Contents
Acknowledgements ..................................................................ix
Introduction ..............................................................................1
The Difficult Task ................................................................10
Hope for Poems ...................................................................16
Part 1: Versification
Chapter 1: Form..........................................................................52
Formal Definitions of Poetry .............................................27
Recent Scholarship in Translation Theory ........................30
Defining Form ...................................................................38
A Few Key Concepts .........................................................44
Chapter 2: Comparative Versification ......................................49
Different Cultures, Different Stages of
Poetry Development in Versification .......................................51
Comparative Versification .......................................................54
Opposing English and French .................................................56
Resisting a Reductive Model of Versification .........................58
Terminology ............................................................................60
Chapter 3: Meter and Language .............................................65
Rhythm and Emotion .............................................................65
Stress Systems ...................................................................... 68
Syllable ..................................................................................73
Stress ......................................................................................76
Accent and Meter ...................................................................86
Metrical Manipulation of Accents .........................................90
Metrical Manipulation of Syllables ......................................101
Rhyme 105
Three Functions ....................................................................111
The Formal Function ........................................................111
The Insistence Function ...................................................112
The Surprise Function .....................................................112
Rhyming and the Poet’s Cosmos .........................................113
Evaluating Rhyme ................................................................117
Meaningful Rhyme ..............................................................117
Formal Rhyme .....................................................................118
Hackneyed Rhyme ..............................................................118
Clumsy Rhyme ....................................................................118
Chapter 4: Beyond Metrics ..................................................125
Acoustic Patterning ..............................................................125
Phrasing ................................................................................130
Repetition Proper ..................................................................139
The Orchestration of Rhythmic Elements ............................144
Part 2: Form and Meaning in Poetry Translation
Chapter 5: Theorizing the Translation of Poetry .........................
Chapter 6: Meschonnic’s Critique of the Linguistic Sign ...........
Translating Form .........................................................................
Translating a Poem by a Poem ...................................................
Translating Form .........................................................................
Chapter 7: Organic Form and Organic Translation .....................
Ways of Translating .....................................................................
Semantic Translation ...................................................................
Formal Translation ......................................................................
Semantico-Formal Translation ...................................................
Organic Translation ....................................................................
Voices in Foreign Versification ..................................................
Part 3: Case Studies
Chapter 8: Baudelaires ...............................................................
Baudelaire Today........................................................................
Scott’s Baudelaire ......................................................................
Translation Strategies and Overt and
Covert Poetics ..........................................................................
Chronology ...............................................................................
Strategy .....................................................................................
Archaizing Translators ..............................................................
Metrical Moderns .....................................................................
Prose Baudelaires .....................................................................
Free-Verse Baudelaires ............................................................
Free Translations and Transcreations .....................................
Mixing Strategies .....................................................................
Successful Strategies ...............................................................
The Whole Poem .....................................................................
Chapter 9: French and German Emily Dickinsons ..................
Introducing une Emily Dickinson française .............................
Gender and Personification ......................................................
Malroux: A Voice that Hears and Responds ...........................
Voices after Malroux ...............................................................
Delphy: A return to the academy, or a new door opening?.
What Rhythms Malroux Fails to Set in Motion ......................
What Liepe Hears ....................................................................
The Untranslatable and the Untranslated ................................
Chapter 10: A Final Word .........................................................
Glossary.......................................................................................
Bibliography ...............................................................................
