Mark Weiss wrote:
<Translating the work of another poet requires the submission of one's own ego to the words of another; in this process the translator's intentions,spiritual or otherwise, must be subordinate to those of the original author. The author's intentions only exist in the manner in which the poem unfolds, and they are both conditioned by and expressed through the artifacts of the author's cultural environment. The poem exists because of, not despite, that environment. That's why it very much matters how we translate it.>
Mark,
Not much I'd disagree with here, except the implication of a necessary either/or as between a poem's existing because of/despite its environment. It’s always both, isn’t it? But I had written, or meant to write:
<If a poem gives no sense that [it] is gesturing towards something,however inadequately, then it is hardly worth bothering with.Nor does it matter how we translate it.>
where I would have thought it was clear, anyway, that I meant the last sentence to be governed by the “if” of the preceding one. As always, a case of divining the author’s intent...
<Following your principles, would this be a goiod translation of "Tintern
Abbey?"
Went to Tintern Abbey.
What a rush!>
Reminds me of some of Rothenberg’s hippy-dippy translations from the sixties of Native American poetry. Don’t know how “faithful” they were, either, though I have my suspicions.
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