Studia Islandica - 01.06.1957, Page 32

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vidual lines and passages. Along with the subject-matter
of a literary work, its spirit, which is embodied in its style
(rhyme and rhythm to be considered when dealing with
verse) must also be reproduced if a translation is to ful-
fil its mission. In discharging this part of his undertak-
ing the Icelandic translator of the Essay on Man has been
less successful, as will soon be seen more clearly.
There is a general agreement among literary critics
that a translator should not, unless compelled by the
genius of the language, change the metrical form of the
original, and that if he does so, he should at least select
that form of verse which is most nearly equivalent. The
observance of this principle is of all the greater import-
ance when the merit of the original consists largely in
the metrical form and structure. This is true of Pope’s
poetry as a whole, and not least of the Essay on Man.
However critics may differ in their estimate of Pope as
a poet, they are in agreement on the excellence of his
style, his superlative art of versifying. For instance,
Leslie Stephen, who admits that the reasonings in the
Essay are “confused, contradictory, and often childish,” i)
goes on to speak of what he calls its “higher qualities”
in this fashion: “The style is often admirable. When
Pope is at his best, every word tells. His precision and
firmness of touch enable him to get the greatest pos-
sible meaning into a narrow compass. He uses only one
epithet, but it is the right one, and never boggles and
patches, or in his own phrase: ‘blunders round about a
meaning’.” It is, indeed, in this quality of conciseness that
Leslie Stephen finds Pope’s greatest claim to recogni-
tion as a poet of rank. “This power,” continues Stephen,
“of charging lines with great fullness of meaning enables
Pope to soar for brief periods into genuine and impres-
sive poetry.” 1 2)
1) Alexander Pope, p. 162.
2) Ibid., pp. 168-169.