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034 - A Politician's Poetry · Reviews

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  Speaker 1: Section thirty three of reviews by Oscar Wilde. This is
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  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by John Rose, Reviews by Oscar Wilde, edited by
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  Speaker 1: Robert Ross, Section thirty three. A Politician's Poetry Pall Mall Gazette,
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  Speaker 1: November three, eighteen eighty six. Although it is against etiquette
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  Speaker 1: to quote Greek in Parliament, Homer has always been a
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  Speaker 1: great favorite with our statesmen, and indeed may be said
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  Speaker 1: to be almost a factor in our political life. For
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  Speaker 1: as the cross benches form a refuge for those who
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  Speaker 1: have no minds to make up, so those who cannot
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  Speaker 1: make up their minds always take to Hymeric studies. Many
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  Speaker 1: of our leaders have sulked in our tents with Achilles
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  Speaker 1: after some violent political crisis, and, enraged at the fickleness
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  Speaker 1: of fortune, more than one has given up to poetry
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  Speaker 1: what was obviously meant for party. It would be unjust, however,
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  Speaker 1: to regard Lord Carnarvan's translation of the Odyssey as being
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  Speaker 1: in any sense a political manifesto between Calypso and the colonies.
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  Speaker 1: There is no connection, and the search for Penelope has
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  Speaker 1: nothing to do with the search for a policy. The
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  Speaker 1: love of literature alone has produced this version of the
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  Speaker 1: marvelous Greek epic, and to the love of literature alone
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  Speaker 1: it appeals, as Lord Carnarvan says very truly in its preface,
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  Speaker 1: each generation in turn delights to tell the story of
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  Speaker 1: Odysseus in its own language, for the story is one
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  Speaker 1: that never grows old of the labors of his predecessors.
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  Speaker 1: In translation, Lord Carnarvan makes ample recognition, though we acknowledge
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  Speaker 1: that we do not consider Pope's Homer the work of
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  Speaker 1: our great poet, and we must protest that there is
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  Speaker 1: more enchapment than quaint Elizabethan conceits. The meter he has
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  Speaker 1: selected is blank verse, which he regards as the best
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  Speaker 1: compromise between the inevitable redundancy of rhyme and the stricter
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  Speaker 1: accuracy of prose. The choice is, on the whole, a
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  Speaker 1: sensible one. Blank verse undoubtedly gives the possibility of a
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  Speaker 1: clear and simple rendering of the original. Upon the other hand,
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  Speaker 1: though we may get Homer's meeting, we often miss his music.
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  Speaker 1: The ten syllabled line brings but a faint echo of
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  Speaker 1: the long roll of the Homeric hexameter, its rapid movement
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  Speaker 1: and continuous harmony. Besides, except in the hands of a
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  Speaker 1: great master of song, blank verse is apt to be tedious,
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  Speaker 1: and Lord Carnarvan's use of the weak ending, his habit
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  Speaker 1: of closing the line with an unimportant word, is hardly
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  Speaker 1: consistent with the stateliness of an epic, however valuable it
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  Speaker 1: might be in dramatic verse. Now and then. Also, Lord
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  Speaker 1: Carnarvan exaggerates the value of the Homeric adjective, and for
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  Speaker 1: one word in the Greek gives us a whole line.
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  Speaker 1: In the English, the simple asperios, for instance, is converted
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  Speaker 1: into and when the shades of evening fall around. In
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  Speaker 1: the second book and elsewhere, purely decorative epithets are expanded
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  Speaker 1: into elaborate descriptions. However, there are many pleasing qualities in
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  Speaker 1: Lord Carnarvan's verse, and though it may not contain much
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  Speaker 1: subtlety of melody, still it has often a charm and
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  Speaker 1: sweetness of its own. Scription of Calypso's garden, for example,
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  Speaker 1: is excellent. Around the grotto grew a goodly grove, alder
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  Speaker 1: and popular and the cypress sweet, and the deep winged
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  Speaker 1: sea birds found their haunt, and owls and hawks and
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  Speaker 1: long tongue cormorants who joy to live upon the brainy flood.
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  Speaker 1: And o'er the face of the deep cave of vine
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  Speaker 1: wove its wild tangles and clustering grapes. Four fountains, two
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  Speaker 1: each from the other, turned poured their white waters, whilst
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  Speaker 1: the grassy meads bloomed with the parsley and the violet's flower.
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  Speaker 1: The story of the Cyclops is not very well told.
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  Speaker 1: The grotesque humor of the giant's promise hardly appears in
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  Speaker 1: thee Then no man, last of all, will I devour,
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  Speaker 1: and this thy gift shall be. And the bitter play
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  Speaker 1: on words Odysseus makes the pun on matis, in fact,
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  Speaker 1: is not noticed. The idle of Nausicaa, however, is very
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  Speaker 1: gracefully translated, and there is a great deal that is
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  Speaker 1: delightful in the Circi episode. For simplicity of diction, this
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  Speaker 1: is also very good. So to Olympus. Through the woody isle,
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  Speaker 1: Hermes departed, and I went my way to Circe's halls,
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  Speaker 1: sore troubled in my mind, but by the fair trust
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  Speaker 1: goddess's gait. I stood and called upon her, and she
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  Speaker 1: heard my voice, and forth she came and opened the
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  Speaker 1: shining doors, and bade me in, and sat at heart.
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  Speaker 1: I went. Then did she set me on a stately chair,
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  Speaker 1: studded with silver nails of cunning work, with footstool for
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  Speaker 1: my feet, and mixed the draft of her foul witcheries
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  Speaker 1: in golden cup, for evil was her purpose. From her hand.
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  Speaker 1: I took the cup and drained it to the dregs,
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  Speaker 1: nor felt the magic charm. But with her rod she
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  Speaker 1: smote me, and she said, go get thee. Hence and
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  Speaker 1: heard thee with thy fellows in the sty so spake she,
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  Speaker 1: and straightway I drew my sword upon the witch and
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  Speaker 1: threatened her with death. Lord cunarvan On the whole has
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  Speaker 1: given us a very pleasing version of the first half
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  Speaker 1: of the Odyssey. His translation is done in a scholarly
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  Speaker 1: and careful manner, and deserves much praise. It is not
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  Speaker 1: quite Homer, of course, but no translation can hope to
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  Speaker 1: be that, for no work of art can afford to
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  Speaker 1: lose its style or to give up the manner that
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  Speaker 1: is essential to it. Still, those who cannot read greg
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  Speaker 1: will find much beauty in it, and those who can
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  Speaker 1: will often gain a charming reminiscence. The Odyssey of Homer
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  Speaker 1: Books one to twelve, translated DD into English verse by
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  Speaker 1: the Earl of Carnarvan, Macmillan and Company, and of Section
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  Speaker 1: thirty three of Politicians Poetry