[Janet Kenny]

Originally posted by Peter Chipman:
I'm not sure I agree, Janet.

I think she's doing something very different (and more daring) in those refrain lines. Where Baudelaire presents five abstractions in parallel without distinction, Millay sets two of them in relation to the other two. "Restraint and order," in her version, are not merely two in a list of five qualities, but the two that redeem the otherwise purely earthly "luxury and voluptuousness." With those four in relation to each other, I don't think "calme" needs to be specifically mentioned. It's implicit.

You can certainly feel righteous indignation on B's behalf for M's hijacking of his poem, but I feel certain that whatever else is going on in Millay's translation of the refrain lines, it isn't simply an omission dictated by formal constraints.

Peter,
I'm treating the translation as a translation. I'm not talking about her own poem.

It may be because I met the Baudelaire as a song but it was set by an extraordinarily word-sensitive French composer, Henri Duparc, who destroyed nearly all of his compositions before he died and left only those he felt had succeeded. The refrain:
Là, tout n'est qu'ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.

is almost hypnotic and each word has its separate measure. The poet dwells on each of the named qualities: Luxe, calme et volupté and it seems to me to be a serious betrayal of the heart of the poem although as an English poem, if it were not presented as a "translation"--that is an attempt to unlock an unreachable experience for those to whom it was previously unobtainable--I wouldn't mind. For someone who loves the original it is a painful omission. I disagree that "calme" is implicit. In fact it is an essential colour in the poem and effects the other qualities.

As a "formal" poet I hate to see "formal constraints" used to excuse failure. I believe that the best formal poetry overcomes all such constraints.

And I do greatly admire Millay's poetry. In fact I usually defend her.
Janet




[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited August 28, 2007).]

[Chris Childers]

Eh, I think Wilbur's translation of that poem is a lot better; I find hers rather awkward and crabbed in comparison. I mentioned that I'm not a huge fan of Millay because she smells "musty" to me, though I'm not sure that's what I mean. I would be delighted to see this turn into a Millay appreciation thread, and I'd love to be convinced into a deeper admiration of her work. Generally I find her heavy on rhetoric and light on profundity; formally of course she's extremely confident and I don't deny her virtues but they are generally not the ones I look for in verse. The above poem strikes me as very fine and to a certain degree uncharacteristic because of the physical description and the interplay of sentence and line with that description, not to mention that the speaker's state of mind comes off as subtext rather than overt argument. My impressions however may be unjust and founded on insufficiency of sampling, or of attention to the pieces I've read. I know she's very popular here, among poets I admire, and that one nay-saying voice is likely to arouse ten in opposition; as I said, I would love to have my mind changed.

Chris

Wilbur's version of L'Invitation au Voyage, for comparison. Forgive incorrect punctuation, this is from memory:

My child, my sister, dream
How sweet all things would seem
Were we in that kind land to live together,
And there love slow and long,
There love and die among
Those scenes that image you, that sumptuous weather.
Drowned suns that glimmer there
Through cloud-disheveled air
Move me with such a mystery as appears
Within those other skies
Of your treacherous eyes
As I behold them shining through their tears.

There, there is nothing else but grace and measure,
Richness, quietness and pleasure.

Furniture that wears
The lustre of the years
Softly would glow within our glowing chamber;
Flowers of rarest bloom,
Proffering their perfume,
Mixed with the vague fragrances of amber.
Gold ceilings would there be,
Mirrors deep as the sea,
The walls all in an eastern splendor hung:
Nothing but should address
The soul's loneliness,
Speaking her sweet and secret native tongue.

There, there is nothing else but grace and measure,
Richness, quietness and pleasure.

See, sheltered from the swells
There in the still canals
Those drowsy ships that dream of sailing forth--
It is to satisfy
Your least desire, they ply
Hither through all the waters of the earth.
The sun at close of day
Clothes the fields of hay,
Then the canals, at last the town entire
In hyacinth and gold;
Slowly the land is rolled
Sleepward under a sea of gentle fire.

There, there is nothing else but grace and measure,
Richness, quietness and pleasure.

[Janet Kenny]

Chris,
I'll get back to Millay ASAP but regarding Wilbur's translation, YES! That "quietness" has the two syllables of "calme" and pauses the poem in just the right way. The rest is very fine as well.
Janet

[wendy v]

She's always been grumbled about for being a sort've one trick pony, but I adore her wit and attitude, her lusty nimble way with the turn, the sassy, soul-ish sisterhood she offers, most especially when a girl really needs it.

I'd be happy to die having written either one of the following poems.


The Return

Earth does not understand her child,
Who from the loud gregarious town
Returns, depleted and defiled,
To the still woods, to fling him down.

Earth can not count the sons she bore:
The wounded lynx, the wounded man
Come trailing blood unto her door;
She shelters both as best she can.

But she is early up and out,
To trim the year or strip its bones;
She has no time to stand about
Talking of him in undertones

Who has no aim but to forget,
Be left in peace, be lying thus
For days, for years, for centuries yet,
Unshaven and anonymous;

Who, marked for failure, dulled by grief,
Has traded in his wife and friend
For this warm ledge, this alder leaf:
Comfort that does not comprehend.


----------




Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

[Janet Kenny]

Wendy,
I agree. The feeling is so clear and vulnerable. And strong.
Janet

[Catherine Chandler]

Going off on a bit of a tangent, here, but I have read that Millay's reading voice was exceptional. Does anyone know of any existing recordings that might be available to the public?

Catherine

[Kate Benedict]

Maybe someone knows that but in the meantime.

How odd. I included Ragged Island on my Millay page on my site ... but because of the way the poem appears in the book I own, I thought the poem ended with the following line:

There, thought unbraids itself, and the mind becomes single.

Now that I see the entire work, I actually feel disappointed. Everything after the above line seems like so much "telly" filler. Of course, I'd grown quite used to the truncated version, and loved it.

[Marybeth Rua-Larsen]

Catherine,

The link below if from indiefeed.com and contains audio of two Millay poems: "Recuerdo" and "Love is Not All." Her reading is amazing and theatrical. We were listening to some poetry in the car on CD (A Century of Recorded Verse) and even the kids stopped beating each other with stuffed animals in the back seat when she read...she's that commanding. Scroll down a bit at the link. I think she's the second writer. Enjoy.

Marybeth

http://feeds.feedburner.com/IndiefeedPerformancePoetry

[Kate Benedict]

God, how strange! That was oratory in the olden times, artificial, mannered and with r's rolling.

[Catherine Chandler]

Thanks Marybeth. I think there must be something missing from my computer - I can't get it to work. Will try again.