terça-feira, 29 de dezembro de 2015
Quotation marks or italics?
Aqui: http://theeditorsblog.net/2014/05/12/marking-text-choosing-between-italics-and-quotation-marks/
terça-feira, 15 de dezembro de 2015
Elizabeth Bishop to Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1953)
TO CARLOS DRUMMOND DE ANDRADE
Antonio Vieira 5, apt. 1101
Leme
June 27th, 1963
Dear Dr. Carlos:
Here is a translation of one of your poems, and I hope you will have time to look at it. I began with this one because it seems to go into English fairly easily-- I hope you'll take my word for it that it makes a very moving poem in English as well as in Portuguese. The translation is quite literal-- except for very small liberties with punctuation, omitting "ands" etc.-- to keep the meter right. I've written in the margin some second choices, or spots where I may be wrong-- but please tell me anything you don't like-- or if you don't like any of it!
I've been asked by a magazine (USA) for translations of Brazilian poetry-- a small, reputable, old magazine, POETRY (Chicago)*--perhaps you know it? I'd like to send them a group of your poems as soon as I can, but with your approval. I am working on A MESA now-- it's much more difficult, naturally, but it's one of those I like best. I've also tried some of the shorter rhymed ones-- they're almost impossible, of course, because of the rhymes-- but I'd like to give the US reader an impression of the range of your poetry, if possible--and I'll write a note explaining the shortcomings of the translations. …{excerpt}
Cordially yours,
Elizabeth Bishop.
{Scher: you might enjoy this more personal side of Bishop and the deference she pays to Andrade}
"The Making of Americans", Gertrude Stein
Biography
On February 3, 1874, in Allegheny, Pennsylvania (USA),
Gertrude Stein was born to upper-class Jewish parents, being the youngest
of five children. In 1903, Stein moved to Paris, where she lived and wrote
until the end of her days (July 27, 1946).
Initially, Gertrude Stein bought and kept a studio
along with Leo, one of her brothers. Later on, she met her life partner, Alice
B. Toklas. Pablo Picasso was also one
of Stein’s greatest friends and influences.
In the USA, Stein studied
under psychologist William James at Radcliffe College—an annex of Harvard
University— and at Johns Hopkins, performing experiments on normal motor
automatism, which yielded examples of writing that appeared to represent
"stream of consciousness".
In fact, science itself, as
well as some elements of naturalism, namely objectivity (or objectivity
of abstraction[1]), a tendency for
description and an interest for minorities and the marginalized (perhaps such
as herself to some extent: a Jewish, immigrant-descendant, lesbian, feminist),
seem to feature in some of Stein’s early works.
Writing Style
Following the 20th
century literary trend to reconstruct form and language, and trying to escape
from the idea that everything must bear meaning, must have a beginning, a
middle and an end, Gertrude Stein created a peculiar literary style. So
peculiar and particular that it came to be known as Steinese.
Steinese is thought-provoking
and open-ended, as it leaves it to the reader to decide on what to conclude
from the writings. And Stein’s reader is indeed an active participant.
There are different phases
to Steinese, but one of the most important characteristics of its initial phases
is the fact it was meant to become the literary equivalent to cubism, as Stein
tried to incorporate some plasticity to her writings. She aimed at creating
movement and passing on the idea that getting to know and understanding
something or someone is a process, one which takes times and requires
repetition (or "insistence" to use her words).
This «gnomic, repetitive, illogical and sparsely
punctuated»[2]
style was used in works such as Tender
Buttons and The Making of Americans
(although these books represent different phases of Steinese):
Then also there is the important question of
repetition and is there any such thing. Is
there repetition or is there insistence. I am inclined to believe there is
no such thing as repetition. And really how can there be.... once started
expressing this thing, expressing anything there can be no repetition because the essence of that expression is
insistence, and if you insist you
must each time use emphasis and if you use emphasis it is not possible while anybody is alive that they should use exactly
the same emphasis. (Gertrude Stein, “Portraits and Repetition”)
Her friendship with Picasso — and the influence of his
cubist art, along with the previously mentioned experiments — played a vital role
in Stein’s writing style and her being an “experimental” modernist.
