On Wed, 26 Jan 2000 09:01:57 -0000, Billy wrote:
>Famous Seamus on Irish radio at breakfast, in the wake of his Whitbread win
>(which the presenter later described as another example of green power),
>declared that the work of the poet is dedicated to posterity.
Ah, this was the large hawk which stilled the sparrows...
But, Seamus, IF it's dedicated to "Posterity" (and I don't for a
moment accept that it is or that it should be) WHY do all the
citations for you present famous victory (and congrats, btw, we
awardwinners must stick together) WHY do they all stress the
rescue-of-timeless-classic-from-obscurity, or the breathing-life-into
-lost-work-for-our-times elements of yr translation? Shome mishtake
here surely. IF your Beowulf's a piece of rescue archeology
("retrieved a buried treasure" "which had been known only to a small
no. of academics" say your awarders) it seems to me that "Posterity"
will want to have it done all over again...
Then again, Prof Paulin et al, I'm not at all happy with the idea that
these poor old quaint hasbeens (Beowulf, that is, not Seamus) need to
be dished up "for our times" (a similar argument was put forward to
justify the flat journalese of Hughes' Ovid, I recall). Generations of
readers have discovered the real physical thrill of language in
Beowulf, and continue to do so. Buried treasure? It's been successful
in recent years as a comic book, an animated cartoon etc, and each
time it's been the bang of the vowels and consonants, however diluted
from the original, that've seen it through, the anonymous author
rather than the named mediator. Some of that sound gets through to
Heaney's trans, but I'm afraid in the end I find Beowulf-Lite short of
the linguistic oomph of the original. Sorry.
Cheep, cheep. The bush comes to life again...
R
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