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10 ‘According to my Genius’: Dryden‘S Translation of ’The First Book of Homer‘s Ilias’
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Published:August 2000
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Abstract
The most important English classical translations of the long eighteenth century are John Dryden‘s Aeneis (1697) and Alexander Pope‘s Iliad (1715-20). Successful at the time of publication and virtually unchallenged for the next 150 years, these renderings of epic poetry into heroic couplets are important poems in their own right, and revealing documents in the history of the reception of classical epic. A nearly forgotten part of that history is Dryden‘s version of the first book of the Iliad, published a few months before his death in 1700, but intended as a trial balloon for a complete translation. Until very recently, scholars have either ignored or devalued this vigorous and lively work; according to one respected expert, it ‘represents not only a change in tactics but a falling off in skill from his Virgil‘. Yet I shall contend here that Dryden‘s ‘First Book‘ is more Homeric than Pope‘s-indeed, more Homeric than any translation into a European language before the twentieth century. Pope files the rough edges off Homer, producing not only a smoother and more
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