A search for meaning [US]:
[...] The great problem with presenting this [international] poetry, of course, is the problem of translation. John Updike's translation of "The Enigmas" by Jorge Luis Borges — "I say I believe / Myself undeserving of Heaven or of Hell, / But make no predictions." — would seem impossible to better. In most cases, however, the reader senses painfully that some flavour is being lost.
My only suggestion is to include more than one translation of a given poem. It's like giving the reader another camera angle. Hirsch presents a translation by a poet named Jim Powell of a lyric of Sappho's, for example. He could also have included Canadian poet Anne Carson's translation of the same lyric, a translation that better conveys the fitfulness and fever of Sappho's eroticism. [...]
This entry was posted by eeksypeeksy
on Monday, April 24, 2006 at 9:14 AM.
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