tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post8843194499678955104..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: Blind man who thinks \ He reads, fool who thinks he knows! - Victor Hugo's GodAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-60776674530678166532015-11-16T10:19:50.362-06:002015-11-16T10:19:50.362-06:00Death was powerless against Hugo even when he was ...Death was powerless against Hugo even when he was alive.<br /><br />He participated in some seances while he was living in Jersey during 1853 to 1855, and wrote down what the spirits of the dead had told him then. These revelations were published in 1923 under the title Les Tables tournantes. For example, Aeschylos confessed to him that:<br /><br />I wanted to carry on my back your tiger-like skin,<br />And I wanted to be known as Aeschylus the lion,<br />I failed...<br /><br />But after me came him who saw the three Weird Sisters,<br />Oh lions!, emerge from the deep of the woods,<br />And pour over our souls, those boiling caldrons,<br />The hell-broth charms of their secret witchhood.<br /><br />J'ai voulu sur mon dos porter ta peau tigrée,<br />Et j'ai voulu qu'on dit: Eschyle néméen.<br />Je n'ai pas réussi...<br />Après moi, vint Shakespeare: Il vit les trois sorcières,<br />O Néméens, arriver du fond de la forêt,<br />Et jeter dans nos coeurs, ces bouillantes chaudières,<br />Les philtres monstreux de leur immense secret...Cleanthesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15363416290397892659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-35439078945064468632015-11-16T08:35:27.226-06:002015-11-16T08:35:27.226-06:00It must have seemed that way to the harried younge...It must have seemed that way to the harried younger French poets. There was new book of Hugo material almost every year from his death in 1885 through 1902. I can imagine the complaints. "I thought we got rid of him!"Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-86128995761655864952015-11-15T21:14:10.785-06:002015-11-15T21:14:10.785-06:00"Hugo's posthumous poetry"
Could ev..."Hugo's posthumous poetry"<br /><br />Could even death not stop him writing?<br />Somehow I'm not surprised.Roger Allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11012987757094423896noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-44350956684444916162015-11-14T20:00:00.291-06:002015-11-14T20:00:00.291-06:00I don't believe I have read anything from thos...I don't believe I have read anything from those volumes. An incentive to work on my French.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-82132668225477464182015-11-13T11:03:29.531-06:002015-11-13T11:03:29.531-06:00For Hugo's posthumous poetry I like volume 3 o...For Hugo's posthumous poetry I like volume 3 of the 1972 Seuil version of his Poésie, edited by Gaulmier & Leulliot, because of its handy critical apparatus.<br /><br />Dieu's mixture of the cosmic with the tender, the epic and the ironic is something else.<br /><br />Dieu,<br />Te le figures-tu comme un vieillard de Greuze<br />Toujours les bras en l'air, maudissant, bénissant,<br />Faisant du mélodrame avec quelque astre absent,<br />Et larmoyant de voir rentrer une comète?<br />(...)<br />Mais je te quitte, dit la voix intérieure,<br />...Voici l'aube. C'est l'heure<br />Des vagues chants du coq dans le lointain décrus,<br />Et de l'effacement des spectres disparus,<br />Remportés dans l'obscur, repris par l'ombre épaisse,<br />Ainsi que des poissons pour une mer qui baisse.<br /><br />And yet, I can understand why Maurois in the preface to Olympio would describe Hugo's Toute la lyre and La Dernière gerbe as "almost uninterrupted sequences of masterpieces". Those 2 posthumous collections can be read as a return to the earlier, more lyrical and less epic Hugo.Cleanthesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15363416290397892659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-17526268459140505662015-11-12T12:26:50.457-06:002015-11-12T12:26:50.457-06:00Hofmann omits Benn's entire "middle perio...Hofmann omits Benn's entire "middle period." Forget it, he says, untranslatable. At least by me, he adds.<br /><br />Lemurs are pretty scary. No arguing with that. Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-81612056895815816252015-11-12T11:33:03.446-06:002015-11-12T11:33:03.446-06:00Benn, you say, that is one tough cookie to transla...Benn, you say, that is one tough cookie to translate. He was almost flippantly brilliant in verses like these:<br /><br />More darkness is not possible<br />than at this hour, which sinks<br />with all the burdens of the earth<br />drowning in the foreign night;<br />and, even if all shapes are absorbed<br />into one single large form,<br />the lemurs are threatening<br />from the dark of the woods.<br /><br />Dunkler kann es nicht werden<br />als diese Stunde, die sinkt,<br />mit allen Lasten der Erden<br />in fremder Nacht ertrinkt,<br />enteignen sich die Figuren<br />zu einer grossen Gestalt,<br />drohen die Lemuren<br />aus dem Schattenwald.<br /><br />To you only revealed<br />pushed to the void and abyss<br />eternally unfulfilled<br />promesse du bonheur,<br />You just can not be,<br />every hour that sinks,<br />under all the burdens of the earth,<br />drowning in the foreign night.<br /><br />Dir nur sich enthullte<br />bis zum Schlunde leer<br />ewig unerfullte<br />promesse du bonheur,<br />dir nur kann es nicht werden,<br />jede Stunde, die sinkt,<br />mit allen Lasten der Erden<br />in fremder Nacht ertrinkt.<br /><br />The "promesse de bonheur" is a quote from Stendhal, by the way: la beaute n'est que la promesse de bonheur/beauty is nothing but the promise of bliss.Cleanthesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15363416290397892659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-32332676214122181692015-11-12T11:04:11.089-06:002015-11-12T11:04:11.089-06:00Translators supply their own magic. Even here, wh...Translators supply their own magic. Even here, where the main purpose of the book is to answer the question "What <i>is</i> this?"<br /><br />I think I am going to get to Gottfried Benn this week, in Michael Hofmann's translation. These issues will return! Boy will they.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-25944307872219909462015-11-12T10:49:14.804-06:002015-11-12T10:49:14.804-06:00I have this little pet theory in which poetry is a...I have this little pet theory in which poetry is a kind of magic performance, prestidigitation to be precise, where poets keep us distracted from what they're doing by means of the resonances of their poems' rhythm, words and images. Now imagine translating a prestidigitation act into English (and that's how most translations end up feeling like) and almost all the magic is removed: "Raise the left hand, move the head to the left a little, hold the cards on the right hand, bring both hands close together," etc...Cleanthesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15363416290397892659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-74397951667863777332015-11-12T08:15:09.107-06:002015-11-12T08:15:09.107-06:00Maybe End of Satan simply worked better as a trans...Maybe <i>End of Satan</i> simply worked better as a translation. <i>God</i> was rough going. I had to read it in a scholarly spirit.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-60761806988656945432015-11-12T08:11:18.007-06:002015-11-12T08:11:18.007-06:00You're a better man than I; I love Hugo in the...You're a better man than I; I love Hugo in the original, where he sounds like God himself, but this translation reminds me of Nabokov's Onegin, sucking every last bit of poetry out of the original, and I couldn't hack my way through more than a page of it, I suspect.Languagehathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13285708503881129380noreply@blogger.com