Fascinating, Martin, & some of it wonderfully weird.
I was bothered by 'yonder' & 'lad' (for example) which struck a
Victorian note in the midst of the weird.
Doug
On 5-Mar-09, at 11:28 AM, Martin Walker wrote:
> I am ambivalent about translation & have not well received most
> Englishings of Rilke that I've seen - but today I was re-reading
> (couldn't remember a thing!) Jean Gebser's book *Rilke und Spanien*
> in which he shows how Rilke began to emancipate the adjective from
> its ornamental and perspectival functions after experiencing El
> Greco in Toledo & quotes this poem, which I had forgotten, to be
> honest, with its "an gestern begonnenem Fenster". So I had a go at
> it, trying to capture the rhythms and the sheer weirdness of this
> meditation. It's not coincidental that this version sort of alludes
> to a famous poem by Ungaretti, or that the poem itself should remind
> one of the beginning of Hölderlin's "Brod und Wein". See what you
> think.
> mj
>
> The immense night
>
> R.M.Rilke
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest books:
Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
Wednesdays'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
It's always night or we wouldn't need light.
Thelonious Monk
|