Taking Liberties with Horace: Some Practical Considerations on Translation

Extract

Horace is a professional; and professionalism is not a marked feature of English lyric poetry: we think of Blake rather than Ben Jonson, of Shelley rather than Tennyson, and look less for perfection of form than individuality of content: personal revelation, a message of revolt, or esoteric symbolism. Moreover we tend today to distrust formality, in poetry as elsewhere, and to identify it with insincerity. ‘Scilicet vere quod placet ut non acriter elatrem!’ Provided sincerity is present, we are prepared to endure any amount of tedious revelation of the inmost trivialities of uninteresting minds, and the cruder the expression, the firmer the guarantee of sincerity. Strict and complex forms impose restrictions on a poet's utterance, and thus render his thought suspect.