Is there in all the literature of translation a more dolorous example of the sacrifice of sense to sound, of mood to melody, of reason to rime, than these words furnish? But Poe would have enjoyed it, for it meant the triumph of his favorite vowel over obstacles that might well have daunted the master himself.[1]
Among the Latin countries, Italy seems to have been tardiest in translating Poe, though his influence had already pervaded Italy through the French translations of Baudelaire. "My guess is rather uncertain," writes Professor C. H. Grandgent, of Harvard, "as such guesses must be; but I should be inclined to rank Poe as third in Italy, preceded by Cooper and Longfellow." Professor Ernest H. Wilkins, of the University of Chicago, would substitute Whitman for Cooper: "It may fairly be said, I think, that Poe and Longfellow are the two American writers best known to Italian readers in general and that they are equally well known. In Italian critical opinion Poe and Whitman are regarded as being the two most important American writers and as being of equal importance." Felice Ferrero, the brother of the great historian, puts Poe first: "It is probably correct, in a certain sense, to say that Poe is more widely known in Italy than any other American writer; but I doubt whether one could say that he is a much read author. American literature is a terra incognita to the Italian reader. Knowledge of English is not sufficiently spread in
- ↑ Etzel's translation of The Raven is picked out for special commendation by Fritz Hippe in his Edgar Allan Poes Lyrik in Deutschland (1913). "He has succeeded," says Hippe, "as no one else has succeeded, in reproducing almost completely in German the refrain 'Nevermore' through the German 'Nie du Thor.'"
