Daniel S. Burt - Greatest Authors of All-Time

[Aspirational]

Hi,

I was wondering how many of you are acquainted with the book "The Literary 100" by Daniel S. Burt. I have heard mixed reviews of the book (having never read it myself - I will admit that now, rather than later), with some saying that every writer has the same biography under his name.

But on the basis of ranking, I am in quite close agreement with Burt, as far as the first few authors are concerned.


Shakespeare
Dante
Homer
Tolstoy
Chaucer
Dickens


etc. One thing that does annoy me is Burt's pretence to understanding the literary impact of various figures that he surely cannot have read a good translation of but still insists on including in his ranking. One example very close to my own heart is that of Rabindranath Tagore, who Burt has the indecency to rank as low as 104 despite surely never having read a good translation of Tagore's work. I am well acquainted with literature in English and various other European languages, but I would uphold that, in my personal opinion, Tagore is among the best poets who have ever lived (at least as far as his language is concerned); in a ranking of poets, I would rank him only behind the first 3 of this list. Burt is presuming far too much of himself in this book.

But in most cases, I am in agreement with Burt's ranking and conclusions. What do you think?

On that note, I may as well bring up Burt's drama rankings (100 greatest dramas of all time) as well, which I have read in full.


Shakespeare - King Lear
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
Shakespeare - Hamlet
Aeschylus - Oresteia
Shakespeare - Macbeth
O'Neill - Long Day's Journey Into The Night
Shakespeare - Othello
Beckett - Waiting for Godot
Euripides - Medea
Shakespeare - Twelfth Night


I like this list, and Burt's explanations in particular, far more: it tallies up almost exactly with what I think, and perhaps the slight discrepancies are caused by own Bardolatry as opposed to his clear-eyed view of exactly how much praise Shakespeare deserves. At any rate, this would be my list:


Shakespeare - King Lear
Shakespeare - Hamlet
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
Shakespeare - Macbeth
Aeschylus - Oresteia
Shakespeare - Othello
Beckett - Waiting for Godot
O'Neill - Long Day's Journey Into The Night
Shakespeare - Twelfth Night
Euripides - Medea


Same 10 plays; Shakespeare features the same number of times; he just occupies marginally higher ranks. And before anyone asks, I have read all 10, including the Greek playwrights' in the original Greek.

Again, what do you think?

Both lists are available to view for free over the Internet. I can provide links. However, the explanations behind them would necessitate you to open up your wallet and buy Burt's books.

[country doctor]

Roar!

[PeterL]

Preferences in literature are just that - preferences.

[Loganm]

I find it hard to believe you're as well read as you claim and still occupy your time with a useless ranking book and then actually get bothered at the ratings.

[Aspirational]

I find it hard to believe you're as well read as you claim and still occupy your time with a useless ranking book and then actually get bothered at the ratings.

I'm not particularly well read. Most of my book choices come from such lists, in the sense that I tend to read from each culture only what people say is the very best rather than looking for my own niche interests. Thus I'm not nearly "well read", especially by the standards of a literary forum.

I was suggesting my preference concerning the rankings rather than "getting bothered" about them. And I haven't occupied my time with anything: I've just seen the ranking list. Also, as a young student of literature and writing it's important to me to discern what, in the eyes of a critic (e.g. Burt), makes an all-time great book, which is why I acquired the Drama 100 book.

[stlukesguild]

All "canons" or lists of the greatest writers are limited... and ultimately flawed. Limits include the experiences of the compiler(s), the access to translations... and in many instances, self-imposed limitations such as focusing upon one genre (the novel), a given time period, or Western literature to the exclusion of India, China, Persia, Japan, etc...

One thing that does annoy me is Burt's pretence to understanding the literary impact of various figures that he surely cannot have read a good translation of but still insists on including in his ranking. One example very close to my own heart is that of Rabindranath Tagore, who Burt has the indecency to rank as low as 104 despite surely never having read a good translation of Tagore's work.

