Translating the work of another poet requires the submission of one's own
ego to the words of another; in this process the translator's intentions,
spiritual or otherwise, must be subordinate to those of the original
author. The author's intentions only exist in the manner in which the poem
unfolds, and they are both conditioned by and expressed through the
artifacts of the author's cultural environment. The poem exists because of,
not despite, that environment. That's why it very much matters how we
translate it.
Following your principles, would this be a goiod translation of "Tintern
Abbey?"
Went to Tintern Abbey.
What a rush!
At 12:46 PM 12/6/2000 EST, [log in to unmask] wrote:
><<And to take the argument to the ontological (and perhaps into the realm
of the ridiculous,the original poem could be called the first failed
translation of
>the poet's fullest intention and expectation for the poem's beingness.>>
>
>What, man, have you never heard of the materiality of language? Don't you
know that a poem is a translation for which there is no original? And
what's all this about a "poet's fullest intention?"
>
>But I agree. If a poem gives no sense that is gesturing towards something,
however inadequately, then it is hardly worth bothering with.Nor does it
matter how we translate it. We might compare languages to beasts with
different numbers and arrangements of appendages.If the beasts' gestures
were purely conventional codes, translation would be either trivial or
impossible. It's only because there is something beyond convention, the
thing that creates it - call it intention, meaning, reality - that
translation forever entices and eludes us.
>
>Alan
>
>
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