Reading Steinese is much like viewing cubist art. Stein and Pablo Picasso
were friends, and when Picasso introduced his cubist paintings around 1909, Stein began implementing cubist styles into
her own work” | “In order to make any sense at all of her rambling writing
style, her reader absolutely must be an
active participant.” | “ln Stein's The Making of Americans, she got rid of nouns and adjectives as much
as possible by the method of living
in adverbs in verbs in pronouns in adverbial clauses written or implied and in
conjunctions. (Nicole Williams and Amanda Morrish, “No Ordinary English: Gertrude
Stein Defines Literacy”)
“A
rose is a rose is a rose” is
the perfect example of Steinese in action: only three different words are used
in the sentence, repeated, but most likely not all of them are the same “rose”,
so the reader is left with trying to interpret what Stein wanted to say with
this, and “(…) what people loved they
repeated, and what people repeated they loved”.
Language is plastic, but its plasticity must be informed and determined by the philosophy
or, at least, by the information it conveys. In her earlier works, Gertrude
Stein operated under this injunction naturally; but as she continued, her attraction to painting led her to wish
for the same plastic freedom for literature were
endowed with such freedom. ‘The
painter,’ said Georges Braque, ‘knows
things by sight; the writer, who
knows them by name, profits by a prejudice in his favor.’ This was the
profit Gertrude Stein threw away. (John Malcolm Brinnin, The Third Rose)
On The Making of
Americans
This is the story, the history, and psychological
development of the members of two fictional families: the Hersland and the Dehning.
In this novel, Stein includes frequent metafictional meditations—a part of
which we tried to translate and analyze—on the process of writing. These
meditations sometimes overtake the main narrative.
Essentially, The Making of Americans is the
author’s attempt to describe every known type of human being, each one with
their own essence and knowledge and the repetition that there is in them.
There is a history in all living beings, and Stein’s
struggle seems to consist on slowly getting to know what is inside every one
and hearing all the details and repetitions, to arrive at a completed
understanding of the many different kinds of men and women that sometimes
intertwine in a single human being. Her unusual use of the present participle is one of the most commonly noted features of
the text.
As I was saying loving listening, hearing always all
repeating, coming to completed understanding of each one is to some a natural
way of being.
|
Como
estava a dizer amar escutar, ouvir sempre e tudo repetir, chegar a um pleno
entender de cada um é para alguns uma forma natural de ser.
|
Como
dizia a adorar o que escutava, a ouvir sempre tudo quanto se repete,
chegar a uma compreensão total de cada um é para alguns uma forma natural de
ser.
|
Como
ia dizendo amando escutando, ouvindo sempre tudo quanto se vai repetindo,
chegar a um pleno entendimento de alguém é para alguns uma forma
natural de ser.
|
Ana Catarina Brasil
João Lacerda Costa
Bibliography
Brinnin, John
Malcom (1987). The Third Rose: Gertrude Stein and Her World. Radcliffe Biography
Series.
Cecire, Natalie.
Experimental: American Literature and the Aesthetics of Knowledge, 1880-1950.
Retrieved from http://english.duke.edu/uploads/assets/cecire-stein.pdf
(accessed on 07/12/2015).
Gopnik, Adam
(2013, June 24). Understanding Steinese. The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/understanding-steinese
(accessed on 07/12/2015).
Secor, Cynthia.
Gertrude Stein: Classroom Issues and Strategies. Retrieved from http://faculty.georgetown.edu/bassr/heath/syllabuild/iguide/stein.html
(accessed on 07/12/2015).
Stein, Gertrude
(1971, September 8). Portraits and Repetition: an essay by Gertrude Stein
(audio). Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/AM_1971_09_08_c2 (accessed
on 07/12/2015).
Stein, Gertrude
(1982) (introduction by F.W. Dupee) (edited by Carl Van Vechten). Selected
Writings of Gertrude Stein. New York: Vintage Books - Random House.
Williams, Nicole
and Morrish, Amanda (2006). No Ordinary
English: Gertrude Stein Defines Literacy. Undergraduate Review. Volume
2. Article 5. Bridgewater State
University. Retrieved from http://vc.bridgew.edu/undergrad_rev/vol2/iss1/5 (accessed
on 07/12/2015).
[1] Natalia Cecire, Experimental:
American Literature and the Aesthetics of Knowledge, 1880-1950, retrieved
from http://english.duke.edu/uploads/assets/cecire-stein.pdf
[2] F.W. Dupee, in introduction
to The Selected Writings of Gretrude Stein (1972). New York: Vintage
Books - Random House
Elizabeth Bishop's Last Sonnet
Sonnet Caught -- the bubble(1979)
in the spirit level,
a creature divided;
and the compass needle
wobbling and wavering,
undecided.
