Hafiz, Mohammed Shems-ed-Din. Odes from the Divan of. Freely rendered from literal translations by Richard Le Gallienne. [*]$1.50. Page.
“Hafiz has the epicureanism of Omar Khayyam without his philosophy. He sings of nothing but wine and love.... Mr. Le Gallienne has not merely translated, he has transmuted the odes into true English poetry, and any one but an antiquarian will prefer to read them in this form rather than in the literal versions.”—Ind.
“In short, while Mr. Le Gallienne has not found much more to tell us in this than in his last Persian study, he has not shown any greater poetical merit; but, on the contrary, by his more ambitious metrical scheme and greater dependence upon himself, he has been led into worse technical blunders.”
| — | Acad. 68: 1123. O. 28, ‘05. 980w. |
“The only fault we have to find with Mr. Le Gallienne is that he is inclined to make his task easy by diluting his poetry until it flows freely. With more pains he might have kept more of the terseness and spirit of the original.”
| + + — | Ind. 59: 687. S. 14, ‘05. 540w. |
“His work is frankly not a translation by a scholar, but a poet’s version of another poet. Jarring notes like these are the more discordant when one thinks of the beauty of so much of his version, and remembers the undoubted ability of Mr. Le Gallienne.”
| + — | Lit. D. 31: 665. N. 4, ‘05. 710w. | |
| * | + | N. Y. Times. 10: 798. N. 25, ‘05. 330w. |
“Many of these odes have the lyrical quality, and that while they may not be in all points acceptable to Oriental scholars, they give to the reader sufficiently well the effect of Persian imagery and the essence of the poet’s feeling.”
| + | Outlook. 81: 44. S. 2, ‘05. 220w. | |
| + | R. of Rs. 32: 511. O. ‘05. 120w. |