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Critical essays and literary notes (1880)
Critical essays and literary notes - 1880 Author:Bayard Taylor Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: WILLIAM CULLEN BKYANT. Translation Of The Iliad. r I THE appearance of this work is in more senses -I- than one an event in onr literary history. Next in i... more »mportance to the production of great original works is the naturalization in another land and language of the master-pieces of literature. We cannot say that the labor of translation has hitherto been undervalued; but it has rarely, in our tongue, been performed with that abnegation of the translator's personality through which alone the original author can receive justice. The fact that our two most distinguished poets, independently undertaking their separate tasks, substantially agree in their method—and that method unquestionably the correct one—confirms us in the hope that the great poets of other lands and ages may receive their fittest English speech through American authors. The divergence of our national temperament from its original character, is in this respect a fortunate circumstance. A great many causes have combined to make the American a much more flexible, sympathetic, Mr. Bryant and Mr. Longfellow. [Ed.] impressionable creature than his ancestor or contemporary cousin. Not being born to fixed habits of thought, he more easily assumes, or temporarily identities himself with those of other races; he is more competent to shift his point of view; he is more capable of surrendering himself to foreign influences, and recovering his native manner when the occasion has passed. His power of sensation is keener, his capacity for enthusiasm greater. The only people who have hitherto possessed a similar sympathetic quality of mind — the Germans—have most admirably transferred to their language the characteristics of foreign genius. For the faithful reproduction of the thought, style, and atmosphere of an au...« less