No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Kantemir and Rolli-Milton's Il Paradiso Perduto
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 January 2017
Extract
The heliocentric allusions in Antiokh Kantemir's First Ode make it one of the earliest poetic statements in Russian literature to support the Copernican theory. As such it is often cited, and it is certainly the best known of the poet's four surviving odes. Yet neither the precise date of the poem's composition nor its origin is known, though attempts at solving both these problems have been made with a view to explaining the change in Kantemir's poetic style after he left Russia in January, 1732. Though he was then only twenty-three, some of his best satires had already been written, and his poetic output declined after that date.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1962
References
1 See, for example, 
(2nd ed.) s.v. “Kopernik.”
2 Cf. 
(2nd ed.; Moscow and Leningrad: AK. HayK, 1947), p. 220.
3 Cf. Pope's celebrated line: “We conquered France, but felt our captive's charms …” (Epistle to Augustus, 1. 263). An impressive array of English writers (including those cited above) are listed in the catalogue of Kantemir's library: see 
(Warsaw, 1896).
4 Guasco, Octavien de, Satyres du Prince Cantemir: Traduites du Russe en François, avec I'histoire de sa vie (London, 1749), p. 62.Google Scholar
5
(Moscow and Leningrad: AK. HayK. 1935), p. 94.
6 Z. I. Gershkovich in the notes to 
(Leningrad, 1956), p. 465. (Hereafter cited as K.G.G.) Gershkovich adduces no reasons for his choice.
7 Note to line 1, First Ode, see K.C.C., p. 203.
8
, Op. cit., p. 94.
9 Hence the concluding stanza: “ … valet ima summis / mutare et insignem attenuat deus, / obscura promens; hinc apicem rapax / Fortuna cum stridore acuto / sustulit, hie posuisse gaudet.”
10 Translation: “I, rare and stingy worshipper / In silly sapience while I err, / Now face about, my steps retrace, / And paths too long forgotten pace.” W. E. Gladstone, Odes of Horace (New York, 1894), p. 39.
11 Translation: “For Jove, whose common use enshrouds / His lightning fire in folded clouds, / Once now his thunder-steeds hath driven / And lightning-car through cloudless heaven. / Then wayward streams, and solid ground, / Then Atlas from his farthest bound, / Shake; aye and Styx the tale can tell, / And lowest depths of deepest hell.” W. E. Gladstone, op. cit., p. 39.
12 On the derivation of “Perun” see 
(4th ed.; Moscow, 1916), p. 181.
13 K.C.C, pp. 195-96.
14 Guasco, op. cit., p. 63.
15
, No. 4, 1891, p. 387.
16 On Rolli, see Ida Luisi, “Un Poeta-Editore del Settecento,” Miscellanea di Studi Critici pubblicati in onore di Guido Mazzoni dai suoi discepoli (Florence, 1907). Rolli is mentioned in Pope's Dunciad (Book n, note to 1. 203): “Paolo Antonio Rolli, an Italian poet, and writer of many Operas in that language, which, partly by the help of his genius prevailed in England near twenty years. He taught Italian to some fine Gentlemen, who affected to direct the Operas.”
17 Rolli's libretti are enumerated in Paolo, Rolli, Liriche: Con un saggio su la melica italiana dalla seconda metá del cinquecento al Rolli e al Metastasio e note di Carlo Calcaterra (Turin, 1926), pp. 321–22 Google Scholar. See also A., Loewenberg, Annals of the Opera, 1597-1940 (Cambridge, Eng., 1943).Google Scholar
18 Rolli was a fellow of the Royal Society. The 1735 edition was dedicated to Frederick, Prince of Wales, and is rare. On the translation and its reception in Italy, see Ettore, Allodoli, Milton e Vltalia (Prato, 1907)Google Scholar. I have used the 1783 edition of the Paradiso Perduto (Venice), which is virtually a reprint of the 1735 edition, and that is the edition cited below.
19 Guasco, op. cit., p. 63.
20 Mariia Dmitrievna Kantemir to Antiokh, July 15, 1734: “ … which is why so far I have written to you in [modern] Greek … ” Quoted by ШиMKO, op. cit., p. 386.
21 Rolli edited a number of works of Boccaccio, Ariosto, Guarini, Giovanni della Casa, and so on. An item referred to by Shimko as “liricheskie poemy” is presumably Rolli's Rime, which appeared in 1733 (Verona).
