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Title: Mediocre translation and mediocre poetry
Review: Tasso's wonderful story of adventure and romance is rendered poorly by translator Esolen. While everyone realizes that prose translation is a difficult task, when the literature is written originally in meter, the task becomes daunting. Should the translator attempt to capture the meter of the poetry -- the song -- and give less attention to a strict rendering of the words? Or should the translator render the story as accurately as possible and be less concerned with the "song"?Esolen has chosen a middle road strategy that leads to both a mediocre rendering of the story and a mediocre use of English poetry to capture the song. Esolen's translation reads slowly and has a many, awkward, stilted, English rhymes. I would advise potential readers to seek another translation.
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