Thanks for the Houseman, Jon. A treasure.
Mark
At 09:48 AM 4/19/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>==================================================
>Thanks for the comments on my translation of Bertran de Born's "Youth and
>Age." As I expected, people on this list understand that the moral
>evaluation of a piece of literature should take account the context of its
>time. It strikes me that in a strange way and by the standards of his
>age, Bertran may be seen as a progressive: he's arguing that the
>admirable qualities summed up in the word "youth" really are a result of
>inner virtues rather than of bodily condition, though the virtues he
>promotes may not be the ones we admire. I liked Christopher Walker's
>alternate version of it, though I think you lose a lot by giving up the
>rhymes. But when you've committed yourself to the rhymes in translating
>this piece, that means there are all sorts of other things you can't
>do. The two translations show different ways of trying to solve this problem.
>
>==================================================
>The recent flood of poems is welcome but impossible for to keep up with.
>Here are some comments on the ones which happened to catch my eye:
>
>Audrey Friedman's "Museum of the Talking Boards" is a well crafted
>conventional poem which vividly remembers what it's like to be a child.
>It might have been better to end with a return to the past as museum
>metaphor rather than the vague mathematical reference, which I found puzzling.
>
>Trevor Howard's "From Ruan Ji, (210-263 CE)" has a startlingly lovely
>second stanza:
>
> young leaves wilt,
> sweet resins sweat;
>the cool clouds stream
> across the sky.
>
>but the rest, though enjoyable, seemed to me pretty standard
>Poundian/Cathay-like imagism.
>
>David Bircumshaw's "Hotel Erotica" is interesting; the beginning is sort
>of Hemingway-flat and then gets more thoughtful. I wonder though if it
>might have been stronger to end it before going into the particulars of
>the people being English tourists.
>
>I thought Jill Jone's translation of Montale's "Meriggiare pallido e
>assorto" was extremely good, though I have to judge it on its own merits
>as an English poem, since I have only phrase-book Italian and don't know
>much about Montale. The subtle semi-rhymes work well. But in the lines
>
> while the quavering creak arises,
> the cicada songs from bald peaks
>
>the use of the appositive seems awkward: you almost think at first that
>"songs" is a misprint for "sings" and then have to read it again to
>understand the grammar. And I thought that the word "melancholy" is too
>soft and Victorian sounding to be effective.
>
>Ken Wolman's "THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS" gives a vivid and honest picture
>of its situation. I think it would have been better to omit the first
>four stanzas (by the way you've got two stanza 4's) and begin in medias
>res with "Five years beyond that house, memories ..." Yes I know it's
>like carving flesh from your own newborn child but there can be no
>excellence without ruthlessness.
>
>==================================================
>I'm not ready to jump fully into the vortex of the Oresteia, since I
>haven't looked at it for some time, but I wanted to make one or two
>remarks. For the Eumenides, surely the key concept is sublimation. They
>aren't denied or made irrelevant or disempowered: their furious power is
>absorbed into the foundation of the community as the energy which empowers
>the enlightenment which allows human beings to live together without
>destroying each other:
>"No household," Athena tells them, "will flourish without you." They are
>common id made common ego.
>
>As for Apollo's disparagement of the female, we shouldn't forget that the
>Greeks were keenly aware that a law-court advocate's job was to say what
>would win the case, not to speak the truth. There's no reason a god
>should be any different.
>
>Incidentally, is everyone here familiar with A. E. Housman's hilarious
>Aeschylean pastiche? It's available on several internet sites, including:
>
> http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/texts/housman.html
>
>The Greek scholar D. S. Raven actually translated it into ancient Greek,
>and by God it does sound like Aeschylus.
>
>
>==================================================
>Quote of the week:
>
> Curs'd be the verse, how well soe'er it flow,
> That tends to make one worthy man my foe.
>
> -- Pope
>
>
>==================================================
>
>Jon Corelis [log in to unmask]
>http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
>
>==================================================
>
>
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Add photos to your messages with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*.
>http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail
|