Linguistics Discussion 2013 and Beyond discussion

This thread deals with the problems of translating poetry between languages, or problems with updating to the modern language, which includes the right metaphor usage, poetic structure and updating of terminology.

As I've heard it said about Homer's poetry, one of the issues is that translators (apparently Pope is particularly to blame) create a powerful poem but one which lacks the cadence and proper poetry of a Homeric poem.

In Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise Of The Music Of Language, Hofstadter sent out Clément Marot's poem to colleagues as a translation challenge. It's amazing how varied the translations are of a little poem.

Maybe someone here can answer this question for me. I'm not much of a Classic Poetry guru.

We know that cadence, rythm and rime are traits shared by modern poets. Do we know that these characteristics were ever a trait of classic poets like Homer?

Hugh, the Homer poems are in dactylic hexameter

Ah, thank you. You've done your good deed for the day and educated the ignorant Bunnie Wrangler. I'm learning already...time to show off to all the old dogs.

Okay, so, before I get deep enough into the article to know how dumb the questions sounds, that's a rythem of rime?... every sixth line, or is there another yardstic for cadence here?

I, Curmudgeon wrote: "Maybe someone here can answer this question for me. I'm not much of a Classic Poetry guru.

We know that cadence, rythm and rime are traits shared by modern poets. Do we know that these charact..."

I've read a little on the subject while reading The Odyssey and Iliad and I believe they were. Though critical academics are still debating whether there was one person called Homer who came up with the entire poems (as they are unsure whether writing existed for Homer and doubt that such a work could be created in its magnitude through the oral tradition) or whether Homer created part of the poems and they were added to. However, since the poems were created to be voiced, or apparently sung, they had a rhythm and cadence of their own which is unlike modern poetry.

Ah, so, they could have sounded more like C.W. McCall's song "Black Bear Road" than rymes we are used to.

I like this thread so much... I'm currently involved in a project where I get to translate several Puerto Rican poetry books written in Spanish into English. I've got to say, what kills me is the idioms.

I would love to have your input on this, David.

I'm suffering througha poetry book in Spanish where the poet decided to use only words that started with the letter "L" in it... I'm going through the decisionmaking process of whether i'll look for a possible way of phrasing the entire poem using words that start with a chosen letter, or translate it de facto going for the meaning of poem at the risk of losing the wordplay, or tell the poet i simply won't translate the book (even though the rest of the book is quite translatable).

I think Douglas Hofstadter mentioned playing with translating The Cyberiad, which had a similar idea. I'll try to find the passage later and post it.

I'd always been interested in situations like you describe David. I've often wondered how poetry rhyming works when you translate a poem. In other languages, say Spanish, do the words rhyme based on the meanings of the words? Or is it the actual sounds of words as they are spoken that rhyme as in English? I hope you understand my clumsy question...

Jonathan wrote: "I'd always been interested in situations like you describe David. I've often wondered how poetry rhyming works when you translate a poem. In other languages, say Spanish, do the words rhyme based o..."

I understand and I've been wondering that too. When I used to study Spanish I took a reading class which was really hard. We studied really old poetry and short stories. The poetry, when I could understand it, was awesome and I didn't really think it could be translated and still have what made it so beautiful in Spanish. I don't know if it can be still. I hope we get a good answer.

Jonathan wrote: "I'd always been interested in situations like you describe David. I've often wondered how poetry rhyming works when you translate a poem. In other languages, say Spanish, do the words rhyme based o..."

No. Rhyme in Spanish doesn't work that way... It works like in English: it's completely phonetic. Spanish only has 5 vowels for 5 vowel sounds:
a - AH
e - EH
i - EE
o - UH
u - OO
Therefore, a word like "cuna" (craddle) would rhyme with "luna" (moon), and so on so forth.

Jonathan wrote: "I'd always been interested in situations like you describe David. I've often wondered how poetry rhyming works when you translate a poem. In other languages, say Spanish, do the words rhyme based o..."

And your question was not clumsy at all. The rhyming is the same as the English but the syllabication is different, as the words are divided differently. If anything, rhyming in Spanish is easier and simpler than in English.

Aloha wrote: "I think Douglas Hofstadter mentioned playing with translating The Cyberiad, which had a similar idea. I'll try to find the passage later and post it."

I can't find the passage. it's a hardback, so it's not searchable like in an eBook.

Re translations of Homer. I know its 1000 years later, but the BBC series on Alexander the Great may be helpful, at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrTS4O...

Apparently along Alexander's route they still recite poetry about his battles. My old professor also told me that, and that he came from a part of (Iran I think, but it might have been Turkey) where blue eyes were common. They claimed descent from Alexander.
On the BBC recordings there are several example of the poetry being almost-sung.