Ah, here's a poet I love to distraction and who has driven me ditto when I have tried to make him speak in English. He is fiendishly hard to translate because of the open simplicity of his language, its easygoing "Frenchness". Rendering that in English goes beyond "say" or "mean" and in my case, tempts me onto the primrose path that ends in a "version".
So, when I come across a translation as good as this I can only gasp in amazement. Well done! It's all there, and the original rhyme-scheme is preserved.
But I miss the cosiness of the fireside chez Gautier. I think it's the adherence to the original's pattern that has scuppered it. The choice of a freer (more English?) framework would have meant a greater choice of language and that might have made the poem less stiff.
Where it grabs for resonance, with words like "achatter" and the magnificent "monoglotting" (yes, spellcheck - redwiggle all you like, I know what I'm getting at) I feel with the translator that agonising conviction - "it's out there, dammit - but I can't reach it!".
From one Theo-phile to another, a handclasp and a smile.
Last edited by Ann Drysdale; 10-03-2014 at 11:48 AM.
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