Why does Mr. Longfellow use such long words as _compassionate_ instead
of _pitiful_ or _piteous_, _recognize_ for _know_, _palpitating_ for
_trembling_, _conceded that you should know_ for _gave you to know_?
By the resolution to translate line for line, Mr. Longfellow ties his
poetic hands. The first effect of this self-binding is, to oblige him
to use often long Latin-English instead of short Saxon-English words,
that is, words that in most cases lend themselves less readily to
poetic expression. Mr. Dayman, not translating line for line, is free
from this prosaic incumbrance; but as he makes it a rule to himself
that every English canto shall contain the same number of lines as its
original, he is obliged, much more often than Mr. Longfellow,
to throw in epithets or words not in the Italian. And Dr. Parsons,
who, happily freeing himself from either verbal or numerical bond, in
several instances compresses a canto into two or three lines less than
the Italian, and the XXXI. into nine lines less, might with advantage
have curtailed each canto ten or twelve lines.
Do what we will, poetic translation is brought about more from without
than from within, and hence there is apt to be a dryness of surface, a
lack of that sheen, that spontaneous warm emanation, which, in good
original work, comes from free inward impulsion.
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