Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846

Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846

[It may be thought idle or presumptuous to make a new attempt towards the naturalization among us of any measure based on the ancient hexameter. Even Mr Southey has not been in general successful in such efforts; yet no one can deny that here and thereas, for instance, at the opening of his Vision of Judgment, and in his Fragment on Mahomethe has produced English hexameters of very happy construction, uniting vigour with harmony. His occasional success marks a step of decided progress. Dr Whewell also, in some passages of his Hermann and Dorothea, reached a musical effect sufficient to show, that, if he had bestowed more leisure, he might have rendered the whole of Goethe's masterpiece in its original measure, at least as agreeably as the Faust has been presented to us hitherto. Mr Coleridge's felicity, both in the Elegiac metre and a slight variation of the Hendecasyllabic, is universally acknowledged. The present experiment was made before the writer had seen the German Homer of Voss; but in revising his MS. he has had that skillful performance by him, and he has now and then, as he hopes, derived advantage from its study. Part of the first book of the Iliad is said to have been accomplished by Wolff in a still superior manner; but the writer has never had the advantage of comparing it with Voss. Nor was he acquainted, until he had finished his task, with a small specimen of the first book in English hexameters, which occurs in the History of English Rhythms, lately published by Mr E. Guest, of Caius College, Cambridge. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

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Ebook Number: 29858
Author: Various
Release Date: Aug 30, 2009
Format: eBook
Language: English