JiscMail Logo
Email discussion lists for the UK Education and Research communities

Help for POETRYETC Archives


POETRYETC Archives

POETRYETC Archives


POETRYETC@JISCMAIL.AC.UK


View:

Message:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Topic:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Author:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

Font:

Monospaced Font

LISTSERV Archives

LISTSERV Archives

POETRYETC Home

POETRYETC Home

POETRYETC  2005

POETRYETC 2005

Options

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Log In

Log In

Get Password

Get Password

Subject:

Re: Introduction and Oops!

From:

Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and poetics <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Sun, 6 Feb 2005 09:08:21 -0700

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (117 lines)

I have to say that I'm with Mark here. Perhaps because of the english
ghazals I've read (or 'anti-ghazals' as Phyllis Webb puts it (my sign
quote is from one of hers). But also as I took to heart the fascinating
introduction by Aijaz Ahmad in Ahmad, Aijaz, ed. 1971. Ghazals of
Ghalib. New York: Columbia UP, in which he invited a number of American
poets to turn his prose translations into contemporary poems that would
carry the passion etc of the originals though not the exact form. I
recommend his Introduction to anyone interested in the problems of
translation...

Doug
On 4-Feb-05, at 7:01 PM, Richard Jeffrey Newman wrote:

> Thanks, Mark, for the Marvell reference. There are some interesting
> points
> you make:
>
>>> In this sense to replicate the form is to mis-translate. How much
>>> moreso
> in the case of the ghazal, one would think.<<
>
> Yes and no, I think--though of course all translations are
> mistranslations.
> The question, or at least one way of putting the question, is whether
> and to
> what degree you want to translate the aural experience of the form,
> which of
> course means that a reader will have, in the target language, the
> cultural
> associations attached to that form in her or his culture, not the
> culture of
> the original. The example you give of the sonnet is a wonderful
> illustration
> of this. In the case of the ghazal, there is something about the
> repetitive
> rhyme scheme--the last line of each couplet reproduces the same rhyme,
> which
> is set up in the first couplet--and the way it stitches together the
> couplets that do not necessarily have any linear connection that I
> think is
> worth carrying over into English translation when it is possible. The
> few
> examples I have seen--one from Rumi, a couple from Hafez--where the
> translator has been able to do that, or at least to come close it,
> have been
> very effective. (The nearest analogy I can think of for the ghazal is
> the
> villanelle, with its repeating lines, though the villanelle's three
> line
> stanzas, of course, are connected much more linearly than the ghazal's
> couplets.)
>
>>> At this point the ghazal as practiced variously in the West, usually
>>> as a
> set of often unrhymed couplets with no linear connection between them,
> has
> become a form in its own right, no longer particularly referential to
> the
> Persian source.<<
>
> I think that the ghazal came into the West primarily through its Urdu
> version, rather than through Persian. There is apparently the same
> kinds of
> differences within the ghazal tradition--Persian, Urdu and one other
> language, maybe Arabic, that I can't remember--that there are within
> the
> sonnet. Different cultural contexts, different points of reference,
> etc. But
> one of the interesting things about the way the ghazal has come into
> English
> poetry is the total disregard for its formal constraints, as opposed,
> say,
> to the sonnet, for which the formal constraints, or at least an
> analogous
> set of constraints, were carried over from one language to another.
>
>>> In translating a poem from a language in which simple rhyme is both
>>> easy
> and ubiquitous is one rendering or distorting the sense of the
> original by
> struggling to maintain end-rhyme in the very different environment of
> modern
> English? The question wuld remain even if by miracle one managed to
> replicate the rhyme pattern without sacrificing anything else.<<
>
> For me, as I said above, the issue is the extent to which the aural
> experience is important. With the ghazal, which I am not translating, I
> think it is, if only because the form is so specific in its
> requirements,
> and it is the rhyme the stitches the couplets together, even if that
> experience ends up having slightly different meanings because of the
> different cultural context of the translation. In my translations of
> Saadi,
> however, I have decided that the aural experience of rhyme is not
> central in
> any way, which is why I am working in blank verse, a form that offers a
> different kind of aural experience that for me is analogous or
> parallel to
> my own experience of hearing Persian-speakers recite poetry.
>
> Richard
>
>


Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm

Reserved books. Reserved land. Reserved flight.
And still property is theft.

                        Phyllis Webb

Top of Message | Previous Page | Permalink

JiscMail Tools


RSS Feeds and Sharing


Advanced Options


Archives

March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000


JiscMail is a Jisc service.

View our service policies at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/ and Jisc's privacy policy at https://www.jisc.ac.uk/website/privacy-notice

For help and support help@jisc.ac.uk

Secured by F-Secure Anti-Virus CataList Email List Search Powered by the LISTSERV Email List Manager