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RefNoHSF/1/2/87
Previous numbers600/31/202
LevelItem
TitleLetter from H [Henry] Taylor, The Roost, Bournemouth, to Sir John [Frederick William Herschel]
CreatorTaylor; Sir Henry (1800-1886); British poet and public servant
Date26 May 1862
DescriptionIn addition to Herschel's kind letter about 'St Clement's Eve', Taylor must thank him for the Homeric hexameters [Book 1 of 'The Iliad']. Taylor is incompetent to judge their relation to the original, but they give a better conception of Homer than previous translations. He knows of no more melodious English hexameters, unless some passages of [Robert] Southey's 'A Vision of Judgement'. He doubts if the hexameter will succeed in English, despite the variety of detail which the hexameter may be made to include. Taylor discusses this at length, comparing hexameters to Elizabethan blank verse, and lamenting the lack of power in writing the heroic couplet, 'lost in that fatal 18th century when our language itself was dethroned & levelled'. The blank verse of [Edward] Young and [William] Cowper in the last century, and [Robert] Southey and [William] Wordsworth in this, is no more like the better Elizabethans 'than a turnpike road is like a bridal path or a plantation like a forest'. He concludes by saying that his views may be prejudiuced and lacking in catholicity.
Extent4p.
FormatManuscript
PhysicalDescriptionInk on paper
AccessStatusOpen
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