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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Letters Concerning Poetical Translations, by William Benson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Letters Concerning Poetical Translations And Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, &c. Author: William Benson Release Date: January 18, 2006 [EBook #17548] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LETTERS CONCERNING POETICAL *** Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Carol David, Lesley Halamek and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net LETTERS CONCERNING Poetical Translations, &c. (Price One Shilling.) LETTERS CONCERNING Poetical Translations, AND VIRGIL'S and MILTON'S ARTS of VERSE, &c. _LONDON_: Printed for J. ROBERTS, near the _Oxford-Arms_ in _Warwick-Lane_. MDCCXXXIX. LETTER I. _SIR,_ I am now going to obey your Commands; but you must let me do it in my own way, that is, write as much, or as little at a time as I may have an Inclination to, and just as things offer themselves. After this manner you may receive in a few Letters, all that I have said to you about poetical Translations, and the resemblance there is between _Virgil's_ and _Milton's_ Versification, and some other Matters of the same nature. To begin with the Business of Translation. Whoever sits down to translate a Poet, ought in the first place to consider his Author's peculiar _Stile_; for without this, tho' the Translation may be very good in all other respects, it will hardly deserve the Name of a Translation. The two great Men amongst the Antients differ from each other as much in this particular as in the Subjects they treat of. The Stile of _Homer_, who sings the Anger or Rage of _Achilles_, is _rapid_. The Stile of _Virgil_, who celebrates the Piety of _AEneas_, is _majestick_. But it may be proper to explain in what this Difference consists. The Stile is _rapid_, when several Relatives, each at the head of a separate Sentence, are governed by one Antecedent, or several Verbs by one Nominative Case, to the close of the Period. Thus in _Homer_: "Goddess, sing the pernicious Anger of _Achilles_, which brought infinite Wo
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