Is it possible to evaluate poetry in translation? Should we even translate poetry?
>the same tired argument >but with new twitter screencap /pol/ baitfuck you delete this thread
>>25011527surely "depth" means "meaning", which should be separate from language. therefore that it's translated shouldn't matter if ti's an accurate translation
>>25011527>Is it possible to evaluate poetry in translation? i'm evaluating it right now. my evaluation: pretty cool.
>>25011557>By AnonymousYou guys wrote this?
The transanslation is lacking, if we are being generous we can say for the poem that the translator is more writing for students rather than trying to create an equivalent English artistry. If we want to give it the benefit of the doubt, because the aural qualities are clearly not being translated All this aside, brushed far to the side, it sadly completely mogs and brutally, anally rapes contemporary English poetry
>>25011590how can any translated poetry accurately capture artistry without completely destroying meaning? surely any translation should convey meaning first, and maybe have a separate transliteration that conveys how it's supposed to sound
>>25011527Should we translate? Sure, why not? Even if it doesn't give the full experience it lets us learn something new. I think it's unfair to judge oral poetry by the standards of written poetry. I imagine this was accompanied by some sort of music.
>>25011598See the Schiller Institute's anthology. They translates Schiller's verse with academic precision but also keep his meter and rhyme scheme and his syntax (except where it would become unintelligible in English), although they do sometimes substitute light rhymes as they mention because they have no alternative Rodney Merrill also translates Homer into dactylic hexameter and is very faithful in translation. Although because the style of verse in Greek is quantative it can't really have an equivalent in English even with the same meter, but he does as good of a job as he can
>>25011617exceptions that prove the rule. my suggestion seems more efficient.
>>25011626I think it's possible to thread the needle where you can try get a most of both artistry and meaning. Since we are talking about poetry what is the point of meaning without artistry? Might as well read a wikipedia article.
my GOAT says yes
>>25011633>Since we are talking about poetry what is the point of meaning without artistry?surely that is why it is poetry rather than music-because the words convey meaning. if we merely wanted to listen to a pleasing melody we would listen to an instrument. that is why it is best to read a transliterated version or listen to oral poetry, and then a translation focusing on meaning on an analysis of the poem in english that conveys meaning and technique
>>25011527>Is it possible to evaluate poetry in translation?it's possible, but generally not a good idea>Should we even translate poetry?yes, because it's better to read in translation than not at all
>>25011527Translations should be illegal. If you can't read the actual work then fuck off. Never cater to languagelets.
>>25011659surely any poetry can be read if it's transliterated. the purpose of translation is to convey meaning and the meaning of any poem can be understood if you have read an accurate translation
>>25011527
>>25011557Sidii koorweyn halaad ooKor iyo Hawd sare ka timidKulayl badan baan qabaaFlows off your tongue like a rural juror. I write better poetry than this in my diary desu.
>>25011682I've read your diary desu. You mostly seethe about Stacey and glaze DFW.
>>25011527oh wait a second, it's just islamic shit. it even sounds like arabic prayershttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IXqKjzudGA
>>25011637The only Illiad translation that makes sense.
>>25011527Poetry is gay lol
>>25011637>>25011696Pope reads like Dr. Seuss.ThE wRaTh Of PeLeUs' sOn, ThE dIrEfUl SpRiNgOf AlL tHe GrEcIaN wOeS, o GoDdEsS, sInG!tHaT wRaTh WhIcH hUrLeD tO pLuTo's GlOoMy ReIgNtHe SoUlS oF mIgHtY cHiEfS uNtImElY sLaIn,WhOsE lImBs, UnBuRiEd On ThE nAkEd ShOrE,dEvOuRiNg DoGs AnD hUnGrY vUlTuReS tOrE:sInCe GrEaT aChIlLeS aNd AtRiDeS sTrOvE,sUcH wAs ThE sOvErEiGn DoOm, AnD sUcH tHe WiLl Of JoVe!
