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Unread 09-07-2001, 05:43 PM
Michael Juster Michael Juster is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Belmont MA
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Well, while we're waiting for the real thing, let me give everyone a few things to shoot at. First of all, there is no "right" answer. I translate Petrarch using the original rhyme scheme--nobody else has bothered to do it in quantity for more than fifty years. There HAVE been blank verse and free verse translations, and many people admire them. However, if you love form, you try to replicate the original form to the extent you can. I almost always duplicate rhyme schemes exactly, which even some purists like Len Krisak consider insane. In Latin, where there was no rhyme until the corrupted medieval period, I think you have more flexibility. I translate Martial, and I think comic verse demands the conventions of English light verse but no particular rhyme scheme or form. Narrative Latin verse seems to fit best with blank verse, and lyrics seem to fit any rhyme scheme or none at all, depending on the poem.
I think duplicating meter is trickier, and you should look to the spirit of the original rather than the letter. I have this argument from time to time with folks about Latin and Greek, and I fail to see the point in duplicating the meter when what controlled classical meter was syllable length, which we can't hear. But some disagree...Likewise, the French alexandrine generally needs to be condensed, usually into iambic pentameter, because what is delightful with longer French words becomes leaden in English.
I also think the best advice I can give is to translate sentence by sentence, and not word for word. Failure to do this limits your rhyme choices, and usually ends up creating pieces as wooden as a translation in a second year Latin class ("Is it the case that a pencil was given to you by me?"). I would not, however, reorder sentences--that for me does too much violence to the original text.
The balances between faithfulness to the text, faithfulness to the form, and faithfulness to the beautiful intensity of the language (why bother working on a bad poem?) inevitably require disappointing tradeoffs. As you take translation more seriously, it can become very depressing because you always end up judging your work by the extent to which it fails--it is impossible not to lose something important from the original. It is, however, fun in the way a crossword puzzle is fun, great practice in technique and patience for any young poet, and a joy when it comes together well.
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