Freed -- the broken
thermometer's mercury
running away;
and the rainbow-bird
from the narrow bevel
of the empty mirror,
flying wherever
it feels like, gay!
Joseph Cornell's box, Hotel Eden (c. 1945)
quinta-feira, 10 de dezembro de 2015
Elizabeth Bishop: homework for December 17th
Reply to either of the following:
1. Comment on Bishop's translations of Drummond de Andrade's "Poema de Sete Faces" (p. 367-268 and 275, anthology)
2. Read some of the poems included in Bishop's poetry collection, Questions of Travel (1965) and speculate on what in her writing style and themes might have drawn her to translate the examples of Brazilian modernist poetry she chose to render in English.
1. Comment on Bishop's translations of Drummond de Andrade's "Poema de Sete Faces" (p. 367-268 and 275, anthology)
2. Read some of the poems included in Bishop's poetry collection, Questions of Travel (1965) and speculate on what in her writing style and themes might have drawn her to translate the examples of Brazilian modernist poetry she chose to render in English.
Na Banheira com Gertrude Stein by Angélica de Freitas (in Rilke Shake, 2007)
na banheira com gertrude stein
gertrude stein tem um bundão chega pra lá gertude stein e quando ela chega pra lá faz um barulhão como se alguém passasse um pano molhado na vidraça enorme de um edifício público
gertrude stein daqui pra cá é você o paninho de lavar atrás da orelha é todo seu daqui pra cá sou eu o patinho de borracha é meu e assim ficamos satisfeitas
mas gertrude stein é cabotina acha graça em soltar pum debaixo d'água eu hein gertrude stein? não é possível que alguém goste tanto de fazer bolha
e aí como a banheira é dela ela puxa a rolha e me rouba a toalha
e sai correndo pelada a bunda enorme descendo a escada e ganhando as ruas de st.germain-de-près
gertrude stein tem um bundão chega pra lá gertude stein e quando ela chega pra lá faz um barulhão como se alguém passasse um pano molhado na vidraça enorme de um edifício público
gertrude stein daqui pra cá é você o paninho de lavar atrás da orelha é todo seu daqui pra cá sou eu o patinho de borracha é meu e assim ficamos satisfeitas
mas gertrude stein é cabotina acha graça em soltar pum debaixo d'água eu hein gertrude stein? não é possível que alguém goste tanto de fazer bolha
e aí como a banheira é dela ela puxa a rolha e me rouba a toalha
e sai correndo pelada a bunda enorme descendo a escada e ganhando as ruas de st.germain-de-près
Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans (1925)
As I was
saying loving listening, hearing always all repeating, coming to completed
understanding of each one is to some a natural way of being.
(…)
Sometimes then it comes out of
them a louder repeating that before was not clear to anybody's hearing and then
it is a completed being to some one listening to the repeating coming out of
such a one.
(…)
This is then now a description of
loving repeating being in some.
This is then now a description of loving
repeating being in one.
(untitled, 1927)
Picasso (1938) by G. Stein
It is strange about everything, it is strange about pictures, a picture may seem extraordinarily strange to you and after some time not only it does not seem strange but it is impossible to find what there was in it that was strange.
A child sees the face of its mother, it sees it in a completely different way than other people see it, I am not speaking of the spirit of the mother but of the features and the whole face, a child sees it from very near, it is a large face for the eyes of a small one, it is certain that the child for a little while only sees a part of the face of its mother, it knows one feature and not another, one side and not the other, and in his way Picasso knows faces as a child knows them and the head and the body. He was then commencing to try to express this consciousness and the struggle was appalling because, with the exception of some African sculpture, no one had ever tried to express things seen not as one knows them but as they are when one sees them without remembering having looked at them.
