The Poetry of Translation
From Chaucer & Petrarch to Homer & Logue
Published on 29. September 2011
Book
Hardback
386 pages
978-0-19-960571-2 (ISBN)
Description
Poetry is supposed to be untranslatable. But many poems in English are also translations: Pope's Iliad, Pound's Cathay, and Dryden's Aeneis are only the most obvious examples. The Poetry of Translation explodes this paradox, launching a new theoretical approach to translation, and developing it through readings of English poem-translations, both major and neglected, from Chaucer and Petrarch to Homer and Logue.
The word 'translation' includes within itself a picture: of something being carried across. This image gives a misleading idea of goes on in any translation; and poets have been quick to dislodge it with other metaphors. Poetry translation can be a process of opening; of pursuing desire, or succumbing to passion; of taking a view, or zooming in; of dying, metamorphosing, or bringing to life. These are the dominant metaphors that have jostled the idea of 'carrying across' in the history of poetry translation into English; and they form the spine of Reynolds's discussion.
Where do these metaphors originate? Wide-ranging literary historical trends play their part; but a more important factor is what goes on in the poem that is being translated. Dryden thinks of himself as 'opening' Virgil's Aeneid because he thinks Virgil's Aeneid opens fate into world history; Pound tries to being Propertius to life because death and rebirth are central to Propertius's poems. In this way, translation can continue the creativity of its originals.
The Poetry of Translation puts the translation of poetry back at the heart of English literature, allowing the many great poem-translations to be read anew.
The word 'translation' includes within itself a picture: of something being carried across. This image gives a misleading idea of goes on in any translation; and poets have been quick to dislodge it with other metaphors. Poetry translation can be a process of opening; of pursuing desire, or succumbing to passion; of taking a view, or zooming in; of dying, metamorphosing, or bringing to life. These are the dominant metaphors that have jostled the idea of 'carrying across' in the history of poetry translation into English; and they form the spine of Reynolds's discussion.
Where do these metaphors originate? Wide-ranging literary historical trends play their part; but a more important factor is what goes on in the poem that is being translated. Dryden thinks of himself as 'opening' Virgil's Aeneid because he thinks Virgil's Aeneid opens fate into world history; Pound tries to being Propertius to life because death and rebirth are central to Propertius's poems. In this way, translation can continue the creativity of its originals.
The Poetry of Translation puts the translation of poetry back at the heart of English literature, allowing the many great poem-translations to be read anew.
Reviews / Votes
Wide-ranging and very readable ... He writes clearly, and the opening chapters offer friendly and careful negotiations of a fairly complex range of theoretical positions, accessibly introduced ... Reynolds does much to elucidate the relationship between the received wisdom about a text and the metaphors for translation that are applied to it. * Victoria Moul, Bryn Mawr Classical Review * there is much to enjoy in Reynolds's book * Lachlan Mackinnon, Times Literary Supplement * Wide-ranging and sympathetic book ... Matthew Reynolds is an astute guide to the power and scope of this uneasy art. * Seamus Perry, Literary Review * So much of what I read is in translation ... Matthew Reynolds in The Poetry of Translation: From Chaucer & Petrarch to Homer & Logue shows us what is at stake in these border crossings. * Marina Warner, Best Books of 2011 in The Guardian * Matthew Reynolds's monograph, The Poetry of Translation: From Chaucer & Petrarch to Homer & Logue, advances the scholarship of translation and metaphor into new territory. * Joshua Reid, The Spenser Review *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 145 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
616 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-960571-2 (9780199605712)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
04/2014
Oxford University Press
€57.55
Shipment within 15-20 days
E-Book
09/2011
OUP eBook
€28.49
Available for download
Person
Matthew Reynolds is author of The Realms of Verse (2001) and of Designs for a Happy Home: A Novel in Ten Interiors (2009). He has co-edited a book of translations, Dante in English (2005), revised the translation of Manzoni's The Betrothed (1997), and for several years chaired the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. He writes frequently for the London Review of Books.
Content
I. TRANSLATION AND METAPHOR ; 1. The Scope of Translation ; 2. Translating Within and Between Languages ; 3. Translation and Paraphrase ; 4. Translating the Language of Literature ; 5. Words for Translation ; 6. Metaphors for Translation ; 7. The Roots of Translatorly Metaphors ; II. TRANSLATION AS 'INTERPRETATION,' AS 'PARAPHRASE,' AND AS 'OPENING' ; 8. Are translations interpretations? Gadamer, Lowell and some contemporary poem-translations ; 9. Interpretation and 'Opening:' Dryden, Chapman, and early translations from the Bible ; 10. 'Paraphrase' from Erasmus to 'Venus T--d' ; 11. Dryden, Behn and what is 'secretly in the poet' ; 12. Dryden's Aeneis: 'a thousand secret beauties' ; 13. Dryden's Dido: 'somewhat I find within' ; III. TRANSLATION AS 'FRIENDSHIP,' AS 'DESIRE,' AND AS 'PASSION' ; 14. Translating an Author: Denham, Katherine Philips, Dryden, Cowper ; 15. The Author as Intimate: Roscommon, Philips, Pope, Francklin, Lucretius, Dryden, FitzGerald, Untermeyer ; 16. Erotic Translation: Theocritus, Dryden, Ovid, Richard Duke, Tasso, Fairfax, Petrarch, Charlotte Smith, Sappho, Swinburne ; 17. Love again: Sappho, Addison, Ambrose Philips, Dryden, Petrarch, Chaucer, Wyatt, Tasso, Fairfax, Ariosto, Harington, Byron ; 18. Byron's Adulterous Fidelity ; 19. Pope's Iliad: The Hurry of Passion ; IV. TRANSLATION AND THE LANDSCAPE OF THE PAST ; 20. Pope's Iliad: a 'comprehensive View' ; 21. Some perspectives after Pope: Keats, Tennyson, Browning, Pound, Michael Longley ; 22. Epic Zoom: Christopher Logue's Homer (with Anne Carson's Stesichorus and Seamus Heaney's Beowulf) ; V. TRANSLATION AS 'LOSS,' AS 'DEATH,' AS 'RESURRECTION,' AND AS 'METAMORPHOSIS' ; 23. Ezra Pound: 'My job was to bring a dead man to life' ; 24. FitzGerald's Rubaiyat: 'a Thing must live' ; 25. The Metamorphoses of Arthur Golding (which lead to some Conclusions)