Author: ROSE (William Stewart):
Title: The Court and Parliament of Beasts freely translated from The Animali Parlanti of Giambattista Casti. A Poem In seven Cantos.
Description: London: John Murray..., 1819. FIRST AND ONLY EDITION. Small 8vo, 173 x 98 mms., pp. [iv] [3] - 119 [120 colophon], including half-title, uncut, newly rebound in boards, paper label on spine. A very good copy, with a small circular cipher bookplate on the front paste-down end-paper. , Giovanni Battista Casti (1724 - 1803) published the poetical allegory Gli Animali Parlanti in 1802, having spent eight years i preparing it. The translation by Rose (1775 - 1843) is a free one with several additions by Rose. Rose also translated Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. "This work constitutes his chief claim to critical attention. The original poem is a burlesque telling of a parliament of talking animals who elect a lion as king but fall into dispute and civil war after his death. In Rose's version, each of the seven cantos is prefaced by an address to a dedicatee. These addresses, with their far-fetched rhymes and quirky rhythms, are in some ways the most engaging sections of the work" (ODNB). The reviewer in The British Critic, and Quarterly Theological Review for 1819 was less impressed: "We have no quarrel with this little jeu d'esprit, but that we understand nothing of its drift, and very little of its matter. The reader who looks for any resemblance in it to the celebrated poem of the Abbate Casti will be egregiously disappointed."

Keywords: poetry translation literature


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