Who was it that said something to the effect of: "Poets are just philosophers who have never learned to write or live clearly."? Walter O. Memorial U. Quoting John Wager <john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx>: > JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx wrote: > > > There was a Russian poem I stumbled across 7 or 8 years ago and I > > cannot for the life of me remember either the poem's title or the > > author. But after some searching I the net I found 5 different > > translations of it. They were all vastly different. It's my thinking > > that poetry cannot be translated, though prose can, at least more > > clearly & accurately. > > I suspect that there are two connected problems. One is the translation > itself; of course one looses something. But often, if the translator is > a poet, one gains something. I first read Dante in the Chiardi > translation, which tried to keep some of the rhyme. > > The second issue is that translators end up with different translations, > not just because translating is difficult, but because the original poem > is opaque. It's not the translator's problem, it's the poem's problem. > Poems can mean as many things even in the original language as they can > mean in different translations; the translations simply reveal the > ambiguities more clearly. Prose is typically more precise and less > opaque, so it's easier to translate. > > > I have some vague notions about why but have not been able to pin > > them down. Perhaps the author's intent in prose is more clear than > > the author's intent in poetry. Perhaps poetry relies so heavily on > > metaphor and symbolism that another language's words for those > > metaphors and symbolisms mean something different. Perhapas it has a > > lot to do with cadence..... > > > > Julie Krueger > > > -- > ------------------------------------------------- > "Never attribute to malice that which can be > explained by incompetence and ignorance." > ------------------------------------------------- > John Wager john.wager1@xxxxxxxxxxx > Lisle, IL, USA > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html