Poetry of Translation

Poetry is supposed to be untranslatable. But many poems in English are also translations: Pope's <em>Iliad</em> Pound's <em>Cathay</em> and Dryden's <em>Aeneis</em> are only the most obvious examples. <em>The Poetry of Translation</em> explodes this paradox launching a new theoretical approach to translation and developing it through readings of English poem-translations both major and neglected from Chaucer and Petrarch to Homer and Logue. <p/>The word 'translation' includes within itself a picture: of something being carried across. This image gives a misleading idea of goes on in any translation; and poets have been quick to dislodge it with other metaphors. Poetry translation can be a process of opening; of pursuing desire or succumbing to passion; of taking a view or zooming in; of dying metamorphosing or bringing to life. These are the dominant metaphors that have jostled the idea of 'carrying across' in the history of poetry translation into English; and they form the spine of Reynolds's discussion. <p/>Where do these metaphors originate? Wide-ranging literary historical trends play their part; but a more important factor is what goes on in the poem that is being translated. Dryden thinks of himself as 'opening' Virgil's <em>Aeneid</em> because he thinks Virgil's <em>Aeneid</em> opens fate into world history; Pound tries to being Propertius to life because death and rebirth are central to Propertius's poems. In this way translation can continue the creativity of its originals. <p/><em>The Poetry of Translation</em> puts the translation of poetry back at the heart of English literature allowing the many great poem-translations to be read anew.<br>