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  #21  
Unread 09-09-2002, 09:17 AM
Alan Sullivan Alan Sullivan is offline
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Thanks, Rhina.

The memoir revamp is now online. This link will take you directly there. I'm confident that it will look as I intend on a much wider range of screens. It will also be possible for viewers to bookmark individual pages, which could not be done in the frame-based format I used before.

Now for the Wulf. That fix should take till the weekend. I have jury duty this week, so I may not be able to attack the project with my usual single-mindedness.

Alan
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  #22  
Unread 09-12-2002, 02:29 AM
Bruce McBirney Bruce McBirney is offline
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Having now read the whole thing, my feeling about Sullivan and Murphy's Beowulf is that it goes a long way beyond Seamus Heaney's best-selling translation a couple years ago. Heaney's was no small accomplishment. He took a 1,200-year-old poem, made it readable for a modern audience, and (with an assist from numerous college professors and high school teachers who assigned it) turned it into a bestseller. But Sullivan and Murphy have made it not only readable, but memorable as well. While adhering more closely than Heaney to the formal techniques used in the original, they have still found the right word, with the right tone to a modern ear, far more often than Heaney.

Don't take my word for this. Hear for yourself.

In this passage Heaney introduces the hero, who has learned of the slaughter being carried on by Grendel in another kingdom:

"When he heard about Grendel, Hygelac's thane
was on home ground, over in Geatland.
There was no one else like him alive.
In his day, he was the mightiest man on earth...."

Heaney has retained the four-stress line of the original, and his colloquialism is certainly understandable. But it reads here somewhat like comic book prose. Sullivan and Murphy, on the other hand, catch the ear through a greater deference for the rhythm and sound of the original--using heavier alliteration, and maintaining the mid-line caesura (pause) between the second and third stresses. Conventional wisdom says that binding themselves to those formal techniques should make it harder for them to find just the right modern words, yet they cover the same ground as Heaney with greater economy and drive. (I've used slash lines rather than extra spaces for the caesura, since I can't seem to get this program to leave more than one space between words.)

"A thane of Hygelac // heard in his homeland
of Grendel's deeds. // Great among Geats,
this man was more mighty // than any then living."

Here Heaney's Beowulf pitches his services to the Danish king, Hrothgar:

"So every elder and experienced councilman
among my people supported my resolve
to come here to you, King Hrothgar,
because all knew of my awesome strength."

I hate to say it, but this guy is coming across as a blow-hard--not the guy I'd pick to save my kingdom. I'd have more confidence in Sullivan and Murphy's Beowulf:

"The most honored among us, // earls and elders,
have urged me to seek you, // certain my strength
would serve in your struggle...."

Toward the end of the poem, Heaney's Geat warriors mourn for Beowulf's death:

"...They were disconsolate
and wailed aloud for their lord's decease."

"Disconsolate" and "decease" are slightly stuffy Latin-tinged words that don't work here. And "wailed" (despite its Old English derivation) certainly doesn't hit the right note. Sullivan and Murphy have this:

"Sunken in spirit // at Beowulf's slaying,
the Geats gathered // grieving together."

There are many other examples. My purpose isn't to diminish what Heaney has done. His translation is a great accomplishment that has made a long-ago masterpiece accessible to a much wider audience. But I didn't feel the need to make the voyage more than once. Sullivan and Murphy, though, using age-old techniques, have added visual and aural splendor to the trip:

"On the second day // their upswept prow
slid into sight // of a steep-sided coast,
the goal of their voyage, // gained in good time.
Sea-cliffs and stacks // shone before them,
flat-topped capes // at the close of their crossing.
Swiftly the sailors // steered for the shore,
moored their boat // and debarked on the berm.
Clad in corselets // of clattering mail,
they saluted the Lord // for their smooth sailing."