Really most of the time one sees only a feature of a person with whom one is, the other features are covered by a hat, by the light, by clothes for sport and everybody is accustomed to complete the whole entirely from their knowledge, but Picasso when he saw an eye, the other one did not exist for him and as a painter, and particularly a Spanish painter, he was right, one sees what one sees, the rest is reconstruction from memory and painters have nothing to do with memory, they concern themselves only with visible things and so the cubism of Picasso was an effort to make a picture of these visible things and the result was disconcerting for him and for the others, but what else could he do, a creator can only do one thing, he can only continue, that is all he can do.
segunda-feira, 7 de dezembro de 2015
Fernando Pessoa
Segue o teu destino... Rega as tuas plantas; Ama as tuas rosas. O resto é a sombra de árvores alheias. (Fernando Pessoa)
Enquanto não superarmos a ânsia do amor sem limites, não podemos crescer emocionalmente. (Fernando Pessoa)
O valor das coisas não está no tempo que elas duram, mas na intensidade com que acontecem. Por isso, existem momentos inesquecíveis, coisas inexplicáveis e pessoas incomparáveis ... (Fernando Pessoa)
quinta-feira, 3 de dezembro de 2015
The World as India, Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag was born on January 16, 1933 and died on December 28, 2004. She was an American literary theorist, novelist, filmmaker and human rights activist.
Best known works: Against Interpretation (1966), Styles of Radical Will (1969), On Photography (1977), Illness as Metaphor (1978), The Way We Live Now (1991), The Volcano Lover (1992), In America (1999) and Regarding the Pain of Others (2003).
Honours: 2001 Jerusalem Prize, 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, 2003 Prince of Asturias Prize, the National Book Award for In America (2000), and the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography (1978).
“The World as India”
Translation - Tentative Definitions
Translation - Tentative Definitions
Susan Sontag defines translating as “to circulate, to transport, to disseminate, to explain, to make (more) accessible” (219). As a strong “evangelical incentive”, translation aims to make a book/text reach as many people as possible. Sontag discusses the presupposition of a pyramid on translation: a sort of hierarchical relationship in which the most important texts stand at the very top of the pyramid. This hierarchy tends to be modified over the years, as the paradigm is never the same.
On ethical issues, no matter how literal the translation is, there will always be some unavoidable change.
Sontag defines, therefore, two different points of view in translation:
- A new/modern perspective, which deals with translation as a problem to which translators find solutions;
- An older perspective, where translators would choose consciously in their activity; translators wield a certain knowledge which helps them making their choices. Then, it is implied that they carry a sense of culture and duty to literature itself. Values of integrity, responsibility, fidelity and humility are considered part of their job.
The Translator's Fidelity in the History of TranslationAny comparison of two languages implies an examination of their mutual translatability; widespread practice of interlingual communication, particularly translating activities, must be kept under constant scrutiny by linguistic science. On linguistic Aspects of Translation, Roman Jakobson (1959)
Fidelity and accuracy regarding the original text has been one of the greatest issues in translation.
Sontag refers two opposite theories, regarding translation as a practice (223):
St. Jerome was a Catholic priest, confessor, theologian and historian, who also became a Doctor of the Church and translator from Hebrew and Greek to Latin whose theory claims translation is always an impoverishment of the original; the elegance and lyrical aspect of the original text isn’t translatable to a target language. Literal translation isn’t the proper method to proceed with; one should worry about the sense conveyed by the original text to its audience and preserve it, but change the words and metaphors to the ones that suit the target audience and its language. Hence, the person becomes a translator and a co-author.
It is hard to follow another man’s lines… It is an arduous task to preserve felicity and grace unimpaired in a translation.
Friedrich Schleiermacher, a German theologian, philosopher and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional Protestant Christianity, whose theory claims the value of translation is connected to the knowledge of something beyond our own country and culture. Translation should keep “the spirit of the language” of the original (223). It should be read as a translation, not as if the book was written in the target language. Otherwise, the reader won’t recognize the foreignness that could enrich him/her. To be “well read” shouldn’t be a standard in literary translation, especially if the translators seek merit.
…the aim of translating in a way such as the author would have originally written in the language of the translation is not only out of reach, but also null and void in itself, for whoever acknowledges the shaping power of language, as it is one with the peculiar character of a nation, must concede that every most excellent human being has acquired his knowledge, as well as the possibility of expressing it, in and through language, and that no one therefore adheres to his language mechanically as if he were strapped into it… (223)
According to Walter Benjamin in The Task of the Translator (1923), a preface to his translation of Baudelaire’s Tableux parisiens, translators have the obligation to keep the effect of what is written, even if it sounds different than what the target audience is used to from their authors (225). Even the original text contains difference itself; it’s not about meaning, but translating this difference. Difference will have people think and theorize about the literary work.
