Thank you, Janice. I look forward to taking part in this forum, which looks like an interesting and lively one.

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Edith Södergran was not adrift in the Swedish language. It is however true that as an adult, she developed her own poetic language style but do not be deceived to think that she didn't know singular from plural.

No, but she did write a rather idiosyncratic version of Swedish - and only some of that was down to "modernist tendencies". Another possibility is that "systemen" is a misprint, one that was preserved throughout all the editions of her work. I remember that Holger Lillqvist, who prepared and published a new edition of Södergran’s work, found that there are some strange things not only in her manuscripts, but also in the earlier editions of her poetry, things that are more or less unaccountable. But to back you up, I'm unable to confirm that "systemen" was one of them.

It's interesting to note that many of the non-English translations of the poem opt for "solar system" rather than "solar systems" - this is true, for example, of Nelly Sachs's German translation (Zu Fuß mußte ich durch das Sonnensystem gehen), and also of the French translation by Carl Gustaf Bjurström and Lucie Albertini (À pied / Il m'a fallu traverser le système solaire).

"Solar systems" doesn't really make a great deal of sense, I suppose, and therefore translators have tended to choose the more normal form of the term.

Apologies for thread drift.

Not so, Nigel. The poem is called 'Gull's Wing' and it is pretty well word-for-word stolen from a short story by Glyn Jones. MacDiarmid said that he had done it 'unconsciously'. The correspondence is to be found in the TLS in 1964. It sounds just like this joker, wouldn't you say?

The important thing is that MacDiarmid is a battleship (a Macbattleship perhaps) that carries more guns than poor Glyn Jones.The poem is still there among his Collected Works.

William, I think this is a good thread drift.

A number of years have gone by since I thought about ES and about this poem and while I am still not as au courant as perhaps I should be if my comments are to carry any weight, I would opt for "galaxies" as the preferred choice for "solsystemen". mainly because "solar systems" is an awkward construction which causes the reader to stumble, and because i think that matches her intention.

However our own galaxy, the Milky Way, contains an enormous number of "solar systems". Even as an ignorant pre-teen child I speculated on the possibility that each star might have an earth and planets like ours and was devastated when I saw a falling star. I am certainly not alone in having such a thought rise as a conscious thought when looking at the stars.

That said, ES, whose main philosophical influences were Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, did rather consider herself to have the right to create a new language and a new poetry—more or less all the Finnish modernists felt it was their prerogative to use language in novel and groundbreaking ways. Consider the works of Gunnar Björling. All in this Finnish-Swedish modernist movement were influenced by the Russian futurists amd their disregard of grammar and syntax--even logic.

A third influence on ES was the French symbolist movement. Note well that these were only influences, she—like many others of that era and in these various schools—retained for herself the right to create poetry that was unlike anything written before.

I can't help thinking too, that with consideration to all the chaos in ES life--the financial woes and loss of the family fortune, her father's illness in TBC, her own TBC and the sanatoriums, it would not be strange if her longhand notes contains errors. Sometimes when I write in English I see afterward that I have put down a Swedish word in the middle of an English sentence or misspelled some word that I certainly know how to spell correctly. However I don't think that supports the idea that she didn't know what she was doing—wrong or not, she most likely considered intended "wrong" to be her "right".

I really shouldn't speculate too wildly on this as I am not up-to-date on ES at the moment. What I am saying is just off the top of my head and I am not prepared to go into polemics about any of the above! :)

machine translation
 

Would that be unethical?

Understand, I'm not defending Ward generally; it appears he's a thief. I'm not even necessarily defending the use of Google translate so much as asking about it. Also, I'm not asking whether prettifying Google translate results is a reliable way to write an accurate translation, only whether it's unethical.

Would we feel differently if the result were not called a translation but, say, an "English version" (the term Tom Stoppard uses when he writes versions of plays originally written in languages he doesn't speak)?

As I would hope you know, John, the row over the Gull's Wing poem related to some lines taken from a short story - not the whole thing and moved from one form to another. McDiarmid's defence that it was no more than the result of a photographic memory, and that the transposition/use was therefore unconscious, had its supporters at the time, and given the full referencing of sources in McDiarmid's work - especially the longer poems - the defence seems entirely possible. Furthermore the suggestion that McDiarmid was "a plagiarist" is a nonsensical canard not only given the massive body of his highly original work but it is especially offensive in this thread which has been, quite rightly, focussed on a character who, as they used to say, has clearly lost his entirely. You are, I feel, allowing your grouch about McD to get in the way of your judgement - and others who may not know the wonderful scope and richness of his work do not deserve to be so misled.

That's good! On some forums I've visited there are very strict rules about it.

