Maighread, your impression is well founded - there’s been a glut of Infernos of late, but there are also a few entire Commedias...lately Robin Kirkpatrick’s and Robert and Jean Hollander’s - the latter a collaborative team, she the poet, he the scholar. I’ve often wondered, like you, why Purgatory and Paradise have relatively few takers.
I liked the general argument about translation in Peter’s review, most of all the willingness to argue about it. My own view is practical - that whether the process is singular or plural, free or bound, extensive or one-off, no procedure in itself guarantees success or failure, and so each attempt has to be judged on its merits and, up to a point, taken on its own terms. But a respect for the original is a pretty good starting point.
Jamie
> On 19 Mar 2018, at 00:06, Maighread Medbh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Thanks for that link, Peter, and the very interesting reviews. I'm
> guilty of thoroughly enjoying producing a version from cribs, only
> modern poems so far. I believe in checking any obscure details with
> the original poets and consulting on phrasing etc. My pleasure is in
> trying to grasp a sense of the original purpose and try to let its
> feeling come through in the translation, also the sounds of the
> original language if possible. My latest effort was a poem in Arabic,
> which I couldn't read at all, but I had translations in English,
> Spanish and French, and recordings. The poet was very happy with my
> version in the end, and I gained tremendously from the cultural and
> linguistic journey. (Taha Adnan was the poet, the anthology Migrant
> Shores, ed. Manuela Palacios, Salmon Publishing).
>
> I agree with your thoughts on Philip Terry's Inferno, which I found
> very readable, but wasn't fascinated. Have you read Ciaran Carson's
> translation? Are there many translations of Paradiso? Why are people
> so fascinated with the Inferno, or is that just my ill-informed
> impression?
>
> Maighread
>
>> On 17/03/2018, Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Peter, whether you or I like the particulars, "the world we live in" is a
>> matter of debate, but the "translators" and their work are clearly a part of
>> it. Not to note them would be a misrepresentation.
>>
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Peter Riley
>>> Sent: Mar 17, 2018 4:39 PM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: Swollen translation
>>>
>>>
>>> Peter: I’ll skip the “& all” bit if you don’t mind and come back to you
>>> in the outer world.
>>>
>>> Except to say: I agree that it was not necessary to draw you into that
>>> review, and as it turns out, clearly a mistake.
>>>
>>> + (Mark:) What troubled me was not so much the misrepresentation (
>>> especially partialisation) of the original author (that is almost a
>>> necessary condition of “translation” itself) but the misrepresentation of
>>> the world we live in.
>>>
>>> + (Michael:). I think it goes further than that, I think it involves the
>>> whole question of non-transmissive poetry, the abhorrence of
>>> “sense”(explicitly by at least one senior poet I can think of) and
>>> Atkin’s dismissal of “content”. I mean once you’ve chucked it you can’t
>>> have it back. I can’t see how your explanation of the word “Plant” changes
>>> anything at all. It’s really a very academic tactic. In fact you’ve done
>>> exactly what I said near the end of that section, that they will find a
>>> way somehow of claiming a transmission when the author seems to do
>>> everything he/she can to avoid one. He’s chucked sense and you’re handing
>>> it back to him. There must be some theory of subliminal
>>> exposition involved which I can’t trust for a second. sure those two lines
>>> can (for the aficionado) “invoke” those questions of concern, but there is
>>> no way the poet can be said to have made any kind of statement about any
>>> of them. “Saying”is a completely different process from this.
>>> Pope: No, not that one. “January and May; or, The Merchant’s Tale” and
>>> “The Wife of Bath, her Prologue”. He referred to these as translations. My
>>> date was wrong, should be c1704.
>>>
>>> But since the Sacred Leaves to All are free,
>>> And Men interpret Texts, why should not We?
>>>
>>> PR
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Máighréad Medbh
> 42 Boroimhe Alder,
> Swords, Co. Dublin, Ireland.
> Web: www.maighreadmedbh.ie
> Phone: 353 87 2894744
> Poet, Writer.
> --------------------------
> Most Recent Books:
> Parvit of Agelast:
> http://www.maighreadmedbh.ie/published-books.htm
> Savage Solitude
> http://www.dedaluspress.com/auth/76
> Pagan to the Core
> http://www.maighreadmedbh.ie/published-books.htm#pagan
>
> ******
> The Body Coat and The Coal-black Sea (E-books)
> http://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=maighread+medbh&covers=on
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