Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 18498

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'You seem so much interested with the translation of "Pastor Fido" that I shall take the liberty of sending it to you, that you may judge of its merits: not being skilled in the Italian tongue I cannot possibly give an opinion of it as a [italics] translation [end italics]. As anything else, I do not like it, nor ever liked pastorals or pastoral writing, even of the first order, further than as vehicles for fine poetry; and then the poetry would have pleased me better had it spoken for itself, than from the mouth of a creature to me so inconceivable as a shepherd or shepherdess, whose chief, or rather [italics] only [end italics] characteristics are innocence and simplicity. I am sorry to say they are but too apt to be insipid and uninteresting to those who merely read about them [she continues this critique at length, concluding] It may be owing to some defect in my mind that I really never yet knew an interesting pastoral character, or cared a straw about whether they hanged themselves upon the first willow, or drowned themselves in the neighbouring brook. I can enter into the delights of Homer's gods, and follow to their darkest recesses Milton's devils, and delight in the absurdities and extravagancies of Shakespeare's men and women, but I never could sympathise in the sufferings of even Virgil's shepherd swains'.
Century: 1800-1849
Date: unknown
Country: n/a
Time: n/a
Place: n/a
   
Type of Experience (Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Type of Experience (Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Reader/Listener/Reading Group:

Reader:Miss V[-]
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Female
Date of Birth n/a
Socio-economic group: Gentry
Occupation: n/a
Religion: n/a
Country of origin: n/a
Country of experience: n/a
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: correspondent of Charlotte Bury

 

Text Being Read:

Author: Giovanni Battista Guarini
Title: Il Pastor Fido
Genre: Drama, Poetry
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: translation into English
Provenance: owned
presumably owned as she sends it to Charlotte Bury

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 18498  
Source - Print  
  Author: Charlotte Bury
  Editor: A. Francis Steuart
  Title: Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, The
  Place of Publication: London
  Date of Publication: 1908
  Vol: II
  Page: 249-50
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Charlotte Bury, A. Francis Steuart (ed.), Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting, The (London, 1908), II, p. 249-50, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=18498, accessed: 28 March 2024

Additional comments:

Date unclear but probably 1820 or 1821

 

 

Reading Experience Database version 2.0.  Page updated: 27th Apr 2016  3:15pm (GMT)