Andrew Marvell - 'Hortus' c. 1668
There are others who can probably do a far better job of reading this poem - but to me it seems a great pity that some of the greatest poetry ever written in England should remain hidden, unread, unknown. So I am going to read some here and post some of the Latin poems writen by great english poets, here on Latinum. Maybe it will encourage you to explore a bit in google books.
Marvell's Latin is fresh, timeless - and to me, speaks to me more clearly than his antiquated Engish ever will, coloured as it is by the huge language shift that has taken place since he wrote it - his English works cannot be read by us, as he intended them to be, they speak to us from the past, from the poetry museum.
This problem does not affect the Latin poem, through which we can engage in a more direct dialogue with the mind of the poet, untouched by the passage of time and the corruption of tongues.
That was the whole point of writing in Latin in the first place.
Marvell's Latin is fresh, timeless - and to me, speaks to me more clearly than his antiquated Engish ever will, coloured as it is by the huge language shift that has taken place since he wrote it - his English works cannot be read by us, as he intended them to be, they speak to us from the past, from the poetry museum.
This problem does not affect the Latin poem, through which we can engage in a more direct dialogue with the mind of the poet, untouched by the passage of time and the corruption of tongues.
That was the whole point of writing in Latin in the first place.
