Dreams Underfoot: UnquietDreams' Dark Whimsy

NewStartQueen · Jan 30, 2025

My favourite English translation of Pablo Neruda's Sonata and Destructions:

In the science of tears a shrine one can't make out and in my odourless, hard working afternoons, deserted sleeping grounds invested by the moon, familiar spiders, ruins I love too much, I prize my own lost self, my blemished constitution, my stroke of silver and my eternal loss.

That to me is the exquisite description of love's demise.

UnquietDreams · Jan 30, 2025

Thanks to @JustAnotherFlower, who introduced me to a musical interpretation of Homer's The Odyssey, I am reading Emily Wilson's translation again. I wouldn't use it for study, or teaching -- it isn't a perfect translation by any means (if there is such a thing), and she is honest about that. She had a focus, to make it feel like Homer's original. The Odyssey was written in dactylic hexameter, six-footed lines. She chose to translate in into iambic pentameter, the meter for English classics. It is meant to be read aloud, and flows beautifuly. In order to do that, she had to sacrifice a lot of the text, as it wouldn't fit into that meter cleanly. I consider it a feature, not a flaw. (When I want the entirety, I chose Lattimore's 1967 translation, though I love Lombardo's from 2000 as well). The fact that this is also the first translation by a woman is joy as well. Her choices are different, and that is good (even though the reviews focused on this being a "feminist" translation, which seems insulting to her as a translator). All translations are interpretations as well, and seeing it through another lens is important to understanding the work.

Here are the first lines: https://voca.ro/1khCAGHyFWtq

And I blather on that: https://voca.ro/1bqoDG0qQkWR

View attachment 2481419