722
PARTISAN REVIEW
In the end they carry on just .in the way they want
As though they were never educated.
Here, and again in Nereus' remarks on the same theme, we can say
of MacNeice's translation what we can never quite say in Part I, that
it is as good as the original. Evidently the urbanity of the later scenes
is more congenial to him and, in any case, closer to modem English.
Later in the Walpurgisnacht we see him again at his best-and on a
more extended scale-in the Homunculus episode (why is it so little
known?) where he catches the mood delightfully in all its playful
beauty and wisdom.
Finally there is Act V, perhaps the po.etic climax of the whole,
in
which MacNeice rises to the height of the argument and enters into the
passion of it as well as the irony. Witness Faust's encounter with Despair
in the last moments of hi$ life, where,
if
anywhere, the poem touches our
time to the quick and the poet of our time, we cannot help feeling,
is
touched to the quick too:
Endless round-he must pursue .it:
Painful Leaue-it, hateful Do-it,
Freedom now, now harsh constraint,
Broken sleep that leaves him faint,
Bind him to his one position
And prepare him for perdition.
Whether so touched or not, he has given us a translation of Act V that
leaves nothing to be desired; the piety, the fury, the eeriness, the heaven–
liness-they are all there, completely. And there can be no doubt about
it-the sophisticated satire of Mephistopheles' battle with the angels
goes better
in
English than in German.
WILLARD
GALLERY
PAINTERS
GRAVES • LEWIS • MULLIGAN • TOBEY
SCULPTORS
RICHARD LIPPOLD • DAVID SMITH
NEW ADDRESS-
23 W. 56 NEW
YORK 19
Barker Fairlev
PAUL KLE&-Poda'ilo'illcal Sketchbook intro.
and trans. By Sibyl Moholy-Naqy
3.00
LORCA-Lamont for the death of a bull-
f1'i1hter and other poems
2.75
LORCA-An appreciation. with select.d
trans. of his poetry by Roy Campboll
2.50
HOLDERLIN-A study of his lif., vision,
and po.try by L. S. Salzberger
2.50
APPOINTED AGENTS
fOR BOTIEGHE
OSCURE, sin;l. copy $2.00 subscriptions $3.50
No. 10 "citin'il contonh
New recordings list on request, .Iso complete
list of "Little Megs," GBM winter currents,
Joyce items, books on the film. free on request.
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