>>25011551why do you think depth can only be about meaning? Meter, rhythm, cadence, or rhyme, alliteration, asonance, are all characteristics of poetry that are pretty separate from the literal meaning and they can all contribute to what one might call 'depth'. I know the connection you're making between like, a deep thought, and art having depth, but it means more than just that. Besides, not all poetry has a straight inherent 'meaning' intended by the poet and interpreted accurately by their audience. Art can get pretty abstract and in a lot of cases the stuff with the most depth tends to fall into the more abstract/experimental territory, imo
>>25011725>Meter, rhythm, cadence, or rhyme, alliteration, asonance, are all characteristics of poetry that are pretty separate from the literal meaning and they can all contribute to what one might call 'depth'.to me aesthetic qualities bring to my mind "shallowness" as in "focusing on appearance". it's not really clear either way so i was wrong in saying "surely" because i'm charitable to anyone who shits on niggers>Besides, not all poetry has a straight inherent 'meaning' intended by the poet and interpreted accurately by their audience. Art can get pretty abstract and in a lot of cases the stuff with the most depth tends to fall into the more abstract/experimental territory, imoif it purely has aesthetic qualities then it is shallow, if it is a reference or a subversion of other more traditional works of art (such is the history of most abstract art) then it could be seen as deep, but most wouldn't get it
>>25011737>to me aesthetic qualities bring to my mind "shallowness" as in "focusing on appearance"ctrl+w and don't come back
>>25011751dogmatist
>>25011737>then it could be seen as deep, but most wouldn't get itthat's okay, such is the case with most art with any depth. The shallow stuff appeals to more people.>if it purely has aesthetic qualities then it is shallowgenerally speaking I don't find this to be true about most art. The aesthetics can be what makes something beautiful, and seeing what the artist is framing as beautiful can be a nuanced and deep perspective. If the artist can give me the feeling that I'm experiencing beauty from an angle I've never considered, that can be really moving. Depending what you aim to get out of art, that can be the entire point.
>>25011778>that's okay, such is the case with most art with any depth. The shallow stuff appeals to more people.specifically i was talking about people with no understanding of traditional art>The aesthetics can be what makes something beautiful, and seeing what the artist is framing as beautiful can be a nuanced and deep perspective. If the artist can give me the feeling that I'm experiencing beauty from an angle I've never considered, that can be really moving.we have a different definition of shallow then, when i say shallow i mean "purely has aesthetic qualities", so it's a tautology, not "only has a shallow emotional effect on people"
>>25011527>Should we even translate poetry?I think it's slightly more stupid than normal poetry.
>>25011751He's right, and you being a frogposter who can't handle disagreement (crying for opposition to close the tab so you aren't confronted anymore? lmao) lends even more credence
>>25011819Frogposters(soillennials) are much like their boomer parents in the sense that they expect blind agreement with what they believe and resort to instantly attempting to exile you if you dare to disagree. I dont think they realize just how similar they are becoming as they age.
>>25011819>crying for opposition to close the tab so you aren't confronted anymoreDo you really believe that's what happened there?
>>25011831this u bro?
>>25011793>we have a different definition of shallow then, when i say shallow i mean "purely has aesthetic qualities", so it's a tautology, not "only has a shallow emotional effect on people"fair enough. "Shallow" to me is lacking depth, and unfortunately for the sake of objective analysis, depth can be found anywhere.Honestly myself having developed taste for dissonance and experimental shit always causes problems when analyzing art with other people. I'm always pushing that beauty and depth can be found in the most lowbrow of places, because for me it's all about having good ideas. I put creative ideas way above technical skill and sophisticated execution, so it's kind of a lost cause trying to talk about art with most people. Not putting you into that category, just ranting I guess
>>25011809>>25011715Why do proselets openly declare their shortcomings
>>25011834You are spiritually jewish
>>25011834> I'm always pushing that beauty and depth can be found in the most lowbrow of places, because for me it's all about having good ideas. I put creative ideas way above technical skill and sophisticated executiona lot of lowbrow art tends to have goot aesthetic and technical qualities though. see XXX: state of the union or the rock
>>25011824i am the person the frogposter was replying to and am a millennial
>>25011719Pope is the king of the couplet. Im sorry modern literary culture has poisoned your mind against simple rhyme and structure. Pope does things with couplets that most writers couldn't do in freer poetic forms or even plain prose
>>25011649Arberry's translation of the Quran which tries to imitate the rhythm and pauses shows how crucial those are for the artistic power of the Quran and the emotional impression it left on people. Sometimes poetry has most of its meaning in just the words, Murray's prose translation of Homer for students of Greek, shows that some great poetry even in the driest prose can't help but shine as a literary masterpiece. So I think just how much attention is paid to the sound by the poet and how much of the meaning he attaches to the sound has to do with his much of the poetry is lost without the aural qualities
>>25011894but the question is does the power of the quran lie solely in its artistic qualities? i think not. again, i think my solution of reading a transliterated version for aesthetic qualities and then a translation focusing on meaning (and readability) is the best solution to the problem of translating art.
>>25011832No, but I also don't believe anyone here is begging someone to literally leave the thread because he is afraid of confrontation, /lit/ is truly the only board that would take a post like that seriously, sometimes it feels like a reddit here ..
>>25011527I don't think there's anything wrong with making a genuine attempt to understand another human's experience if one is aware of the limitations of trying to do so
>>25011905Does the power of the Quran qua art lie solely in it artistic qualities?
>>25012059if you were to solely care about the quran for its artistic qualities i.e. it's aesthetic qualities you might need a transliteration to hear it correctly and possibly even an original text for the aesthetic qualities of its arabic. in no sense would its meaning have any relevance so it wouldn't need to be translated
>>25011894If one wants to be a radical they could argue that the only way to fully experience a work as intended they have to be born into that intended audience and steeped in that culture. Where does one draw the line? Personally, I think that if a work is *enjoyed* and freely shared, that's true understanding--esoteric translations can sometimes vivisect this in their rigor
>>25012068to expand on what I mean by "enjoyed and freely shared": willing, mutual, and active participation in the sharing of ideas and stories is the fundamental core of human culture. We learn from this cultural conversation, not the anthropological taking of stories with a tape recorder and translators.
>>25011527why would the dumbest racists talk about the dumbest races.
>>25012511To feel better about yourself, you must first look down on someone else.
>>25012068This is sort of like saying because no one can be optimally healthy, there is no serious difference being someone who eats healthy and runs five miles and a day versus someone who drunks two liters of vodka a day and only gets up to shit and eat
>>25012061Arberry wasn't a Muslim, he was a Christian professor of Arabic and Persian literature and did a lot of verse translations.
>>25011637>>25011696redpill me on Pope's translations
>>25012570They're for guys who can't read Greek but still want to LARP as intellectuals
>>25011856i agree with you and I am using "lowbrow" sort of openly here to just vaguely mean stuff that's not taken very seriously by say the "academic" world or just beyond wherever the line is that people seem to generally consider the more artistic stuff to exist. The easy example here is jazz music, which wasn't taken very seriously by the outside world but is now considered to be really technically difficult and "sophisticated". I've found that developing a taste on this end of the spectrum can sometimes make the more academic side of things appear dull and soulless. Of course not all art can be analyzed on this spectrum, I'm just speaking generally. The point for me is to enjoy art, and if you're open to less sophisticated stuff you end up finding beauty or some kind of value in some unexpected places
>>25012570Pope, being the King of the Couplet, writes his translation in the style of couplets. Although he undoubtedly respects the original wording and intent of the original work, he does have to take certain liberties in order to fit them into the rhythm and rhyme structure of couplets. Classicists seethe over him to this day for not being enough of a literalist. The end result, however, is Homer truly adapted into the English tradition in a structured style which is much more pleasant to read and recite. The classicist's preferred more literalist translation leaves the text feeling at best like a really good free-verse poem, and at worse like plain prose rather than a proper epic poem. There's also additional hate because for some reason modern literary culture thinks the couplet only belongs in children's works and pop songs. It's also why you'll never see Pope lauded for his other literary works here. For the sake of example, picrel is an excerpt from the Iliad with Lattimore on the left and Pope on the right.
>>25011725usually poetry and all art stands as good when form and the subject match each other with good harmony, soft sounds for speaking of water, hard sonorities for rougher things, dignified and elegant style for things of importance etc. Mere form cannot speak on its own, it needs to be provided with ideas to shine. Natural beauty, a sunset in a giant meadow, isn't really beautiful on its own, it's because you provide it with ideas, that it resonates aesthetically. But in art we assume the ideas are within the piece, not to be provided by you, If I wanted pure mere beauty I'd just go out, and if the ideas spoken of are bland I cannot expect any style that might've been lost in translation to make a poem any grander. In other words, the value of a piece of art, with regards to its aesthetic and semantic qualities, will only rise as far as the worst thing of those two aspects permits it; you can enjoy the aesthetic of a piece on its own, but when considering the whole you'll have to assess, well, the whole.
>>25011551peak EOP hubrys postWords have connotations and associations, not only that but poetry uses the physical characteristics of words themselves, such as their lenght, or their physical sounds, to create meaning. Poetry is closer to music than a treatise, and what you're arguing is essentially the same as saying that you are justified by the righteousness of your logic in feeling nothing when listening to music, or more accurately, that since music can not be translated into words therefore it lacks meaning.That being said, I don't see how reading the Somali poem in the original language could in any way shape or form make it better, it's obviously crude and that comes across even in translation. In short: you are BOTH retards and it would be better for everybody else if neither of you spoke about literature ever again.
>>25012721Crudeness, something closer to how ancient humans lived and thought can be fresh and interesting.These are not bad, even in translation. The last one looks like it sounds decent too >>25011557
>>25012653i do agree with you in the sense that, I think the best stuff tends to be the perfect harmony of both ends of that spectrum, but I also think that an "idea" can exist in a work outside of the literal meaning of the words it contains. Hypothetically if a work contained one form, as you said maybe "soft sounds for speaking of water", that's not much of an idea on it's own, but if it contained multiple forms in a way you hadn't seen before, combined in a way that you found interesting, you can pretty safely assume that that was an artistic choice by the artist, and therefor an "idea". You could potentially be moved by that idea.This is where you start to get into experimental territory though, and as I sort of mentioned in another reply, that stuff doesn't work for a lot of people. The concept of "assessing the whole" assumes that you know by default that by nature of this work being a poem, it MUST have a literal meaning by the definitions of the work. If the artist had no intention of a literal meaning beyond say their ideas working with form, then you're just looking for something that isn't there and judging it based on what you've decided should be there. The artist has no responsibility to cater to what everybody wants. He simply has ideas involving form, and because words are his medium, these ideas end up as poems, incidentally.As with anything though, of course it's fair to say that you see no value in that.
Somalis are worse than monkeys and trying to find some higher meaning in their poetry of all things is just plain dumb.
>>25011527She's right. This is a stupid argument that brings cultural biases to bear. The comparison with haikus is apt, as they often sound simplistic and uninteresting in English, but we assume the existence of some greater profundity because we associate with Japanese culture a number of intellectual and artistic capabilities.
>>25011665but poetry is not about "meaning"
>>25012792You wouldn't find monkey poetry interesting?
>>25012798Yes it is
>>25012798Not this bullshit again
If a work doesn't survive translation it's not good
>>25011527>the best people are ourselves>of this I have always been sureso when a somali writes that its beautiful poetry but when I do its hate speech?
>>25011527>cannot into haikuImagine the slope on that brain.>>25012796>knowing that an artistically skilled culture is artistically skilled is a bias
>>25011527>Should we even translate poetry?No, because it's gay.
>>25012854I disagree. I think the better a work is the more will be lost in translation. You can translate Harry Potter into whatever and wont lose anything because there's nothing below the surface. Take a story that's got a bunch of outdated slang from the 20s and subtle jabs at modern feminism and references to Poe and a subtext where the narrator doesnt like the protagonist and is constantly passive aggressive or mocking him, well good fucking luck translating all that without a million footnotes. But Somalis are low IQ neanderthals who cant fucking write poetry. Muslims tried pulling the same shit on the Quran: "Oh if you could read it in the original language you'd see how it's the most beautiful book in the world!" Yeah, right. I'm sure "no one gets to marry Muhammad's wives after he dies," sounds organically beautiful in hak sherpa durka.