Tagore actually ranks no. 90 on Burt's list The Literary 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Novelists, Playwrights, and Poets of All Time. The list, it should be noted, is based upon "influence" (however Burt measures that) and I might suggest that I might question any number of Burt's placements. Ovid's influence on the art and literature of the Renaissance through the Baroque was second only to the Bible... yet how is he ranked beneath Faulkner and T.S. Eliot whose influence can only be measured over less than a century? How does his influence fall beneath George Eliot? How many actually read Eliot? How is Baudelaire, arguably the father of Modern poetry (and quite possibly the greatest French poet) ranked so low? Where is Firdowsi, the acknowledged giant of Persian literature... an epic poet that should stand shoulder to shoulder with Dante, Homer, etc...? Faulkner, T.S. Eliot, Yeats, Pushkin, George Eliot, Melville all more influential than Blake? Really? Really!!??

Ultimately all such lists are but opinion... albeit some opinions are greater than others. In my personal opinion, from what I have read by Tagore, I have in no way been impressed to such an extent that I would even have included him in the top 100. But my experience of his work is admittedly limited. Ultimately, the challenge for any individual making such a list... or challenging it... is to justify just why this or that writer in ranked too high or too low.

[mortalterror]

My thoughts were actually similar to StLukes. I thought Ferdowsi and Vyasa should be above Dickens and Chaucer, and maybe Virgil, Ovid, Rumi, Hafez, Nizami, Horace, Goethe, Kalidasa, Valmiki, Murasaki Shikibu, Cao Xueqin, Tasso, Milton, Baudelaire, possibly Tu Fu, Basho, Nguyen Du, or Tulsidas too. I read a book of Tagore's poems and some of his short stories this year and I don't think he can be counted among the truly great. I'd put him up there with major modernist figures like Yeats and T.S. Eliot but not in the realm of Shakespeare.

[B. Laumness]

Half of authors on this list (http://www.adherents.com/people/100_literary.html) wrote in English. I let you draw the conclusions.

Proust, the most influential French writer? Seriously? Who among us read him, liked him, and is influenced by him? More influential than Flaubert, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Hugo, Molière, or Racine? Give me a break.

Such lists are maybe interesting if they are personal. In this one, you have the usual ranking that you find everywhere in the Anglophone world.

[Alexander III]

Like all of these lists, bull****.

Notice how the one author which you have invested time and mind, to wit; Tagore- you deem in the top five. While countless others which you have skimmed past you agree with their random number assignment and nod your head to the usual dante homer Shakespeare trio.

I have invested time and mind into Pushkin, Rimbaud, Tolstoy and Fitzgerald. Naturally to me they appear the greatest, but because I have invested so much into them.

I have low respect for any critic or author who publishes lists, because they know what utter bull**** it is, and do it because the masses like lists and will buy said book.

[Aspirational]

All "canons" or lists of the greatest writers are limited... and ultimately flawed. Limits include the experiences of the compiler(s), the access to translations... and in many instances, self-imposed limitations such as focusing upon one genre (the novel), a given time period, or Western literature to the exclusion of India, China, Persia, Japan, etc...

One thing that does annoy me is Burt's pretence to understanding the literary impact of various figures that he surely cannot have read a good translation of but still insists on including in his ranking. One example very close to my own heart is that of Rabindranath Tagore, who Burt has the indecency to rank as low as 104 despite surely never having read a good translation of Tagore's work.

Tagore actually ranks no. 90 on Burt's list The Literary 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Novelists, Playwrights, and Poets of All Time. The list, it should be noted, is based upon "influence" (however Burt measures that) and I might suggest that I might question any number of Burt's placements. Ovid's influence on the art and literature of the Renaissance through the Baroque was second only to the Bible... yet how is he ranked beneath Faulkner and T.S. Eliot whose influence can only be measured over less than a century? How does his influence fall beneath George Eliot? How many actually read Eliot? How is Baudelaire, arguably the father of Modern poetry (and quite possibly the greatest French poet) ranked so low? Where is Firdowsi, the acknowledged giant of Persian literature... an epic poet that should stand shoulder to shoulder with Dante, Homer, etc...? Faulkner, T.S. Eliot, Yeats, Pushkin, George Eliot, Melville all more influential than Blake? Really? Really!!??

