[lit-ideas] Re: Milton translated (as prose?)
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:35:07 -0800
Omar wrote
However, we read the Iliad and the Odyssey in translation, and the Mahabharata
and the Ramayana (if we do) and Virgil and probably the Beowulf and so on. Some
aspects of poetry are lost in translation but many are preserved. Epical poetry
in general lends itself to translation much more readily than lyrical poetry. I
think though the problem with Milton is not so much his language as that his
themes are a bit difficult for the modern secular reader to identify with.
True. However, I read and taught the Iliad and the Odyssey yearly for
almost twenty years (although some years we didn't read both). During
that time, we used perhaps three different translations, all of them in
some form of loose English verse. The Lattimore translations we used
when I left the course are still being used. (I've had no part in
deciding such things for a very long time.)
Several things. Any intelligent teenager can read Milton's prose 'in the
original.' This isn't true of things written in Homeric Greek, or in Old
English. Translations of Homer, or of the Beowulf Poet, converge on
'faithfulness' and intelligibility—at least they should. These two are
uneasily related to one another though, and sometimes when one is
achieved the other's lost. That's no surprise. Yet when it comes to
prosifying Milton, the aim seems entirely different—namely, to create a
'popular,' or up-to-date text that preserves the 'story' of Paradise
Lost, while abandoning its poetic achievement to take care of itself.
So, I don't see any similarity between the aim of creating a prose
Paradise Lite, and translating Homer, the Pearl Poet, or the Ramayana.
Robert Paul,
unraveling the sleeve of care,
somewhere south of Reed College
I'm going to tell you about how people's eating somebody else's apples
can lead to big trouble all around. I think I'd better climb up some
mountain and look important to do this, so listen up and maybe it will
save your ass. If it works, this is going to be something like you never
heard before. Some parts are really scary and these are marked PG.
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