22 On Antiokh Kantemir's father see Panaitescu, P. P., Dimitrie Cantemir: Viata si Opera (Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republici Populare Romîne, 1958)Google Scholar. A serious study of Antiokh Kantemir's youth, his birth in Constantinople, the early years in Moscow, etc., is yet to be made.
23 A Russian manuscript translation of Milton's epic first appeared in 1745 (a year after Kantemir's death): see Simmons, Ernest J., English Literature and Culture in Russia (1553- 1840) (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1935)Google Scholar. The author was A. G. Stroganov. In V. S. Sopikov's bibliography the first verse translation is ascribed to Ivan Vladykin (St. Petersburg, 1776), pars. 8709-10.
24 The Poetical Works of John Milton, ed. Helen Darbishire (Oxford, 1958), Book vii, 11. 514-16 of Paradise Lost. (This edition is cited throughout.)
25 Paolo Rolli, II Paradiso Perduto: Poema inglese di Giovanni Milton (Venice, 1783), Vol. I, Book VII, p p . 263-65. (This edition is cited throughout.)
26 “Again th’ Almightie spake: Let ther be Lights / High in th’ expanse of Heaven …” (VII. 339-40) “ … first the Sun / A mightie Spheare he fram'd … ” (354-55) “ … and made the Starrs, / And set t h em in the Firmament of Heav'n” (348-49).
27 “ … then formd the Moon / Globose … ” (vn.356-57) “Of Light by farr the greater part he took, / Transplanted … / In the Suns Orb, made porous to receive / And drink the liquid Light, firm to retaine / Her gatherd beams … ” (359-63).
28 “ Luna soboiu telo gruboe i nesvetloe, svetla zhen am kazhetsia dlia togo, chto luchi solntsa, v nee upiraias', k nam, kak ot zerkala, otsvechivaiut.” K.G.G., p. 203.
29 “… and rowld / Her motions, as the great first-Movers hand / First wheeld thir course … ” (Paradise Lost, vn.499-501).
30 “When 1 behold this goodly Frame, this World / Of Heav'n and Earth consisting, and compute / Thir magnitudes, this Earth a spot, a graine, / An Atom, with the Firmament compar'd / And all her numberd Starrs, that seem to rowle / Spaces incomprehensible…” (Paradise Lost, vm.15-20).
31 “He scarce had said, when the bare Earth, till then / Desert and bare, unsightly, unadornd, / Brought forth the tender Grass, whose verdure clad / Her Universal Face with pleasant green … ” (Paradise Lost, vn.313-16).
32 “ U p from the bottom turnd by furious windes / And surging w a v e s , … ” (Paradise Losf, vn.213-14).
33 “And God said, let the Waters generate / Reptil with Spawn abundant, living Soule:/ And let Fowle flie above the Earth, with wings / Displayd on th’ op'n Firmament of Heav'n. / And God created the great Whales, and each Soul living, each that crept, which plenteously / The waters generated by thir kindes, / And every Bird of wing after his kinde … ” (Paradise Lost, VII.387-94).
34 usty = narici; ozhivlenny = spirto della vita.
35 “ … thee O Man / Dust of the ground, and in thy nostrils breath'd / The breath of Life; in his own Image hee / Created thee, in the Image of God / Express, and thou becam'st a living Soul.” (Paradise Lost, VII.524-28) “ … a Creature who not prone / And Brute as other Creatures, but endu'd / With Sanctitie of Reason, might erect / His Stature, and upright with Front serene … ” (vn.506-9).
36
Gady or gadiny in the first half of the eighteenth century could mean almost anything rich and strange in the way of animals, reptiles, etc. See M. P. Avramov's use of it in his attack on Kantemir's translation of the Pluralité des Mondes; cf. 
(St. Petersburg, 1868), pp. 264-65.
37
(St. Petersburg, 1903), Vol. 73, p. 52 (based on the fragmentary collection of Kantemir's correspondence at the Bodleian).
38 See Guasto, op. cit., pp. 62 ff.
39 Quoted by Francesco, Viglione, “L'Algarotti e l‘Inghilter ra,” in Studi di Letteratura Italiana diretti da Erasmo Percopo (Naples, 1922), XIII, 119.Google Scholar
40 The first (incomplete) edition of Paradise Lost appeared in 1667; the first edition of the Principia in 1687. Milton, incidentally, met Galileo Galilei during his well-known visit to Florence—a fact duly emphasized by Rolli; see “Vita di Milton,” in Rolli, , II Paradiso Perduto (Venice, 1783), I, 14.Google Scholar