You can hear it. Wow!
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  #23  
Unread 09-12-2002, 06:34 AM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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Gee, thanks, Bruce. Maybe you could expand this a bit by next spring when the inexpensive volume appears, and publish it in the Times Book Review?
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  #24  
Unread 09-12-2002, 07:02 PM
Deborah Warren Deborah Warren is offline
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Bruce, I couldn't agree with you more. The juxtaposed passages show how Heaney's is a translation, while the Alan/Tim translation a poem.
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  #25  
Unread 09-14-2002, 12:18 AM
Wade Newman Wade Newman is offline
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The Sullivan & Murphy excerpts, especially when compared to the same lines from Heaney, have peaked my expectations for the entire volume. I look forward to obtaining the stand-alone edition. Congratulations to you both.
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  #26  
Unread 09-14-2002, 01:33 AM
nyctom nyctom is offline
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Well gentlemen, you will understand what I say when I tell you that your translation reads as postively butch in comparison. It is more muscular, moves mightily, throbs tenaciously. Now it is a matter of better PR.

You are an imressive reader Mr Murphy. You have this whole James Earl Jones of the High Prairie thing going on. You should hire yourself out. Most poets are terrible readers of their own work.
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  #27  
Unread 09-15-2002, 12:13 PM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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Thanks, Tom. XXX chromosome gays. Download the mp3 file on The New Formalist's e-book site, and you'll hear the smaller voice I use for my little lyrics. I'll be taping all six hours of the Wulf for Longman this fall, and I'll have to break it into six sessions. After thirty-five years, the cigarettes are taking their toll.
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  #28  
Unread 09-20-2002, 03:07 AM
Nigel Holt Nigel Holt is offline
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Congratulations to you both Tim and Alan - I believe that this translation will prove to be the definitive modern English version for this generation. That's quite an achievement in anyone's book.

Best wishes,

Nigel
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  #29  
Unread 10-09-2002, 08:36 AM
Terese Coe Terese Coe is offline
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Alan

From the Intro to your essays:

Though the use of poetic form is sometimes deemed innately “conservative,” I find that genuine liberals, in the older sense of the term, revel in the paradoxical freedoms of sonnet or sestina. There are few more rewarding challenges than those posed by such venerable templates. No one can approach them without humility and temerity. Only the most potent ideas and the most patient authors can abide such testing.

Well said. Without patience and perseverance, a formalist is nothing.

Your biographical material on Tim is intriguing and cinematic. Some of the advice (to all poets) sequestered in the piece is invaluable.

Wilbur told the novice not to imagine sensational subjects could substitute for charged language, lively rhythms, or vivid rhymes...

As Richard Wilbur suggests in his preface to The Deed Of Gift, these “songlike” poems reflect “the high morale of a man who has a purchase on reality, however bleak.”


What a rare encomium, and how truthful. You also allow the reader to come independently, in a way, to the conclusion you have already reached: that the spare expanses and psychological markings of the Dakota Territory have indelibly cast their configurations on the work of not only Timothy Murphy, but on Alan Sullivan's prose as well. (I haven't got to the rest at the moment, so I can't speak of your own poetic style just yet.)

"Rural to the core" is right. (Good line to use in a poem, Alan.) "Dust of Snow" and "Air" are superb. I much appreciate your deeply felt work here and for presenting Tim in his native habitat. I must go and look at the photos now, and will look forward to reading more as well!

Terese
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  #30  
Unread 10-09-2002, 03:14 PM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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Thanks, Terese, but I gather you're reading www.crucat.com. Which should have a thread of its own. This just in: Bedford/St.Martins is in final negotiations to acquire from Longman the rights to our Wulf. St. Martins is publishing a 10,000 page anthology of world lit in which our translation will evidently appear. Other Wulfnews: Longman has finally commissioned a cd of the entire epic, totalling roughly six hours, performed by yrs truly. And Minnesota Public Radio will broadcast an interview with the translators on Friday. Expect it to be picked up by NPR.
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