It is not the highest praise of a translation, particularly in the age of its origin, to say that it reads as if it had originally been written in that language.Globalization, the Dominance of English, and Ethics of Translation
Globalization and technology have surely brought some changes for translation. Therefore, we cannot, as Schleiermacher, argue so easily that a spirit of a language resides in its originality. Some argue English is a lingua franca, since it serves as means of communication between people with different languages. Such is the case in India, where different languages are spoken (222). Sontag uses India’s case as an analogy to what’s going on in the world today, using it as a tittle for this essay as well: we all have different languages and it’s important to preserve them, but English tends to be our first choice when communicating with people from a different culture.
Weltliteratur or World Literature was a concept proposed by Goethe in the 19th century. He envisioned the circulation and reception of literary works in Europe, which would allow readers/scholars to access translations and book/text’s discussions that otherwise wouldn’t be available to them. In the 20th century, an International Parliament wanted to make this happen for the whole world, an idea in which all the nations would stand as equals. Translators would become even more important, almost as if couriers who permitted everyone to read each other’s books. Although this equality never came to pass, since some languages are given more importance than others, the idea of a circulatory literature brings forward what Sontag affirms to be one of the most important reasons behind literature and translation: to know the existence of other people and cultures and, therefore, to educate one another.
Translation is the circulatory system of the world’s literatures. (226)
Catarina da Silva C.
Paula Vanessa Varela
quarta-feira, 2 de dezembro de 2015
Homework for December 10
Read Gerturde Stein's Paris France (starting p. 242 of the anthology + the correct pages I have sent you by email) and comment on:
1. Reflections on interculturality, intersemiotics and interlinguistics.
2. Which kind of discourse on translation and Modernism can be produced through reading these pages from Gertrude Stein?
1. Reflections on interculturality, intersemiotics and interlinguistics.
2. Which kind of discourse on translation and Modernism can be produced through reading these pages from Gertrude Stein?
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Creative Reading"
There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world. We then see, what is always true, that, as the seer's hour of vision is short and rare among heavy days and months, so is its record, perchance, the least part of his volume. The discerning will read, in his Plato or Shakspeare, only that least part, — only the authentic utterances of the oracle; — all the rest he rejects, were it never so many times Plato's and Shakspeare's.
(Ralph Waldo Emerson, The American Scholar, 1837)
(Ralph Waldo Emerson, The American Scholar, 1837)
An Exhibition at Our Faculty
Friends! I would very much like you to go and check my photographs. I am sure that most of you will be surprised after watching them, still I want everyone not only to look at them as photos but also to try to translate them as we do with a poem.
Because our professor told us always to mention our sources, I declare that in ordering my photographs I took the inspiration from this piece of music. And if I was to quote I would say from the beginning until the minute seven ;)
Here is a clip from his concert in Lisbon in 2012:
You can listen to more like this at the exhibition. Enjoy :)
"Voyelles" par Arhtur Rimbaud (written 1872 published 1883)
A noir, E blanc, I rouge,
U vert, O bleu
: voyelles,
Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes :
A, noir corset velu des mouches éclatantes
Qui bombinent autour des puanteurs cruelles,
Golfes d'ombre ; E, candeurs des vapeurs et des tentes,
Lances des glaciers fiers, rois blancs, frissons d'ombelles ;
I, pourpres, sang craché, rire des lèvres belles
Dans la colère ou les ivresses pénitentes ;
U, cycles, vibrement divins des mers virides,
Paix des pâtis semés d'animaux, paix des rides
Que l'alchimie imprime aux grands fronts studieux ;
O, suprême Clairon plein des strideurs étranges,
Silences traversés des Mondes et des Anges :
- O l'Oméga, rayon violet de Ses Yeux !
Je dirai quelque jour vos naissances latentes :
A, noir corset velu des mouches éclatantes
Qui bombinent autour des puanteurs cruelles,
Golfes d'ombre ; E, candeurs des vapeurs et des tentes,
Lances des glaciers fiers, rois blancs, frissons d'ombelles ;
I, pourpres, sang craché, rire des lèvres belles
Dans la colère ou les ivresses pénitentes ;
U, cycles, vibrement divins des mers virides,
Paix des pâtis semés d'animaux, paix des rides
Que l'alchimie imprime aux grands fronts studieux ;
O, suprême Clairon plein des strideurs étranges,
Silences traversés des Mondes et des Anges :
- O l'Oméga, rayon violet de Ses Yeux !
quinta-feira, 26 de novembro de 2015
Homework for December 3
Answer to either of these topics:
1. Read "The World as India" by Susan Sontag. Discuss what she has to say about 3 of the following topics: nature of translation, role of the translator, translator's ethics, metaphors for translation, history of translation.