Ultimately all such lists are but opinion... albeit some opinions are greater than others. In my personal opinion, from what I have read by Tagore, I have in no way been impressed to such an extent that I would even have included him in the top 100. But my experience of his work is admittedly limited. Ultimately, the challenge for any individual making such a list... or challenging it... is to justify just why this or that writer in ranked too high or too low.

I agree with you on most counts, although I'm not at all certain Ferdowsi should be compared alongside Dante or Homer (though I have only read him in translation). The thing with Tagore is that it's hard to understand how great a literary giant is without knowing the language or culture from which he's writing very well: this is why I singled out Tagore and noted that he's just one of such people who Burt is making a comment on without "being qualified" to do so. I can understand Tagore's poetic abilities; you can't (but then nor are you claiming to) and nor can Burt (who is claiming to). The same could be said for any number of others on the list, but I'm hardly in a position to judge who they are (since I am not natively acquainted with them as I am with Tagore).

It would likely be futile to squabble over exactly where Tagore deserves to be placed when I'm sure there are plenty of others who have also been given short shrift by Burt. My main point was that Burt seems to have an inhibitingly pretentious attitude of his own knowledge of literature: he is showcasing his opinion (yes, I understand that he is entitled to his own opinion, but surely it would have been more reasonable for him to completely steer clear of cultures he can never have experienced, e.g. Bengali culture, and just to make a list of the "Literary 100" from Western and European culture) in fields that he cannot possibly understand.

It is striking, I suppose, that Ovid is ranked so low, especially considering he is likely the next most well-known classical writer in Latin (after Virgil). Perhaps the list has a very slight post-Renaissance bias (Joyce at #7?!), but then it could be argued that the Renaissance really did lead to a flowering of good literature, and there was very little literary writing going on between 300 AD and 1100 AD.

[mortalterror]

Well, Tagore translated Gitanjali and a number of his other works himself so it's still his words. The man was bilingual after all.

There may be something lost in translation, but I know good writing when I see it, and guys like Flaubert are a hit in any language. I don't think I need to read every text in it's original language to accurately judge it.

[B. Laumness]

There may be something lost in translation, but I know good writing when I see it, and guys like Flaubert are a hit in any language. I don't think I need to read every text in it's original language to accurately judge it.

There is something lost in translation, especially in poetry. I even wonder how you can “accurately judge” a poet in translation. The non-fiction is easily translatable, the narrative prose also, but not always in the case of masters of the language. Cicero, Caesar or Sallust are not so good in translation; you should know it as a Latinist. When it comes to poetry, to the essence and genius of the language, I highly doubt that one can fully appreciate in translation the beauty of the sounds, rhythms and images.

Is this verse still beautiful once translated: “Dans l’Orient désert quel devint mon ennui” (Racine, Bérénice, v. 234)?

Is the following stanza still magical once translated?
"Je suis le ténébreux, le veuf, l’inconsolé,
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie :
Ma seule étoile est morte, et mon luth constellé
Porte le soleil noir de la Mélancolie." (Nerval, "El Desdichado")

I don’t say that you must avoid the translations and that you need to read the original texts. Rare are those who are fluent and enjoy foreign books as if they were written in their native tongue. The translations are very helpful, often good, sometimes excellent, but necessarily different from the original.

[Aspirational]

Well, Tagore translated Gitanjali and a number of his other works himself so it's still his words. The man was bilingual after all.

