BIB_ID
108334
Accession number
MA 686.17
Creator
Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878.
Display Date
undated [ca. 1863 Mar. 19?].
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, with the Wakeman Collection, 1909.
Description
1 item ; 8.2 x 19.1 cm
Notes
Bryant and Voss note that this autograph translation is presumably the only surviving example of Bryant's attempt to render Homer's verse in a meter approximating the Greek original. (Bryant's 1870 Iliad was a translation into blank verse, in the preface to which he notes that he "did not adopt the hexameter verse, principally for the reason that in our language it is confessedly an imperfect form of versification.")--Cf. Bryant and Voss, p. 302, n. 2.
Bryant and Voss suggest that this translation may have been enclosed in a letter (MA 686.16) dated 19 March 1863 to Prof. (William Henry?) Greene.--Cf. Bryant and Voss, p. 302, n. 2.
Part of a collection of 20 items (including letters, poems, and engravings) related to William Cullen Bryant. Items are described individually in 20 records (MA 686.1-20); see related records for full description.
Bryant and Voss suggest that this translation may have been enclosed in a letter (MA 686.16) dated 19 March 1863 to Prof. (William Henry?) Greene.--Cf. Bryant and Voss, p. 302, n. 2.
Part of a collection of 20 items (including letters, poems, and engravings) related to William Cullen Bryant. Items are described individually in 20 records (MA 686.1-20); see related records for full description.
Provenance
Stephen H. Wakeman; purchased by Pierpont Morgan with the Wakeman Collection in 1909.
Summary
A fair copy of a translation of Homer's verse into English hexameter, beginning "As when the stars of the night, encircling the moon in her brightness."
Catalog link
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