2. What startling statements or inferences about translation do you find in Jack Spycer's After Lorca. Is there faithfulness at stake here? why (not)?
1. Read "The World as India" by Susan Sontag. Discuss what she has to say about 3 of the following topics: nature of translation, role of the translator, translator's ethics, metaphors for translation, history of translation.
2. What startling statements or inferences about translation do you find in Jack Spycer's After Lorca. Is there faithfulness at stake here? why (not)?
quinta-feira, 19 de novembro de 2015
William Carlos Williams and Rewriting by Ana Vanessa Cruz and Gonçalo Henriques
Williams Carlos Williams
was born on the 17th of September 1883 and died on the 4th of March 1963, an American poet intimately connected with the modernism and imagism movements.
Among the contemporary poets commonly connected to him are Robert Frost who was born in 1874, Wallace Stevens, who was born in
1879; and Hilda "HD" Doolittle, who was born in 1886. Of these four,
Williams was the last one to die after Frost.
It should be noted that
Williams also had a long career as a doctor, he exercised pediatrics and
general medicine. Having become pediatric hospital boss at Passaic General Hospital in Passaic, New Jersey until his death.
Hospital that now pays tribute to Williams with a memorial plaque declaring
"we walk in the wards that Williams walked".
Imagism
A poetical movement
poetry that began in 1912 and was represented by Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, and
others, with the purpose of clarity of expression through the use of accurate
visual images. An initial period often arises in written form in French.
Imagism was inspired by the critical views of TE Hulme, in his revolt against
the sloppy thinking and against the romantic optimism that he saw being used.
The Imagists wrote succinct verses that sought to project effects based on accurate visual images. Imagism was a successor to
the French symbolist movement, but while Symbolism had an affinity for
music, Imagism sought connection with the visual arts.
In 1914 Pound turned to Vorticism, and Amy
Lowell, largely took over leadership of the group.
In short, Imagism:
Advocated the use of
colloquial language
Creation of new sound
rhythms
Freedom of choice of
subject
Free verse
Clear poetry
Poetry released from the sobriety of rhetorical devices and the
sentimentality of poetic productions. It also emphasized the meaning of the
writings.
From an Imagist
manifesto:
1. To use the language of common speech, but to employ the exact
word, not the nearly-exact, nor the merely decorative word.
2. We believe that the individuality of a poet may often be
better expressed in free verse than in conventional forms. In poetry, a new
cadence means a new idea.
3. Absolute freedom in the choice of subject.
4. To present an image. We are not a school of painters, but we
believe that poetry should render particulars exactly and not deal in vague
generalities, however magnificent and sonorous. It is for this reason that we
oppose the cosmic poet, who seems to us to shirk the real difficulties of his
art.
5. To produce poetry that is hard and clear,
never blurred nor indefinite.
6. Finally, most of us believe that concentration is of the
very essence of poetry.
Williams Carlos
Williams Poetic Style:
According
to the poet and critic Randall Jarrell, "William Carlos Williams is so
magically alert and mimetic as a good novelist He plays the details of what he
sees with startling freshness, clarity and economy - refers to short verses. Sometimes
he just notices the land forms, the spirit that moves behind the letters. His
transparent lines have a nervous system and a strenght that moves sharply and
intently like a bird. "
Williams's major collections
are Spring and All (1923), The Desert Music and Other Poems (1954),
Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems
(1962), and Paterson (1963, repr.
1992). His most anthologized poem is "The
Red Wheelbarrow."
Williams is strongly
associated with the American modernist movement in literature and saw his
poetic project as a distinctly American one; he sought to renew language
through the fresh, raw idiom that grew out of America's cultural and social
heterogeneity, at the same time freeing it from what he saw as the worn-out
language of British and European culture. In 1920, this project took shape in
Contact, a periodical launched by Williams and fellow writer Robert McAlmon:
Williams
sought to invent an entirely fresh and uniquely American poetry style that
would be centered on everyday circumstances of life and the lives of common
people. He came up with the concept of the "variable foot", a metrical
device to resolve the conflict between form and freedom in verse. With this, he sought American (in opposition to the European) rhythm that he claimed was
present in everyday American language. Stylistically, Williams also worked with
variations on a line-break pattern that he labeled "triadic-line
poetry" in which he broke a long line into three free-verse segments. A
well-known example of the "triadic line [break]" can be found in
Williams's love-poem "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower."