There may be something lost in translation, but I know good writing when I see it, and guys like Flaubert are a hit in any language. I don't think I need to read every text in it's original language to accurately judge it.

I contest only that the divine skill of great poets - their language - cannot be understood clearly through translation. I would agree with you that Tagore's perceptions on humanity were of a much more "simple" profound nature than those of the likes of Flaubert: it's his poetic representation of them, and use of language, that I find special.

I tend to dislike Tagore's own translations of his work, actually. You can call him "bilingual", but the fact is that his faculty was for Bengali and English was a language he knew only rudimentarily until his late teens. His English words have a level of precision in meaning similar to that of the Bengali, but lack the poetic flair and beauty of the originals completely.

[mortalterror]

There is something lost in translation, especially in poetry. I even wonder how you can “accurately judge” a poet in translation. The non-fiction is easily translatable, the narrative prose also, but not always in the case of masters of the language. Cicero, Caesar or Sallust are not so good in translation; you should know it as a Latinist. When it comes to poetry, to the essence and genius of the language, I highly doubt that one can fully appreciate in translation the beauty of the sounds, rhythms and images.

Is this verse still beautiful once translated: “Dans l’Orient désert quel devint mon ennui” (Racine, Bérénice, v. 234)?

Is the following stanza still magical once translated?
"Je suis le ténébreux, le veuf, l’inconsolé,
Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie :
Ma seule étoile est morte, et mon luth constellé
Porte le soleil noir de la Mélancolie." (Nerval, "El Desdichado")

I don’t say that you must avoid the translations and that you need to read the original texts. Rare are those who are fluent and enjoy foreign books as if they were written in their native tongue. The translations are very helpful, often good, sometimes excellent, but necessarily different from the original.

By "accurately judge" I mean that for instance I picked up a bilingual edition of Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil recently, and even if I only read the English side, he's still the best poet of the last two hundred years. I glance at the original French from time to time and see that one or two things are off. A less exact word is used to create the appropriate cadence or sound. A line here and there is transposed. But in a good translation, such as James McGowan's, the sense is retained and the poem is intact.

You use the example from Racine's Bérénice. My favorite English translation of the play by John Cairncross gives the line thus: "The East was one vast desert where I pined." That's not a bad line but perhaps translation is better judged in aggregate than on a line by line basis. As for Nerval's Desdichado, Howard E. Hugo's less than capable translation:
"I am the shadowy-the widowed-sadly mute,
At ruined tower still the Prince of Aquitane:
My single star is dead-my constellated lute
Now bears the sable sun of melancholy pain."
However lacking the translation, it still cannot entirely mar Nerval's brilliant poem, and it's beauty shines through.

As far as translations of Sallust, I've seen some very very good ones where the rhetorical master comes off no worse than Francis Bacon. But this is straying from the point and dwelling too much on the particular, whereas what I was making was more of a general point.

I don't read Farsi but Ferdowsi, Rumi, Hafez, and Nizami are amazing and when poets are that good it's hard to make them look bad. Sound is an important thing but it is not the only thing, just the least translatable thing. Translating poetry well is hard but hardly impossible and judging a work in translation is a skill just like judging a book in it's own language. It can be learned with experience and practice. One learns to distinguish the mannerisms of the writer and pick them out from that of the translator, especially if one is exposed to multiple versions of the same poem or a great deal of the same author.

[B. Laumness]

Let’s have a look on this verse:

“Dans l’Orient désert quel devint mon ennui !”

