A great post, as usual! Sometime in the 70s Barbara Reynolds did a really excellent translation of Orlando Furioso in the style of Pope. I don't know why it isn't more popular with the sort of person who reads Penguin Classics, it is like a cross between Ovid and Don Quixote. (I think that the serious reason is that the 19th century cult of Dante wrecked the formerly high reputation of Ariosto and Tasso at least in France and England / the US.)
Glad you enjoyed! The Dante theory makes sense, in practical terms canon-forming might be zero-sum, only so much space in our inner bookshelves? I almost quoted from an eighteenth century translation (John Hoole) that seemed a little livelier but went with Fairfax because I'd already mentioned him
Tasso and Ariosto were Voltaire's favorites, he thought that his reputation would rest on the tedious poems he wrote in their style: the Henriade and La Pucelle. He dismissed Dante as a relic of barbarity, like a Gothic cathedral. You can imagine how that insult landed in the 19th century!
It is funny because Tasso and Ariosto remain pretty big in Germany, as do contemporaries of Cervantes like Calderón and Lope de Vega who don't exist to anglophone readers. I think that this is basically because Goethe and the Romantics wrote so much about them.
right we only read Cervantes and that Penguin edition of picaresque novels with the Velázquez detail on the cover. I guess we don’t read much Goethe, either (I’ve only read the one on his Italian trip, and don’t remember it very well)
Becca Rothfeld had a nice recent article in praise of ETA Hoffman where she claimed ETA was under-appreciated in "an anglophone world with a pigheaded preference for Goethe." The line brought me up short: who are these Goethe idolators she is she criticizing? George Henry Lewes?
Most enjoyable read. Your hyperlink-like comments take the reader on sidetrips that enrich the story of each painting.
I've been reading about the nude in Spanish collections, which is a hoot. Condemned vehemently but collected voraciously, especially by the kings, notably Philip IV, but kept in quarantine. Spanish hypocracy par excellence.
The resemblance to Grünewald is striking.
it's a pity the only North American Grünewald is in Washington rather than New York, would love to see the two together
A great post, as usual! Sometime in the 70s Barbara Reynolds did a really excellent translation of Orlando Furioso in the style of Pope. I don't know why it isn't more popular with the sort of person who reads Penguin Classics, it is like a cross between Ovid and Don Quixote. (I think that the serious reason is that the 19th century cult of Dante wrecked the formerly high reputation of Ariosto and Tasso at least in France and England / the US.)
"Of ladies, cavaliers, of love and war,
Of courtesies and of brave deeds I sing,
In times of high endeavour when the Moor
Had crossed the sea from Africa to bring
Great harm to France, when Agramante swore
In wrath, being now the youthful Moorish king,
To avenge Troiano, who was lately slain,
Upon the Roman Emperor Charlemagne."
Glad you enjoyed! The Dante theory makes sense, in practical terms canon-forming might be zero-sum, only so much space in our inner bookshelves? I almost quoted from an eighteenth century translation (John Hoole) that seemed a little livelier but went with Fairfax because I'd already mentioned him
Tasso and Ariosto were Voltaire's favorites, he thought that his reputation would rest on the tedious poems he wrote in their style: the Henriade and La Pucelle. He dismissed Dante as a relic of barbarity, like a Gothic cathedral. You can imagine how that insult landed in the 19th century!
It is funny because Tasso and Ariosto remain pretty big in Germany, as do contemporaries of Cervantes like Calderón and Lope de Vega who don't exist to anglophone readers. I think that this is basically because Goethe and the Romantics wrote so much about them.
right we only read Cervantes and that Penguin edition of picaresque novels with the Velázquez detail on the cover. I guess we don’t read much Goethe, either (I’ve only read the one on his Italian trip, and don’t remember it very well)
Becca Rothfeld had a nice recent article in praise of ETA Hoffman where she claimed ETA was under-appreciated in "an anglophone world with a pigheaded preference for Goethe." The line brought me up short: who are these Goethe idolators she is she criticizing? George Henry Lewes?
I like the ter Bruggen Crucifixion, too. But nothing compares to Grünewald's in the Isenheim Altarpiece.
Most enjoyable read. Your hyperlink-like comments take the reader on sidetrips that enrich the story of each painting.
I've been reading about the nude in Spanish collections, which is a hoot. Condemned vehemently but collected voraciously, especially by the kings, notably Philip IV, but kept in quarantine. Spanish hypocracy par excellence.
Keep writing!