Vondel's Lucifer Part 43

Line 560.

P.L.--X., 498-499.

Line 564.

P.L.--XII., 386.

Line 604.

P.L.--II., 595-600.

Line 604.

P.L.--I., 56-63.

Line 606.

P.L.--X., 112.

Line 616-627.--Suggestion of Paradise Regained.

Note.--(1) The word _feather_, line 370, Act I., is here used by Vondel in the old sense of _pen_.

(2) The word _treason_ in the epode of the chorus of angels at the end of Act III. more literally means _treasonable ambition_.

The Critical Cult.

"I consider your version of the Lucifer the most notable literary achievement in American letters in the decade from 1890 to 1900."--Richard Watson Gilder.

"It takes a master to translate a master, and the Lucifer of Leonard Van Noppen is a re-creation of the original work; masterful, comprehensive and in every sense a finished production. Full of poetic fire and the magic of the fitting word, it has the imprint of creative genius in every line and is weighted with the personality of a powerful and vivid imagination."--Francis Grierson.

"Leonard Charles Van Noppen, the translator of Vondel's Lucifer, is a poet of extraordinary power and beauty."--Edwin Markham.

Comparing the author with George Sterling, says Mr. Markham, in his "California, the Wonderful." "In recent poetry only Mr. Leonard Van Noppen's verse is kindred in lavish word-work and ornate architecture to 'The Wine of Wizardry.' Both men create their poesies with large movement and breadth of treatment--with amplitude of sky and prodigiousness of field, with wash of sunset and rainbow, with march of stars."

"I feel glad that any sparks of mine have served to enkindle the ca.s.sia, nard and frankincense which so prodigally enrich your own altar.

Continue, now, to feed their flames with all those resources which the translator of Vondel showed me so plainly that he possessed. Take up your own creative work while in your prime, and in the end you will gain more n.o.bly won, though none more royally couched, tributes of speech than those you offer me."--Edmund C. Stedman.

"I congratulate you upon your success in the accomplishment of this very interesting piece of work and hope that it will meet with that recognition among scholars which it deserves. I think there is a large culture for the writer."--Henry Van d.y.k.e.

"I received with much pleasure your Vondel's Lucifer, and as I read it, I was much delighted. It is a pleasure to read the English version of this work."--Josef Israels.

"I am much indebted to you for the gift of your very handsome translation of the 'Lucifer,' and I am not a little struck by the evidence of literary ability spread over all parts of the volume. I hope your spirited and scholarly enterprise may meet to the full with the success it deserves."--Edmund Gosse.

"Worthy the genius of Vondel."--Dr. Jan Ten Brink, Professor of Literature, University of Leiden.

"A beautiful book. It is almost like discovering a new Homer."--Nathan Haskell Dole.

"A grand yet exquisite work. It is no flattery to say that the issue of this book is one of the most notable events of the age, yet is it not better than praise of one's effort to feel its significance as a centre of spreading thought and inquiry! To think that you are the first to give Vondel's Lucifer to the English reading world!"--Mary Mapes Dodge.

"I was reading your translation of Vondel last year, and I was very much struck with the resemblance to Milton in form and spirit. The conception of the mental att.i.tude of the fallen angels is one which is certainly very interesting from a psychological as well as a literary point of view."--A. Lawrence Lowell.

"The Lucifer has greatly interested me as a revelation of one at least of the main sources from which Milton gained his ideas. Your preliminary work to me seems to be admirable, and you have certainly rendered a real service both to history and literature."--Andrew D. White.

"I wish to thank you for your translation of Vondel's Lucifer. Shall I confess it? It was long ago since I read that great poet, and your work afforded me all the pleasure of an original. As for your splendid chapter, 'Life and Times of Vondel,' and your thorough and searching Lucifer's Interpretation, they cannot fail to awaken the keenest interest in the English speaking literary world."--Baron Gevers, Minister from the Netherlands to Was.h.i.+ngton.

"Mr. Van Noppen is a man of great literary power, an authority in Dutch literature and is achieving fame as a translator of the masterpieces of the Dutch language."--Edwin A. Alderman.

"Your book duly came to hand. I was delighted to see the extraordinary attention it got in 'Literature,' and I congratulate you on the wide interest it has awakened."--W.D. Howells.

"Many thanks for your curious and interesting volume, my only chance of making acquaintance with the Batavian author."--Andrew Lang.

"I want to add my small words to the panegyric and tell you with what intense interest and pleasure I have followed your astonis.h.i.+ng success.

