Arndt ya gonna just fergit about the rhyme and meter?
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Sat, 16 Oct 1999 12:04:14 -0500
> Never considered Arndt one of the best. But who am I to say which are.
> Are you fluent in German? Which I guess to mean something along the lines
> of: while Rilke's poems are seducing you, is your mind turning over the
> German into the sluttish hiss of English?
The churning teeth and spittle and glottal--to tell you the truth, to
this day I can't imagine that ridiculous delicate Rilke speaking such
an unmannerly language. German to me always sounded like someone
trying to chew up and swallow a large bit of car fender. I studied
only a little--just enough to reassure me that Herter Norton's Rilke
was right, and Walter Arndt's was wrong. I have always based my
argument on the strong resemblence in voice between her translations
of the prose vs. her translations of the poetry. Sounds like the same
person to me. Or maybe I jsut want it to. I do remember reading
somewhere that Rilke's German was accessible at an early level of
study/reading. Need one be fluent to understand that Arndt's "lose it
/ booze it" rhyme ("Drunkard's Song") sits as undelicately in Rilke's
mouth as, well, the native German?
> I do think we of the west can get *a tiny
> bit* closer to India than the far east.
Undoubtedly. I am, of course, only posturing myself with all that
French theory.
--
Matt Kozusko mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu