Brindin Press has lots of poetry translations into English online, concentrating on
French,
German,
Italian and
Spanish, though
more than 40 other languages are represented as well. A
boatload of translators is represented, from those toiling in obscurity to big literary names (e.g. there are translations of Catullus poems by
Ben Jonson,
Jonathan Swift,
Louis Zukofsky,
Aubrey Beardsley and
Thomas Hardy). There is also a
section of quirky poems. Finally,
here's a rendition of Goethe's Der Erlkönig that substitutes the elfish king with a dalek.
posted by Kattullus
on Sep 27, 2009 -
4 comments
[Ezra Pound] worked on and for poetry as others might work on a major scientific discovery or a drawn-out military mission. Thus, as Sieburth reminds us in his introduction to The Pisan Cantos, when, on May 3, 1945, Pound was arrested at his home in the hills above Rapallo, he immediately put a small Chinese dictionary and a copy of the Confucian classics in his pocket. Working as he then was on his Confucian translations, he knew that, wherever the military police were taking him, he would need these books.
From
Pound Ascendant by Marjorie Perloff. Ezra Pound's ability as a translator of Chinese poetry has long been disparaged by sinologists, such as George A. Kennedy in
Fenollosa, Pound and the Chinese Character. Other academics have sought to defend him. Two examples are Zhaoming Qian's
Ezra Pound's encounter with Wang Wei: toward the "ideogrammic method" of the Cantos and Stephen Tapscott's
In Praise of Bad Translations: Ezra Pound and the Cultural Work of Translation (pdf). Eric Hayot draws the contours of this long-running debate and explores its significance in
Critical Dreams: Orientalism, Modernism, and the Meaning of Pound's China. Pound's
Cathay in full and a public domain
audiobook version (iTunes link).
posted by Kattullus
on Apr 30, 2009 -
16 comments
Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl is an Icelandic poet. He
translates Icelandic poetry into English (I particularly like his versions of Sigfús Daðason), and he has an interesting
interview on Icelandic poetry ("Curiously enough, back in the days the nationalists would sometimes write in danish. And writing in a foreign language was more or less seen as the only alternative to literature being a mere hobby until Halldór Laxness came along"). But really this is an elaborate excuse to post a link to
Höpöhöpö Böks: Köld öld Böks mjög örg, Ölböl örlög Böks! (Warning: My wife thought the linked video sounded like vomiting.) Via
wood s lot.
This one goes out to my man Kattullus; hope you can stick around! [more inside]
posted by languagehat
on Feb 17, 2009 -
12 comments
Sean Bonney's translations of Baudelaire are unconventional. Instead of following the form of the French originals they are semi-concrete typewriter poetry. In a
review of the book,
everyone's cup of tea, onedit magazine says that they are "certainly the best translations of Baudelaire in English ever written." Which might explain why they published 35 of them in their latest issue. You can listen to Bonney read his translations
here [mp3]
posted by Kattullus
on Jul 18, 2007 -
61 comments
Can't hack Catullus in
Latin? How about
Brazilian Portuguese,
Catalan,
Chinese,
Danish,
Dutch,
English,
Estonian,
French,
German,
Hungarian,
Irish,
Italian,
Japanese,
Norwegian,
Polish,
Portuguese,
Rioplatense,
Romanian,
Russian,
Scanned,
Serbian,
South African,
Spanish,
Swedish, or
Welsh? You can also compare two languages side by side.
posted by kenko
on Apr 11, 2005 -
15 comments
Poetry International Web opens today. "Hundreds of poems by acclaimed modern poets from all around the world, both in the original language and in English translation."
posted by igor.boog
on Nov 6, 2002 -
7 comments