Rewriting
“Asphodel, That Greeny
Flower”
William Carlos Williams' long, late poem
"Asphodel, That Greeny Flower"
is the fullest example of his work in the variable foot and in the triadic (or
three-foot, stepped-down) line, a breakthrough form. It is also
one of the most beautiful affirmations of the power of love in--and
against--the nuclear age, and one of the few memorable love poems in English written not for a mistress but for a wife: his
spouse of 40 years, Florence Herman Williams, or Flossie.
First published in Journey to Love (1955),
"Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" came into existence during a time of
nearly overwhelming crisis in Williams' life.
The original poem
For our wedding, too,
the light was wakened
and shone.
The light!
the light stood before us
waiting!
I thought
the world
stood still.
At the altar
so intent
was I
before my vows,
so moved by your presence
a girl so
pale
and ready to faint
that I pitied
and wanted
to protect you.
As I think of it now,
after a lifetime,
it is as if
a sweet-scented flower
were poised
and for me
did open.
Asphodel
has no odor
save to the
imagination
but it too
celebrates the light.
It is late
but an odor
as from our wedding
has revived
for me
and begun again to penetrate
into all crevices
of my
world.
Our rewriting
Nesta sala de aula,
as
luzes ténues eram
todavia exibindo …as luzes!
As luzes esperavam-nos
aguardavam-nos!
Cuidava que o mundo
se aquietava
quando da secretária
me
aproximava,
os livros eu tirava
face à tua figura imponente
tão pálida
eras
que parecias desmaiar
até me compadecia
querendo
proteger-te.
Agora que penso nisso,
no fim de contas
tudo leva a crer que
uma certa doce flor
se havia pousado
e desabrochado para mim.
A verbena
possui um odor inodoro
salvo no imaginário
mas também ela
tem a sua luz.
Está a entardecer
mas o odor
assemelhado à sala de aula
se tornou intenso para mim
e principiou a penetrar
em todos os poros
do meu mundo.
The differences between the original poem and our
rewriting are that, instead of a marriage, we have a classroom environment
(something of our modern-day everyday lives); instead of a bride, we have a
school teacher; instead of an altar, we changed it into a classroom desk for
students; Williams was accused of borrowing 13th century poets
and we decided to have some inspiration on Portuguese classic writers such as
Luis de Camões (“tem um odor inodoro”) and Gil Vincent (“cuidava que o mundo se
aquietava”); instead of Asphodel, we found another herb that as also
connections with the supernatural which is vervain.
Collective Translation "The Avenue of Poplars"
A Avenida dos Álamos
As folhas abraçam-se
nas árvores
mudo
sem personalidade
eu não
busco um caminho
ainda sereno /permaneço / mantenho-me
com
lábios ciganos / lábios ciganos
contra os meus pressionados (colados) aos meus
das folhas
hera venenosa
nem urtiga, o beijo
das folhas do carvalho– / roble
Aquele que beijou
uma folha
não tem de ir mais longe–
uma copa / um dossel de folhas
e simultaneamente
desço
pois não faço nada pois nada faço de
invulgar / extraordinário extraordinário
Sigo no meu carro / viajo de carro / vou no meu carro
penso sobre
cavernas pré-históricas
nos Pirenéus–
a caverna de
Les Trois Frères
As folhas abraçam-se
nas árvores
é um mundo
mudo
sem personalidade
eu não
busco um caminho
ainda sereno /permaneço / mantenho-me
com
lábios ciganos / lábios ciganos
contra os meus pressionados (colados) aos meus
é o beijo
das folhas
sem ser
hera venenosa
nem urtiga, o beijo
das folhas do carvalho– / roble
Aquele que beijou
uma folha
não tem de ir mais longe–
Ascendo / Elevo-me
através de
uma copa / um dossel de folhas
e simultaneamente
desço
pois não faço nada pois nada faço de
invulgar / extraordinário extraordinário
Sigo no meu carro / viajo de carro / vou no meu carro
penso sobre
cavernas pré-históricas
nos Pirenéus–
a caverna de
Les Trois Frères
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