George Coşbuc şi traducerile lui din limba latină
George Coşbuc and His Translations from Latin

Summary/Abstract: The Latinist education received by young intellectuals from Transylvania, through the Enlightenment ideas of the time and the contribution of the Transylvanian School left its mark on young George Coşbuc who, later, would make full use of his knowledge embarking upon a titanic work of translating from classical languages, especially Latin, translating into Romanian many works by Latin writers, such as: Vergilius (Georgics, Titirus) Terentius Afer (Parmeno or Eunnuchus) and Gaius Vallerius Cattullus (Book of Songs), or from the work Silesian poet Martin Opitz (Zlatna or the peace of mind). But none of them live up to the monumental Romanian translations of Vergilius's Aeneid, Coşbuc published in three successive editions (in 1896, 1898 and 1910, published by C. Sfetea bookstore in Bucharest).His great merit is to give Romanian readers an interpretation according to the metric of Vergilius’ original work in a time when this did not seem to be possible because philologists obstinately held that while Romanian is a language of rhythm, Latin had remained, par excellence, a prosodic language, which creates a mismatch. But Coşbuc’s translation was a success and his Eneida was recognized as an outstanding achievement at the time, being awarded the grand prize „Udrişte Năsturel” of the Romanian Academy in 1897. Therefore, critics recognized not only his major contribution to the enhancement of the Romanian cultural heritage through his genuine poetry, but also his prodigious activity as a translator of classic languages, especially Latin.

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