ALS, four pages on two adjoining sheets, 4.25 x 7, Cambridge, May 1, 1867. Letter to E. C. Hammer of Boston. In part: “I have had the pleasure of receiving the copy of ‘Hundrede Digte ved Caralis,’ which you were so kind as to send me, and for which I hasten to thank you and through you the Translator. I have already carefully read several of the poems, and think them written with admirable skill and fidelity. Moreover I am truly delighted to see that the Translator, both in theory and in practice, recognizes the importance of form, which is so often and so fatally neglected. Thomas Aquinas—the Angelic Doctor of the School—says that ‘Form is that by which a thing is;’ and Spenser, the English Poet, has these three lines; ‘For of the soul the body form doth take, For soul is form and doth the body make.’ Certainly it is the soul which gives form to a Poem; and losing one you lose the other. W. Pretzman has been guided by a true poetic instinct in this matter.” Soiled horizontal mailing folds to final page and a few trivial spots of foxing, otherwise fine condition. Longfellow was no stranger to poetic form or translation—his works demonstrate excellence in nearly all forms, from the flexibility of free verse to the strictures of sonnet, and he was the first American to translate The Divine Comedy. A truly outstanding letter with incredible literary content. Pre-certified PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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