In 1855 Dr. Franz Lorinser, an ecclesiastic of Regensburg, an enthusiastic admirer of Spanish literature, began the translation of all of Calderon’s autos, and has now translated some sixty-two of the seventy-two into German trochaic verse, without any attempt to preserve the original asonante.
This translation is accompanied by valuable notes and explanations, very necessary for the non-Catholic reader, as these plays are in many instances crowded with scholastic theology.
If the Germans, with their genius for translation, shrank from the labor necessary for the faithful rendering of the autos, the English, with their more unmanageable language, may well be excused for suffering these remarkable plays to remain so long unknown.
Occasional notices and analyses had been given in literary histories and periodicals, but the first attempt at a metrical translation was by Dean Trench in his admirable little work (reprinted in New York 1856) on Calderon, which contains a partial translation of The Great Theatre of the World.
It is needless to say it is beautifully done, and on the whole is the most poetical translation yet made into English.
The first complete translation of an auto was made by Mr. D. F. MacCarthy, published in 1861 in London, under the title, Three Dramas of Calderon, from the Spanish, and containing the auto, The Sorceries of Sin.
The author was favorably known for his previous labors in this field, which had won him the gratitude of all interested in Spanish literature.
He has since published a volume, entitled Mysteries of Corpus Christi, Dublin and London, 1867, containing complete translations of Baltassar’s Feast, The Divine Philothea, and several scenes from The Poison and the Antidote, in all of which the original metre is strictly preserved. There are few translations in the English language where similar difficulties have been so triumphantly overcome.
The asonante can never be naturalized in English verse, but Mr. MacCarthy has done much to reconcile us to it, and make its introduction in Spanish translations useful, if not indispensably necessary.
It may be doubted whether in any other way a correct idea of the Spanish drama can be conveyed to those unacquainted with the Spanish language.