I’m reading your volume of literary essays & notes. I was struck by your saying that the characters in Homer speak naturally, very unlike “Leaf & Long”. So do all the Greek authors, really. But it happens that I have been telling Homer’s stories to little boys of 10-11 years, with whom the frills & affectations of translators do not go down at all. Yet they are sensitive to anything really good, even if they do not understand it all, any good scene or tune or words. The story makes clear the general sense, of course. But natural it must be.
I take the liberty of sending you one of my stories, and I should be very much indebted to know how it strikes you. If you do not like it, I am sure you will not scruple to say so, and believe me, that will not offend me at all.
The book is really a translation, for it is all in Homer, except a few trifling sections. Even the familiar Mommy, Daddy, are there, & words like the Cyclops’s eye “sizzling”, & Ulysses saying to the herdsman, “Now I have made my croak.” But not a single translator, or commentator, sees these things - I ought to say, hears them.
Red ink in another hand at the top of the page:
Corrections probably made of R’s ms & returned to him
eA [or eP???]
27 Dec. 1934
Dear Mr Pound,
It is very kind of you to speak of receiving my adventures - I assure you I sent it with no advertising aim, but simply because I hoped you might approve the way of speach, and that I might learn how it seemed to an unprejudiced ear. I found, through many years, the most useful critics in the world to be intelligent boys. & I tell to boys of ten the whole of Homer, all the chief Greek mythology, stories from history, & the Gold Ass. The language I used is that kind I use naturally, & I learnt if from my parents & their friends, & from peasants ( who still speak it ), only leaving out the grammatical oddities of the last which are always local
For boys of ten you must make the mearning clear ; if you don’t their faces show it in an instant. An occassional long word doesn’t matter a bit. I ask, “What does that mean?” and if they give something that makes sense that is enough ; they will learn the exact meaning in time. [to be cont.]
[cont. from previous] Never take all the points at once, even the beauties, which they see are beautiful, though not how beautiful: that comes later. I found exactly the same with my Sixth Form. We read all the great authors right through in the original, discussed and explained in the same language, without English, & when they came to the exam: they did the English translation out of their own heads admirably, & got scholarships etc. But you will wonder that my fellow scholastics ( I mean the greats from st andrews ) wouldn’t listen to me, they only smiled & plunged in thought again.
[cont. from previous] I wrote out a few of our school scenes, just to show the way of it, & I am going to send you a couple. They are quite true pictures, for they have been read by the boys who took part & they are based on thousands of notes written down by me as we went on. But the point is, that they came on all the beauties unprepared, in class, for the first time, as you come on a view while riding about on horseback, & never failed to feel them. We were boys bantering each other, but a sudden silence would fall at one of the great sayings.
I will now answer your personal questions. I am 71½ years old, retired from my school since 1928 because the Board of Education were convinced that every one was useless as soon as 65 years were passed. Since 1905 I have been running the said school against all kinds of difficulties; my work has been, to devise a scheme for teaching Latin & Greek on the direct method, that is learn them by using them in speech first, then in writing, & compiling the necessary schoolbooks; incidentally earning money to keep running the school, by coaching at Girton & Newnham, & teaching Sanskrit to the I.C.S. candidates in the university.
Rouse is my hero. A pity his method was not continued and did not become the norm, or at least a valid accepted option, for teaching ancient Greek and Latin after his time. I’ve read about half of his Greek Boy at Home, and also a portion of his Lucian’s Dialogues of the Gods with notes on vocab done in Attic Greek. Amazing stuff. I believe, but am not certain, I may have read his translations of the Illiad and Odyssey some years ago.
I look forward to it. I have a book discussing Pound’s approach to translation, and how the field has changed since his work (but haven’t read it yet). Will have to take a look.
[cont. from previous] Not much time left for ornamentals, you see, but I got out a number of story-books for children & oddments, & prepared for an edition of Pindar with translation (now ready) intended to show why he was a great poet, not the grammar or archaeology of his world — just enough to understand. But my chief preoccupation still is, to help other men & women who want to teach L. & G. sensibly.
In translation I don’t worry about style, or "rhythmical prose.” & all those affectations but try to tell the truth. I note that when great men speak English, the truth makes its own style. I shouldn’t mind using bitch or bastard if that is what the Greek said (except for little children, where such words distract their attention), but I hate all words with readily base associations, such as the Americans use & they seem to taint even good words : as meaningless babble like gee whiz. (P.S. I am afraid I have said something to offend you there, without intending – but I mean those dreadful bit of style which we read in modern American books.
ChatGPT was helpful for getting “preoccupation”, which stumped me. It gave a first pass transcription for the second paragraph, but needed several corrections.
I attended the Perse, where he had been headmaster. I’m sorry to say by my time (I entered the upper school in 1966) his method had been abandoned for Greek and Latin, though the direct method continued to be used for modern languages. The school archivist, David Jones, is working on a biography of Rouse, which I hope will appear in due course.