{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/26", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 26, "subject": "Translator/Author", "messages": 6, "voices": 4, "first": "1997-05-07T14:52:27+00:00", "last": "1997-05-08T16:04:00+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-05-07T19:03:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Translator/Author", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #0776694 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#\n\nJoel,\n\nInteresting point re: Fitzgerald as cited source of quote. I never\nnoticed that, but of course you are right and it does play some\nmirrors-that-look-at-mirrors tricks, as you suggest.\n\nFor your question about Wolfe's possible strong ideas about the\nnature of translation, I confess my ignorance. But to add a few\ntokens to your pile, here are some observations: one of Wolfe's\nfavorite authors is Proust, yet he has \"only\" read Proust translated\ninto English; likewise Wolfe read all his ancient Greek authors in\nEnglish translation (he did study the language of ancient Greece with\nthe aid of a private tutor, but this was in the 1980s and I suppose\nthat it was only after his interest in ancient Greece had been so\ndeveloped by reading translations).\n\nI myself have not heard of any Omar Khayyam convention, new or old,\nthat attributes his work to another. The convention of listing a\ntranslator =and= the author is quite handy (for praise or blame) since\nboth are acknowledged; the listing of only a translator verges upon\ncriminal , and were it not for the loop-the-lupine-loop aspect you\naddressed, I might suspect that it was a mistake or error on the part\nof the copy editor, punishable by death or public humiliation. (I\nurge myself to refrain from throwing glass stones at the mighty rock\n--yet Tor has had some trouble with front matter of late. Witness Jack\nVance's listed novel TO LOVE FOREVER in the front of the PLANET OF\nADVENTURE omnibus. Hmmm. Vance reputedly hated the original published\ntitle, bestowed by the publisher, and I sense that he would like this\none even less.)\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Joel Priddy", "address": "jpriddy at saturn.vcu.edu" }, "date": "1997-05-07T14:52:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Translator/Author", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Just a couple of quick comments...\n\nWolfe begins _The_Urth_of_the_New_Sun_ with the quote:\nAwake! for morning in the bowl of Night\nHas flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:\n And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught\nThe Sultan's Turrent in a Noose of Light.\n\nThis is from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, but Wolfe credits\nFitzgerald. Edward Fitzgerald translated the Rubaiyat. This of\ncourse reflects the New Sun series where the author presents\nhimself as a translator, but (if this conversation is possible\nwithout getting too far off track) does anyone know if Wolfe has\nsome strong ideas about the nature of translation that he would\nconsider the translator of a stanza to be more the stanza's\nauthor than the original poet? Or is there something specific to\nthe Rubaiyat that would lend itself to this distinction (the way\nsome people have started listing Bacon as the credit for\nShakespeare quotes, or the way you would consider the translator\nto be the key identifier/author of any given edition of the\n_Arabian_Nights_?).\n\nAlso, has it struck anyone else that Gene Wolfe's description of\nsynergenic time travel in _Free_Live_Free_ is an excellent\ndescription of the proccess of reading a Wolfe book? Everytime\nyou go back and visit the same place, you're a little better at\nit, surer on you feet, able to do more with the clues presented\nto you.\n\nJOEL" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1997-05-08T01:37:28+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Translator/Author", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tI think Fitzgerald is regarded as having so paraphrased the Rubaiyat that\nhe is virtually the author of his \"translation.\" That may be all that Wolfe\nhad in mind.\n\tOf course, at the front of Shadow-Torturer is a quotation from Isaac Watts\nthat is actually just a paraphrastic translation of Psalm 90.\n\nNutria" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Richard Horton", "address": "rhorton at mdc.com" }, "date": "1997-05-08T08:47:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Translator/Author -Reply", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Joel Priddy 05/07/97 09:52am >>> writes" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Or is there something specific to the Rubaiyat that would lend itself to this\ndistinction (the way some people have started listing Bacon as the credit\nfor\nShakespeare quotes, or the way you would consider the translator to be\nthe key identifier/author of any given edition of the\n_Arabian_Nights_?)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A little more like the latter: IIRC, Fitzgerald's translations (he did several,\noften quite different, editions) are very \"free\": it is quite common to regard\nhim as in a considerable sense at least a \"co-author\" of the English version\nof the Rubaiyat. This is rather unique to the Rubaiyat, though, in very few\nother cases of translation would this be done.\n\nI'm a little puzzled by the attributions to Bacon of Shakespeare quotes. \nThis implies, I guess, an authorship question. Bacon is not, I believe,\nanymore taken seriously as a potential writer of Shakespeare's plays. \nBeside Shakespeare himself, the only serious candidate these days seems\nto be Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford. In any case, even if William\nShakspere of Stratford did not write Shakespeare's plays, it would seem to\nme to make sense to accept \"Shakespeare\" as the desired pseudonym of\nthe acutal author. At any rate, I'm not aware of any controversy about\nOmar Khayyam's authorship of the Rubaiyat.\n\nTusk " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-05-08T16:04:00+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Translator/Author", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #0985746 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INTERNET#\n\n(Whoops. I said \"TO LOVE FOREVER\" was listed in front of PLANET OF\nADVENTURE; I was mistaken--it is listed in Vance's most recent NIGHT\nLAMP. Or so I believe.)\n\nNutria is right. NEW COLUMBIA ENCYCLOPEDIA: \"FitzGerald, Edward . . .\nHis masterpiece, a translation of THE RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM, appeared\nanonymously in 1859 . . . has long been one of the most popular English\npoems. Although actually a paraphrase rather than a translation of a\npoem by the 11th-century Persian poet Omar Khayyam, it retains the spirit\nof the original in its poignant expression of a philosophy counseling\nman to live life to the fullest while he can.\"\n\nNote spelling: FitzGerald. Copy editor must die! \n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1997-05-08T12:32:37+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Translator/Author", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "WAKE! for the Golden Cat has put to flight\nThe Mouse of Darkness with his Paw of Light:\nWhich means, in Plain and simple every-day\nUnoriental Speech -- The Dawn is bright.\n\nThe say the Early Bird the Worm shall taste.\nThen rise, O Kitten! Wherefore sleeping, waste\nThe fruits of Virtue? Quick! the Early Bird\nWill soon be on the flutter -- O make haste!\n\n-- from The Rubaiyat of a Persian Kitten, by Oliver Herford (NY: Gramercy,\n1993; facsimile reprint of 1904).\n\nNUTRIA" } ] } ] }