Yes, the poem's first two lines were obviously intended to shock or in some way catch the reader unawares, though I still have a feeling that she intended to write "the solar system", which I feel is much more graphic and immediate than the plural form, or even than "galaxies" (though that's an interesting idea) - and a number of translators who have tackled the poem have obviously had that feeling too.

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it would not be strange if her longhand notes contains errors. Sometimes when I write in English I see afterward that I have put down a Swedish word in the middle of an English sentence or misspelled some word that I certainly know how to spell correctly. However I don't think that supports the idea that she didn't know what she was doing—wrong or not, she most likely considered intended "wrong" to be her "right".

I'm not sure that it's a question of ES not knowing what she was doing: it's just that the circumstances - personal, social, linguistic, medical, existential, political - in which she wrote her poetry were quite unusual and extreme, and may to some extent have affected the way in which her texts have come down to us.

The available translations have had an effect, too. Even if someone like CW hadn't read English translations of ES, he might very well have seen the German or French translations - and they would probably have given him similar material for "borrowing". In a way, I think that even CW is now part of the Södergran "story".

Max, different people will have different answers to your question. My answer is: It depends.

Case 1. If someone said, (for instance) "Hello po-world, I have invented a new poetry genre. I call it Droggles. First you find a poem in a language you don't know (like this one in Portuguese below). Then you do a few google translations of it. Then you apply your poetry craftsmanship and come up with a poem of your own:


Amarás
o meu nariz
brilhante
as minhas estrias
os meus pontos pretos
os meus textos
os meus achaques
e as minhas manias
e as minhas gatas
de solteirona
ou não me amarás

*****
Love my shiny nose
my stretch marks
my black dots
my texts
my pains and
my foibles
and my cats
love me or not
spinster.

****

Thou shalt love
my nose
bright
my striae
my black spots
my texts
my ailments
and my manias
and my cats
the spinster
you shall love me or not

****
You will love
my nose
diamond
my grooves
my black points
my texts
my ailments
and my manias
and my cats
of spinster
or you will not love me

My Droogle. Here I thought along the lines of "why not take all of me" or "Love me, love my dog".

From a Woman of Thirty

Except you love
my shining nose
and my wrinkles
my blackheads
the doggerel I write for you
my hypochondria
and the cats
all spinsters have,
you do not really love me.

Case 2. As above, except you say "Hello pö-world, I wrote a poem today, Here it is. I call it After Adilia Lopes because her poem inspired me."

Case 3. As above, but you send it to a literary journal and say, (for instance)," Dear Editor, I am submitting a translation of a poem by Adilia Lopes, the well-known Portuguese poet. I have already had several of my translations of her poems published at such gullible sites as "Top Notch Translation," and "No Questions Asked" and forthcoming at "Translators without Borders"."

In Case 1, I would say, "Well, that's kinda cute. And ethical? Oh yes. In Case 2, that's borderline for me. In Case 3, "Nope, that isn't ethical." Because that involves deceit, implying as it does that the submitter is knowledgable in both the target and source languages and is able to present to the editor a product that will enhance the reputation of that magazine as well as the submitter's own rep.

Others will have other ethical benchmarks.

William, we are quite strict here too as regards going off-topic on a thread.

But I started the thread and I don't mind it leaving the CW topic unless the moderators think otherwise.

However. If you plan to have a discussion about Edith Södergran and her poetry, it would be better to start a thread on that subject.

I might as well say so here and now, that it's a good idea to read the guidelines. And that if you plan to post poetry of your own for critque, new members are required to do 15 qualified crits of other poetry before being allowed to post work of their own, not fly-by, not "Gee, that's a good poem."

These comments you have made in a conversation forum will be counted toward those 15 crits and the system will release you. However, although the system is Duh-dumb, the members here are smart, especially the moderators :D and they will lock your thread until you have paid your dues. (Just saying, cause it is sometimes a shock to the new member-poet.)

Again welcome to the Sphere.

Thanks for this guidance, Janice. I did actually read the forum guidelines before I applied to join, and will do my best to observe them. My response to your remark about "good thread drift" was intended humorously, but perhaps it was unwise.

Regarding work of one's own: in another thread (the discussion of a poem by Sandro Key-Åberg) one of my replies contained an experimental translation of the poem under consideration. I included it as an illustration of my interpretation of the poem. Is that allowed, do you know?

I don't write poetry of my own, but I am interested in poetry translation, and especially the translation of Nordic poetry.

OK Nigel. You like him and I don't. Let's leave it there. But let me put in a plea for Robert Garioch for those who want a good 20th century poet who writes in the Scots dialect. A more generous spirit.