It is said by Antiochus, an unfortunate king in the East who secretly loves Bérénice, a queen who loves Titus. In this passage, he confesses to her his passion, while they are in Rome where Titus came back after having been glorious in Palestine and where he intends to marry Bérénice. When she left her kingdom, the poor Antiochus felt lonely: the East became a desert. This verse is beautiful not especially because it expresses the loneliness and the pain of an unfortunate lover; it is beautiful by the formal means that conveys these feelings. It is an alexandrine. After the sixth syllable, we usually make a very short pause in reading. First there is the place (“Dans l’Orient désert”), then a being who expresses his suffering, his taedium vitae (“quel devint mon ennui”). Both segments are connected: it is a desert because she is absent; the whole place is empty without her; the love is not purely interior, is has an effect upon the whole environment. These segments could be inverted, and so the disposition of the words would be more usual, more prosaic: “Quel devint mon ennui dans l’Orient désert !” But the effect is not the same. The last word of a verse is generally important, and in this instance the “ennui” is a powerful word, considering its meaning in the 17th century: it does not mean “trouble” or “worry”, but rather “torment”. One of the particularities here is the use of the “quel” (“qualis” in Latin) as an exclamatory adjective, followed by a verb at the passé simple. This use is rare and perfectly literary. Racine tells the intensity of the feeling in just one word. The passé simple itself is literary. You know there are many past tenses in French. The passé simple is less and less used, hardly used in informal speech, but it has always charm in the writings. And Racine does not use the verb être (to be), but devenir (to become), as if to signify the transformation of the being under the power of love. These two words “quel devint”, these three syllables, are really fascinating for the ears and the imagination when one knows well the French language. And when the previous and following verses are of the same kind, it gives a magical poetry. A translator can render the sense; but all the subtleties and what I call the genius of the language, it’s much harder if not impossible.

I could multiply the examples. I could cite Verlaine, Valéry, or Mallarmé, and bet that any translator will not come close to their original music.

“Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l’automne
Bercent mon cœur
D’une langueur
Monotone. ”

I had already made a short comparison between an original poem and its translation here (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1003997&postcount=72). From what I have seen, McGowan’s is the most faithful.

Even though one does not master a foreign language and that a translation is highly appreciable – I myself am not good enough in English to really enjoy Blake, Byron, or Coleridge in the original text, and therefore read translations –, I am wise enough to recognize that a translated text, especially a poem, will never be as great as the original– except maybe if it is translated by another great poet –, and therefore I try to improve my knowledge of the foreign tongues. Believing that learning foreign tongues is not useful for a well-read person, since everything or almost has been translated, is maybe misleading. When only English is spoken and written, and when the other major languages are ignored, it will be a great loss. My American fellow, I don’t know if you still work your French or learn other languages.

[mortalterror]

Let’s have a look on this verse:

“Dans l’Orient désert quel devint mon ennui !”

It is said by Antiochus, an unfortunate king in the East who secretly loves Bérénice, a queen who loves Titus. In this passage, he confesses to her his passion, while they are in Rome where Titus came back after having been glorious in Palestine and where he intends to marry Bérénice. When she left her kingdom, the poor Antiochus felt lonely: the East became a desert. This verse is beautiful not especially because it expresses the loneliness and the pain of an unfortunate lover; it is beautiful by the formal means that conveys these feelings. It is an alexandrine. After the sixth syllable, we usually make a very short pause in reading. First there is the place (“Dans l’Orient désert”), then a being who expresses his suffering, his taedium vitae (“quel devint mon ennui”). Both segments are connected: it is a desert because she is absent; the whole place is empty without her; the love is not purely interior, is has an effect upon the whole environment. These segments could be inverted, and so the disposition of the words would be more usual, more prosaic: “Quel devint mon ennui dans l’Orient désert !” But the effect is not the same. The last word of a verse is generally important, and in this instance the “ennui” is a powerful word, considering its meaning in the 17th century: it does not mean “trouble” or “worry”, but rather “torment”. One of the particularities here is the use of the “quel” (“qualis” in Latin) as an exclamatory adjective, followed by a verb at the passé simple. This use is rare and perfectly literary. Racine tells the intensity of the feeling in just one word. The passé simple itself is literary. You know there are many past tenses in French. The passé simple is less and less used, hardly used in informal speech, but it has always charm in the writings. And Racine does not use the verb être (to be), but devenir (to become), as if to signify the transformation of the being under the power of love. These two words “quel devint”, these three syllables, are really fascinating for the ears and the imagination when one knows well the French language. And when the previous and following verses are of the same kind, it gives a magical poetry. A translator can render the sense; but all the subtleties and what I call the genius of the language, it’s much harder if not impossible.

