The poem, I was remiss in not noting before, was written in Paris in
January, 1914. Pre-20th century, as it were...
mj
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From bier to pit
And be shut in it
Then lies my house upon my nose
And all my care for this world goes.
Anon.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Barbour" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 7:18 PM
Subject: Re: rilke translation
This is, of course, your right & duty, Martin. How readers in other
parts of the world respond to such words is perhaps a problem. Is the
poem dated? How early is it? Such information might help, in this
case....
I wasnt necessarily thinking 'over there' <g>, but I can see your
point, what else can you use?
(there's that blues line, 'over yonders wall,' & ow I'm wondering if
one could do a pastiche or bricolage translation, finding various
phrases from other places to replace all of Rilke's....
I guess I shouldnt go there.....)
Doug
On 6-Mar-09, at 10:10 AM, Martin Walker wrote:
> Thanks for the feedback, Doug. I was expecting the objection - I had it
> myself. But "boy" is too familiar to me, lacking in the right
> connotations, and during my youth "lad" was not unusual, especially among
> those who weren't originally from the south of England. Rilke of course
> was from Prague (Habsburg empire) & grew up there in the 80s/90s; when he
> went to Munich in 96 he was a bit like a kind of rather foreign
> provincial (meeting Lou Andreas-Salome there in 97 was his initiation
> into sophistication - psychoanalysis & whatever...). As for "yonder" -
> well, they still use it in country music, I think, and - seriously -
> "over there" does not get the Rilkean frisson of "drüben", which has
> something otherworldly about it - the rhythm is also wrong, an amphimacer
> instead of a trochee. I dare say my priorities themselves are weird!
> Martin
Douglas Barbour
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http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
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It's always night or we wouldn't need light.
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