I say astonis.h.i.+ng because I wonder how long it is since any one has been able to stir up such keen and general interest over a cla.s.sic written long ago and in a foreign tongue? How long ago has it been since any cla.s.sic was so much talked of? When, pray, has a young man made such a contribution to English letters and so interested thinking and scholarly people?"--Willa Cather.

"It has become a matter of literary tradition, in Holland and out of it, that the choral drama of 'Lucifer' is the great masterpiece of Dutch literature. * * * An era of translation was sure to set in, and it is a matter of significance that its herald has even now appeared. The translation into English of Vondel's 'Lucifer' is not only in and for itself an event of more than ordinary importance in literary history, but it cannot fail to waken among us a curiosity as to what else of supreme value may be contained in Dutch literature."--William H.

Carpenter, Professor of Germanic Philology, Columbia University.

"We heartily rejoice that Vondel's drama has been translated into English by an American for Americans. Were this translation an inferior one, or were it only mediocre, we should have no reason to be glad, but in this case it is otherwise. Although no translation can entirely compensate for the lack of the original it is, however, possible for the original to be followed very closely. This is well shown by this rendering, which to a high degree possesses the merit of accuracy, while, at the same time, the spirit and the character of Vondel's tragedy are felt, understood and interpreted in a remarkable manner.

Whoever is in a position, by the comparison of the translation with the original, to form an individual opinion of Van Noppen's superb work, will probably be convinced, even as I have been, that here an extraordinarily difficult task has been magnificently done."--G. Kalff, Professor of Dutch Literature, University of Utrecht.

"This version of Vondel bridges the gap in the Miltonic Criticism."--Francis B. Gummere.

"Much Esteemed Sir and Friend:

The distinguished octogenarian poet and author, Nicolaas Beets, of Utrecht, Holland, wrote to Mr. Van Noppen as follows:

'Much Esteemed Sir and Friend:

* * * I have furthermore compared your translation in many a striking pa.s.sage with the original, which I always held in my hand. * * *

Whatever was attainable you not only tried to reach most earnestly, but you have even most excellently succeeded in attaining. You have absolutely understood and perfectly rendered the meaning, the action, the spirit and the power of the sublime original. In splendid English verse we read Vondel's soul. Whoever knows Vondel will admit this, and whoever does not at present know him will learn to know and appreciate him from your translation. * * * It is also very plain, from the essays preceding the translation, that you have made a most thorough and comprehensive study of Vondel and of his poetry in connection with the entire field of the literature and history of his time. Though having myself read, and even written, in prose as well as poetry, so much concerning Vondel, I was often so impressed by criticisms and observations in your essays that I felt impelled to revise and complete my own conceptions."

The American Press.

"Mr. Van Noppen has produced a text which, so far as mere suppleness and naturalness go, might be taken for an original production, and his editorial labors have been considerable."--New York Tribune.

"There is reason enough for the publication in English of such a cla.s.sic as the Lucifer, and it is fortunate that the work could be so artistically done."--Review of Reviews.

"To compare the two poems--Milton's Paradise Lost and Vondel's Lucifer--is as if one should contrast a great chorale by Bach or Mendelssohn with a magnificent hymn-tune by Sir Arthur Sullivan or William Henry Monk. The epic and the drama are both triumphs of skill.

Why make comparisons? Rather let the world rejoice in two such possessions."--Philadelphia Record.

"It is particularly fortunate that the first English rendering of the great poem is so ably and conscientiously done. * * * Finally, the poem is ill.u.s.trated by fifteen drawings in black and white by the famous Dutch artist, John Aarts, which are printed with the text."--The Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer.

"If only as a literary, or as a human doc.u.ment, shedding light upon the methods of the greatest of English epic poets, Mr. Van Noppen's work would be of infinite value to all students. But the book which he has translated possesses, besides these advent.i.tious claims to respect, a supreme intrinsic value. It is a drama that is everywhere great, and in pa.s.sages sublime. * * * That the present translation is a good one he who reads can discern. It is strong, nervous, and rhythmical. It is, above all, good English, not a Teutonized hybrid."--New York Herald.

Mr. Van Noppen's translation is spirited and dignified, and there is a distinct lyric charm, which he has managed to preserve--a rare feat with a translator."--Charleston News and Courier.

"For the reader who desires merely the artistic comment of the pictures that thoroughly ill.u.s.trate this famous old poem we might add that Mr.

Aarts has caught the spirit--the pictorial beauty--of Lucifer as perhaps no other artist of the day could have done. The man himself is a poet, and he has translated into these drawings the majestic tragedy of Lucifer even as Mr. Van Noppen has translated it into stately English verse."--Brooklyn Citizen.