I could multiply the examples. I could cite Verlaine, Valéry, or Mallarmé, and bet that any translator will not come close to their original music.

“Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l’automne
Bercent mon cœur
D’une langueur
Monotone. ”

I had already made a short comparison between an original poem and its translation here (http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1003997&postcount=72). From what I have seen, McGowan’s is the most faithful.

Even though one does not master a foreign language and that a translation is highly appreciable – I myself am not good enough in English to really enjoy Blake, Byron, or Coleridge in the original text, and therefore read translations –, I am wise enough to recognize that a translated text, especially a poem, will never be as great as the original– except maybe if it is translated by another great poet –, and therefore I try to improve my knowledge of the foreign tongues. Believing that learning foreign tongues is not useful for a well-read person, since everything or almost has been translated, is maybe misleading. When only English is spoken and written, and when the other major languages are ignored, it will be a great loss. My American fellow, I don’t know if you still work your French or learn other languages.

I concede your point, that no translation, or at least very few translations are as good as the original poem. I do have to make the caveat however that if the translator is good enough, he can improve the poem by translation. Edward FitzGerald translated the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam into something much better than the original, but if he were being faithful to the text the best he could do would be to equal it.

I know that a number of men of genius have turned their hands to translation and not without success. Chaucer translated Petrarch, Coleridge translated Goethe, and Marlowe translated Ovid. And I know of other less notable men who've succeeded in spite of a humbler fame. I'm thinking of Robert Fagles' recent translations of Homer and Virgil. When translation is done right, there is hardly a noticeable blemish, and why shouldn't one judge such a faithful copy then?

For my part I love that August Wilhelm Schlegel translated Shakespeare into German. Though much is lost, much abides, indeed much is gained as well. To modern English ears Shakespeare is four hundred years old and archaic, if not positively foreign. To German ears he's brand new. He can never grow old and he can never die. Is "Sein oder Nichtsein—das ist die Frage!" so different from "To be or not to be?"

Very few lines of English resist translation, except perhaps those with alliteration. I think that "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why" would suffer by the transfer. But I am less concerned, as I said before, with the individual line than with the poem as a whole. I'm more concerned with the final product, the sum of all the lines, of every word and motion. Montaigne once wrote "Par divers moyens on arrive à pareille fin (By diverse means one arrives at the same end)." This is a fundamentally correct notion, which is seldom applied to art. I feel there is less perfection and more wiggle room in most works of art than is generally granted.

For instance, how do we know that the artist would not have approved the change? And what of others, like Brecht who encouraged people to adapt his work to the time and occasion? Is a poem even supposed to be stationary, or is that a modern notion influenced by copyright? In times long past artists would often collaborate and change a work to their need or update it or improve a weak spot. Shakespeare had collaborators: John Fletcher and Thomas Middleton at least and probably dozens of unnamed actors, directors, and stage managers. Is an artist's work sacrosanct? If it's not by one man is it still sacred? At what point does it become fixed in stone or is this a romantic notion?

If time ravages a work, tears it to rags, loses pieces here and there as happened to many Greek and Roman works is their unity still just as sacred? Is the Mona Lisa the Mona Lisa without her eyebrows, and can we paint them back on?

Look at me, I'm rambling again. As regards your question, my French is vanishing day by day and I'm always surprised when I can muddle through it at all. However, it's a resolution of mine to learn Latin next year and with the cognates it may improve my French into the bargain.

[Pierre Menard]

There's a lot I agree with that mortalterror said, but especially the line about reading other translations and being able to tell which mannerisms/characteristics are the authors and which are the translators.
I've definitely started to find this, and I think it also helps differentiate between a good translation and a bad translation.

