Harp of the North: Poems. by Einar Benediktsson; Frederic T. WoodReview by: Stefán EinarssonModern Language Notes, Vol. 73, No. 2 (Feb., 1958), pp. 120-121Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3043054 .

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REVIEWS

Einar Benediktsson, Harp of the North: Poems, trans. Frederic T. Wood (Charlottesville: Univ. of Virginia Press, 1955. xi + 91 pp. $5.00). IN the early thirties a wealthy American son-in-law of Einar Benediktsson planned to get together a first-rate British poet (Masefield?) and an American-Icelander to co-operate on a translation which could turn one of the greatest Icelandic poets into a British bard. For some reason the plan miscarried.

Since then a few specimens have been rendered by American-Ice- landic poets, notably the fine poetess Jakobina Johnsson. The American-Icelander Paul Bjarnason has even attempted to translate twenty-four of Benediktsson's poems, Icelandic alliteration and all, into English verse in his Odes and Echoes (1954). But this is the first attempt to publish a volume devoted to Benediktsson's poems alone, and it is made by an American who previously had edited a selection of Eddic poems (Eddic Lays, 1940) but, as far as I know, had translated nothing out of the language. In spite of that, it must be said that his first attempt has been fairly successful. The man must be a poet; otherwise he would not have attempted to translate Einar Benediktsson. For Einar Benediktsson is not an easy poet to translate; his form is often ornate, his thought sometimes hard to divine. Of course, as Dr. Wood admits, he has not striven to admit the alliteration into English but restricted himself to rimes and internal rimes as well as the length of the lines. But it seems to me that his verses read smoothly and that they have the dignity which Einar Benediktsson deserves. Whether they are real poetry native Americans had better decide, but unless they are, they are not fit for Einar Benediktsson. I shall quote one stanza; taken as a preface to the poems:

My work, dear land, a seed will be Within thy soil, when dead I'm lying; My songs, a fragment offered thee, A leaf thy garland beautyfying. The inmost feelings of my heart Must go, however, to their start, Like wavelets back to Ocean flying.

Dr. Wood writes an interesting preface, partly devoted to the theory of translation and partly to an introduction of Einar Benediktsson to

120 Modern Language Notes

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American readers. In his interpretation of the poet he follows perhaps too much the materialistic interpretation by the excellent Marxist critic Kristinn Andresson: "Finally, losing touch with reality, he entered the dark realm of mysticism and of fruitless philosophical speculation." A more sympathetic interpretation of Einar Benedikts- son's mysticism is to be found in Sigur6ur Nordal's " Einar Benedikts- son " in Afangar (A collection of essays, Reykjavik, 1944, pp. 210- 231). Hvammar are " Green Hollows " rather than " Valleys."

The Johns Hopkins University STEFAN EINARSSON

Allardyce Nicoll, ed., Shakespeare Survey 10 (New York: Cam- bridge Univ. Press, 1957. viii + 171 pp. $4.00). NO initial expectations concerning a volume centered on the Roman Plays would prepare readers for this Survey and its preponderant emphasis on Titus Andronicus. However surprising, the serious attention paid this early shocker is welcome; in recent years we have come more and more to value Titus for its clues to Shakespeare's later development. Indeed, the best piece in this volume (T. J. B. Spencer's "Shake- speare and the Elizabethan Romans ") contains a very plausible argu- ment that Titus is paradoxically " a more typical Roman play, a more characteristic piece of Roman history, than the three great plays of Shakespeare which are generally grouped under that name " (p. 32). Another approach to the play is accommodated by the happy accident that Richard David's review of major 1955-56 productions (" Drams of Eale ") contains a detailed account of the Oliviers' controversial Titus at Stratford, a production which-because of director Brook's muting of the play's Guignollerie in decorous understatement-left unanswered David's question, " Has Shakespeare's Titus really any life left in it? " (p. 128).

In his useful retrospect of this century's studies of the Roman Plays, J. C. Maxwell brings the various theories on the authorship of Titus into focus; although in his New Arden edition Maxwell tentatively accepted Peele's hand in the first part of the play, he does not show himself intolerant of strong arguments for solely Shake- spearean responsibility. His position may indeed be judicious to the point of ambivalence, for one finds the two concentrated studies of Titus (Eugene Waith's "The Metamorphosis of Violence in Titus Andronicus " and R. F. Hill's " The Composition of Titus Androni-

VOL. LXXIII, February 1958 121

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