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Article: Translation and adaptation in Tennyson's Battle of Brunanburh.
- Article from:
- Philological Quarterly
- Article date:
- September 22, 2007
- Author:
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Dost thou think Alexander look'd o' this fashion i' the earth?
Hamlet, 5.1.217
Because of the special (some would say insurmountable) difficulties posed by the genre, literary translations commonly fail or succeed with critics based on their local faults or merits. (1) The analytical reader who is conversant with a translation's original will fret over the particular accuracy of this or that word, phrase, or passage in a new version, rather than responding to the effectiveness of the translation as a whole. (2)
Alfred Tennyson's version of the tenth-century Anglo-Saxon Battle of Brunanburh is in general an interesting exception to this rule, ...