There remain for consideration and comparison the two renderings into blank verse. These are the most widely known of the various translations, and one of them, Cary's, is the form in which Dante is most generally read by English-speaking readers. Longfellow's version, though occasionally it transfers a line more successfully than any of the others, is in the main perfunctory, and its literalness is carried so far that it frequently degenerates into a "crib" pure and simple. There is a story that Longfellow used to translate eighty lines every morning before breakfast. I do not know how true this may be, but the internal evidence seems to support it. The product of his labor is a caput mortuum; the categorical statements are all there, but somehow the poetry has evaporated. The result is tedious and uninteresting. Now, the one quality Dante never had is dullness, and that is also the one quality the public will never forgive.
Cary's translation has the merit of being tolerably readable. But in it the great Italian poet suffers a strange transformation. The words are the words of Dante, but the voice is the voice of Milton; or rather of a weaker-lunged man trying to mouth the mighty periods and cæsuras of Milton, and getting somewhat cracked of voice and broken of wind in the effort. Nevertheless, it is, on the whole, a creditable performance; only it is not Dante.
Each of the translators has his felicitous moments, and succeeds in rendering certain passages with more skill than his competitors. But the relative merit of the translations must be estimated, not by passages, but by the general impression of the whole work. Parsons is inferior to some of the other translators in certain obvious verbal and prosodical accuracies. But his poem probably gives a more correct impression of Dante in his entirety than any of the others. His versification has the continuity of Dante's, and something of its music. His diction, like Dante's, has that supreme refinement that knows no disdain for homely words and phrases. His style, with more inversions than Dante's, has much of the master's severity and swiftness, though it falls short of the masterfulness and supple power of the Italian. Altogether there is more Dante in it than in any translation that has yet been made.
It has been difficult for me to write critically of a man for whom I had a warm affection, and who honored me with his friendship and esteem. If I have erred on the side of severity, it has been from a fear lest my personal regard for the man should unduly influence my judgment of the poet; and if I have erred in his praise, it will be easily forgiven. But I do not think that I mistake in assigning to him, as a translator a station with the highest, and as an original poet a niche with Collins in the temple of English song.
Richard Hovey.
In Atlantic Monthly.
[Transcriber's Note]
This text has been preserved as in the original, including archaic and inconsistent spelling, punctuation and grammar, except that obvious printer's errors have been silently corrected.
"Sea-captain of whose keels the the Sea is fain," ([page 24])—deleted second "the".
"... it it is apt to be vitally related to them." ([page 44])—deleted second "it".
The spelling of "Shakspere" was maintained consistent with the original work.