[B. Laumness]

Probably, but the best way of distinguishing the good translation from the bad one is still to know the source-language and the target-language, at least if one of the major criteria of a good translation is the faithfulness.

Is a text supposed to be stationary, unalterable, sacrosanct?

We could consider that the translation is a complete transformation of the text, for it offers a new version for a different audience. But this audience believes that this new text is similar to the original; and when German people read Shakespeare’s works in translation, they don't say: “I read Schlegel”, they say: “I read Shakespeare.” Though, there can be big differences between the two texts. The Iliad by Pope and The Iliad by Homer are clearly two different poems. But as long as the original meaning is kept in detail and as a whole, the translation is not seen as an unbearable betrayal. A translation is even sometimes superior to the original material; for example, it appears that Baudelaire’s version is better than Poe’s prose. I think that, even though the translation is a substantial change, no writer refuses to be translated, as long as this change leaves intact the style and the spirit of the text.

A text can remain intact and yet be living. Reading a text brings it to life. The only dead books are those that are not read anymore. Reading implies an inevitable subjectivism, so that what is written by the author may be different from what is understood by the reader. The purpose of a good reading is to be able to interpret properly the text. We can even say that the best reader is the one who understands all the artistic efforts made by the writer. This interpretation requires an apprenticeship and some respect. Indeed, the best texts being often difficult, the goal for the reader is to reach the level of appropriate understanding, not to reject the difficulty and dismiss the works because the vocabulary, the syntax, the style, the language itself is inaccessible at first sight. A member on this forum recently said that Austen and Dickens used an obsolete language and that therefore it was useless to try to read them. No, she cannot excuse her laziness like that. Assuredly, old books are very challenging. Montaigne, because of his archaic idiom, is less read in France than anywhere else. At the university, in my classes, I never met anyone who read him; and when I told my friends that I had spent one month reading the Essais, they were really astonished. I don’t say that to boast. Despite having learned the old French (11th-14th centuries), I could never like it and I always preferred to read modernized versions of the novels by Chrétien de Troyes. A sound attitude toward a text combines respect for somebody else’s work and use of this work for oneself. This appropriation explains the multiple adaptations of the literary themes or figures (Oedipus, Don Juan, Faust, etc.), which can be seen as a way of making alive original books.

Can a text be modified by someone else than the author himself? Would it not be sacrilegious to believe such changes could be approved by the initial creator? A writer – I mean a great writer – has usually put all his/her faith in his/her art in order to attain a kind of perfection. The right word has been found, the sentence sounds good, the structure is solid, everything seems unalterable. According to the readers, some parts, often minor details, might be improved. Perhaps they will receive a modification if the writer listens to this audience, particularly the friends and the publisher. But generally, even if he/she pays attention to the critics, the work will not be completely modified, because now that the child of art is born, this child has to live, whatever the imperfections. Otherwise, someone will come and tell: “My little Proust, your sentences are too long; I’ll cut them.” Or: “Young Twain, I don’t like this word nigger; I’ll remove it.” Or: “Hey, bard, your Iago guy is too despicable; I’m gonna solve that.” Or, to a painter: “I don’t like your red, I’m gonna put some pink.” It is true that Shakespeare’s plays were not always written by a single man. But now, who would dare to change them?

Good luck with the Latin. I invested much time and energy into it, actually ten years. I even studied it during my holidays. At the end of my studies, I had succeeded in reading the original texts without problem. Since then, my Latin is rusty; and the last time I wanted to read Tacitus, I struggled so much that I had to use a translation. Recently, I read – in English – the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, in which he told somewhere that it was easier to learn first French, Italian, and Spanish, before studying the Latin; that it facilitated his understanding of this latter.

[lawpark]

It is interesting to see in this thread:
a) Nizami getting mentioned more ...
b) Horace seems to be forgotten ...