Tales of the Heroic Ages. Siegfried, the Hero of the North, and Beowulf, the Hero of the Anglo-Saxons
Tinker's Review
Miss Ragozin’s Paraphrase
Tales of the Heroic Ages. Siegfried, the Hero of the North, and Beowulf, the Hero of the Anglo-Saxons, by Zenaïde A. Ragozin. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York and London, 1898. 8o, Beowulf, pp. 211–323, with Note at p. 323, and with four illustrations by George T. Tobin.
School Edition, New York, W. B. Harison, 1900.
The Author, and the Aim of her Book.
Miss Zenaïde Alexeievna Ragozin, a Russian by birth, an American by adoption, has devoted herself to the popularization of history and mythology. In the series Stories of the Nations, she has published, The Story of Chaldea, The Story of Assyria, The Story of Media, Babylon, and Persia, The Story of Vedic India. Of late she has turned her attention to the mythology of the various European nations, and has written of Siegfried, Frithjof, and Roland.
The object of her work may be given in her own words:—
‘(The series is) intended as parallel reading to history, and planned to illustrate history. . . . Great changes are coming over the schools, . . . changes in the right direction, which may shortly amount to a revolution, when there will be no reason why these Tales of the Heroic Ages should not, although addressed to young people at large, find a place, if not in the school curriculum, at least in the wide margin of so-called ‘Supplementary Reading.’ May they prove acceptable, not alone to the young, to whom they are specially addressed, but also, as has been felicitously said, to “the old with young tastes.”’ —Pages xx, xxii.
Method of Paraphrase.
‘(The style) should be simple and epical; faithfully following the main lines, bringing out also the characteristic details—the poetical beauties, picturesque traits, and original dialogue, as much as may be consistent with necessary condensation and, frequently, elimination. It should be a consecutive, lively narrative, with the necessary elucidating explanations incorporated in the text and with the fewest and briefest possible footnotes, while it should contain no critical or mythological digressions. . . . What we want in telling it to the young, is to take the epic just as it is, condensing and expurgating, but not changing; rendering the characters, scenes and situations with the faithfulness and reverence due to the masterpiece of a race; using as much as possible, especially in the dialogue, the words of the original. . . . (The language) should be simple, though not untinged with quaintness, and even in places a certain degree of archaism.’ —Pages xvi, xix, xxi.
Indebtedness to Earle.
‘Professor Earle’s1 version has been fully utilized in the present volume, even to the extent of frequently making use of its wording, where it is not too archaic or literal for ordinary purposes.’ —Page 330, footnote.
Some notion of the extent of this borrowing may be had by examining the extract printed below and the criticism that follows.
Yet there was one eye that gleamed not with merriment and goodwill, one head that hatched no friendly thoughts, because the heart swelled with malice and envy. Unferth it was, the king’s own story-teller, who sat at his feet, to be ready at all times to amuse him. He broached a quarrelsome theme—an adventure in Beowulf’s youth, the only contest in his record the issue of which, though hard fought, might be called doubtful. For this Unferth was an envious wight, whose soul grudged that any man should achieve greater things than himself.
‘Art thou not,’ he began tauntingly, ‘that same Beowulf who strove with Breca on open sea in a swimming-match, in which ye both wantonly exposed your lives, and no man, either friend or foe, could turn you from the foolish venture? A se’nnight ye twain toiled in the realm of the waters, and, if I err not, he outdid thee in swimming, for he had greater strength. Wherefore I fear me much that thou mayest meet with sorry luck if thou darest to bide here for Grendel for the space of a whole night.’
It may be inferred from the dependence upon the work of Earle that Miss Ragozin’s knowledge of Old English is of the slightest. This inference is borne out by frequent misapprehension of the original sense, due in large measure to the use of a single translation. Thus on page 245, Grendel is called ‘the God-sent scourge,’ and, again, on p. 322, Beowulf is described as having been ‘most genial to his nobles.’ Both of these errors are due to misapprehension of Professor Earle’s translation. The list of proper names on p. 331 reveals an ignorance of some fundamental facts of Old English pronunciation. Of course, an intimate knowledge of the Beowulf style and diction is not indispensable to the writer of a paraphrase, but the writer who has it will naturally be superior to the writer without it. For illustration, Miss Thomson2 never misinterprets a passage as does Miss Ragozin on page 264, where nearly every sentence is false to the Beowulf manner.
The paraphrase is slightly disfigured by the distinctively Romance words which disfigure Earle’s translation.
But these slight defects need not blind us to the service done by Miss Ragozin in making Beowulf accessible to school children. The style is, in general, strong and effective, not without some of the beauty and dignity of the Old English, but relieved of the more obscure and recondite features of that style.