Sergeant Rilko


Subject: Sergeant Rilko
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Fri Mar 03 2000 - 03:09:18 EST


    I'm always having these tremendously original thoughts.

    But. It just occurred to me. How about: translation
    tends to be impossible & the translation of poetry is
    absolutely impossible?

    My Elder Son The German-Speaking Philosopher
    tells me Rilke is really something. Yet whatever of his
    I've read here on the list strikes me as just so many yards
    of grey flannel - a thought that led me on to ask:
    which translated poetry HAS actually ever moved me?
    Nary a wan.

    I'm no linguist but can still read with much of my original
    excitement the French poetry of my school days.
    Their translations, though, leave me quite cold.
    And none of the Englished versions of Virgil -
    either printed or recorded by fine actors - produces
    that sudden chilling of the skin that I still get from:
    'Venit summa dies; et ineluctabile tempus ...'

    Having thought the thought, the very next post I opened
    was Meredith's. So there's at least two of us.

    And if we're right, doesn't it have implications for
    the theory of reader response & authorial intention?
    (Probably not. I certainly haven't the slightest inclination
    to pursue them.)

    Scottie B.

-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Sat Apr 01 2000 - 10:11:38 EST