The Lisbon Earthquake

There are significant formal differences between Voltaire’s original “Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne” and William F. Fleming’s 1901 English translation. For example, the original poem is an alexandrine of 180 lines arranged as a single stanza, with indentations to indicate shifts. Meanwhile, Fleming’s translation is written in heroic verse of 260 lines with no breaks or indentations. Both versions include Voltaire’s footnotes. The difference in length between the poems is largely due to the different line measures of alexandrines and heroic verses.

The change from alexandrine form to heroic verse makes sense, as both are the conventional form used to epics in their respective language. Alexandrines find their origin in epic Greek poetry and are written 12-syllable lines with a caesura, or a pause, after the sixth syllable. Voltaire’s French verse does not always include the caesura. Heroic verse, by contrast, was popularized by Geoffrey Chaucer and is written in iambic pentameter. Heroic verse also typically features rhyming couplets and is sometimes called “heroic couplets.” The use of epic forms in both instances adds a gravity and irony to the work as it aspires to the epic but is ultimately undone by its