tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post3709978830532866216..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: A poet’s speech begins a great way off - some Marina TsvetayevaAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-5579032662639834912016-05-13T16:04:09.360-05:002016-05-13T16:04:09.360-05:00First, that is a strange effect, breaking the word...First, that is a strange effect, breaking the word like that.<br /><br />Second, thanks for pointing out Ciepiela's translations. I enjoyed both poems.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-41296333912509852732016-05-13T14:48:13.327-05:002016-05-13T14:48:13.327-05:00An interesting point is that she sometimes breaks ...An interesting point is that she sometimes breaks up individual words with the same dash; you can see an example in the fifth stanza of <a href="http://www.thecommononline.org/issues/issue-01/curtain" rel="nofollow">this translation</a> by Catherine Ciepiela of a 1923 poem: "Above a la–cerated Phaedra" (corresponding to Над ужа — ленною — Федрой" in the Russian).Languagehathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13285708503881129380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-89545757685798764562016-05-04T09:21:56.404-05:002016-05-04T09:21:56.404-05:00What an insightful passage, all the way through to...What an insightful passage, all the way through to Mandelstam. How irritating that I forgot about it - I read it and your post back in February.<br /><br />Now I wonder if Feinstein deliberately used the gaps in place of the dashes to avoid the visual resemblance to Dickinson.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-67308089376150452242016-05-04T09:10:29.840-05:002016-05-04T09:10:29.840-05:00Tsvetaeva is a difficult poet, and almost as diffi...Tsvetaeva is a difficult poet, and almost as difficult to translate as Pasternak; as I wrote <a href="http://languagehat.com/ring-singing-tsvetaeva/" rel="nofollow">here</a>, I’ve rarely seen a translation that begins to capture her in English — they usually betray either sound or sense. (The linked post quotes an exception, a fine translation by Ekaterina Rogalsky.) Dmitry Bykov (a wonderful novelist, critic, and biographer) has an enlightening passage about her (in the process of comparing the great Acmeists):<br /><br />"Tsvetaeva, in a letter to her young colleague Yuri Ivask, remarked that in a mature poet the main semantic unit is the word ('N.b.! In my case, often the syllable'). We must note that such a semantic overload sometimes makes Tsvetaeva’s later verse difficult to read, with their crowded spondees; when you try to read them aloud, you have to scan as you go. This frightening density is the result of iron self-discipline. Strikingly willful in daily life, in friendship and love, in her division of people into her own and the others (as a rule, without the slightest idea of their true essence), Tsvetaeva made her poetry the apotheosis of discipline, repeating and varying the same thing over and over with the obstinacy of a divisional commander, drumming the same thought into her reader, and her poetic unit indeed becomes the syllable, if not the letter."<br /><br />(See <a href="http://languagehat.com/for-pasternak-the-word-does-not-exist/" rel="nofollow">this LH post</a> for the full passage.)<br /><br />Incidentally, as far as I am aware she did not use extra spacing; the editions I have, at any rate, use only dashes and ellipses. I suspect the spacing is the translator's choice (though, as always, I speak under correction).Languagehathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13285708503881129380noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-39959822090881148202016-04-30T17:28:43.775-05:002016-04-30T17:28:43.775-05:00Oh yeah, Kaggsy, pull down a Tsvetayeva book! I&#...Oh yeah, Kaggsy, pull down a Tsvetayeva book! I'll enjoy seeing what you find. She and Mandelstam presented some related difficulties.<br /><br />The caesurae are startling, aren't they? She wants to make sure her readers see the pauses, even stumble against them. Sometimes Tsvetayeva used giant dashes, and then she looks uncannily like Dickinson:<br /><br />Your name is a——bird in my hand<br />a piece of——ice on the tongue ("Poems for Blok")Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-35955624315381283282016-04-30T14:20:53.279-05:002016-04-30T14:20:53.279-05:00I am intrigued by the caesurae she builds into lin...I am intrigued by the caesurae she builds into lines with her extra spacing. Her technique -- and the effect it has upon me as a reader -- reminds me of my encounters with Emily Dickinson's singular caesurae. The duration of the pauses becomes an interesting challenge for readers. Nothing exists in a vacuum, so some meaning must be "hiding" in plain view within the spaces. Each reader will discover his or her own meaning. RTDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17113953356514605424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-41811666168211873512016-04-30T08:55:10.410-05:002016-04-30T08:55:10.410-05:00Another one about whom I could say exactly the sam...Another one about whom I could say exactly the same as I did in my comment on Mandelstam. I feel somewhat ashamed to have had her books for decades and never got round to reading them....<br /><br />kaggsysbookishramblingsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com