58 Milton D. Baumgartner 



CHAPTER IV. The Fables and Poetic-Classical 

 Translations 



The fables^ of Dryden were more popular in Germany than his 

 ■dramas. Although written in his old age, they have a charm and 

 sprightliness which today still give them a high rank among his 

 works. Their poetic charm may be attributed to the nature of the 

 composition. Inasmuch as the translations were free, the author 

 could concentrate his efforts upon the form and meter. It was 

 this elegance of form which appealed to the German poets, and in 

 turn influenced their form. 



Dryden's fables were reviewed early in Germany. About the 

 middle of the eighteenth century they attained their highest popu- 

 larity, and at the conclusion of the century they were again re- 

 vived; it was at this time that Alexander's Feast, on account of 

 its lyrical elements, was so highly esteemed as an ode among the 

 Germans. A commendatory Latin review of the fables appeared 

 at Leipzig in the same year in which they were published in Eng- 

 land.^ Four of the fables in this collection : Philemon and Baucis, 

 Cyriion and Iphigenia, The Cock and the Fox, and Theodore and 

 Honoria found their way into Germany, the last two being 

 translated. 



Philemon and Baucis was a source for a fable with the same 

 title by Hagedorn (1708-1754).^ Hagedorn's fondness for the 

 fable, upon which his fame as a poet rests_, drew him to La Fon- 

 taine, Gay, and Prior more frequently than to Dryden, whose 

 fables he however learned to know during his stay in England in 

 1729. 



In his Philemon and Baucis (1739) Hagedorn introduces more 

 of the idyllic and naive element, dwelling on some details which 

 Dryden merely indicated. In his versification, however, the in- 

 fluence of Dryden and his pupil Pope, is more evident. He em- 



1 Fables, Ancient and Modern, Translated into Verre from Homer, 

 Ovid, Boccace, and Chaucer, with Original Poems, London, 1700. 



2 Acta Euriditorum . . . , pp. 321-325, Lipsiae, 1700. 



3 The Gbttinger Zeitung von Gelehrten Sachen (p. 108, 1739) reviews 

 Hagedorn's fables, and calls attention to Dryden as one of the sources for 

 Philemon and Baucis. 



