larryhammer: floral print origami penguin, facing left (Default)
Larry Hammer ([personal profile] larryhammer) wrote 2011-05-25 07:36 pm (UTC)

I don't mind Rose reversing the last two lines as it feels like a reasonable way to avoid the choppy relative clauses that are one of the two main weakness of Reynolds (the other being sticking to the meter a little too tightly, in a way that gives it the lines an almost mechanical feel), and the order of why and on whom the revenge doesn't strike me as essential to the narrative effect. That's interpretation, tho', and one can reasonably disagree on that.

I find more the more telling order is first line: Ariosto has a careful chiamus of peace-war-war-peace, which Harington keeps; Rose disorders to peace-peace-war-war, giving a rather different effect; and Reynolds alternates to peace-war-peace-war, with a slightly different effect.

I find Harington's more poetic not just because of the Elizabethan language, but because he uses more forceful language with supple rhythms. (In comparison, Rose is particularly flat.) But I also find Reynold's the clearest at conveying the basic sense of the stanza.

---L.

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