I do not myself have much to recommend on this score, although some years
ago I remember admiring the work of Paula Blank (Spenser Studies?) on the
various dialects and why Spenser would want to use them. There was a
dissertation long ago on the "French Element" in Spenser, which meant
philology not literary imitation. The trick might be to replicate in a
language other than English both Spenser's archaisms and--this might be
harder--the English language's peculiar set of lexical strata that derive
from all those conquests (a Germanic base with borrowings from Latin early
on and then French and a new wave of Latin and then Greek and more
French). In English you can say "Or rather the multitudinous seas
incarnadine, making the green one red" or "Diuternity is a dream and folly
of expectation" and play off one lexical heritage against another. Tough
to replicate. Professor Hu, from the university of Peking (yes, Peking,
not Beijing), by the way, has an essay forthcoming in the next Spenser
Studies on translating Spenser into Chinese. Not relevant to this
particular question, perhaps, but maybe showing an analogous
challenge. The new volume, I'm told by AMS Press, should be out in a very
few weeks, maybe by late May. Good luck. Marina. Anne Prescott.
On Tue, 9 Apr 2002, [Windows-1251] Щербина И.М. wrote:
> Dear Spenserians,
>
> I am your colleague from Ukraine. Now I'm trying to translate "Shepheardes Calendar" into Russian verses.
> It's not an easy task for me. That's why I'd like to consult the members of the List to ask if anyone
> would recommend some sources about the peculiarities of Spenser's language.
> I'm trying to come to a better translating of this immortal work.
>
> Thank you.
> Marina Shcherbina
>
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