this "undertaking." "AND as this part, (the Art of Colouring), which we may call the utmost per"fection of Painting, is a deceiving beauty, "but withal soothing and pleasing; so she "has been accused of procuring lovers for "her sister (Design), and artfully engaging 66 us to admire her." BUT there are certain species of poetry, of the merits of which it will be found impossible to convey the smallest idea in a prose translation. Such is Lyric poetry, where a greater degree of irregularity of thought, and a more unrestained exuberance of fancy, is allowable than in any other species of composition. To attempt, therefore, a translation of a lyric poem into prose, is the most absurd of all undertakings; for those very characters of the original which are essential to it, and which constitute its highest beauties, if transferred to a prose translation, become unpardonable blemishes. The excursive range of the sentiments, and the play of fancy, which we admire in the original, degenerate in the translation into mere raving and impertinence. Of this the translation of Horace in prose, by Smart, furnishes proofs in every page. |